FOOD STORAGE AREA

The storage area should be located where the average temperature can be kept above 32°F and below 70°F. Remember that the cooler the storage area the longer the retention of quality and nutrients. Freezing of some items, such as canned products, should be avoided since the expansion of the food during freezing may rupture (metal) or break (glass) the container, or break the seal on lids on glass bottles, and allow the food to be contaminated. This could pose a serious safety risk when the food thaws.

The storage area should be dry (less than 15 percent humidity), and adequately ventilated to prevent condensation of moisture on packaging material. The area should be large enough so that shelves can accommodate all of the stored food and adequate space is available to keep the area clean and tidy. A 9 x 12 foot room with 10 foot ceilings will provide adequate space for a family of six to store an 18 month supply of food. Food should not be stored on the floor. It is a good idea to have the lowest shelf 2-3 feet off the floor in flood prone areas. Shelves should be designed so that a simple rotation system can effectively allow the oldest food to be used first and the newest food to be held within the shelf-life period.

When designing and building a food storage area, do it to minimize areas where insects and rodents can hide. As practical, seal all cracks and crevices. Eliminate any openings which insects or rodents may use to gain entrance to the storage area. Electrical equipment such as freezers, furnaces and hot water heaters should not be housed in the storage area. These appliances produce heat, unnecessarily increasing storage temperatures. Insulation of the storage area from other areas of the house will effectively reduce the average yearly temperature of the food.

Flu Fighters From Your Kitchen

Some of the best swine flu germ fighters can be found in your kitchen:

Apple Cider Vinegar
The health benefits of this form of vinegar are outstanding, and can be used in a multitude of ways. Vinegar has an ingredient known as Malic Acid which makes vinegar an anti-biotic, anti-fungal, and an anti-viral remedy. Mix two tablespoons of vinegar, one tablespoon of honey, and one cup of warm water each morning. This may prevent and kill microbes that are trying to infect your body.

Garlic
Garlic has been known to kill agents varying from cancer to pneumonia. When consumed, garlic will also remedy a cold.

Vitamin C
Research has shown that vitamin C improves resistance to disease and prevents flu symptoms when 1,000 mg doses are taken every six hours. It is highly recommended to include vitamin C rich foods in every meal of the day. Eat citrus fruits.

Turmeric
Those not allergic to milk, may take a glass of hot or lukewarm milk every night with a small measure of haldi (turmeric).

Survival Key Ring

I read an article a few months back entitled Make A Survival Key Ring - Your Everyday Tool for Emergency Preparedness by Jeffrey R. Yago.

In the article, Yago shared his ideas for putting together a survival key chain. Think of survival key chains as a miniature, portable survival kit. I thought it sounded like a great idea, so I set out to make me a few. I also added a few items that he didn’t suggest.

The Key Ring
Key ring styles. Plenty to choose from here, from the basic design to pull-apart dual rings to carabiner styles that look more like rock-climbing tools than key rings. I prefer the carabiner style. You may decide some combination works best for you. You can also purchase a variety of ring sizes at office supply stores.

Lights and Knife
Knife or Swiss Army multi-tool. Lights and a cutting tool are items I consider “required components” of any good survival key chain. Again, you can spend as much or as little as you wish on the various styles. Utility knifes such as a Swiss Army knife with fold-out instruments may be sufficient for most every-day survival key chains.

Mini LED Flashlight. As for flashlights, we’ve come a long way. They now make super-bright LED flashlights the size of a quarter that last for hours. No shortage of these around, and it is definitely something to add to your survival key ring. These little lights will come in handy when navigating in the dark.

Navigation and Fire-Making
Fire starter bar. Unless you want to spend hours trying to start a fire rubbing two sticks together you need dry matches or a fire starter bar. I attended one survivalist camp where the guy leading the fire starting workshop never did get the fire started before it was time to move on to the next topic. Yes it is exciting to be able to start a fire by turning a stick 5,000 times into a small piece of wood with tiny kindling. But it takes a lot of time and energy - two things you may not have depending on your survival situation.

This fire starter bar fits nicely on your key chain, and can generate fire in under a minute. Here’s how it works: Using the backside of a pocketknife, or any other metal edge, you simply scrape magnesium shavings onto a sheet of paper, or scrap cloth, or whatever dry kindling you can find. Then a scrape down the striker rod produces a spark that ignites the magnesium shavings and your kindling.

Compass. As I have written in previous articles, please learn how to use a compass before you are lost! For navigation, basically you just need to find general directions from a key ring compass. From there you can extrapolate other directions. If you find yourself lost, and you know a little about the surrounding terrain, you may be able to make it to a road, a river, or a town, just by knowing which direction to move.

Rescue
Safety whistle. Few people think of whistles when putting together a survival kit, but it is one of the more valuable rescue tools available.

First-Aid
You can purchase a key-chain with these items from the Red Cross for $5.00
Contents:
• 2 - Antiseptic Towelettes
• 1 - Triple-Antibiotic Cream Pack
• 1 - Non-Adherent Bandages 2”x3”
• 10 - Junior Bandages
• 10 - Adhesive Bandages 3/4”x3”
• 2 - Flexible Knuckle Bandage
• 2 - Flexible Fingertip Bandage

I would also add a couple days worth of prescription meds that you take and aspirin. The above are only suggestions. Make your survival key ring to your own specifications.

I keep survival key rings at home, in my hiking backpack, my office and in my vehicles.

Sprouting Seeds For Food

Seeds themselves are a very nutritious form of food because they contain proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals. Many of these are increased greatly when the seeds are sprouted. It's very easy to grow your own sprouts at home with a minimum of supplies.

Buying Seeds
Experiment with different types of seeds, but purchase only those that are designed for sprouting. Seeds sold for vegetable gardening are often treated with pesticides and should not be used. There are many places to purchase your seeds expressly labeled for this purpose including health food stores or from seed catalogs.

Methods
Seeds may be sprouted by many methods. The one requiring the least material is sprouting between two paper towels. Seeds are spread thinly between the paper towels and the towels are moistened. Add water when the towels start to dry out. Once the seeds have sprouted, they may stick to the towels or may mold if left too long.

Sprout seeds may be sown in a shallow dish or pot filled with light potting soil and watered as needed. As the sprouts grow, they are clipped with scissors for use.

One of the easiest and most reliable methods for sprouting is with a sprouting container. You can purchase one for under $20 or you can make your own. A wide-mouth quart-canning jar is preferred because of the ease of getting the sprouts out and because it is the standard size of sprouting screens sold in health food stores.

Cheesecloth may be use and secured onto the jar with a rubber band. It works well, but is a little messy. If you want to do a lot of sprouting may want to make or purchase a more permanent sprouter top. Stainless steel screening can be secured to the top with a canning jar ring. Metal screens are sold in a variety of mesh sizes for different types of seeds. The only problem with them is that the rings tend to rust (even though the screens don't). Plastic sprouter tops are a successful alternative. These are also available in a variety of mesh sizes.

Regardless of the jar or screen you choose, the procedure is the same. Start with a small amount of seeds (1 tablespoon to 1/4 cup depending on seed size), and soak in water 12 to 24 hours. Attach screen and pour off the water. Rinse twice in cool water and pour off each time. Repeat rinsing and draining two to three times a day to prevent the seeds from turning sour. Recycle the sprout rinse water by watering houseplants.

There is some controversy over whether sprouts are better grown in light or in the dark. It is really a matter of personal preference; however, there may be a slight nutritional advantage to the light-grown sprouts. Sprouts grown in light are greener and have a stronger taste. To keep sprouts white (blanched), place them in a dark place while they are growing.

Let sprouts grow until they are the size you want them. Taste at various sizes so you can decide how long to let them grow. Large seeds tend to get soft and become moldy if left too long at room temperature and will lose quality rapidly. As seeds grow, you may want to change to a larger screen so that hulls will wash out before "harvest." Hulls are edible, but do affect the taste and storage qualities of most seeds.

When sprouts are ready for eating (usually after three to six days), rinse off excess hulls and drain thoroughly. Store in plastic bags in refrigerator. Small-seeded sprouts keep fairly well for a week or more; larger-seeded ones are best if eaten within three to four days.

Pet Survival Kit

The likelihood that you and your animals will survive an emergency such as a fire, tornado, or terrorist attack depends on emergency planning done today. It is the responsibility of all pet owners (survivalist or not) to properly prepare for pet survival with an emergency preparedness plan. The best pet survival kits will consist of the following:

Short-term survival
Recent pictures of your pet placed both in the pet survival kit Survival collar worn by your pet that contains the pet’s ID, name and address, phone number, rabies tag, and license

Your pet’s vaccination documents with proof of rabies vaccination
Copies of other important medical records
Pet Health records
Mini-first aid kit with pet meds
An extra leash and collar
A pet carrier
Water and food bowls.
Two-week food supply
Several gallons of clean drinking water
A pet waste disposal system including newspapers, cat litter, poop scoop, bleach, and plastic garbage bags
Grooming tools, toys, and treats

Place all of the contents in a large bag clearly labeled and place inside the carrier. Planning and preparation will enable you to evacuate with your pets quickly and safely. But keep in mind that animals react differently under stress. Outside your home and in the car, keep dogs securely leashed.

Long-term survival
If you plan on storing a six-month or longer supply of pet food you need to purchase food grade buckets to store the food in.

Blanket
A good pet first-aid book
De-wormers
Pepto Bismol tablets
Generic Benadryl capsules -- 25mg, for allergies
Sterile gauze rolls and pads for bandages
Adhesive tape
Ace self-adhering athletic bandage
Hydrogen peroxide
Rubbing alcohol
Over-the-counter antibiotic ointment
Epsom salts
Tweezers
Petroleum jelly
Antiseptic lotion, powder or spray
A Nylon leash
50 feet of rope
Cotton balls
Splints and tongue depressors
Towels
Muzzle or material to make one
Penlight
Scissors
Needle-nosed pliers
Ice pack
Plastic eyedropper or syringe
Sterile saline solution
Glucose paste or corn syrup
Styptic powder or pencil
Latex gloves
Ear-cleaning solution
Nail clippers

You never know what unexpected situation may arise so be prepared to improvise and use what you have on hand. If you evacuate your home, DO NOT LEAVE YOUR PETS BEHIND!

Roughly 600,000 pets were killed or were left without a home as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Many pets lost their lives due to the immense weather, and others could not be taken into safety shelters so they were unfortunately left stranded.
(www.hurricanekatrinarelief.com)

How To Survive

Skills Beat Gadgets and Practicality Beats Style.
Search the web and you can find everything you need to become a survivalist. No way! Preparedness is not just about accumulating a pile of stuff. You need practical skills, and those only come with study, training, and practice. Any armchair survivalist can buy camouflage fatigues and an array of guns and accessories. Equipment should not be mistaken for genuine skills and practicality.

Tools Without Training Are Almost Useless.
Owning a gun doesn’t make someone a marksman any more than owning a skateboard makes someone a skateboarder (although there are an awful lot of posers out there). With proper training and practice, you will be miles ahead of the average citizen when you need to implement your survival skills. Get at least some basic medical training. Get the best firearms training that you can afford. Raise a vegetable garden each summer so you can become accustomed to growing your own food.

In the coming months I will discuss: food storage, bartering items, navigation, first aid kits, coping with critters, emergency backpack, how to start a fire without matches, and water treatment. I hope to supply you with all the information you need in order to survive both inside and outside of your home.

Solar Water Disinfection and Pasteurization

According to the EPA, if you can’t boil water, you can disinfect it using household bleach. Do not use non-chlorine bleach to disinfect water. Typically, household chlorine bleaches will be 5.25% available chlorine. Bleach will kill some, but not all, types of disease-causing organisms that may be in the water. If the water is cloudy, filter it through clean cloths or allow it to settle, and draw off the clear water for disinfection. Add 1/8 teaspoon (or 8 drops) of regular, unscented, liquid household bleach for each gallon of water, stir it well and let it stand for 30 minutes before you use it. Store disinfected water in clean containers with covers. There are two big disadvantages of treating water with chemicals. First chlorine can be potentially dangerous if used improperly and it may not be readily available when you need it. A safer product is ION. It is a non-toxic, stabilized oxygen liquid that is added to stored water and reportedly kills pathogenic bacteria. However, it is not readily available in most stores. But there is a safe chemical free option, inexpensive option for disinfecting your water.

Cardboard and aluminum foil are unlikely tools for disinfection water until you factor in sunshine. Solar water pasteurization uses the heat of the sun to raise the temperature of water to a point where microbial pathogens are destroyed. Disease-causing organisms in water are killed by exposure to heat in a process called pasteurization. Water that has been heated to 65ºC (149ºF) for a short period of time is free from microbes including Escherichia coli, Rotaviruses, Giardia and the Hepatitis A virus.

Although traditional fuels can be used to pasteurize water, on sunny days solar energy is the better choice. A major problem with boiling water for disinfection is its energy consumption in relation to cost and availability of the fuel supply. If you do not have electricity you do not want to spend all of you fuel supply sanitizing your water. Boiling water for five to ten minutes takes a lot of fuel.

With full sunshine, it takes about 2 hours to pasteurize 2 liters of water. In order to determine when water has reached pasteurization you will need to invest in a simple device called a WAPI (Water Pasteurization Indicator). The WAPI is a simple reusable device containing a special soy wax. The wax melts at the same temperature as the water is pasteurized. The tube hangs on a string inside the container with the wax end up, and once the water around it becomes hot enough to kill the bacteria the wax melts, running from the top part of the tube to the lower end. Although it is designed for solar pasteurization, the WAPI can be used for pasteurizing over most fuel sources including gas, wood, and charcoal. WAPI’s generally cost between $5 and $10.

Solar water disinfection is also known as SODIS. The SODIS process involves filling clean PET (Polyethylene Terephtalate) transparent plastic bottles with water and exposing them to full sunlight for six or more hours. The combination of UV-A radiation and raised water temperature disinfects the water. There are a few drawbacks to this method. SODIS efficiency depends on the physical condition of the plastic bottles, with scratches reducing the efficiency of SODIS. Leaching of bottle material. There has been some concern over the question whether plastic drinking containers can release chemicals or toxic components into water, a process possibly accelerated by heat. A solar cooker will make the process more efficient.

While pasteurizing will solve a lot of disease problems, it does not remove other things found in the water such as chemicals, pesticides and heavy metals.

You can purchase elaborate solar cookers or build one using simple materials. You can find a large number of solar cooker building plans at http://solarcooking.org/plans. I have included instructions for a simple windshield shade solar cooker at the end of this article. I have also included instructions from Needful Provision, Inc. on how to construct a simple solar water-distilling unit.

Building and testing a solar cooker also makes an excellent school science project. The last project I worked on with my child was, “Can you bake cookies in a solar oven in North Carolina in the month of January?” The conclusion was yes. Solar cookers should certainly be one the items at the top of the list for TEOTWAWKI. They are portable, use only the sun as an energy source and they work!

”KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON”