Food storage – start with staples

When we are planning for a bad day we need to set a good foundation which allows us to be flexible and adapt to changing situations. Food storage is no different. Now some of these items I will be suggesting a few of us might not consider ‘staples’. Maybe you do not eat this type of food on a regular basis. That is fine; we are not suggesting you alter your way of eating on a daily basis. What we are suggesting is you have the tools on hand to feed your family for ‘one more meal’ or even maybe have these items on hand to barter with if the situation calls for this.

The two items you should look at purchasing first are flour and rice. These are the bases for a vast majority of the world’s diet. With flour you can make several types of meals and the rice goes with just about anything. The idea here is to have items you can build up from and fill your belly. At most stores there are five pound packages of both rice and flour available. In some case you can find one pound packages for around one dollar. These can be bought, put up in the cabinet and forgot about for a while. Yes they need to be stored in a cool, dry place which is free of pest. Stored properly they can be left for extended periods of time.

Next items to look at buying are an assortment of beans. These again come in pound or larger packaging and can be picked up for around a dollar also. Along with the rice and flour you can store these in a cool, dry place the ants or rodents do not make a habit of visiting. Purchase a variety of beans to give you different tastes to work with. Any type of bean can be served with the rice and now you are really filling the belly when you need to. Add in a few bread items from the flour and now you have a decent meal. While you are picking up some beans odds are there are lentils somewhere near. Pick some of these up to make soups with. Pea soup is great on a cold evening!

Dry milk and sugar can be bought in small quantities and added to our storage. This allows us to make more items with the flour and now we can do some baking. How about some sugar cookies? Purely for morale!!! Add some oats and now you have the ability to make more items and increase your menu.

A valuable item most people do not think about is spices! With a foundation of rice and flour you can add different spices to change the flavor of your meals. Food apathy can be a real problem and spices can assist with keeping this at bay.

What is food apathy? It is when you are tired of eating the same thing over and over and over and over again. You can only eat plain white rice every day for so long before you do not want to eat another piece of rice. Changing the taste of the rice makes you want to eat more of it. If you begin to suffer from food apathy you will not eat, which leads to less energy to do things, sluggish thinking and is a spiral downward you do not want to take. Pick up a few shakers full of pepper, salt, BBQ flavoring and any other type of spice which catches your eye.

Honey is another often over looked item for food storage. You can pick up a container of honey, store it properly and just forget about it. They have found honey in ancient Egyptian burials thousands of years old and the honey is still good!!! Honey on a biscuit is a treat! The number of uses for honey is great and honey can also be used for medical purposes if you have to!!!
All of these items can also be stored long term. How to do this is the subject of a different post. For now, pick up a pound or two of staple items the next time you are at the grocery store. Remember we want to be able to feed our family for ‘just one more meal’!!!!

As always,

Stay Safe.

Civil Disturbance

Here is a situation our prior planning might pay off. Why? Because with our prior planning there is a chance we are prepared for this situation.

Should you find yourself caught in a situation where the rule of law is no longer in control, avoid the situation. The mentality which takes over crowds does not care about you or your family. You might have originally been in the area or the large crowd for one reason but as soon as the crowd turns into a mob your original reason no longer matters. Mobs are a creature all its own.

A mob becomes a creature with no sense or a care in the world. Inside of the mob regular people will do things they never would do if alone. Parasites always attach themselves to the mob and take advantage of the mob. These parasites carry out acts they would never do if they did not have the mob to hide in. Mob mentality is a very dangerous thing and should never be taken as something ‘cool’ to be involved with or something to stay inside of just to see what happens.
When the crowd turns violent, toward people or property, just leave! Go home, spend time with your family and watch what happens on TV. You are just putting yourself in danger.

If you find yourself living in an area experiencing a disturbance bring your family inside, secure your doors and stay out of the way. Any possessions, cars or other items outside of your home which you can bring in, do so. The lack of a potted plant outside might stop someone from having a plant to throw through a window, maybe yours! Move what you can behind gates or maybe just behind your home. If you do not have somewhere to park your car which is more secure than the street, empty everything out of the car you are not willing to lose. In this situation there is a chance of your vehicle being damaged or destroyed along with anything inside.

When you are in a group which turns violent LEAVE! Just leave. People can be injured by flying debris, trampled by the herd mentality and even attacked for suddenly belonging or being perceived as belonging to the wrong “group”. Why would you risk injury or act as concealment for the parasites in the crowd?

During an incident, should you be caught up in the incident, listen to what any law enforcement is telling you to do. If they say leave, leave. In most cases law enforcement will give everyone a way to disperse I suggest you quickly take the opportunity when it is presented. Regardless if they are “right or wrong” do what they ask you. Remember law enforcement has a job to do, do not get arrested simply because you did not leave when told to. Who is going to take care of your family while you sit in a cell?

For those of us who have not experienced the deployment of less than lethal tools, tear gas and other types of tools. They can still hurt you badly. They are made to be less likely to cause permanent harm or death. Does not mean they won’t!!!! Tear gas is an area saturation tool and does not know who is who in a mob. Even if you are leaving the gas will affect you. Should you get a whiff expect to cough, sneeze, cry and if you get a good dose maybe throw up, feel burning, have trouble breathing and be unable to open your eyes. Remember the gas is designed to make you go away. So go away! Stay calm, DO NOT RUB YOUR EYES, this just makes it worst. Stay calm the effects run their course in a few minutes once you are out of the affected area.
Should you be struck with a less than lethal round they hurt! They are made to hurt in order to encourage you to go away. Again, stay calm and get out of the area. Should you be engaged by law enforcement give up! Batons hurt! If they attempt to arrest you do not fight. Remember they are humans also and they are subjected to the same fears you are.

Watch the news, listen to the radio and try to avoid areas being affected by the disturbance. If you drive into an area and are caught up in the crowd, do not leave your vehicle. Should the violence get to the point you are in danger even inside of the vehicle. Slowly drive away. Try to give people a chance to move out of the way! Should the threat level rise to the point of immediate threat to your life drive away quickly while still trying to not hit anyone. What you do if caught in your vehicle is completely up to you and what you are willing to do to get home. Avoidance is the key here.

With proper planning you should have alternative routes home, have several days’ worth of supplies at home and be able to stay out of danger with minimal effort. Even if the utilities are disrupted or you are unable to get to get to a store you should be alright.

Please remember there is a really good chance you will be on your own for some time during a major incident. You are responsible for you during this time. Law enforcement will be busy elsewhere and you as an individual are really not that important to the overall goal of the authorities. Might be hard to read but it is the truth. Keep yourself safe, keep your family safe and help others who are not involved in the violence.

Stay Safe!!!!

Food Storage, what's your reason?

Food, one of the things we can go a little while without, but only a little while. Sure you can go much longer than you think or what your stomach will tell you. Only problem is the lack of food will start to bring down your abilities in all areas and soon you are in a downward spiral which could prove fatal. The first thing you have to ask yourself when planning your food storage is "what is the best use of my limited resources?"

The best way is to first ask 'What are you planning for?' Is it a blizzard, earthquake, tornado or maybe the loss of a job? All these things are equally important to plan for. Are you planning on the food being mobile or are you planning on being at home?

While we plan we should plan to cover as many situations as we can by having tools or options which can cover multiple situations. Options which give us flexibility and the ability to adapt to anything we face. Some of these things we can easily do with food but some situations or specifically your situation might need specialized answers to what you face.

“One more meal.” We need to focus on feeding ourselves and loved ones one meal at a time; this will bring what could be an overwhelming task down to a manageable level. Where to start? The simplest way to start is to buy more of what your family already eats. Buy two of what your family already eats.

Take cereal for the kids, they eat one box a week? If you have the money buy two boxes instead of the one. Now your kids have cereal for two weeks. The next week you buy two again, now your kids have cereal for a month!!!! This is an easy way to start and I would strongly suggest everyone start with this method. What if we do not have the money? We need to still be able to supply our family with just “One more meal.” Let’s look at some options.

We can buy cases of MREs, dehydrated food or maybe bulk cases of food? Each has a benefit and a limitation. The first for all of these is cost. It can cost a lot to buy enough of any of these items to feed your family and I would suggest we start on the cheap!

Serving size is also a major issue when you start discussing food for a bad day. Now some folks need more and some need less. Let’s be honest, some people need a lot less but when a bad day comes is not the time to suddenly ‘get healthy’! You will have enough to worry about and adding a sudden drop to your calorie intake is not a good idea. In fact you might find yourself needing to burn more calories during an incident then what you are used to!!! You might have to shovel snow, cut up a downed tree or a host of other demanding tasks.

Top Ramen can be bought by the pack of six at the dollar store. That is six meals you can provide your family for a dollar!!!! it is cheap and easy to make. As some of you already know you can live on Top Ramen if you have to!! The trick here is to realize one package of Top Ramen is enough to feed one person for one meal. If stored properly Top Ramen will last a very long time.

Another item which will last a long time if stored properly is canned soups, chili and other canned items. These will last well beyond their best by date. Now depending on your family make up and needs a simple can of chili can count as a meal for one person or one meal for two people. You can also buy an assortment of items stored in cans. Everything from soups, meat and vegetables can be bought canned. An entire meal can be had out of what you can buy canned.

You can also purchase MREs and Dehydrated foods to fit the bill for your emergency needs. These are more expensive than what you can get at the grocery store when buying dry goods or canned goods. An obvious benefit with these two options is they are easier to carry around if you have to go and in this case the meals are already prepared. Usually water is the only item you need to add.

One MRE can have enough calories to carry you through a day. That is if you are not doing much physical activity during the day. Sure you might be hungry but if you spread out the time between eating each item in the MREs you can live off one a day. They also have the benefits of being highly mobile, an assortment of dishes and a large amount of items packed into one package. The downside, the are expensive, might not cover any special needs and give people a false sense of having found the answer to the problem. Like all the other options here the MRE does not cover every situation you might face and simply stuffing your closet full of them is not the best answer. (little side note; I can tell you from experience even with the assortment of meal types MREs get tiresome day after day!)

Dehydrated meals are another option people use for the answer to their planning needs. Most of these types of meals are made for hikers or camping, they are portable and need little else besides water to prepare. A major issue with these is there serving size. In most cases the serving size is listed as ‘one cup’.

For most of us one cup might not be enough to satisfy our hunger. Sure you can do the math and say this item has the recommended amount of calories but have you seen how much food really comes in a cup? This becomes a major issue if you have growing kids to feed! I have yet to meet a healthy teenage boy who does not try to eat everything in the fridge and now you are going to try and feed him one cup of something? Odds are you will be adding to your problems if you try to do this!!! What if you have a pregnant wife to feed? Are you really going to sit her down in front of a cup size serving? Good luck with that!

I would suggest tackling the food needs of your family from multiple directions. The first direction being, buy more of what you already eat. Fill up your pantry or cup boards with what your family eats every week. This way should something happen your family has extra food for a day, week or month and they will still have a sense of normalcy during a trying time.

Next angle would be to buy dry goods you can use to make meals of any size you need. Buy some pasta, dry milk, beans and dry bakery mixes to give your family some options. While you are at the store pick up some canned goods. Get whatever is on sell to start, than focus on buying canned items to give you a varied selection and once you start looking you might be surprised at what you can find in a can.

After you have a few weeks of food on hand from these categories go to the nearest camping store and see what kind of dehydrated food they have on sale. Remember to shop around and again you might be surprised at what you can find that is dehydrated! A little time spent on the internet will also allow you to add MREs to what you have on hand by watching for a sale.

Next thing you know you will have enough on hand to last your family a week or more, give you enough to make serving sizes you need and give you the portability you might also need! Mixing an item from your cupboard with something from your can goods, tossing in something from your dry goods and heating up something from your dehydrated items might just be the thing you need to serve your family a healthy and filling meal just when they need one!!!!

As always;

Stay Safe!!!

Cooking - Dry Run

When we are discussing a bad day we have to take into account all the things we take for granted. Daily we cook food or maybe we order food. Either way food is a major part of all of our days. How do you deal with a day when our normal means of cooking food is unavailable? The power is out, the place you order food from is closed or any other issue which might cause you an issue.

Regardless of where you live each of us needs to have an alternative means of cooking food. A portable means is a bonus. If we live in an apartment, a small grill we can cook with on the balcony is good. If we live in a house a BBQ grill is great! A camp stove is good, a grill you can burn charcoal and wood in is better. Why? Because camping stoves use gas for fuel, fuel runs out, a grill you can burn charcoal and wood in allows you to use what is at hand even after the fuel runs out.

Take a day off and plan on trying out your ability to cook during a bad day. Pick a meal and cook everything on your alternate system. EVERYTHING! Do not cheat and see how much you can really do without using the stove or microwave. You can add a new skill to your tool box and if things go horribly wrong, you can cook your regular way and everyone still gets to eat. During a bad day if you burn the food or have no way of cooking the food, your family might go hungry...............

First item to consider is where are you going to cook? Please do not move a BBQ into your living room and try using it there! Find a location outside and practice cooking. Odds are if you have to cook this way you are not going to want the risk of also burning your house down on top of whatever is happening. Find a well ventilated area away from anything which might catch fire.

Next item would be what are you going to cook on? The pots and pans you have in your kitchen are not made to cook over an open campfire type flame. Most items made for a modern kitchen have plastic handles. These will quickly melt over an open fire and could burn you badly if you grab the handle with the melting plastic! Same goes for plastic utensils, they will melt if left in a hot pan or too close to the fire.

During a bad day you can use these if you have to press them into service. I would suggest cutting off the plastic cover on the handles first. Buying a few cast iron cooking pots and pans is a better idea. Add in some of my favorite wooden utensils and you are good to go. Maybe add an old school camping coffee percolator? Do not try to make coffee over an open flame using glass! Odds are the flame will get to hot and break the glass, which would be a waste of water and coffee!!!

Cooking with cast iron takes practice. The flame or heat is not consistent as you are used to. The great thing is you can still cook everything you want, with a little practice and the right tools. The best item to add first is a Dutch Oven. You can cook almost everything in these. You can make eggs, bacon, casseroles, biscuits and even pies!! Wouldn't it be great if your family could have beef stew, greens, biscuits and apple cobbler during an emergency???? This takes practice and cast iron items have to be cleaned differently than what you do normally.

The trick to cooking with an open flame or charcoal is timing the cooking of the food. Food cooks better on hot coals then over raging fires. you also will want to practice to try and have all the food cooked and ready to serve at the same time. This takes practice, especially if you are not going to be reheating anything in a microwave!

While we are practicing cooking we should take a look at what we would serve the food on? Do we have paper plates and cups to use? Do we have zip lock bags or tupperware to put leftovers into? Do we have chairs and maybe a table to sit on outside? The biggest thing to test or learn is what could you not cook? Can you figure out a way to be able to cook more things? What do you have in your food storage you would not be able to cook? No point in storing those items any more.

Most of all, have fun learning something new! Even if you are a master on the BBQ test yourself. Try cooking an item you normally do not cook. Ribs, hamburgers and hot dogs are your specialty? Cook eggs, make biscuits, corn, stew and go for a pie!!!!! Remember, Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance!!!

As always,

Stay Safe!!!!

Do I need a gun?!?!?!?!?

The question inevitably comes up when you are discussing emergency preparedness. In fact some people think if you do not have an arsenal you are not prepared. For some of us we do not live in areas where we can legally own a firearm. This makes the answer to the question easy, “no”. There is no point in breaking the law, this only puts you in position to not be there when your family needs you.

Firearms are like religion or politics; everyone has their own ideas and believes everyone else should think the same way they do on the subject. There really is no point in trying to convince anyone their concepts might be flawed, so I will not try. What I will do is bring out a few ideas on the subject.

Firearms are a tool not anything else, period, end of discussion. They are not any more cool, evil or threatening then any other tool. You can be killed just a quickly with a screwdriver as you can be with a pistol. Matter of fact unlike a pistol a screwdriver does not need to be reloaded and will keep killing until your arm gets tired. Let's put all the other BS surrounding guns and the debates aside for now. They are tools and just like other tools we might or might not need them at some point. In the end the choice is up to you.

If you entire planning for a bad day has left you with a room looking like this, I have a question for you. What are you going to do after you have slayed all the zombies or held off the alien hordes? Do you have enough MREs to last for the rest of your life? How about your entire family, forever? What if the power never comes back on? What if the toilet won't flush? Let's not even think about what life would be like if you ran out of beer!!!!!!

Having a room full of tools is a great thing. Especially if they are the tools you will need. How about filling part of that room with seeds, farming tools, solar panels and medical gear. Heck maybe we should learn to grow a few things or even make friends with some people who know how to grow things, build things and how to use different tools? Besides everyone needs friends and starving after the apocalypse would just be a waste of time.

If you truly believe there is no place in this world for these types of tools..... just stop. You are denying a fundamental flaw in humanbeings. Just as you might need an axe to clear a road, you might need a tool capable of dealing with the gang banger who you find in your living room during the dead of night. Do you personally know anyone you do not want around your family? Do you personally know anyone capable of causing harm to others without remorse? Do you personally know anyone or a group of people who would take what you have without a thought?

Having an oasis comparable to eden is a great thing. Especially is you have the ability to stop anyone from destroying Eden. How about building a safe room, with a safe in it. Put some ammo in the safe, a couple of tools, night vision and a few of items. Heck maybe we should learn to use these tools (take the mystique out of them) or even make friends with some people who know how to use these tools, can teach you and might come in handy to know? Besides everyone needs friends and losing your harvest during the apocalypse would suck. Let's not even think about what life would be like without your smoke?

No matter which part of the circle you live in, everyone should have the tools they need to round out their ability to deal with a bad day. Once you have the tools everyone should absolutely learn to properly use their tools! Even if you have used the tools for years YOU need training. Utilizing tools to put meat in the freezer is not the same as utilizing the tool for self-defense or the defense of others. If you have never used a tool have a certified instructor show you how. Even if you never purchase a tool it is imperative you understand how they work. If for nothing else you need to learn in order to make a tool safe if you or a loved one comes across one.

These are just some thoughts, suggestions, the final decision is yours. As always;

Stay Safe!

First aid starter kit

We all need a general purpose first aid kit we can use to build upward from. The concept is for each of us to have medical supplies to take care of minor issues and be able to start treating major issues until help can arrive. We need to be able to take care of the most common issues, splinters, minor cuts, scrapes and burns. These are easy to treat if we have supplies on hand. In some situations these minor issues can become major issues if we do not take care of them properly.

107 Piece Outdoor First Aid Kit

This goes for around $15.00 on Amazon and is a great kit to get you started. Almost every minor situation can be handled with what is included in the kit. Here is what the kit includes;
(20) 3/4"x3" Adhesive plastic bandages (10) 3/4"x3" Fabric bandages (5) 1"x3" Fabric bandages (2) Knuckle fabric bandages (2) Fingertip fabric bandages (2) 2"x4" Elbow & knee plastic bandages (10) 3/8"x1-1/2" Junior plastic bandages (2) Butterfly wound closures (4) 2"x2" Gauze dressing pads (2) 3"x3" Gauze dressing pads (1) 5"x9" Trauma pad (1) 2" Conforming gauze roll bandage (2) Aspirin tablets (2) Ibuprofen tablets (2) Extra-strength non-aspirin tablets (6) Alcohol cleansing pads (6) BZK antiseptic towelettes (2) Antibiotic ointment packs (2) Insect sting relief pads (2) First aid/burn cream packs (1) 1/2"x5 yd. First aid tape roll (1) Sunscreen pack (1) Lip ointment pack (1) 2"x2" Moleskin square (1) 6"x11/16" Finger splint (1) Medium #2 safety pin (10) 3" Cotton tipped applicators (1) 4-1/2" Scissors, nickel plated (1) 4" Tweezers, plastic (2) Exam quality vinyl gloves (1) First aid guide Kit dimensions: 7-3/4"x5"x2-1/8"

Add a few items to this kit and we will be heading in the right direction;
Pain and fever medicines, such as aspirin, acetaminophen or ibuprofen. (Note: Do not give children and teenagers aspirin, because it has been related to a potentially serious disease called Reye's syndrome in children younger than 18 years of age.)
Antihistamine (one brand name: Benadryl) to treat allergies and swelling
Decongestants to treat nasal congestion
Anti-nausea medicine to treat motion sickness and other types of nausea
Anti-diarrhea medicine
Antacid to treat upset stomach
Laxative to treat constipation
Bottle of iodine
Bottle of hydrogen peroxide
Bottle of calamine lotion
Neosporin

With this kit you can clean, cover and treat most issues we might have. These items will also give you something to work with as you are waiting for an ambulance or driving to the hospital.

When you start putting together a kit I suggest you do not include anything you are not trained to use! If you do not know how to insert a chest tube I suggest you do not include one. This way you do not think about trying to do something which could hurt someone. Keep your kit to your level of training. Then go out and get some training to allow you to expand your kit and help those around you more!!!! There are plenty of places to go pick up a class or two. If you have not had a class on basic first aid and CPR I strongly suggest you take one.

At the end of the day you can have all the equipment in the world but if you are not trained on how to use the equipment...... you have wasted resources and your time.

I want to thank 'Cat' for his help with this one. Everyone should have other people they can turn to for information and help on things. Cat is my go to guy for medical issues and anything Irish!!!!!!!! As always;

Stay Safe!!!

The day after - Halloween

Hope everyone had a good Halloween! The day after might be a good time to look through the leftover stuff from the celebration. If you have children they more than likely went out and worked for some candy. Now you have a bag or two of "free" resources to look through. You might also have a few other items not used during the party you can put away for a rainy day?

We all need to go through the stuff the kids bring home. Never know what loser's door the kids went to and now there is something dangerous in the kids bag. If you went with the kids because they are little or just as a chaperone. I hope you took the chance to talk to neighbors along the way, took a good look at what you could see from their doorway and generally learned as much about your neighborhood as you could.

We all get our percentage of candy from what the kids bring home. This is when the family works like the Mob and we all get a 'taste' of what the earners have brought in. This year take your percentage and focus on skimming some of the hard candy off the top. Not the chocolate or any other candy which is not hard as a rock. All of the softer candies will go bad faster than the hard candy and we want to stash some away for as long as they will last!

When planning for a bad day you should stash some hard candy in with your supplies because they could come in handy for a couple of things. The first is to boost your morale. Who wouldn't want a piece of candy when things are going south? Especially kids, if you have kids put some away. Think of all the times you might need a piece of candy when dealing with a scared child! You might even be able to trade some of the candy with others or just share some of the candy with your neighbors when things are bad.

If you decorated for the celebration odds are you have some extra candles in the house now. Might even have some barely used batteries from the decorations? Take these and put them away somewhere. The candles are good for a blackout and just put the batteries into your normal battery stash. Leaving them in the electric decorations means they are just wasted since the odds are they will not be good come the next year. Going to the store this weekend? Look for the sales on the Halloween candles!!! A candle is a candle when the lights go out!!! See about picking up some of the candy on sale also.

Did you light up your house with strings of lights? Are they solar powered or plugged in? Solar lights are great to save money on the electric bill and have a duel use as emergency lighting!! Most won't last all night and they do not put out a lot of light yet any light in the dead of the night is good. Couple strands of these charged during the day and hung in a room at night can make a bad time better.

Your day might be spent cleaning up after the big party. Take the time to see what is worth putting away. Did you use plastic cups, paper plates, plastic silverware and napkins? Save what wasn't used they will come in handy for the next party. If the water stops running you now have dinnerware you do not have to worry about cleaning. You also have a ready resource if relatives or friends show up at your door needing a place to stay.

If you suddenly have a house full of people a red cup and a marker to write people's names on the cups can go along way to keeping from causing unneeded dishes. Especially with the young ones who will leave half drunk glass of stuff everywhere. The plates can be used more than once depending on what you are eating and if they are not coated in plastic you can easily use the trash to start a fire. When it comes time to do dishes you really only have to wash the plastic eating utensils. Napkins might also need to do double duty as toilet paper if things get really bad. Might sound gross but better than nothing!

Got any leftover food you can put away in the freezer? Maybe you were serving apples, carrots or other items you can put on a dehydrator and keep for longer? Take a look around and see what you have now which you can repurpose for your planning needs. Waste nothing you do not have to.

As always,

Stay Safe!!!!