March 19, 2024

Practical Approach to Preparedness

Practical Approach to Preparedness

I’ll get into the “preps” of preparedness soon, but I wanted to give you some practical information to keep in mind while you go about becoming better prepared. I also have four articles that give you some practical actions to take, all of which I highly recommend.

Practical Information 

The Rule of Threes

This is a short article that gives the rule of threes. In short they are that the average human can survive:

3 seconds without oxygen to the brain
3 minutes without oxygen
3 hours without shelter in poor weather
3 days without water
3 weeks without food

I also list a couple that I have seen added to the list.
 

A Great Twist to the Rule of Threes

This article was inspired by a reader. I liked his idea so much that I wanted to share it! The article explains that you should build redundancy into to your preparations. I believe redundancy is a big part of preparedness, not just in the sense of “two is one, one is none”, but also in how one builds their plans. One of the examples from the article is on water redundancy; from the tap, stored water and also from a river/lake (followed by purifying it).

 
Expiration Dates; Fact or Fiction?

I think this is a very important article. It can save you a lot of money. By law, products have to have expiration dates. However, many products will last much, MUCH longer than companies lead you to believe.

 
Frugal Preparedness

Let’s face it, prepping can get expensive! Here are 10 tips that can help you save money.

 
Practical Actions
 

Five Free Practices You Can Do To Be Better Prepared

Like I said above, prepping can get expensive, so here are five things you can do for free that can help you become better prepared.
 

Lessons Learned From a Rollover Car Accident

A car accident is one of the most frequent ways the “stuff hits the fan”. My stepson rolled my car and, while I thought I was fairly well prepared, I learned a lot from the incident. If you have young drivers, I especially recommend you read this article.
 

Important Documents

Here is a list of important documents that I think you should have gathered in a safe place. There are several others listed by readers, so check there as well.
 

Preparing for the Inevitable

We prepare for things that might happen, but we also must prepare for the things that WILL happen. I firmly believe that one should make their end of life decisions now, and not leave that burden to your loved ones.

 
Please click here to vote for Prepared Christian as a top Prepper site!

If you liked this article please think about sharing it on the social media listed below, thanks!

PreparednessClubOne

Where Should I Start, and What Should I do Next?

Road Sign

Prepared Christian will be 4 years old in October of this year. In that time, I have written the majority of 400+ articles, covering a wide range of topics related to survivalism/preparedness and Christianity as it relates to the two topics. I have had several people in the last few months say they were new to preparedness and were looking for help on where to start. I have covered a lot of information on this site. I can imagine that going through it and finding the things that apply to someone new could be daunting. I also know there are readers who’ve been prepping for a bit longer but are looking for next steps.

To help these people along, I am going to be posting some new articles and pointing to some previous articles that I think are important. For some of you, this information will obviously be stuff you know. You may have already read the articles I point to. If that is the case, please add your thoughts on the topic. I will eventually be covering topics that are geared more toward the seasoned Prepper.

This is going to be a lot of reading, more than some of you will have time to complete before I make the next post. If you fall a bit behind, or just want to refresh your memory at some point, I will be updating the Get Started page with any new posts.

I never tell people what to do. I simply tell you what I have learned; what worked for me and what didn’t. Take what you like, and discard the rest.

To me the cornerstone of preparedness is knowledge, with that in mind here are some topics that all Prepper’s should have an understanding of.

 
Acronyms, Mottos and Phrases

There are many terms in preparedness that are used on various sites. I explain their meaning in this article.
 

Why I Prepare

Whether it is to have an answer for someone who asks or to remind yourself when you get burned out, I think it is important to define for yourself why you’re preparing. In this article I give you the reasons why I prepare.
 

The Ten Commandments of Preparedness

The Ten Commandments given in the Bible have guided many cultures. I believe that the ten commandments of preparedness can guide us to successful preparedness.
 

NPE Syndrome – Not Prepared Enough

A fairly normal response when someone “wakes up” and realizes how fragile society is and that they are “Not Prepared Enough” is to begin to worry and panic. In this article I try to give some encouragement, and let you know that feeling this way is normal, and that you shouldn’t worry.
 

Being Gray

“Being gray”, in OPSEC (Operational Security) terms, means blending in and not drawing undue attention to the fact that you prepare. I give some reasons why in this article.

 
Ten Common Mistakes Prepper’s Make

Sometimes knowing what not to do is just as important as what you should do. Here are ten common mistakes that Prepper’s sometimes make.

 
What if Nothing Ever Happens?

In this article I make the point that we should not just prepare for specific events, but take a more general approach to preparedness. The people who prepared only because of Y2K might have felt like they wasted time and money. If they had been more generally prepared, they would have seen Y2K as just another potential event.

 
Levels of Hitting the Fan

In this article I make the point that there are varying levels of the stuff hitting the fan. What is a minor event for one could be a total meltdown for others.

 
Disaster Probability

In this article I draw a correlation between the size of events and the area that they occur. For instance, one of the most common events is job loss. When it happens, it really only affects the family of the person that lost their job. On the other hand, the chance of an EMP is very low but if we did see one, it would affect a very large percentage of the country.

 
Please click here to vote for Prepared Christian as a top Prepper site!

If you liked this article please think about sharing it on the social media listed below, thanks!

PreparednessClubOne

Disaster Probability

It has been some time since I covered this topic. There are enough new readers that I think it’s time to discuss again. Disaster probability is one of the fundamental building blocks of preparedness. By understanding it, we have a better idea of what our potential threats are and what we should actually be preparing for.
 
 
Possible, Plausible and Probable

If you’ve watched any of the prepper shows like Doomsday Preppers, any preparedness related youtube videos, or read any preparedness forums you’ve no doubt heard people give a long list of events they’re preparing for. While all of these things might be possible, they aren’t all plausible or very probable.

There is also a relationship between how possible something is and the area of its effect. In the image below, you can see that in the inner ring there is a picture of a house, which represents you. The things that are most probable to happen are likely to affect only you or your neighborhood in some instances. This is sometimes called the “pebble in the shoe” effect. If you’re walking with other people and you have a pebble in your shoe, it might really affect you but doesn’t really impact those around you. For an example, when I lost my job it had no effect on my neighbors but had a severe impact on my family.

Disaster Probability

As we move further from the probable ring, there is less of a chance that the events in the outer rings will actually happen. If they do happen, they will have a larger area of impact. The events that fall in the “plausible” ring have a less likely chance of actually happening but if they do, they could impact a county or state. The events in the “possible” ring are possible but unlikely. However, if they do happen, the area of effect is very large and could happen on a regional or national level.
 
Here are some examples of events in the various rings.
 
Probable: Affects home, possibly neighborhood
Job loss
House fire
Theft
Neighborhood power outage
 
Plausible: Affects County to State
Are-wide blackout
Wildfire
Severe weather (tornado, flash flooding, hurricane, etc.)
Flu epidemic
 
Possible: Affects Regional or Larger
EMP
Pandemic
Economic collapse
Caldera eruption
 

Applying This to Our Preparedness

I don’t think we should prepare for specific events but, instead, have a general level of preparedness. However, we still must be aware of our greatest threats in the areas in which we live, in case we must take specific precautions. For instance, if I was brand new to preparedness, it makes much more sense for me to prepare for an ice storm or blizzard than it does for me to prepare for an EMP. Sure, an EMP is possible, but in Minnesota, blizzards and ice storms actually happen. Since ice storms often bring power outages with them, it makes more sense for me to make sure I have a means of keeping warm, keeping the food cold and so on. By being prepared for the most probable threats, we eventually become much better prepared for the less likely events that will have a far greater reach.

 
If you liked this article please think about sharing it on the social media listed below, thanks!

PreparednessClubOne

26 Five Minute Prepping Projects

This article was written by Gaye Levy and originally posted at Backdoor Survival

images

One of the excuses used for not prepping is that it takes a lot of time. True enough. Anything that you pursue with passion and intensity is going to take some time. On the other hand, there are plenty of prepping activities that can be undertaken in just five minutes.

Come on. I said just five minutes. And five minutes a day over the course of a year? That 30 hours with a whole lot of prepping going on. Today I am sharing some preparedness projects that can be accomplished in just five minutes. So if you think you don’t have time to prep, think again.

Shall we start? Here are some 5 minute projects, listed in no particular order.

1. Purchase a prepping notebook or binder where you can accumulate information you need in the event of an emergency.

2. Wash out empty juice jugs, swish with a bit of bleach and fill them with water for an emergency. Be sure to date them so that you that you can rotate them on an annual basis.

3. Place a pair of shoes, socks, work gloves, a whistle, and a light stick or flashlight with batteries under your bed for use during or after an emergency.

4. Talk to family members about how you will re-unite with each other following a disaster.

5. Choose an out-of-state contact person that is willing to be a relay point for information after-the-fact to your other family members and loved ones. (Following a disaster, telephone lines to an out-of-state location may work when local calls do not.)

6. Introduce yourself to a neighbor you have not met. Exchange emergency telephone numbers.

7. Purchase a manual can opener on your next visit to the store.

8. Fill empty milk jugs or other plastic containers with water and store them in your freezer. The frozen jugs will keep your food colder for longer in the event of a power outage. The water can also serve as a backup source for cleaning or sanitation purposes.

9. Read Food Safety When the Grid Goes Down and print out the food safety charts at the at the FoodSafety.gov website. Attach them to the inside of a cupboard door so you have them handy after a power outage or disaster.

10. Mark your calendar with a date one year from now so that you remember to rotate your canned goods out of storage.

11. Purchase extra canned goods each time you visit the grocery store.

12. Locate your utility shutoff valves and review the instructions for turning them off. Place a shut-off tool by the door nearest to them

13. Test your smoke alarms.

14. Make a list of all of your prescription drugs along with dosages and keep the list in your emergency kit.

15. Take digital photos of each room in your house. Take five minutes for each room and do you best to capture as much as you can. This will facilitate any after the fact insurance claims.

16. Write down your insurance policy numbers and your agent’s phone number, and put them in your wallet and in your emergency kit.

17. Add $1 a week to your emergency cash fund. If you can afford it, add $5 per week (or more) to the fund.

18. Make digital copies of your important documents and store them on a flash drive.

19. Make a backup copy of the data on your computer hard drive and give it to a friend or relative to store for you. In computer terms, this is called “off site backup”.

20. Locate a source of water outside of your home such as a lake, pond or stream.

21. Learn to cook a pot of rice.

22. Download free prepping, survival and homesteading for e-books from Amazon as they become available. Check the Backdoor Survival Facebook page for almost daily announcements of books that are currently available – often for just a day or two.

23. Call (800-480-2520) or email FEMA (fema-publications-warehouse@fema.gov) to order a free copy of their excellent print book “Are You Ready Guide to Preparedness”. For more information about this publication, see Free for You: The “Are You Ready Guide to Preparedness”.

24. Practice starting a fire using a bit of dryer lint, a cotton ball soaked in petroleum jelly or a flint and steel.

25. Sow some seeds, fruits and veggies that is.

26. Visit one of the websites in the article Special Report: The Best Prepper Websites.

So there you go, 26 prepping projects that will take only five minutes each. Have some ideas of your own? I would love to have you share them in the comments below.

THE FINAL WORD

Preparing for a disaster or crisis or even an economic collapse does not have to be an insurmountable task. Breaking tasks down in to manageable chunks will make the job less chore-like and less of a burden. As a bonus, when you are done, you will feel the sense of satisfaction that comes from knowing that you have done something to secure your safety and well-being if it all goes to heck.

One thing for sure, you need to make every day a prepping day!

Enjoy your next adventure through common sense and thoughtful preparation!

Gaye

If you liked this article please think about sharing it on the social media listed below, thanks!

PreparednessClubOne

Why I Prepare

Why I Prepare

I think a great way to start off the New Year is to go back to square one and define why it is, we do what we do.  You see Prepper’s or survivalist’s have never been treated kindly by the media, but there has been some new negativity since it was discovered that the mother of the Sandy Hook shooter was a prepper and owned guns.  I think it is important to have an easily understandable, well thought out answer if someone were to ask us why we prepare.   You might agree with some of the reasons I list.  If so, great!  Either way, please take some time to define why you prepare and to explain that you’re not a nut-job.  If you want to share with the community, please post your answers in the comments section.  If you don’t want to share, that’s fine too.  Please, at least be thinking of how you might answer if someone asks you.

I prepare because I have eyes to see and ears to hear.  I am awake and aware that there are some very real dangers in the world, things that happen every day.  Most of these things are small in nature; ice storms, blackouts, blizzards, etc.  We also are facing a failing infrastructure, a very fragile electric grid, just-in-time-delivery to grocery stores, as well as countries and terrorist groups who have vowed to attack America and our interests.

I prepare because it is a part of who I am.  No matter how the media spins it, I am not a “crazed doomsday survivalist”.  I am a pragmatic realist who, to the best of my ability, wants to mitigate the things that can have a negative impact on my life.

I prepare because Proverbs 27:12 says the prudent thing to do is take precaution when we see a danger.

I do not prepare out of fear.  I prepare so I do not have to be afraid.  I am prepared, and therefore, I am not afraid that my family won’t have clean drinking water, food to eat, a warm place to sleep or safety from the things that go bump in the night.

I prepare because I love freedom, and being evacuated to a stadium is not my idea of freedom.  If I lost everything and this was my only option, I would take it.  Anything short of that and we’ll take care of ourselves, thank you.

I prepare because I think doing so makes me a good citizen.  If there is ever a disaster in my area, I will not be a drain on precious resources.

I prepare because, in our hi-tech modern world, we have forgotten how hard a low tech life can be.  Just because we have on-demand everything now, doesn’t mean we always will.

I prepare because I have never expected others to do for me.  This isn’t my pride, if a hand is offered and I need it, I will accept, but I will never be in expectation of that hand being out.

I prepare because I have health insurance, dental insurance, car insurance, home owners insurance, life insurance and vision insurance, just in case something bad happens.  I see preparing for the five basic human needs as a type of insurance.

I prepare because I think it makes me a responsible Christian.  If I am prepared and my family is cared for, I am better able to be Christ’s hands and feet to others in a disaster.  Spreading God’s love doesn’t stop in a disaster; in fact one could argue it needs to be spread more in such a time.

 

My name is Chris Ray and I am a Prepared Christian.

 
Please click here to vote for Prepared Christian as a top Prepper site!

If you liked this article please think about sharing it on the social media listed below, thanks!

PreparednessClubOne

Introducing the eBook Why Should I Prepare and is it Biblical?


I’m excited about releasing my first eBook today, called “Why Should I Prepare and is it Biblical?”. It’s a free gift to anyone who signs up for updates via email. Those of you who are already subscribers, thank you so much for subscribing previously. You should have received an email containing the link to the download page.  If you subscribe to the RSS feed and would like a copy, send an email via the contact page, letting me know you would like the link and I’ll send it to you.

This eBook explores some of the rational reasons I believe we should prepare, from the economy to natural disasters. The second half of the eBook explores some of the questions my wife and I had when we began to explore preparedness, such as “Is it a sin?” and “Does it show a lack of faith?” I also cover the verses I have found where God clearly tells us it is prudent and our duty to be prepared to care for our loved ones.

This eBook is free. Please feel free to share it with anyone you feel may be blessed by it and/or benefit from it. I simply ask that you not modify it in any way. If you send it to someone new or to someone who is on the fence about preparedness, I also link to the Getting Started to give them some first steps.

I have become a better (or possibly just lengthier) writer since I first posted “Is Preparedness A Sin?” and ”Scripture Related To Preparedness”. I have updated those articles with the text from the eBook.

To those of you who sign up for updates, thank you. I hope you enjoy the eBook as much as I enjoyed writing it.

May God bless you all,

Chris

 

Teaching Children About Preparedness

Exodus 18:20 “Teach them the decrees and laws, and show them the way to live and the duties they are to perform.”

I believe it is up to us to teach the next generation to be more independent and more self-reliant, to be prepared for what life might bring, and not to see government as a safety net that will always be there from cradle to grave. How you teach your kids about preparedness is completely your decision. Today, I am just going to give a few ideas and tips you may want to use. Much of this article will depend on the age and maturity of your kids.

 

Lead By Example

Kids often, for good or bad, mimic what their parents do or think that is just the way things are done. As an example, my mom made loads of jelly from our grapes, raspberry and strawberry plants. I was probably ten or eleven when it dawned on me that some people actually bought their jelly from a store.
If they see you storing more food or building a BOB, chances are they’ll ask what you’re doing. Just make sure you’re ready with an answer that will inform, not scare.

 

Use Examples They’re Familiar With

All kids do fire drills and tornado drills in school. They understand the concept of knowing how to do something and being ready to do something “just in case”. Explain that this is the same kind of thing; we hope that there isn’t ever a storm that makes it so we are without electricity, but we want to be ready just in case. Explain using the seatbelt; we put it on every time we get in the car, just in case there’s an accident.

 

Use Examples They’re Not Familiar With

With older kids, use your judgment on teaching them about some of the bigger scenarios that have a much slimmer chance of happening. We’ve talked to our kids about EMP and what life might be like. We had been Prepper’s for a while by then and were moderately prepared. Had we not had those preps to point to, I think it may have been a scarier conversation for them.

 

Be Honest

I’ve never been a believer in hiding bad or difficult things from kids. Hiding doesn’t get them ready for life, which is full of bad and difficult things. We just need to be prudent about when and how we expose them to these things.

If your kids are mature enough to understand the dangers and potential dangers we live in, explain that you want to be prepared to be able to take care of them if any of those things happens.
We’re to the point now that when the kids hear a news story about the economy or some other related preparedness item they point it out to me.

Here are a few resources that are mostly geared to younger children that you can use to teach your kids about preparedness.

 

FEMA

FEMA has come out with a few programs aimed at helping to teach children about preparedness. The Ready Kids Activity Book is a 16 page PDF that is part coloring book, part comic book and has word finds and other related activities.
They also have the Disaster Preparedness Coloring Book from 1993, which still contains relevant information. FEMA also now has Fun and Gameswhich contains many different preparedness related activities for kids.

 

Sesame Street

Sesame Street had originally partnered with FEMA, but it looks like they now have their own preparedness movement called Let’s Get Ready!

 

The Red Cross

The Red Cross has put together an Educators Kit called “Masters of Disasters”. They have curriculum for grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8.

 

Arthur


I had never seen this cartoon, but came across this episode on a forum some time ago. In it, there is a blackout and Arthurs’ family isn’t prepared. His neighbors on the other hand, you’ll have to watch to find out. I couldn’t find it in one stream, so it has been cut in two, both are linked below.

 

 

 

 

Five Things You Can Do to be Better Prepared

Below are five things that you can do to become better prepared. You might have some or all of these things already in place. If that’s the case, good for you! If not, pick one of the following and work towards it.

 

Develop a Communication Plan

Getting in touch with your loved ones in an emergency, to make sure everyone is alright, is of the utmost importance. However, in an emergency, cell phone traffic can be blocked or over-loaded. Landlines can become over-loaded as well. So, what are your options?

Texting uses far less bandwidth and can sometimes get through when a regular call would not. If you have a smart phone, you could update your status on social media or send an e-mail. Another good option is to have a long distance contact. In an emergency, if your family is separated, everyone would call this long distance contact to check in. The reason for this is that while the local lines may be bogged down, sometimes the long distance lines work and a call can go through.

I also highly recommend that you have a hard copy of all important phone numbers that are stored in your cell phone. You never know when your battery will die or you’ll lose your phone. I covered this in more detail in Low Tech Data Storage. I also covered a couple ways of simple encryption you can use to protect that data in Secure Your Personal Data with Low Tech Cryptology.
 
 
Know your weaknesses and how to mitigate them

This is possibly the most important thing you can do, both for your person and for your location. In Preparing for Physical Limitations, I cover how to examine your health and find ways to mitigate potential or existing dangers. I gave the example of my leg. Right now, if I had to bug out, my leg couldn’t go for very long. I have devised some ways to make it less of a possible liability to me.

In How to do a Threat Assessment, I explain how to discover potential or existing threats in your home, in your neighborhood and in your general area. I also explain that you should do this for your bug out routes.
 
 
Be prepared to shelter in place

I believe that in the vast majority of situations, battening down (bugging in, staying home) is the best choice. You should be prepared to support you and your family, including pets, for an absolute minimum of seven days. I do think you should be able to do so for longer, but if you don’t have enough supplies right now, make seven days your temporary goal. This means food, water, medicines, proper shelter (heat if cold out), security for each member of your family and, again, pets.
 
 
Have a bug out plan including a kit

As I said, in the vast majority of situations, battening down is a better idea. Mr. Murphy (Murphy’s Law) and his cousin Mr. Dirtbag can sometimes make it safer to leave home. For this reason you should have a BOB (Bug Out Bag)BOB (Bug Out Bag) stocked with seasonal clothes. If you do not have a BOL (Bug Out Location) I explain in Bugging Out or Battening Down? how you can pick four, one for each direction away from your home. When it is actively hitting the fan is not the time to figure out where to go and how to get there. Do this now. Pick a spot with multiple routes.
 
 
Know where you can get water and how to purify it

Aside from oxygen, water is the most important thing to human life. Don’t take your tap, the grocery store or anywhere else you buy your water, for granted. Identify the closest place you can get water. Also know how to purify it. If you do not have a water source nearby then you might consider storing more.

If you do these five things you will be further along the path to taking care of your family in an emergency situation.

 

Filling Your Pantry by Copy Canning

Preparedness Tip:

I learned about copy canning from the video Urban Master Volume 1 “The Home”, created by the late Ron Hood and his wife. The process is very easy and is as follows:

  1. You decide you want chicken noodle soup for lunch so you take a can out of your pantry.
  2. Add chicken noodle soup to the shopping list.
  3. When you go to the grocery store, you buy two instead of one. (If you used two cans, you guessed it, you buy four.)

This is a great way to build your pantry to the point where you’re at the maximum amount of any item you want to store. Then you simply move back to buying just one when you use one.

Here are some links to other articles on food storage, these can help in stocking your pantry as well.

Food Storage Part One: Why Store Food And The Rules For It.
Food Storage Part Two: The Kind Of Foods That You Can Store
Food Storage Part Three: Shelf Life of Staples.
Food Storage Part Four: The Process and Enemies of Food Storage.
Food Storage Part Five: How much food should you store and where should you put it all?
Food Storage Part Six: Tips On Stocking Up and Affording it all.
Food Storage Part Seven: Food Boredom to Survival Cooking .

 
Please click here to vote for Prepared Christian as a top Prepper site!

If you liked this article please think about sharing it on the social media listed below, thanks!

Preparedness Club

Why Store Food And The Rules For It

Why Store Food And The Rules For It

Water might be the most important part of a preparedness plan but food storage is the most complex. With water, once you know where to find it, how to purify and store it you pretty much have it nailed. Because food storage is so involved I am going to break it up into manageable segments.

First I’ll cover why you should store food and food storage rules and principals.
 
 
Why store food?

As I wrote in “Should You Prepare? Part One and Part Two. Most of us carry multiple types of insurance incase we get an in accident, or become ill. Do you plan on getting in a car accident? Or how about getting sick enough to need to see a doctor? Nope, me either, yet we pay for this insurance every month just in case.

Now how many times is your family going to eat this week? A family of four eating three times a day will eat 84 meals, that’s not counting snacks. Yet the average family has less than a weeks worth of food stored. To me its just prudent to have an insurance policy that will guarantee my family will be able to continue doing something we do multiple times a day?

We have become a society dependant on a grocery store that uses “just in time” delivery system. The process of getting food from harvest (from places all around the world) to your table is very complex. The more complex something is, the more susceptible it is to failure. Failures caused by things such as not enough rain, wildfires, blight, price of oil and many more.

Another reason to store food now is that the price of it is going up now as shown in this Secret Wal-Mart Survey Shows Inflation Already Here, and many are expecting hyperinflation. Even if we only experience normal inflation, the prices today are probably still going to be lower than they will in a few months. Since much of the food you store will be eaten anyway, this is a way to save money. It has not happened in America to any large extent, but there have been many countries suffering from food shortages. Just search for “Global food shortage” in your favorite search engine, the amount of sites is staggering. Some of the information may be a year or two old, but things are getting worse, not better. Here are just two stories from mainstream sites; one from the Financial Post that says Forget oil, the new global crisis is food And another from the Washington Post that states Global Food Crisis: The new world of soaring food prices.
 
 
Food Storage Rules:

What makes a food “shelf stable”?
A shelf stable food is one that will not spoil for at least six months without refrigeration, when packaged and stored correctly. Some examples are canned vegetables, canned meats, white rice, dried beans, pasta and sugar.

FIFO: First in, first out.
This just means when you buy new food put it behind the old food to ensure the older food gets consumed first.

Store what you eat and eat what you store.

This is one of the core tenants of preparedness, or the golden rule of prepping. How do you put this into practice? Grab your prepping notebook and every time anyone uses a shelf stable food write it down, do this for two weeks. These are the foods that you should store and rotate.

This can work with frozen food as well, but if the power goes out, you have a limited amount of time before the food spoils. That is unless you have a generator to keep the fridge and freezer running.

There is caveat with “store what you eat, eat what you store”, I may catch some flak for saying this, but it doesn’t work for everyone. By that I mean, that it is not feasible to store the kinds of food they consume on a daily basis.

Many years ago, people cooked much of their food from scratch. Today, many meals are eaten out, or something that is precooked is thrown in the oven to reheat. I know many different kinds of people fall into this category, everyone from single parents, to folks with busy schedules. I’m not saying its right or wrong, heck my family falls into this category for a few different reasons.

How should people in this category prep? I can only tell you what we have done, which one of the things we have done is store some staples such as beans, rice, wheat berries, salt, sugar and other staples, stored in Mylar bags, with oxygen absorbers. Stored this way and kept in a cool dark room the shelf life is very long. I’ll cover this process soon.

Critics of storing foods that are not a part of our normal diet will say that eating foods that we don’t normally eat, like red beans and rice, will be a shock to our systems. While this may be true, it’s less of a shock then starving. I can also mitigate the shock with some over the counter medicines.

Is this the ideal way to stock up? Nope. Will we have wasted some money and have to give away or throw some of the food we have stored? Possibly, but I look at it like this. I spent roughly $100 on car insurance for my family last month. None of us got in an accident; do I think the money was wasted? Heck no, my peace of mind is worth that and more.

My wife and I have also purchased some books like “The Amazing Wheat Book“and “ Making the most of basics”. Make a point of learning to cook with basics, even if it’s just an occasional meal. Cooking with basics is like any other skill in prepping, it’s better to own the skill, before you need to rely on the skill.
 
 

Here are the links to the other food storage articles.

Food Storage Part One: Why Store Food And The Rules For It.
Food Storage Part Two: The Kind Of Foods That You Can Store
Food Storage Part Three: Shelf Life of Staples.
Food Storage Part Four: The Process and Enemies of Food Storage.
Food Storage Part Five: How much food should you store and where should you put it all?
Food Storage Part Six: Tips On Stocking Up and Affording it all.
Food Storage Part Seven: Food Boredom to Survival Cooking .

 
Please click here to vote for Prepared Christian as a top Prepper site!

If you liked this article please think about sharing it on the social media listed below, thanks!

Preparedness Club