February 2016 Newsletter

Emergency Preparedness and Provident Living Newsletter

February 2016

Do you use the FIFO system for Food storage?

FIFO is short for First in, First out.  This means that the foods you bought first, are the first ones you are using.  Use the oldest foods first.  This is the best way to ensure that nothing gets too old and will be wasted.

Even if you do not have a fancy food rotation shelving system you can do this.  Always put the purchase date on your foods and pull your older items forward.  Put the newest items in the back or on the bottom.  This is what they do in the grocery store.  There are many free ideas and plans on the internet, just search for DIY rotating can rack ideas.

How long will food last in cans such as vegetables and soups? 

Lately as I have been buying new canned goods I have been checking the “USE BY DATE” stamped on the cans.  It looks like they are suggesting that you eat the canned goods within 2 years of production.  No matter how quickly you eat things, it is always best to store your foods in the coolest, darkest and driest place possible to prolong the shelf-life. I had some store-bought green beans that were 3 years past the expiration date and were gross.  We could not eat them and we threw them away.    Home canned/bottled fruits and vegetables in glass canning jars can last a lot longer and will still taste good. Over time they will lose some of their vitamins and nutrition but will still be good to eat.  Light colored fruits though will turn dark and not look as appetizing. You may decide to store the light colored foods in the original cardboard canning boxes.  Tape a label on the outside of the box and put a date on it.

You can eat foods in cans that have dents.  Yes, you can. But, keep in mind that you really should use those soon as the dent will eventually cause deterioration in the metal and the food can spoil sooner.  Just get a marker and write “Use me up soon” on the lid and put it in front.

Use what you have and replace it as you use it.  First in, first out!

Growing and processing your own foods for true independence.  No man who relies on others for his food is truly independent.   Now is the time to learn how to grow a garden, even a small one.  This is the time of year to start buying your seeds and gardening supplies.  Dedicate a spiral notebook to be your gardening journal and start to sketch your garden plans in it.  Gardening rarely turns out as good as we hope. There is a big learning curve.  Now is the time to practice your gardening skills so you can become more independent.

 Preserving documents: 

Before you ever need to evacuate your home or if it is destroyed by a fire, flood or tornado…you should have a plan for your vital documents.

There are several options for making copies of your vital documents.  Whichever method you choose is up to you but you should have the copies stored in a different location.  The BEST thing to have would be the ORIGINALS or course, but if something happened to those, at least you could have copies and your photo ID to get you back on the road to recovering from a disaster.

Documents you would want to have preserved:

1)      Birth or adoption certificates for every person in your home.

2)      Passports or Visas

3)      Social Security cards

4)      Insurance forms for life, car, home, medical etc (include photos of the items and rooms)

5)      Pet and human vaccine records

6)      Marriage certificates

7)      Advance Directives if you have any

8)      Church records

9)      A Fairly recent photo of each person in the family.

10)  Anything else that you really should save.                           

Options for having extra copies.

1)       Take a large 3 ring binder and make copies and place in sheet protectors and keep that in a different location.  Or, keep the originals in the binder and have that in a place where you can grab it quickly as you evacuate your home.  Label it in a way that if your home was broken into, a thief would not know what it is.  You might choose to do BOTH of these methods.

2)       Scan all important documents and save the digital copies onto a thumb drive or disk.  Keep the thumb drive or disk at a bank in a safe deposit box or at your work in a safe or a trusted relative’s home.  Some people also choose to keep these in their 72 hr kit or bug-out bag.

3)      No matter which method you choose above, it is a great idea to keep your vital documents in a water-proof and fire-proof safe in your home.  Bolt the safe to the floor and keep well hidden.  For more ideas on this subject just use your favorite internet search engine or check out www.thesurvivalmom.com and   http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net  

4)      Keep in mind that there are some ready-made binders for this purpose for sale on line.  They are expensive, but you can make your own for pretty cheap.  It does not need to be fancy.  I made our binder using a 2 inch 3-ring binder, sheet protectors and some dividers with tabs.

                                        

September 2014 Newsletter

Product Highlight of the Month:  Victorio Steam Juicer

This easy-to-use machine is well worth the money if you plan on harvesting a lot of fruit, especially grapes.  The juice can then be made into jelly if you want. Nectar is a thicker juice that can be made from peaches or apricots.  If you put apple slices in the steamer you can get juice and then can the pulp left behind as apple sauce.  It is great for fruit that may not look pretty enough to can as halves.  Remove any undesired spots after washing and make into juice instead. You can also use it to juice tomatoes and other vegetables. It acts like a giant double-boiler.  Wash your fruit or vegetables and remove any LARGE stems or other pieces that you do not want juiced.  Fill the basket with your fruit.  Peels and seeds are fine to leave in.  The steam from the bottom pan will break the skins open.  Wait a while and then squeeze the clamp on the tube to release the juice straight into a clean, hot jar.  Put hot, prepared lid on and wait for it to seal on its own.  No mess and it is super easy to use.  You just keep adding more fruit every-so-often to the basket to keep the process going.  Do be sure to add more water to the bottom pan about every 1 ½ hrs. At the end of the canning session, dump the garbage left in the basket.  This steam juicer comes in two metals and price ranges.  The aluminum juicer is around $50-60.  The stainless steel costs quite a bit more.  In Utah you can find it at IFA Country Stores, Cal Ranch Stores and Macey’s as well as on-line.

Emergency Water Storage Information

Water is the most important thing to have in your food storage plan.  People cannot live without water for more than 3 days.  Our City Water supply is very vulnerable to sabotage and other problems with the system.  It is very easy to get started on storing at least a small amount of water in your home.  Do what you can, no matter where you live.  Here are a few things to remember when storing water:

1)      Each family should have a minimum of 2 gallons per person, per day. A Starting goal should be enough for 2 weeks.

2)      If you are using City water, it has been treated and does not need any other treatment if stored in a clean PETE container.  You may choose to add special water treatment tablets or a few drops of chlorine if in doubt.

3)      DO NOT store water in milk jugs.  You may safely store water in re-used soda or juice bottles.  Look for the PETE symbol on the bottom of the bottle.  Just wash them out first.

4)      If using large plastic barrels, make sure that they are NEW or have only been used for water, soda or other human foods before.  If you are not sure what was stored in it before…do not use the water for drinking!

5)      The darker the plastic bottle/barrel and the darker the storage area, the less likely that algae will be able to grow in the bottle during storage.    

6)      I personally like to have some of our water in small bottles in case we have to evacuate.  I like to have some of our water in the large blue barrels in case there is a disruption in the water supply and we are at home.  Be sure to also have a pump made to get the water out of the barrels!

7)      To improve the taste of water that has been stored, simply pour the water back and forth between 2 containers to add oxygen.  You can also add any powdered flavoring. 

8)      There are many water storage container options on the market.  Do what works for your family.

    

blue barrel and pump 30-55 gallon

re-fill clean juice or soda bottles with water

The Super Tanker water storage system

5 gallon water brick, stackable containers

                            

Vital Documents Binder

Storing, organizing and protecting your Vital Documents is one of the most important things you should do for everyday and especially during an emergency.  We have always kept these documents in a file in a file cabinet but it was always an unorganized mess.  It would take several minutes of digging through all the papers just to find a child’s immunization record for scouts or school, every year.  We recently learned of a new and easy way to keep them handy and organized.  We simply created a 3-ring binder just for these documents. Why did it take so long for us to do this?  (Store where your family knows where it is, but a burglar hopefully will not find it).  Some people choose to use a bright colored binder so it is easy to find.  You might choose to use a plain colored one and hide it in plain sight instead. If you ever have to evacuate your home be sure to take this with you.  If your home is destroyed, in most cases you must have the original document and not a copy!

Items needed:

1- 1 ½” or larger 3 ring binder                      sheet protectors

8 or more divider tabs

Fill the binder with the sheet protectors.  Create sections for each document that you do not want to lose.  Suggested documents to keep in here are:  Birth Certificates, Social Security Cards, Marriage Certificate, Diplomas, Titles to homes and cars, insurance papers, Powers of Attorney, Medical Advance Directives, immunization records, church records, a color photo of each family member and a list of distinguishing marks etc.