I was recently asked in an email about how to prepare ourselves for what looks like a not-too-distant war that our country may be involved in. And how people can prepare for possible food shortages. Remember the Great Depression and the rationing of WWII? You do not have to be old enough to have lived through it. We can all learn from it. There are so many documentaries on YouTube about how people were affected by the war and what they did to survive. In the UK the rationing went on for several years after the war ended. I am happy to share a list of videos with you if you ask. Now that Thanksgiving has passed, I can take a few minutes to write an answer.
The answer is "The Primary Answers of Food Storage". The church of Jesus Christ has counseled us to store a year-supply of the foods we eat and the everyday things we need and use. Do we have at least a 3-month supply of the things we eat every day? This varies from family to family. What does your family need? A 3-month supply is only the beginning. Do not stop with 3 months. Once you have 3 months, keep adding to that until you have a year. I see people commenting on social media all the time that "the Church says we only need 3 months." That is not true. They did not read the entire article.
While we are doing this, we should be buying LONG-TERM foods that will sustain life. These foods are at the moment, easy to find, fairly inexpensive and have a long shelf-life. The Church sells many of these foods at the Home Storage Centers. These foods include whole grains such as wheat, oats, white rice, dried beans, dry pasta, honey, salt, sugar and dried apple slices and dried carrots. You can order these on the church website and have them shipped to you for almost zero shipping fees. www.churchofjesuschrist.org/store or www.providentliving.org under the food storage button. In addition to having these foods, we need to know how to cook them.
A couple years ago I started looking for WWII era cookbooks online to buy and I also buy used food storage books at thrift stores. For those with special diets they need to store things they can eat. They need to do what works for their needs. (I have been preaching this information for 15 years. So, this is nothing new.)
Each family should have a minimum of a 2-weeks supply of water for an emergency. That is 2 gallons per person, per day. This is NOT enough for bathing or doing dishes or for pets. Do we also have at least one way to filter and purify water that may not be safe to drink? I highly recommend having more than just one way to do this. There are gravity filters and ceramic filters and Berkey systems as well as Life Straw and Sawyer among other brands.
Are we trying to get out of debt? This is probably the hardest thing to do. We need to prioritize our needs and wants and take care of our responsibilities. Maybe instead of spending $5000 on a vacation, we stay home and buy food storage items and some fuel, a generator, build garden boxes, plant fruit trees etc. (This advice usually makes a few people mad).
Do we have our Vital Documents stored as a copy on a thumb drive? Are the Originals in a zippered 3-ring binder ready to go if and when we evacuate? One can add zippered pencil pouches to that binder to hold cash, keys, passports etc. Maps... buy some old-fashioned paper maps and include those as well. I bought one that shows every urban street in my suburban area. And I bought some that show the entire state in great detail in case of evacuation.
Do we have a really good first aid kit assembled, and do we have some over-the-counter medications stored? One can go beyond that and learn about herbal remedies and how to make them. Do you have books on wild edibles and herbs for your area?
Do we know how to GROW FOOD? Do we have edible landscaping? This can go on and on.
I am now posting information all the time on Facebook in the groups I Admin. You can email me at wendydriggsprep@gmail.com and ask me which groups those are.
Google will not allow me to share from my Google Drive now. But I have downloaded everything to my laptop. You can always email me and request information and handouts on any topic you want. I am also happy to share with people my favorite YouTube channels to stay up to date on current events and those that give sound advice on how to prepare.
The Christmas season is now upon us. If you have loved ones that are not very prepared, I encourage people to give preparedness items. You can give long-term foods, small kits or at least a start to a kit such as a power outage kit or a camping mess kit or a 96 hour kit or a First Aid kit. You can also offer to teach a skill or share something that you made using the preparedness skills you have learned.
If you are interested, I still have some copies left for sale of a cookbook that I published recently. It has over 200 pages of family recipes as well as recipes and instructions on building up your food storage, how to make dressings, sauces, mixes, how to make multiple dairy products from your powdered milk, kefir, water kefir, apple cider vinegar, ghee and many other things. The cost is $20/ book and shipping is available. I have a few on hand in my home in Utah. I am currently waiting for 100 more copies to arrive in the future. I am crossing my fingers they arrive by Christmas.
All of the information you need is included on the order form. Please read it carefully. Make note of the price, shipping etc and how to pay. We except Venmo and PayPal. The order form link is HERE: Cookbook Order Form
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