Category Archives: Survival Food Storage

How to Prepare Better: Five Pieces of Preparedness Advice from Disaster Survivors

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When preparing for a future event—whether it’s retirement, a trip to Disneyland, or a disaster situation—it helps to get advice from people who have already been there, done that. Specifically, it’s nice to know what those people wish they knew before they went through the situation and what they would do differently if they went through it again.

With this in mind, a few months ago, I began to keep track of advice in blogs, news articles, and discussion boards from people who had lived through Hurricane Sandy and other natural disasters. Slowly, I made a list of lessons these survivors learned from their experiences and advice they would give to others preparing for a crisis. Interestingly, most of the advice falls under a handful of basic principles. Here you will find these principles and a few singularly helpful ideas related to each. If you think of any you’d like to add as you are reading through, share them with us in the comments box below.

 

1. Some disaster supplies never outlive their usefulness. In other words, you’ll never have too much. A few commonly mentioned items are water, food, batteries, matches, and wet wipes.

WATER: In many types of natural disasters, water lines can become contaminated and access to water can be shut off altogether. This is why it’s so important to to have water and emergency water supplies stored (think water purifiers and containers to hold water). But how much water? The best answer, according to disaster survivors, is as much as you can fathom storing in your home. It’s impossible to store too much water because you will use it for everything: drinking, cooking with, washing dishes, flushing the toilet, washing hands, bathing, and showering.

FOOD: Just as with water, you will never think to yourself that you have overdone it on the food storage. In times of high stress or absolute boredom (survival situations usually alternate between these two extremes), we tend to eat more than usual. If you have kids, this will be especially true. Just think of how much food you go through when your kids are on a vacation from school. The bottom line is to store more food than you think you need.

MATCHES AND BATTERIES: People who have survived emergency situations often express surprise at how quickly their supply of batteries and matches ran out. Matches are useful for everything from lighting candles and starting fires to igniting cooking stoves. Similarly, you’ll quickly realize how many of your survival supplies require batteries. Just like with food and water, store more batteries and matches than you can imagine ever using. Alternately, invest in rechargeable batteries with solar chargers.

WET WIPES: If you have ever had a child, you know the miracle that is baby wipes. Baby wipes are excellent in an emergency for washing hands, refreshing worn-out faces, and cleaning up messes. Basically, wet wipes help you function without using so much of your precious water resources. Again, it’s hard to have too many of this item stored for an emergency.

2. If you haven’t thought about getting a generator, you probably should.  Power is precious, and most natural disaster situations involve the power going out at some point. Generators allow you to rely on yourself for power while you are waiting for the government to step in and repair things. People who have survived natural disasters (especially Hurricane Sandy) have a lot to say about generators. Here are a few good tips:

  • Some household appliances are power hogs, and if you are using a generator, you will want to be wise about your use of these items: microwaves, toasters, freezers, refrigerators, and hot plates.
  • Generators require a lot of fuel to operate. Read your owner’s manual to find out what kind and how much fuel your generator needs, then store accordingly. Also find out how often your generator requires a filter change.
  • To save fuel, turn your generator off every night and back on in the morning.
  • IMPORTANT: Store a carbon monoxide detector to use with your generator. Did you know that there were nine reported deaths during Hurricane Sandy just from carbon monoxide poisoning from improper generator use? Use your generator safely.

3. Don’t neglect to stock up on treats. What does a treat mean for you? For me, it’s dark chocolate after dinner or a bowl of buttery popcorn while watching a movie with my best friend. But it can also be listening to Iron and Wine tunes after a long day or lying on the couch and reading a book. Many people who have survived disaster situations say that having treats around was sanity-saving.

The term “treat” is misleading because it implies that these things are bonuses and not necessary for long-term survival. In fact, this is not the case. Treats are crucial for their morale-boosting power. Human beings are not machines, and we cannot flourish in any kind of extended survival situation without comfort items. Comfort items help us feel calm and semi-normal in very abnormal circumstances.

As you gather your food storage and emergency supplies, don’t forget about comfort items. Whether it’s coffee, a favorite cereal, art supplies, or games, make sure you have a way to wind down and maintain normalcy.

4. Be a team player. One of the pieces of advice that surprised me by its frequency in different discussion boards is to make sure you work together with your neighbors. Sometimes in emergency preparedness, we are very self-focused as we work toward becoming self-reliant and being able to support our families without needing anyone else. At some point in a disaster situation, you have to be able to make a shift and look at how you can work with the larger community to restore order. Everyone will have different skills and knowledge to offer the situation, and working together means more gets done. A few great ideas were having a neighborhood potluck to use up food that was near its expiration date, making trades with others for labor or supplies, and getting together as a community to play music, watch movies, or tell stories.

5. Sharpen your survival skills. Plenty of people who have survived extended natural disaster situations say that the person who knows how to make a delicious meal with a camp stove and food storage supplies or who knows how to wire a generator quickly becomes a huge asset when disaster strikes. If you don’t have very many survival skills, get educated. Learn how to build better fires, purify water in any situation, or use solar cooking. Anything you learn now will save you later.

The Magic Amount: How Much Food You Should Store

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Have you ever kept a list of all the food you eat in a day? I once did this as a little experiment to see if what I thought I ate was similar to what I actually ate. When I looked at my list at the end of the day, I was surprised to see that I had eaten much more than I remembered. It reminded me a little of those diagrams of food that show how much the average person eats in a year with astronomical numbers like 30 pounds of cheese. The overwhelming amount of food a person consumes is precisely why it can be daunting to think of supplying a whole family with enough emergency food to last them for an extended period of time.

One of the most common questions people have when preparing for emergencies is how much food they need to have stored. If you are one of the many wondering how much food to stock away, here are some helpful tips.

Store something!

First and foremost, remember this: Storing something is always better than storing nothing. Often people are so intimidated by the enormity of the task of getting food storage for their family that they put it off and end up doing nothing at all. If you only gather enough food initially to feed your family for three days, that’s three days you wouldn’t have been able to feed them for previously. It’s okay to start small and add more food storage when you can. The important thing is that you start now, doing whatever you can afford and then adding more as you have more time and money.

Once you have three days’ worth, start to store up a month’s worth for each person, then three months, then six months, and so on. One year’s worth of emergency food for every person in your family should be your ultimate goal (or even more if you have the means). It might sound unreachable right now, but storing a year’s worth of food is entirely possible if you tackle it by small steps.

Figure out How Many Servings You Need

As you seek out emergency food, you will find that most food storage suppliers will quantify their food by the number of servings it provides. For example, you might see an offer along the lines of, “You pay x for y amount of servings.” One good place to start when deciding how much food to store is to use our long-term food storage calculator, which you can access here. This chart is pretty straightforward and will help you figure out how many servings you need to collect to feed your family for a specific amount of time.

To use our chart, first decide how many months you would like to get supplied for, then go down the chart to find the number of people in your family. For example, if you would like to start out by getting supplied for one month and you have four people in your family, find both of those numbers on the chart and then locate their intersection. For four people for one month, you’re looking at 360 servings. (This is assuming each person will eat three servings a day.) You can then go out and collect 360 servings’ worth of emergency food.

Caveat about Serving Size

There is one important principle to remember when you use this method to figure out how much food to store. It is this: All food storage companies have different definitions for the term “serving.” For one company, a measly 150 or 200 calories might constitute a serving. For another, a serving might have a more reasonable 400 or 500 calories. Be aware that three servings a day of only 200 calories each is only going to give you 600 calories for a day, not enough to sustain a child-sized body, let alone an average adult one. Most adults need somewhere between 1500-3000 calories to maintain their current state, so buying these “handy” food storage kits could leave you starving.

To avoid finding yourself with too little food, before you buy pre-packaged servings, find out how many calories are in each serving. Look for emergency food that has between 300 and 500 calories per serving. Otherwise your food storage kit that was advertised as being all-in-one and super convenient will not truly feed you for the time it claims. Legacy Premium serving sizes are always large (Most are around 325-400 calories), and they also offer plenty of nutritious, calorie-dense sides to help you fill in extra calories if you choose.

Store More Food Than You Think You Need

Ask anyone who has been in a situation in which they had to rely on their food storage and they’ll tell you the same thing. There is no such thing as too much emergency food. In emergency situations more than any other time, we need sufficient nourishment to keep us alert, positive, strong, and healthy. In addition, emergency situations often involve a lot of waiting around and worrying—waiting for news on the state of the disaster, worrying about loved ones not with us, or waiting around for power to come back on. In any kind of stressful or tedious atmosphere, most people tend to eat more than they normally would. Food is important in keeping the situation calm and positive. You will never regret that you had more food stored than you actually needed (if this is even possible).

As you can see, the title of this post is a bit misleading; there is no magic amount when it comes to storing emergency food. Start right now with storing whatever you can, and work up to storing at least a year’s worth. Use our food storage calculator to figure out how many servings you need to feed your family for your desired length of time, but also keep an eye on serving size and calories as you do this to make sure you are getting a sufficient amount. Most importantly, remember that you can never store too much emergency food.

 

Photo credit: Diliff / Foter / CC BY-SA

Happy Customers, Prepared for Life

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It’s always exciting to receive customer feedback, especially when it’s customer feedback that confirms everything we’ve been saying about PrepareWise’s superiority to other emergency food for so long. Admittedly, we are a little biased. But you, as people simply trying to find the best quality and value in emergency food, are pretty fair-minded. So when you tell us our product is good, it has to be true.

Here is some feedback we received recently from Mark, an experienced prepper and happy buyer of PrepareWise emergency foods:

 

We received our PrepareWise food order on Monday morning. The shipping was free and the delivery time faster than several other vendors we have used in the past. We decided to try it right away for lunch because our morning was full of work.

As we began to prepare lunch, we looked at the buckets and realized several very innovative features: the bucket tops are designed to mate with the bottom of other buckets, creating a more stable stack, and the lids do not come off all the way, creating a better seal and no chance for damaging or misplacing the lid. All the foods are immaculately packaged in thick mylar, contain oxygen absorbers, and are vacuum-sealed.

The ingredients are clearly listed on each package, and to our amazement we can pronounce the names of all the ingredients. We have yet to find a label with an artificial or unhealthy ingredient.

Preparation was easy: Bring water to a boil, pour in food, and cook for 15-18 minutes, stirring occasionally.

We tried the fettuccini alfredo. I can tell you that I have had several other competing brands’ fettuccini alfredo and was sorely disappointed. Frankly, yours was delicious. We are now trying to unload some of the other companies’ food so we can buy more PrepareWise. My children, mother-in-law, and wife all commented on the deep flavor and great seasoning. We tried it plain without the addition of any seasoning or meat and it was great. My eight-year-old son suggested that we add chicken so we opened a can of white chicken meat, and it was filling and delicious. It was one of the quietest lunches we have ever had. The kids were too busy eating to talk. We liked it so much we had dinner last night and breakfast this morning from our PrepareWise foods inventory. We want to eat the food now so when we have no choice later it is familiar and expected.

Thanks for developing a relationship with Legacy Foods. We have already told several friends about the food and will be purchasing more next month. Not only is the food delicious, but PrepareWise is the best value for the dollar I have found the past five years of prepping.

Thanks,

Mark and the LoneStar Posse

Thank you, Mark, for the thumbs-up. We work hard to offer the highest quality ingredients and create the best-tasting emergency food available. We also think it’s vital that food storage be easy to prepare and convenient to store. It validates everything we do here when we hear from customers that we are fulfilling our mission and helping you in your efforts to provide well for your family.

We can talk forever about PrepareWise food storage and tout its superiority, but it’s never going to mean the same thing to you as when you hear it from a fellow customer.  Trust Mark—Once you try it, you’re going to have a hard time saving it for later.

5 Forgotten Items For Your Survival Gear

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When people are creating their survival kits for their family, items such as food and water and even first aid kits are on the top of the list to be added.  But what about those items that are just as important in emergency situations but often forgotten?  What would happen if you were separated from your children during a disaster and they didn’t have identification or a way to find you?  Or what if your gas was leaking and you couldn’t get to your tools to turn it off? Everyone has an idea of their perfect survival gear kit but here are some items you may not have thought about.

1.       Cash – Having a bit of petty cash in your kit is a great idea.  This way if you can’t get to the banks or you can’t use your credit cards you will still have a way to get those things that you need until the disaster is sorted out.

2.       Prescriptions – Even if you are used to taking medicine every day you might not think to grab it in a rush or you might not be able to get to the medicine for other reasons.  Having an extra supply of medicine for you will ensure that you can go on taking your medicine normally.

3.       Basic Tools – Something you might not think about having in your survival kit is some basic tools like leather gloves, a wrench or pliers, and even a screwdriver.  You never know what you might be facing and being able to use your wrench to turn off your gas might just save your home.

4.       ID – Keeping some form of ID for you and each member of your family is vital in disasters.  Not only will this be able to prove who you are it may also assist in reuniting your family if you happen to get lost.  When my husband and I were evacuated from our home we grabbed things like our marriage certificate and passports to be safe.  We could always have replaced them eventually, but it would have taken a long time and would have created issues.

5.       Power - This could mean matches to make a fire to stay warm and cook, batteries to power communication devices, or even solar power.  Having one or all of these items will ensure that no matter what happens you and your family will be able to eat, stay warm, and stay connected.

What is something you keep on hand that others may forget?

—Breanna Legler—

A Good Survival Kit Needs Back Up Power

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The power goes out. It’s dark. You can’t find a flashlight or a candle, and you just stubbed your big toe while bumbling around in the pitch black looking for anything that might help shine a light on the dilemma. Not an ideal situation to be in.

That’s why it’s a smart idea to have an alternate means of creating power, and even though you probably won’t be able to fit one in your survival kit, the most commonly used backup system is a gas-powered generator.

Although a generator can be a somewhat noisy solution, they are fairly reliable and can be used for a variety of other things such as powering tools in remote locations or in places that an extension chord won’t reach, providing power for trailers and RV’s, or for power needs on temporary job sites.

Because gasoline doesn’t store well for long periods of time you can also look into a variety of alternative options. There are now a lot of generators that are powered by propane, and if you really want to commit to some cool, eco-friendly technology there is a great selection of reasonably prices portable solar panel units with rechargeable batteries that offer a clean way to restore temporary power.

Many people consider having a generator to be one of the most important components of an emergency preparedness survival kit you could invest in. There’s no doubt you’ll be happy to know you have a power source in the event of a blackout, even if that means you have to struggle through the dark to get to the garage, shed, basement or wherever it is you decide to store the back up.

Root Cellars: Short Term Food Storage

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Long before there was such a thing called a refrigerator people would take advantage of cool, underground temperatures as a means of preserving fruits and vegetables for short term food storage. Like so many simple ingenuities that have been developed to fulfill a specific survival need the root cellar has become obsolete to most people. But recently there has been resurgence, and today more and more people have started reintroducing root cellars into their yards and homes.

Over the past few months there has been a lot of talk about increasing food prices, worry about the instability of supply, and even concern over contaminated products that have caused large outbreaks of ecoli of other food borne illness. Rather than focusing their energy on fear, anger or paranoia people have begun to take action into their own hands.

Although you probably won’t find most folks going to extremes by building a hillside mound or digging an underground tunnel in their yards, more people are creating makeshift style root cellars as a means to save money and to enjoy the healthy pleasure and self gratification of eating food they’ve grown themselves. Even if you don’t have a garden, buying locally grown produce and having a means to preserve it for months is a great idea, and a strangely rewarding process.

At the core of root cellar construction all you really need is ventilated location with cooling and isolative properties that maintains low, relatively consistent temperatures and low amounts of humidity. If you have a 110-year-old house like me then you might already have something resembling a root cellar that’s waiting for you to utilize. I’ve sectioned off a corner of my own cellar and constructed some shelves. The cool consistent temperature is perfect for storing a wide variety of fresh fruits and veggies (which I keep separated), as well as canned and bottled goods.

Another fairly simple option is to dig a hole big enough to bury a 20-gallon metal garbage can and then bury the whole thing with the lid below ground level. My parents were doing this 25 years ago in the corner of their vast garden, and I remember them storing assorted root vegetables throughout the winter months. Although no one ever wanted to go out in the snow to fetch the supply, there were many winters that didn’t require the purchase of beets, carrots or potatoes or the like thanks to their system.

There are a lot of relatively simple methods for building your own root cellar or utilizing existing space to store raw foods. While some might believe it to be an archaic or cryptic method, the concept of utilizing a root cellar is alive and well–whether it’s a permanent structure or a makeshift addition to the yard. It’s also a fun way to try out preserving food short term, and an easy way to supplement your long term food storage supplies.

–Jared Matkin–

Jared Matkin is a Salt Lake City based freelance writer and outdoor enthusiast who is continually on the lookout for innovative and usable products designed to help improve the way we live.

Home Canning: Boiling Water Method

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Canning your own food can help you to increase your emergency food storage. If you have a home garden it will also provide a way to use your fresh items if you have had a successfully abundant growing year. Canning your own food, when the methods are applied correctly is a safe and centuries proven way to process food for storage.

There are two home canning processing methods that are considered safe and satisfactory to health codes. These are the boiling water method and the steam pressure method. High acid foods including tomatoes, lemons, cherries, pears, apples, plums and other high acid foods.

To be sure that you are using the right methods to safely can your food you will need to have the most up to date information on canning. The regulations change often and information can be found through your local department of health. These regulations will be significant in helping you to determine the correct type of equipment to use and how long to boil certain items, depending on your region’s specific elevation.

If you are home canning for the first time, the boiling water method can be a great way to start. You will not need a pricey steam canner. You can find a full equipment boiling water canning set at most kitchen stores and in many grocery stores for an affordable price. These usually include a boiling water canner pot, a magnetized lid wand, a jar lifter, a jar funnel and a headspace tool.

Canning tomatoes is also a great way to get practice and to learn how to use a boiling water canner. Tomatoes are an excellent addition to emergency food storage. They can also be used throughout the year for many recipes including pasta sauce and chili bases.

Garden Freedom

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Having been a gardener since my teen years, I can truly say that growing fruits and vegetables is a joy that can provide an emotional reprieve from the fast and furious world.  The garden has taught me much.  I have learned about optimism, patience, appreciation, honest labor, self-reliance and gratitude.  I don’t consider myself a talented gardener, just a happy and content one who strives to do better.

I must say that I have come to especially appreciate the feeling of self-reliance.  I know to some degree that I am capable of taking care of myself and my family if something were ever to happen that affected our supply of emergency food storage.  Although my garden is small right now. I know I could adapt quickly and produce much more if necessary for survival.

Essential to our freedom is access to food.  Any act to control or limit our ability to provide for ourselves is a restriction on our freedom.  It may sound a bit silly, but home gardening as it relates to one’s ability to provide has got to be an essential freedom.  Just ask anyone who’s ever been self reliant when it comes to their emergency food storage supply and they’ll quickly tell you,“You mess with my garden you are messing with me!”

I have often thought that our past will ultimately be our future.  By that I mean that we have become so accustomed to getting whatever we want, whenever we want, we wouldn’t know what to do if the local grocery store just shut down one day.

Looming Garden Growing Crisis

There appears to be a storm on the horizon.  A train wreck waiting to happen in the nursery trade industry.  When Monsanto purchased Seminis in January of 2005, it effectively controlled between 85 and 90 percent of the U.S. nursery market.  This included pesticides, herbicides and fertilizer markets.  By merging with or buying up its competitors in the garden seed market, Monsanto has put itself in a position that would allow it to restrict or eliminate home gardening.

I am only offering food for thought and don’t mean to be an alarmist, but most Americans do not realize that Monsanto holds over eleven thousand U.S. Seed patents, and when the average American Gardner buys seed they are really buying from Monsanto.  Think of the ramifications.  Before Monsanto acquired its competitor, Seminis had already eliminated over 2,000 varieties of seeds from its inventory.

Six companies including DuPont, Mitsui, Monsanto, Syngent, Avenis, and Dow control 98 percent of the world’s seeds; not just those in United States.  To make matters worse, the seeds that are being eliminated are those that are open pollinated or Heirloom.  That is, seeds that we grow in our gardens and that allow us to harvest our own seeds from.

Get the picture? If we can’t grow vegetables that reproduce viable seeds, we will be dependent upon the corporations of the world for the very food that sustains life.  The way I see it we will be held hostage, thereby loosing a piece of our freedom.

What can we do? It’s simple. Just start growing a garden and learning how to harvest your own seeds.  There are seed providers who for now are able to supply you with the right kind of seed.  Just look for open pollinated or Heirloom varieties and go have some fun. Our future may perhaps depend on it.

–Phil Cox–

Phil is a husband and father of three. He has a graduate degree in business and professional experience in real estate and fund raising. Phil and his wife are new to the food storage arena but have become interested in emergency preparedness over the last two years.

5 Knots and Hitches Everyone Should Know

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We all know that being prepared for an emergency isn’t as easy as building a supply of food storage, stocking some 72 hour kits and developing a contingency plan. Being truly prepared also means people should posses certain skills that could potentially assist them through a variety of situations, and knowing some basic knots and hitches may come in handy when you least expect it.

The great thing about good knots and hitches is they can be put to good use in so many situations. Whether you need to fasten a mooring line, set up anchor points for a rescue, or lower a Wise Foods food storage bucket off a high ledge (you never know), a few twists, turns and pulls of a rope will provide you with a small arsenal of knots and hitches, all with extremely practical, yet important applications.

1. Bowline – Used in a variety of situations from climbing to search and rescue, the bowline is often mistaken for a knot, but it doesn’t bind and become difficult to untie after it’s been under extreme tension. It’s simple to tie and creates a relatively secure loop at the end of a rope. A personal favorite of mine.

2. Double Figure 8 - So many useful application I don’t even know where to start. Two secure loops make it useful to use for loading uneven anchors to provide even weight distribution, creating an improvised rescue seat or supporting heavy loads. Easy to learn and incredibly resilient.

3. Square Knot - Here’s how it works—look no further for instructions. Right over left, left over right. The most basic knot you can tie. Enough said.

4. Double Fisherman’s Bend - When the length of one rope is not enough, the Fisherman’s Bend is a fantastic way to join two ropes together while still being strong enough to support a relatively heavy load.

5. Constrictor Knot - Probably under used and less well known than many of its counterparts, the constrictor knot is useful for securing the neck of a sack or bag, securing two items together while they are being glued, or whipping the ends of a rope that’s fraying.

–Jared Matkin–

Jared Matkin is a Salt Lake City based freelance writer and outdoor enthusiast who is continually on the lookout for innovative and usable products designed to help improve the way we live.

Always Be Prepared with Your Survival Kit

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We have talked a lot about getting your survival gear together for your home.  But what if you aren’t home when disaster strikes?  Having survival gear in your car or office will allow you to be prepared no matter where you are.

Let’s talk about what to keep in your car first.

1.       Sleeping bags or blankets for warmth.  This is useful if your car breaks down or you need bedding in an emergency situation.

2.       First Aid kit is always a basic in emergency preparedness.  Make sure it is stocked and that you replenish it as you use it.

3.       A few water bottles so that you have fresh water, make sure to rotate these out as heat can affect the quality of bottled water.

4.       Warm clothes like hats and gloves.  These are items that can be rotated out of the car but are great to have in the cold weather.

5.       Tools for repairing your car like a jack and jumper cables.

6.       Pre packaged food.  Having food to last a few days is always a good idea in case you get stranded.

There are a lot of other things that you can add and depending on the space you have in your car you may need to cut down on things listed above.  Our survival kits are a great way to keep your car or even your office stocked and all you have to store is a backpack.

In your office you may or may not have more room to store a full survival kit like the one you have at your house.  If you have the space keeping a fully stocked kit will be in your best interest, especially if your office is not close to your home. But if you are in a cubical and don’t have a lot of space keeping a few items will go a long way.  Items to store in your office might vary slightly than what you have in your home.

1.       Safety equipment like a hard hat and flashlight will come in handy if a natural disaster affects your office building.

2.       First aid kit is also important in this setting in case you or a co worker gets hurt.  Most offices have the basics so your first aid kit might be a bit more unconventional like burn jell, gauze pads, tape, and a CPR mouthpiece. See what your office already has when compiling this.

3.       Blankets are another great thing to have at the office; people in shock will often need extra warmth.

4.       Food and water needs to be in every survival kit you have.

As you are preparing your survival kit for your office think about the different situations you might face and prepare accordingly.  For example, people facing hurricanes or tornadoes will want different items than those facing floods.  Also, make sure to always have some sort of communication device, and having a spare charger is a great safety precaution as well.