We’ve all seen the grocery stores and how food and other items are flying off the shelves. It’s clear that people are panicking and grabbing everything they can, sparking runs on things like toilet paper.

This is apparently not going to stop anytime soon, as it appears that many of the same people are returning to the store over and over again, hoarding things, rather than just buying what they need for the foreseeable future.

I think it’s important to note that these people are considerably different than preppers in that they are panic buying, rather than building a well-reasoned stockpile.

There’s also a lot of them doing it at the same time, rather than doing it over a long period of time, gradually building their stockpile.

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It is this rush to buy, which is causing the current shortages.

Things quickly reached a point where the panic was fueling itself. People who went to the store for a few basic necessities saw what was happening and started buying, motivated by the empty shelves they were seeing.

We must keep in mind that there is no shortage of food or even toilet paper. The apparent shortage has come about because of this panic buying.

The supply chain is being stretched beyond the breaking point, as truckers are working overtime to rush the product to the store’s shelves and make up for the buying frenzy that’s going on.

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Buy Strategically

If there’s anything you need, that you don’t already have, the early morning, when the stores first open, is the time to get it.

Many stores have shortened their hours so that they can use the night shift to clean and restock. So the shelves are the most full they’re going to be first thing in the morning, before the rush hits. Of course, that rush starts hitting as soon as they open the doors.

While the president has called for a two-week lockdown, on the advice of the CDC, chances are that that time frame will be extended.

Some self-proclaimed “experts” are claiming that the lockdown will extend as far as June. But these are all guesses, as the president and his closest advisors don’t know what they’re going to do yet.

They’re waiting to see what results in the current lockdown has and then from there try to project what will happen if they continue the lockdown and what will happen if they don’t.

With that in mind, it only makes sense to increase your stockpile, if you don’t already have enough.

That raises the question of “What should you be stockpiling?” There’s no question that this crisis is different than those we have all prepared for.

So does it make sense to follow those rules? Or are there new rules which apply to this situation?

The answer to that is actually rather simple. While the current pandemic is very similar to a number of other disaster scenarios we’ve all talked about, there is one overriding difference that affects everything… we have electric power. So our refrigerated and frozen food isn’t going to go bad.

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What Will You Need?

With that out of the way, what foods should you be stockpiling? I’m going to limit myself to just food items here, as I think we all know we need hand sanitizer and rubbing alcohol.

Many of the grocery chains and big box stores are limiting the purchase of a long list of items that they are currently running shortages on.

This means that part of our buying strategy is going to have to be to make sure we buy those items when we can; banking them for the day when we can’t get them but need them. We don’t need to go overboard with that, but we want to make sure that we have what we need.

Personally, my wife and I have decided that we are not going to add to the problem by buying more than what we need.

Experts predict that an EMP strike that wipes out electricity across the nation would ultimately lead to the demise of up to 90% of the population. However, this figure begs an important question: if we were able to live thousands of years without even the concept of electricity, why would we suddenly all die without it?

While I could buy six months’ worth of food, I’m not. I’m limiting myself to what I need to get through the next month or two. But we are constantly reevaluating the situation and may make adjustments to that, as we see necessary.

• Meat, Poultry & Fish – Protein is an essential macronutrient, which we get primarily from animals. Buy what you can and freeze it. I prefer buying the large “family packs” when I can and then repackaging them for freezing
• Fresh Fruits & Vegetables – Stick with hardy ones, which won’t go bad in the refrigerator. Apples last longer than bananas; cabbage and celery last longer than lettuce
• Rice Cakes – Bread is flying off the shelves, but I’ve seen rice cakes every time I went to the store. They’re a good substitute for that bread, once you get used to them
• Soup Base & Bouillon – You can make anything into a soup, which is especially useful when you have picky eaters who don’t like leftovers
• Oatmeal – makes for a heartier breakfast and doesn’t go stale as breakfast cereal does
• Dried Fruit – That hasn’t flown off the shelves, although canned has. The dried is just as good for snacking, cooking or desert
• Frozen Vegetables – Probably a staple in your family’s diet
• Pasta & Rice – Good staples which are getting hard to find
• Dried Beans – Depending on how much a part they play in your normal diet. If you don’t normally eat them, you really don’t need to start for this crisis
• Canned Vegetables & Fruit – If you already have these in your stockpile, there’s no need; but if you don’t have them, they’re a great backup to your fresher food choices.
• Milk & Eggs – Get them while you can. Milk won’t keep long, but eggs will. With everyone at home, you’ll probably go through more.
• Powdered Milk – Most people don’t like powdered milk, but it can be used for cooking, especially baking. It can also be used to extend your milk supply, mixing it half and half with whole milk to improve the flavor.

What Not to Stockpile

There are a few items I wouldn’t bother stockpiling, more than your normal usage:

• Water – If you have a water filtration system, you don’t need to be stockpiling water
• Junk Food – This might be an ideal opportunity to get your family to eat a little healthier. Just make sure you have something available for snacks
• Frozen Breakfast Items – It’s not hard to cook these yourself, so why bother?
• Frozen Bread Items – They’re awfully expensive for what you get
• Frozen Pizza – I’d rather support my local small businesses and buy pizza from a pizzeria
• Food Already in Your Stockpile – If you already have things in your food stockpile, there’s no reason to buy more now. This is what you’ve been stockpiling them for. Leave what’s there for the people who didn’t think ahead.

Whatever you do, take the time to think it through. You and have had the luxury of time to mentally prepare for a crisis, unlike the rest of the people out there.

We don’t need to panic and we don’t need to follow the herd instinct. Rather, we’re the ones marching to the beat of a different drum; that of the prepared.

Have you ever thought about living without electricity, internet or mobiles? We can guarantee that the majority of our readers can never imagine this kind of scenarios.

However, there are chances that this type of conditions arises in your life due to flooding, tornadoes, draught or even war.

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Opposed to what people think food crisis are very common. In fact there are countries and regions which are going through one right now. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that nearly 870 million people, or one in eight, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2010-2012. Almost all the hungry people, 852 million, live in developing countries. But there are 16 million people undernourished in developed countries including US.

My guess is none of you experienced a long time hunger. But probably most of you are familiar with the feeling of skipping 3 or 4 meals. Not a very pleasant one. During that time did you experience fatigue or dizziness? These are the first general symptoms of malnutrition. If you don’t eat for days, your condition will get worse and you start losing weight. Your body will consume first the fat reserves, than your protein (muscles). If untreated, starvation may lead to mental or physical disability, illness, and possibly death. An average man cannot survive without food for more than 8 weeks. A food crisis may last for months or years. And it’s not enough to stockpile food In order to properly prepare yourself and your family. Take into consideration that you may develop malnutrition if you lack a single vitamin in the diet. This is why it’s very important to start preparing after having read a proper guide.

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WHAT CREATES FOOD CRISES?

There are many reasons why people cannot grow or buy enough food to feed their families. Most of the reasons causing a food crisis are a combination of the issues below. A hunger crisis develops when families experience these factors for a long time and run out of ways to cope.

POVERTY

The main reason why most people are unable to feed themselves is that they cannot afford it. And this is exactly the issue in many poor countries. You may think poverty cannot be an important factor in the US, but in a major economic SHTF event things could start to get out of hand. When economy collapses the food will become scarce, like the North Korean famine 1994-1998.

For example the 9/11 attacks had both immediate and long-term economic impacts. The attacks caused the Dow to drop more than 600 points and led to one of the biggest government spending programs in U.S. history – the War on Terror. Now think about the US spendings in case of a real threatening war or maybe a world war. In the First World War Germany capitulated because of its economic collapse. Families were actually starving back home: 763,000 German civilians died from starvation and disease caused by the Allied blockade. This is only an example, but there are hundreds of similar scenarios.

NATURAL DISASTERS

Drought, flooding, hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes can disrupt the commercial means of alimentation. You might have all the money in the world but no food to buy. Remember when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, a lot of stranded people in New Orleans endured hunger, little water and limited emergency supplies for days. What happened during Katrina could also happen on a wider scale. Climate change is having an increased impact on food production as droughts and flooding become more frequent and more severe. Natural disasters are very real and very likely to happen even more than once in a lifetime. When it strikes will you be prepared? It very well can happen tomorrow. And could last for four years like the Tempo Famine in Japan.

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CONFLICTS

Food crisis are very often associated with conflicts. War makes delivery of food much more difficult, particularly if aid workers are attacked and supplies are looted. Conflict can drive people from their homes and away from their normal food supply, leave them unable to afford food or simply stop them planting. The deadliest war in modern African history had killed 5.4 million people, mostly from disease and starvation, making the Second Congo War the deadliest conflict worldwide since World War II. Even after the war had ended, 1,000 people died daily in 2004 from malnutrition and disease.

DISEASE

Food shortages are also often associated with widespread epidemics. Disease outbreaks such as the 2005 Ebola-like Marburg virus in Angola put pressure on food supplies as deliveries ceased due to drivers staying away. If a new deadly virus hits the USA, I doubt people will be confortable leaving their homes. And rightly getting in touch with as few people as possible may save your life. If you have stockpiled food, of if you have the means to produce it, then there’s no need to worry.

Of course there are other factors that may start a food crisis. For example the famine in Ukraine – a man-made famine in 1932 and 1933 that killed up to 7.5 million Ukrainians. There are 127 recorded great famines and almost at any given historical period there was a food crisis somewhere in the world.

HOW TO BE PREPARED FOR A FOOD CRISIS?

In case of a food shortage you should be aware that grocery stores only have about 3 days of food in stock. People will rush and buy as much as they can so probably the food will vanish in less than a day or hours.  So if anything was to disrupt the food supply chain for an extended period of time, there would be chaos in most communities. It’s very important to start preparing NOW. There are several ways to start. The choice you make should depend on the event you are preparing for. Of course the best way is to prepare for all scenarios including long periods.

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1.    STOCKPILING FOOD

You should see your Food Bank as an investment. My advice is to buy food that you actually like to eat. So in case a major SHTF event will not hit until the expiration date of your food, then you can eat it (without spending additional money on food) and then renew your stock.

Another issue is where and how to properly stockpile food. You may need to create some space to keep the extra food, both frozen, and dry/canned goods. This may mean purchasing an extra freezer, or some closed storage shelves. If you have a panic room or maybe a basement you can start stockpiling there. Check storing advice (temperature, humidity, etc.) on the packages and see if it matches with your stockpiling room. Remember you should easily access this room and very few people should know about it.

Decide what food you want to store and how much. This depends on the food crisis period you want to be prepared for and of course, the budget, you plan to invest.

You can find bellow some items easy to stock because they have lengthy expiration dates, so you can stash them away for long periods of time. Make a list of everything you actually like and take into consideration that your stock has all the vitamins, carbohydrates, minerals, fats and protein. In a food crisis, the most important food is the one with most carbohydrates which are the main fuel for physical energy. So keep in mind that having at least on item like rice, pasta, cereals is almost mandatory.

Before stocking other items take into consideration:
Bottled water: If a person can live without food for more than a month, without water it’s unlikely to survive more than 4 days; a normally active person should drink at least a half-gallon of water each day;
Salt: One of the most useful items. It’s used for storing food, curing beef, and flavoring most meals. Salt will stay forever!
Supplements: Multivitamins and minerals will help replace the nutrients you would have consumed on a normal diet;
Peanut Butter: Peanut butter is a source of protein, fat, and calories; can last up to five years;
Fish:  essential fatty acids to keep your immune system strong. Also contains vitamin D. Try storing dried fish, canned or frozen fish;
Powdered milk: contain all twenty-one standard amino acids, and are high in vitamins and minerals.  The typical average amounts of major nutrients are 36% protein, 52% carbohydrates, calcium 1.3%, and potassium 1.8%. One of the best items to get your calcium from;  if stored properly can last for more than 2 years;

Carbohydrates
Rice: If kept properly rice may stay in good condition for 10 years or more; there are a lot of dishes you can do with rice;
Pasta: Stores extremely well and like rice can you can make a lot of dishes;
Flour and whole grains:  Grains are the cheapest items one can buy on a per-pound basis. If you have the means to grind than you should stock whole grain because it preserves better;
Nuts and trail mix: high-energy foods, healthful and convenient for snacking.

Protein
Beans: High in protein, and if stored properly can stay for up to ten years. Make sure to store them in a cool, dry, dark location.
Canned Meat: typically will keep for 6-10 years and they’re an excellent source of protein. If the grid is down for a long time it’s very important to have this item because excessive hunting and fishing may extinct some species;

Experts predict that an EMP strike that wipes out electricity across the nation would ultimately lead to the demise of up to 90% of the population. However, this figure begs an important question: if we were able to live thousands of years without even the concept of electricity, why would we suddenly all die without it?

Vitamins
Canned Fruit & Vegetables: Not a very good source of calories and it takes a lot of space to store but the best natural source of vitamins;
Dried fruits, such as apricots and raisins: potassium and dietary fiber; really easy to store;

Fat
Lard: offer much-needed calories during times of crisis, cooking oil for multiple uses, and it will keep longer than cooking oils because of the hydrogenation;

Sugars
Honey is also excellent as it will store forever. Mostly made from sugars and contains only trace amounts of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants;

2.    PRODUCE YOUR OWN FOOD

Although it’s very important to stock food, on a long-term food crisis can be wiser to have the means to produce your own food. If you live in a city and you don’t have a backyard, you should take into consideration buying at least one acre somewhere in the countryside. Most famine victims are townspeople. Living in the countryside makes it much easier to procure your food. If you don’t know much about gardening, then start small with a few garden boxes for tomatoes, herbs, or sprouting. And also you can raise animals. Choose only domestic animals that can provide you with more than meet: chickens or ducks for eggs, cows or sheep for milk, fishes for fish eggs. Just like stockpiling food think that you should get all vitamins, carbohydrates, protein, fats, and minerals.

Remember that you may need to:

• Protect Your Harvest against looters: visibly mark your land and if you have the means try building a fenced yard; looters will know that your land it’s better defended so it’s likely to try stealing from someone else; always keep a gun by your side;
• Learn Food Preservation: maybe you need to store food for the winter or maybe you want to have a food reserve just in case. Food preservation comes in many forms such as canning, pickling, and dehydrating. Some tools and materials are required along with a good deal of knowledge. Also, build a basement to better stock your food;
• Store Seeds: save some of the harvests to collect the seeds and to plant them the next year. Collect your seeds from the healthiest plants. Also, learn how to properly store and plant them;
• Trade Food in order to supply with other materials you can’t procure otherwise;

One of the best ways to produce your food in a SHTF situation is to build an AQUAPONIC SYSTEM. Aquaponics combines hydroponics and aquaculture into one symbiotic system consisting of plants and aquatic organisms. Practically an Aquaponic System it’s a self-sustained bio system where the fish excrements are broken down by nitrogen-fixing bacteria into nitrates and nitrites which are utilized by the plants as nutrients. The water is then recirculated back to the aquaculture system. It’s a win, win, win for the plants, the fish and for you.

I’d rather choose aquaponics in a food crisis or major SHTF situation because:

• It can provide you with almost any type of vegetables/fruits and fish; you’ll have all your protein, vitamins, calories and good fats; you’ll also have fish eggs;
• Aquaponics saves water; in case of a drought or in a SHTF when water may become scarce keep in mind that your plant will not be affected; aquaponics uses 90% less water than soil-based agriculture because the water recirculates within the system rather than seeps away;
• You’ll always have a surplus of water for you and your family to drink;
• Plants grow faster. Because we are continually bringing fresh nutrient to the plants they grow faster;  you’ll find that plants growing faster mean you need half the space than in soil based gardening;
• Can be adapted for small spaces; In urban environments where space is a valuable commodity, it can come in all shapes and sizes.

You may consider aquaponics not only for a food crisis but also as a mean to produce healthy, fresh food for your family.

More so, Dr. Nate Storey, a Ph.D. at the University of Wyoming in Agronomy, inventor, and CEO at Bright Agrotech has recently increased aquaponic production using zipgrow towers. You can now grow 3 times more vegetables using this vertical planting method.

The flexibility of creating your own farm is part of what makes this method so popular. Systems can range from small backyard setups to vast commercial systems that fill up entire rooms. You can use fresh water or salt water. You can choose different types of fish and plants as well.

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The Great Depression is almost universally thought of as the darkest time in recent U.S. history from at least a financial standpoint. Like many of you, I know close family members who lived through the depression and their stories of the hardships, but more precisely how they made do regardless of the times, always seem to fascinate me. People were much hardier back then I believe. This period of time is how we imagine life at its hardest; and the realities that so many people faced during that roughly 10 year span seem to loom larger in our collective consciousness to this day. All we need are the right present day events for us all to see how we fare in a similar situation and the worst predictions seem to point to a time where the Great Depression will look like a picnic by comparison.

During a SHTF situation, pain could become an annoyance for some, but unbearable for others.

If doctors are scarce and medicine becomes even scarcer, this one little weed, found all over North America and similar to morphine, could be a saving grace.

There are some that say we are already living through another great depression but we don’t know it because of the social safety nets, which over 100 million people rely on daily to get by. Rather than waiting in line for soup and bread, you are given a credit card so you can buy junk food at the store like everyone else. Remove the stigma of public poverty and one could argue the actual harsh effects, and you might struggle less to get out of it. At a minimum, if nobody sees the outward face of poverty, why worry? Not that people on welfare have it good, but the poor in this country live like Kings and Queens compared to the poor in India or China.

(Here are 23 survival uses for honey that you didn’t know about.)

Regardless of where you live, it can’t be argued that the prices of food are rising. When the price of groceries increases too far or your ability to pay is decreased, that is when creativity comes into the kitchen and you will need to adjust your menu. During the depression, meat was a luxury that was often only eaten once a week. When I say meat, I am talking about Hot Dogs. Forget having your steaks if we enter another depression. Meals were frequently based on a few simple ingredients like potatoes, flour, onions and vegetables that were grown in the family garden.

Our society faces a few problems, not the least of which is the ability to grow our own food. In the 1930’s we didn’t have frozen dinners, fast food restaurants and microwaves. Most rural families had their own gardens. If we were to suffer an event now, like the great depression that saw 25% of all workers out of a job, there would be a lot of people unable to eat. That is one of the reasons preppers talk about starting to garden now so that you will not be behind the curve when it’s too late.

If it does come to that and you find it is time to tighten your belt and start making do with less, I thought it would be a good idea to look back in time to see some of the depression recipes that people used to make. I know that we stock up on food that we eat now in the hopes that we will have enough to last us, but I doubt anyone here has stocked up 10 years’ worth of food. If another great depression happens, we will be required to be more frugal and these depression recipes allow you to feed your family with much less.

I have included a few recipes below, but there are also some great books like Clara’s Kitchen: Wisdom, Memories, and Recipes from the Great Depression. Clara also had her own YouTube Channel and you can see her prepare her Poor man’s Meal and talk about living through the great depression below.

In addition to Clara’s Poormans’ Meal, here are a few other options.

Great Depression Pork Stew – Serves 4-6

Ingredients

• 2 -3 large pork chops
• 4 large white potatoes
• 2 large yellow onions
• 6 stalks celery, include leaves
• 1/2 gallon water
• 1/4 cup flour
• salt and pepper
• 2 chicken bouillon cubes

Directions

1. Boil pork until it falls from the bone. Cut into small bite sized pieces (fat as well) and return to pot with some salt and pepper and keep on slow simmer.
2. Peel and cut potatoes into bite size chunks.
3. Roughly dice the onion and celery. Add all vegetables and bouillon cubes to the pot and bring to a boil. Simmer low until vegetables are done. Thicken with a mix of flour and cold water. Taste for salt or pepper.
4. The stew is white with some green so you might want to add a chopped carrot for color.
5. Serve in deep soup bowls with biscuits on the side. Some may want to add ketchup to their bowl of stew. This is OK – I do it.
6. You may substitute and inexpensive cut of pork for this recipe.

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Old Fashioned Corn and Potato Salad– Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups cooked corn (canned is fine)
• 2 cups diced potatoes
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/4 cup onion, diced
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• 1 1/2 cups boiling water
• 2 cups hot milk
• 1 tablespoon flour, mixed with
• 1 tablespoon water

Directions

1. Combine, in a large pot, all ingredients except milk and flour/water.
2. Cook until potatoes are fork tender.
3. Add milk and flour/water, stirring well.
4. Bring to a boil and cook for 10 minutes.
5. Serve with chopped green onion and shredded cheese as a garnish.

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Creamed Tuna on Toast – Serves 4

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup margarine
• 1/4 cup flour
• 2 cups milk
• 1 can drained tuna fish
• 1 cup frozen peas (or to taste)
• salt and pepper
• bread (for toasting)

Directions

• Thaw frozen peas in a colander.
• Melt the margarine in a saucepan.
• Add the flour and blend.
• Add the milk, stirring constantly to prevent clumping and stir until creamy.
• Add the tuna, peas, salt and pepper and warm through.
• As the tuna is warming, toast bread.
• After toasted, cut in triangles and spoon tuna mixture over the toast.

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Cornmeal Griddle Cakes – Serves 10-15

Ingredients

• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1 cup flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 egg, well beaten
• 2 1/2 cups milk
• 2 tablespoons fat, melted

Directions

• Mix and sift dry ingredients.
• Combine beaten egg and milk.
• Add to dry ingredients.
• Stir in shortening.
• Pour on a hot griddle.

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Wacky Cake – 1 Cake

This gained fame during the depression because unlike traditional cake recipes, the wacky cake didn’t need milk or eggs. It is still delicious!

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup white sugar
• 4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 6 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 cup water

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Sift flour, sugar, salt, soda, and cocoa together into an 8×8 inch ungreased cake pan. Make three depressions. Pour oil into one well, vinegar into second, and vanilla into third well. Pour water over all, and stir well with fork.
3. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 to 40 minutes, or until tooth pick inserted comes out clean. Frost with your favorite icing.

Preparedness Hacks: Once a nuke is heading your way, you might think that there isn’t much left to do, but you would be wrong!

Because we will show you America’s natural nuclear bunkers that are also EMP proof. When the sirens start wailing, all you need to do is pick the closest one to your home, where you can take cover before it hits.

Do you have any depression recipes your family loves?

Our modern society is highly dependent upon we’ll call the “system.” Not only do we rely upon utility services to bring us electricity, water and natural gas, but also on an incredibly complex supply chain which provides us with everything from food to computers. Without that supply chain, most of us wouldn’t know what to do.

This situation is actually becoming worse, rather than better. When I compare my generation (I’m in my 50s) to that of my children, I see some striking differences. In my generation it was normal for a boy to grow up learning how to do a wide variety of trade skills from his father, and seemingly everyone knew how to do basic carpentry and mechanic work. But that’s no longer normal.

If we extrapolate it back, we can see that my father’s generation knew even more – and my grandparent’s generation even more. Those older generations were much more closely tied to the roots of an agricultural society, where people were self-reliant. There are multiple skills they had which modern society no longer considers necessary.

But if we were to have a breakdown in society, those skills which we never bothered to learn would become essential. Those who don’t know these skills would either have to learn or die trying.

During a SHTF situation, pain could become an annoyance for some, but unbearable for others.

If doctors are scarce and medicine becomes even scarcer, this one little weed, found all over North America and similar to morphine, could be a saving grace.

Here are 10 skills our grandparents knew that most of us have long forgotten:

1. Gardening for Food

During World War II, there was a campaign for people to plant “Victory Gardens” at their homes. These vegetable gardens were needed to alleviate food shortages, because so much of the nation’s produce was being sent overseas to keep our troops and those of our allies fighting. With fewer men available to work the farms, there was less produce available.

This custom of having a vegetable garden in one’s backyard survived for many years after the war was over, but it gradually died out. Today, when many people think of gardening, they are thinking of a flower garden. While those are nice to look at, they don’t give you much to eat.

Starting and growing a vegetable garden can be harder than most people think. When I started gardening, it took me three years to get more than just herbs and a smattering of produce out of it. I’m glad I didn’t wait until I needed that garden for survival.

2. Animal Husbandry

Although the industrial revolution took place more than 100 years ago, many people continued to raise at least a small amount of their own livestock at home. This led to cities enacting ordinances limiting what animals people could keep within city limits.

Raising dogs and cats is much different than raising chickens, rabbits and goats for the table. A large part of being able to raise these animals is recognizing their needs and being able to diagnose their sicknesses. Farmers don’t depend upon the vet for most illnesses; they take care of it themselves.

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3. Food Preservation

It’s rare to find people who preserve their own foods, but in our grandparent’s generation, it was common. Canning food, smoking meats and even making one’s own sausage were all common home tasks, which ensured that people had enough food to get through the winter. Today, it’s rare to find people who know these methods of food preservation, let alone having the equipment needed.

If we go back very far in American live, pretty much every middle class home had a smokehouse for preserving meats. I’ve seen some homes where the smokehouse was actually in the kitchen chimney. Instead of building a normal chimney, they had a very wide one, with enough room to hang sides of beef in it for smoking.

Here are 23 survival uses for honey that you didn’t knowabout.

4. Blacksmithing

You might think that blacksmithing goes all the way back to the Old West, but in actuality it is a skill that stayed around much longer than that. My dad was a blacksmith in his later years, although most of the work he did was ornamental.

I remember traveling in Mexico about 20 years ago and having a spring on my car’s suspension break. A local blacksmith fashioned me a new spring, tempered and shaped exactly right for my vehicle. Blacksmiths can make or repair just about anything out of metal. Yet few today know this valuable skill.

Maybe we don’t need blacksmiths today, but if an EMP hit the country and we were without electrical power, the skills of a blacksmith would allow people to have their tools repaired — and new ones fashioned. Since the manufacturing plants presumably would be shut down, that ability would be essential for rebuilding America.

5. Basic Carpentry

Everyone should know how to make basic repairs to their home. Without the ability to repair damage from a natural disaster, it might not be possible to use the home as a survival shelter. Woodworking skills also allow one to make furniture and other items to help survive.

6. Basic Mechanical Repair

Depending upon the type of disaster that hits, the family car may just end up being a large paperweight. But there are many survival scenarios where it would be useful to be able to fix your car, keeping it running for general use. As long as there is gasoline, that car would be useful.

The ability to diagnose and repair an engine is useful not only for keeping a car on the road, but also for fixing lawn mowers, chain saws and other power tools.

7. Herbal Medicine

The roots of medicine were herbal medicine. While doctors have existed for millennia, it hasn’t been until recent times that those doctors had such a wide range of pharmaceuticals to work with. Before that, doctors made their own medicines.

Many women also learned to use what nature provided for medicine. It was not uncommon a few generations back for mom to take care of her family’s medical needs, using recipes that she had learned from her mother. Today, that sort of medicine is called “old wives’ tales” but it works just as well as it always did.

Experts predict that an EMP strike that wipes out electricity across the nation would ultimately lead to the demise of up to 90% of the population. However, this figure begs an important question: if we were able to live thousands of years without even the concept of electricity, why would we suddenly all die without it?

8. Horseback Riding

This may not seem like much of a survival skill, but in the Old West, stealing a man’s horse was a hanging offense. That’s because being stranded without a horse was generally a death sentence. While horseback riding today is only done for sport, if the automobile becomes no longer usable, people will be looking for horses once again.

Riding a horse is actually more complicated than the movies make it appear. Breaking a horse is a skill that few know. Likewise, there are few today, outside of the drivers for the Budweiser Clydesdales, who know how to hitch and drive a team of horses. But in America’s past, our ancestors drove teams with as many as 40 horse or mules in them.

9. Hunting

Now, I know there are a lot of hunters out there, maybe even some who are reading this. But I have to say that a lot of what we call hunting today and what I learned as a kid are nothing alike. I have a hard time calling it hunting when corn is put out as bait and the hunter hides in a blind, waiting for their choice deer to come to eat.

Real hunting, at least what they did in the past, involved knowing the animal’s habits and staking out a place where the animals were likely to come. It required patience, understanding of the animals being hunted — and a pretty good shot with the rifle.

10. Butchering an Animal

Raising an animal is one thing, butchering it is another. Few hunters even know how to properly butcher an animal, as most take them to a butcher for cutting up and packaging. Yet, an animal which is not properly cleaned and butchered can cause disease. You can also waste a lot of good meat by not doing it correctly.

Preparedness Hacks: Once a nuke is heading your way, you might think that there isn’t much left to do, but you would be wrong!

Because we will show you America’s natural nuclear bunkers that are also EMP proof. When the sirens start wailing, all you need to do is pick the closest one to your home, where you can take cover before it hits.

Opposed to what people think food crisis are very common. In fact there are countries and regions which are going through one right now. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that nearly 870 million people, or one in eight, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2010-2012. Almost all the hungry people, 852 million, live in developing countries. But there are 16 million people undernourished in developed countries including US.

My guess is none of you experienced a long time hunger. But probably most of you are familiar with the feeling of skipping 3 or 4 meals. Not a very pleasant one. During that time did you experience fatigue or dizziness? These are the first general symptoms of malnutrition. If you don’t eat for days, your condition will get worse and you start losing weight. Your body will consume first the fat reserves, than your protein (muscles). If untreated, starvation may lead to mental or physical disability, illness, and possibly death. An average man cannot survive without food for more than 8 weeks. A food crisis may last for months or years. And it’s not enough to stockpile food In order to properly prepare yourself and your family. Take into consideration that you may develop malnutrition if you lack a single vitamin in the diet. This is why it’s very important to start preparing after having read a proper guide.

WHAT CREATES FOOD CRISES?

There are many reasons why people cannot grow or buy enough food to feed their families. Most of the reasons causing a food crisis are a combination of the issues below. A hunger crisis develops when families experience these factors for a long time and run out of ways to cope.

POVERTY

The main reason why most people are unable to feed themselves is that they cannot afford it. And this is exactly the issue in many poor countries. You may think poverty cannot be an important factor in the US, but in a major economic SHTF event things could start to get out of hand. When economy collapses the food will become scarce, like the North Korean famine 1994-1998.

For example the 9/11 attacks had both immediate and long-term economic impacts. The attacks caused the Dow to drop more than 600 points and led to one of the biggest government spending programs in U.S. history – the War on Terror. Now think about the US spendings in case of a real threatening war or maybe a world war. In the First World War Germany capitulated because of its economic collapse. Families were actually starving back home: 763,000 German civilians died from starvation and disease caused by the Allied blockade. This is only an example, but there are hundreds of similar scenarios.

NATURAL DISASTERS

Drought, flooding, hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes can disrupt the commercial means of alimentation. You might have all the money in the world but no food to buy. Remember when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, a lot of stranded people in New Orleans endured hunger, little water and limited emergency supplies for days. What happened during Katrina could also happen on a wider scale. Climate change is having an increased impact on food production as droughts and flooding become more frequent and more severe. Natural disasters are very real and very likely to happen even more than once in a lifetime. When it strikes will you be prepared? It very well can happen tomorrow. And could last for four years like the Tempo Famine in Japan.

CONFLICTS

Food crisis are very often associated with conflicts. War makes delivery of food much more difficult, particularly if aid workers are attacked and supplies are looted. Conflict can drive people from their homes and away from their normal food supply, leave them unable to afford food or simply stop them planting. The deadliest war in modern African history had killed 5.4 million people, mostly from disease and starvation, making the Second Congo War the deadliest conflict worldwide since World War II. Even after the war had ended, 1,000 people died daily in 2004 from malnutrition and disease.

DISEASE

Food shortages are also often associated with widespread epidemics. Disease outbreaks such as the 2005 Ebola-like Marburg virus in Angola put pressure on food supplies as deliveries ceased due to drivers staying away. If a new deadly virus hits the USA, I doubt people will be confortable leaving their homes. And rightly getting in touch with as few people as possible may save your life. If you have stockpiled food, of if you have the means to produce it, then there’s no need to worry.

Of course there are other factors that may start a food crisis. For example the famine in Ukraine – a man-made famine in 1932 and 1933 that killed up to 7.5 million Ukrainians. There are 127 recorded great famines and almost at any given historical period there was a food crisis somewhere in the world.

HOW TO BE PREPARED FOR A FOOD CRISIS?

In case of a food shortage you should be aware that grocery stores only have about 3 days of food in stock. People will rush and buy as much as they can so probably the food will vanish in less than a day or hours.  So if anything was to disrupt the food supply chain for an extended period of time, there would be chaos in most communities. It’s very important to start preparing NOW. There are several ways to start. The choice you make should depend on the event you are preparing for. Of course the best way is to prepare for all scenarios including long periods.

1.    STOCKPILING FOOD

You should see your Food Bank as an investment. My advice is to buy food that you actually like to eat. So in case a major SHTF event will not hit until the expiration date of your food, then you can eat it (without spending additional money on food) and then renew your stock.

Another issue is where and how to properly stockpile food. You may need to create some space to keep the extra food, both frozen, and dry/canned goods. This may mean purchasing an extra freezer, or some closed storage shelves. If you have a panic room or maybe a basement you can start stockpiling there. Check storing advice (temperature, humidity, etc.) on the packages and see if it matches with your stockpiling room. Remember you should easily access this room and very few people should know about it.

Decide what food you want to store and how much. This depends on the food crisis period you want to be prepared for and of course, the budget, you plan to invest.

You can find bellow some items easy to stock because they have lengthy expiration dates, so you can stash them away for long periods of time. Make a list of everything you actually like and take into consideration that your stock has all the vitamins, carbohydrates, minerals, fats and protein. In a food crisis, the most important food is the one with most carbohydrates which are the main fuel for physical energy. So keep in mind that having at least on item like rice, pasta, cereals is almost mandatory.

Before stocking other items take into consideration:
Bottled water: If a person can live without food for more than a month, without water it’s unlikely to survive more than 4 days; a normally active person should drink at least a half-gallon of water each day;
Salt: One of the most useful items. It’s used for storing food, curing beef, and flavoring most meals. Salt will stay forever!
Supplements: Multivitamins and minerals will help replace the nutrients you would have consumed on a normal diet;
Peanut Butter: Peanut butter is a source of protein, fat, and calories; can last up to five years;
Fish:  essential fatty acids to keep your immune system strong. Also contains vitamin D. Try storing dried fish, canned or frozen fish;
Powdered milk: contain all twenty-one standard amino acids, and are high in vitamins and minerals.  The typical average amounts of major nutrients are 36% protein, 52% carbohydrates, calcium 1.3%, and potassium 1.8%. One of the best items to get your calcium from;  if stored properly can last for more than 2 years;

Carbohydrates
Rice: If kept properly rice may stay in good condition for 10 years or more; there are a lot of dishes you can do with rice;
Pasta: Stores extremely well and like rice can you can make a lot of dishes;
Flour and whole grains:  Grains are the cheapest items one can buy on a per-pound basis. If you have the means to grind than you should stock whole grain because it preserves better;
Nuts and trail mix: high-energy foods, healthful and convenient for snacking.

Protein
Beans: High in protein, and if stored properly can stay for up to ten years. Make sure to store them in a cool, dry, dark location.
Canned Meat: typically will keep for 6-10 years and they’re an excellent source of protein. If the grid is down for a long time it’s very important to have this item because excessive hunting and fishing may extinct some species;

Vitamins
Canned Fruit & Vegetables: Not a very good source of calories and it takes a lot of space to store but the best natural source of vitamins;
Dried fruits, such as apricots and raisins: potassium and dietary fiber; really easy to store;

Fat
Lard: offer much-needed calories during times of crisis, cooking oil for multiple uses, and it will keep longer than cooking oils because of the hydrogenation;

Sugars
Honey is also excellent as it will store forever. Mostly made from sugars and contains only trace amounts of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants;

2.    PRODUCE YOUR OWN FOOD

Although it’s very important to stock food, on a long-term food crisis can be wiser to have the means to produce your own food. If you live in a city and you don’t have a backyard, you should take into consideration buying at least one acre somewhere in the countryside. Most famine victims are townspeople. Living in the countryside makes it much easier to procure your food. If you don’t know much about gardening, then start small with a few garden boxes for tomatoes, herbs, or sprouting. And also you can raise animals. Choose only domestic animals that can provide you with more than meet: chickens or ducks for eggs, cows or sheep for milk, fishes for fish eggs. Just like stockpiling food think that you should get all vitamins, carbohydrates, protein, fats, and minerals.

Remember that you may need to:

• Protect Your Harvest against looters: visibly mark your land and if you have the means try building a fenced yard; looters will know that your land it’s better defended so it’s likely to try stealing from someone else; always keep a gun by your side;
• Learn Food Preservation: maybe you need to store food for the winter or maybe you want to have a food reserve just in case. Food preservation comes in many forms such as canning, pickling, and dehydrating. Some tools and materials are required along with a good deal of knowledge. Also, build a basement to better stock your food;
• Store Seeds: save some of the harvests to collect the seeds and to plant them the next year. Collect your seeds from the healthiest plants. Also, learn how to properly store and plant them;
• Trade Food in order to supply with other materials you can’t procure otherwise;

One of the best ways to produce your food in a SHTF situation is to build an AQUAPONIC SYSTEM. Aquaponics combines hydroponics and aquaculture into one symbiotic system consisting of plants and aquatic organisms. Practically an Aquaponic System it’s a self-sustained bio system where the fish excrements are broken down by nitrogen-fixing bacteria into nitrates and nitrites which are utilized by the plants as nutrients. The water is then recirculated back to the aquaculture system. It’s a win, win, win for the plants, the fish and for you.

I’d rather choose aquaponics in a food crisis or major SHTF situation because:

• It can provide you with almost any type of vegetables/fruits and fish; you’ll have all your protein, vitamins, calories and good fats; you’ll also have fish eggs;
• Aquaponics saves water; in case of a drought or in a SHTF when water may become scarce keep in mind that your plant will not be affected; aquaponics uses 90% less water than soil-based agriculture because the water recirculates within the system rather than seeps away;
• You’ll always have a surplus of water for you and your family to drink;
• Plants grow faster. Because we are continually bringing fresh nutrient to the plants they grow faster;  you’ll find that plants growing faster mean you need half the space than in soil based gardening;
• Can be adapted for small spaces; In urban environments where space is a valuable commodity, it can come in all shapes and sizes.

You may consider aquaponics not only for a food crisis but also as a mean to produce healthy, fresh food for your family.

More so, Dr. Nate Storey, a Ph.D. at the University of Wyoming in Agronomy, inventor, and CEO at Bright Agrotech has recently increased aquaponic production using zipgrow towers. You can now grow 3 times more vegetables using this vertical planting method.

The flexibility of creating your own farm is part of what makes this method so popular. Systems can range from small backyard setups to vast commercial systems that fill up entire rooms. You can use fresh water or salt water. You can choose different types of fish and plants as well.

Our panel of experts answers the age-old question “If you could only grab one gun when SHTF, what would it be?”

The question is pretty commonly heard at gun shops, barbecues and shooting ranges. Every shooter knows it, and every shooter thinks about it. What gun would you choose if you could only have one gun? It seems simple, but experts and enthusiasts alike know how difficult it can be.

The question gets a little trickier when we add a caveat: What if it’s during the apocalypse? Now you have to consider ammunition; if you run out of ammo, will you be able to scrounge some up? What about hunting and self-defense?

Answering this question can be difficult, but that’s why we’ve assembled an assortment of industry experts to offer their opinions. On top of learning more about each of these gurus, these answers can also help you formulate your own.

Nick Collier

• Affiliation: DoubleStar Corp.
• Position: Senior Executive, DoubleStar, Training Academy Instructor
• SHTF Gun: AR-15

I’d choose an AR-15 for an SHTF situation. That’s an easy choice. I have had this conversation many times with industry associates as well as family members and friends. With the thousands of variations available, the AR-15 is the best choice. My decision is based on the following: training, reliability, ease of use, size, and ammunition.

I have spent ample time training on this firearm. I feel like I would be able to handle the weapon in a variety of situations. Whether I am in a rural setting taking distant shots or a densely populated area, the AR-15 is capable of kill shots in excess of 300 yards, and it’s short enough to maneuver in urban terrain.

The reliability of the AR-15 is only as good as the sum of its parts. When built with quality components, the AR-15 will perform in almost any condition, as proven by our military and law enforcement over the years. I adhere to the “buy once, cry once” principle when buying gear. Go ahead and pay for the good stuff and you won’t have to buy it again.

Ease of use is another big factor. Not everyone is a trained firearms enthusiast, so you may encounter situations where you are unable to fire and need to teach someone in your group to return fire or hunt for food. The AR is very basic and easy to use. My 9-year-old son has been shooting one since he was big enough to hold it up, and in my training experience, it doesn’t take much to get the average person up to speed safely.

The size of the AR-15 makes it easy to carry. If you have ever covered a long distance on foot, you know every ounce you are carrying counts. Moving through obstacles also requires a small, compact firearm. Any hunter can tell you that climbing over fallen trees and rough terrain is easier with a smaller, shorter rifle, and the AR-15 can be made short to carry and adjusted for the correct length of pull with collapsible stocks.

The last and maybe biggest factor is ammunition. The AR-15’s standard 5.56mm cartridge is big enough to put down small- to medium-sized targets with well-placed shots. Whether it’s a zombie horde or a whitetail dinner that comes into the scope, the 5.56mm cartridge can handle it. Carrying six to ten 30-round magazines on your plate carrier or in your backpack still leaves room for things like water, food and medical supplies on your trek without adding too much bulk or weight. Other factors include caliber conversions for larger ammunition and parts availability. The AR-15 is the most popular rifle in America, and it should be easy to find ammunition and parts while scavenging. For these reasons, the AR-15 is the ideal SHTF firearm.

Mike Detty

• Affiliation: Mad Dawg Global Marketing, Inc.
• Position:President
• SHTF Gun: AR-15 carbine

Guns are tools, and each of them has been designed to perform a certain job. Unfortunately, an event of apocalyptic proportions can limit our choices, so the selection of just one gun is extremely critical. To me, this means choosing a gun that has a great degree of versatility. My pick would be an AR-15 carbine.

For many years I competed in USPSA competition and considered myself an above- average shooter, and I own many nice, custom 1911 pistols. But I have enough experience behind a carbine to know that no matter how much I practice with my pistol, I will never be able to shoot one as accurately as one of my AR-15 carbines. AR-15s are accurate while the 5.56mm cartridge is light on recoil, making this combination especially effective and easy to shoot for all family members.

Besides the precision of a carbine, there is also the capacity factor. Thirty-round AR magazines are abundantly available at bargain prices. My own home-defense guns all use 40-round Magpul 5.56mm magazines.

Flattop carbines are especially versatile and offer the shooter the ability to use folding backup sights, reflex sights or a scope depending on the task at hand. Free-floating handguards make it easy to attach lights, lasers, and other accessories to aid the shooter.

The AR’s modular design also makes it easy to switch uppers—i.e., convert the gun from a short M4-style carbine to a long-range precision rifle with ease. Guns can even be converted to hard-hitting calibers like the .458 SOCOM or inexpensive .22 LR.

The ubiquitous of the AR-15 makes its choice a logical one in a doomsday scenario. Parts, magazines, and ammunition should be easier to find with such a popular gun. Unwanted parts or accessories should also make for good trading fodder.

My own choice for home defense is an AR-15 SBR with a 7-inch barrel, a flash suppressor, and a red dot reflex sight. In the event of an unimaginable catastrophe where I can only grab one gun before I leave my home, I would feel very well protected with my AR-15!

Mykel Hawke

• Affiliation: U.S. Army Special Forces veteran, survival instructor, author, star of the Travel Channel’s “Lost Survivors”
• Position: Founder and Director of SpecOps Adventures and Training
• SHTF Gun: Scavenger 6 by Ralston Arms

Like any skilled person, I prefer to use the right tool for the task. However, sometimes you have to make do and improvise. As a survival guy, I live with a long machete, large, medium and small knives and a backup. The same principles apply to my weapons; I have sniper rifles, shotguns, AR-15s, pistols. But if I must choose just one weapon, I want the one that will give me the biggest bang for the buck, which means it has the most utility and versatility.

So, for me, the best all-around weapon to carry in a bug-out situation would be the Scavenger 6 by Ralston Arms. Designed by one of the most creative survival inventor/designer guys I’ve ever met, Tim Ralston, it’s a weapon that can shoot 21 different calibers. In a survival situation, you never know what kind of ammo will be available. It’s very likely you’ll sooner or later expend whatever ammo you have stored and you can’t always carry all the ammo with you, but if your weapon will shoot whatever is around, you’re well ahead of the power curve, and in a crisis, that could be the difference between surviving and pushing up daisies.

Jared Hinton

• Affiliation: Vista Outdoor
• Position: Communications Coordinator for Firearms & Ammunition
• SHTF Gun: Savage 11 Hog Hunter

I’m a bolt-action fanatic, and a gunsmith first. Somewhere deep down inside me, I still believe that the autoloading firearm is a passing fad; lever actions, bolts, and revolvers are simple mechanical mechanisms that still rise to the top of my list if SHTF. Don’t get me wrong—I play with the AR platform, and I’ve assembled more ARs than I can count. The AR-15 is a great option if you expect a firefight. My primary concern is a simple rifle that anyone can operate and maintain should I become immobilized. Backup iron sights are mandatory. If anything happens to the optic, I can’t be stuck guessing where I am shooting. I need to be able to harvest game while having the ability to stop two-legged varmints. No excess hanging off the gun, waiting to get caught in the brush while moving. Simplicity.

I value the ability to make one shot matter, and believe the Savage 11 Hog Hunter rifle in .223 Remington would be tough to beat if things got bad in a hurry. The Model 11 Hog Hunter comes in at 7.25 pounds, so it’s no flyweight, but I’ll take the extra weight of the medium-contour barrel for better off-hand control on target. Pre-threaded for a suppressor, the medium-contour barrel won’t submit to point-of-impact shifts that a sporter-weight barrel will with a suppressor out front. I’d top the rifle with a Weaver Classic 1-3x24mm optic in Weaver rings. Light, simple, reliable and the adjustable LPA sights ensure I can hit what I’m aiming at no matter the situation. With an optic, I can keep the entire package under 10 pounds, which is a reasonable threshold for days on the move.

Moving parts and reciprocating mass are more likely to wear, raising concerns over long-term maintenance. Autoloaders have a tendency to make a person waste ammo with extra trigger pulls. The Hog Hunter is compact, made to be hauled through the stuff no one wants to move through, precisely where I’ll be lurking. The Savage action is extremely strong, and should I come across ammo that is questionable, I know that the chances of the action failing are all but nonexistent. The zero-headspace system of the Savage barrel nut and floating bolt head give me a 100-percent reliable lockup that guarantees maximum accuracy and safety.

By choosing the .223 Remington as my caliber, I can carry a high volume of ammo. I need to pack as much ammo on my person as possible. While we’re at it, make it 69-grain Federal Gold Medal rounds; I need to know I’m hitting exactly where I’m aiming. Federal’s Gold Medal Match ammunition is sufficient to engage targets out to 600 yards while I make evasive maneuvers. It also doesn’t hurt that I have a large stockpile of it cached at the farm. It’s not designed for expansion, so it doesn’t excessively damage rabbits, pheasants, and vermin that I may need to eat. I also have a decent supply of Fusion ammo stashed around; the 62-grain bonded bullet is more than sufficient for the biggest Minnesota deer I’ll encounter.

If SHTF, my goal is to avoid a close-range confrontation. I don’t need to eliminate most threats—I just need to slow them down long enough for me to get out of the area. Being discreet is my go-to plan, and getting to and holding our farm ground would be my top priority. The Model 11 Hog Hunter is versatile enough that I could trust my life with it when the going gets tough.

Jason Morton

• Affiliation: CZ-USA
• Position: Vice President of Marketing
• SHTF Gun: CZ Scorpion EVO

If SHTF, I can assume that I’m not expecting a typical self-defense scenario, which our daily-carry pocket dump anticipates in these pre-apocalypse times. Instead, I have to assume that we can expect multiple encounters with multiple targets. Since my first choice, air support, isn’t an option, I’m reduced to choosing only one gun.

Whatever I choose has to accomplish three goals: have adequate stopping power against multiple targets, be easy to carry with lots of ammo and, given the likelihood of a target rich environment, be common enough in caliber to have a reasonable expectation of finding more ammo when necessary. The multiple-target expectation means that for me, I need the semi-auto capability. It also needs to be maneuverable both indoors and out. I think an SBR is just the ticket here. Assuming there is no government at this point, an SBR won’t require a tax stamp—just a hacksaw.

Caliber-wise, I like the .22 LR because I can carry lots of ammunition with me. Unfortunately, I have to find that ammo first and haven’t had very good luck doing that for several years. I know bunches of people are hoarding it in their basements, but if I try to scavenge it from there, I’m very likely to become one of their targets. Let’s say that the .22 LR won’t work due to ammo availability, and we don’t even need to consider stopping power for this one. The 5.56mm and 9mm calibers are going to be the most commonly encountered rounds. They are close enough to the same overall bullet weight that we can call choosing one over the other a draw. For stopping power though, the 5.56mm  NATO has to get the nod, assuming I can come up with something other than FMJs, but that’s not a guarantee.

The 5.56mm gives me more range over the 9mm, but I’m more concerned with multiple close targets, so a 9mm carbine or submachine gun is probably going to be my go-to gun in this scenario. It’s got plenty of magazine capacity, good stopping power with the defensive loads most commonly found in the caliber, and it generates low recoil. The 9mm is lighter in weight than a 5.56mm carbine and with a folding stock, and it’s easily concealed. Some might accuse me of being a little biased here, but my top pick has to be the CZ Scorpion EVO for my SHTF gear bag. The Scorpion is fast and reliable. Add a red dot and a suppressor and it’s even better.

Sean Murphy

• Affiliation: Nightforce Optics
• Position: Marketing Communications Manager
• SHTF Gun: DEVGRU “RECCE” carbine

In the event of a true SHTF situation, we must accept that our “normal” day isn’t so normal. If I am limited to taking just one firearm to help me solve problems in an SHTF environment, it’s going to be a rifle.

In my eyes, it is hard to beat the all-around qualities of a good AR-15 carbine. My personal favorite for “the one” is a modern interpretation of the DEVGRU “RECCE” carbine. This upgraded AR-15 has a medium-contour, 16-inch, stainless steel, match barrel; a slim, 15-inch handguard; a muzzle device to accept a suppressor; a collapsible buttstock; and a match trigger. When paired with a good optic/ammo combination, you now have a very effective platform to deliver rounds accurately on target at any practical distance.

Topping off the carbine would be a Nightforce 2.5-10X riflescope, attached to a Nightforce Ultralite Unimount. This piece of glass is a perfect all-around optic that enables close/fast firing at low power, and up to 10X power for target identification and shooting at longer-range targets. Quality ammo with heavy 69- to 77-grain projectiles or a premium- the bonded bullet would be fed through the rifle for the best balance of accuracy and maximum terminal effect downrange.

The moderate weight and overall handiness of this package make it easy for such a combination to accompany me on many trips hunting for deer, ridding fields of prairie dogs, competing in field/action rifle matches and countless trips to the range. The carbine is not too heavy to carry in hand or in a sling and is a good size to stash in a vehicle. I can deliver precision fire out to 600 yards with reliability (and a little farther on good days), but also engage targets at CQB ranges with ease. Other qualities to like about this setup are the plethora of magazines available, light recoil, ease of operation and perhaps most importantly, reliable operation. As higher-level maintenance or repairs become necessary; the parts availability and limited tools required make it an easy task for a competent person to handle.

Additionally, lights, lasers, bipods, night-vision devices and a whole range of other accessories can be added or removed to suit a particular use or environment. Chambered in 5.56mm NATO, this setup can also accommodate nearly any .223/5.56mm ammo one had stashed or had to scrounge.

If things go seriously wrong in my part of the world, my anticipated threat levels are going to go up, and my armament levels will go up to match. While a handgun provides an easy solution to carry all day, the energy on target, effective range, ammunition capacity and modularity of an AR-15 rifle cannot be ignored. My preference for an “accurized” carbine provides a balanced set of features for nearly any use, from hunting to defense or even limited offense if needed. I like having options to deal with problems, and my “RECCE” gun would be the one to grab.

Robin Sharpless

• Affiliation: Redding Reloading
• Position: Executive Vice President
• SHTF Gun: Marlin 1894C

This is a very fun question to answer. It gives insight into both professional and personal preferences. Many will look at personal interest and or a favorite cartridge. Others will think about the sexiest gun to have during this time. For me, I’ll be driven by practicality.

As an avid hand loader, my decision will be driven by something that is effective on wild game for food and predators, be they two- or four-legged. But it also must conducive to being hand loaded and offer real versatility. Therefore, my choice is a .357 Magnum lever-action rifle, the Marlin 1894C. With its 18-inch barrel, it can generate enough energy to kill a deer, disable an attacker and handle coyotes but is also compact and convenient enough for easy carrying. Mine would sport a peep sight that works very well for my eyes, and the rifle’s overall handling characteristics make it a good choice for instinctive or point shooting when necessary.

From the reloading front, the choice of the .357 Magnum allows for the use of a variety of powders and, most importantly, the ability to simply and easily cast bullets for future use. Hopefully, I’ll have a large stock of good projectiles on hand, but if that’s not the case, this caliber is a simple one to cast bullets for, regardless of what that dark future may hold.

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Since the .357 Magnum has a straight-walled case, I won’t need to have lube for sizing. It is extremely easy to load for, and long case life is positive. Additionally, in a future where we may have to scrounge for components. With that in mind, .357 Magnum and .38 Special brass is going to be relatively easy to find. Through creative loading, we can create a range of offerings from quiet, low-velocity, low-flash defense loads to heavy-bullet loads capable of taking a deer-sized North American game for food. While I would not tackle a grizzly bear, I would have confidence with this rifle on a black bear, which, by the way, could produce lube for my cast bullets if needed, with a heavy bullet and slower powder.

Bill Wilson

• Affiliation: Wilson Combat
• Position: President and Founder
• SHTF Gun: Wilson Combat Tactical Lightweight .308 (rural), Wilson Combat AR9B (urban)

I think there are two different answers to this question based on where I am geographical. If I’m living on my ranch in rural Texas when SHTF and I can only have one firearm for the foreseeable future, my pick would be a lightweight .308 Winchester AR with a 14.7-inch barrel. I’d hopefully also have two additional upper receivers—in 6.5 Creedmoor and .338 Federal—with 18-inch, crowned-muzzle barrels for longer-range defense and more killing power for hunting. I’d really feel pretty naked without a handgun on my side since I carry one 24/7, but the question was one gun, and a .308 Winchester AR would handle most any defensive situation I would likely encounter in rural Texas and still put meat on the table as needed. Also, .308 ammunition is pretty common in this neck of the woods—not that I don’t always have plenty on hand!

My setup would be as follows: I’d choose a Wilson Combat Tactical Lightweight .308 with a 14.7-inch barrel and a permanently attached Q-Comp flash suppressor. I’d add a top-quality optic like a Leupold 2-12x42mm VX-6 riflescope as well as a Streamlight TLR-1 HL weapon light and a sturdy Blue Force Gear Vickers two-point sling.

If allowed, my extra 6.5 Creedmoor upper would have a mid-weight, 18-inch, crowned-muzzle barrel and a Leupold 2-12x42mm VX-6 scope. The .338 Federal upper would have a light “Hunter” 18-inch, crowned-muzzle barrel and the same scope.

If I am in a large city on business (I would never live in a city!) when SHTF and I can only have one firearm for the foreseeable future, my answer changes. For this one, I’m assuming total society breakdown and chaos in the city. For that, the need for concealed carry is a thing of the past. That being said, I’d go with one of our new AR9B 9mm carbines that uses Beretta 92/M9 magazines, which I normally take with me when I travel. In a true SHTF situation in an urban area, I want to be prepared for multiple assailants at relatively short ranges.

A light and short carbine that is easy to carry and deploy in tight places would be very handy. A 9mm carbine would also allow me to carry a lot of ammunition, and use subsonic loads, it would be almost as quiet as a suppressed 5.56mm. An additional plus would be the very likely chance that eventually I would be able to acquire a 9mm pistol, and ammunition compatibility would be a good thing.

Wilson Combat AR9B

For this setup, I’d choose a Wilson Combat AR9B with a fluted, 14.7-inch barrel and a permanently attached Q-Comp flash suppressor. I’d use a Leupold 1-6x24mm VX-6 scope and an Aimpoint CompM4s, both in QD mounts, as well as a Streamlight TLR-1 HL weapon light and a Blue Force Gear Vickers two-point sling.

Many people are convinced that civilization as we know it will collapse or, at best, experience a prolonged interruption. Very few of those people are actually planning for it and even less are preparing for it in advance. For those of us actually preparing we have forums, books, videos, and meetings to help us get ready for SHTF.

A few are even likely hoping for it for various reasons. What if this collapse occurs in a matter of minutes as well it might in various SHTF scenarios; nuclear war, terrorism, EMP, pandemic, conventional war, civil unrest becoming civil war? I am sure you can add a few to this list. Using the Golden Hour concept from trauma medicine I am proposing a few unusual ways of handling the first hour of SHTF.

During a SHTF situation, pain could become an annoyance for some, but unbearable for others.

If doctors are scarce and medicine becomes even scarcer, this one little weed, found all over North America and similar to morphine, could be a saving grace.

In this Golden Hour things you do and do not do will have a profound effect on your chances of a decent survival outcome. The Golden Hour is getting a major trauma victim to a trauma center within an hour. Survival rates plummet by minute 61. What will you do in the first 60 minutes of a sudden SHTF? I expect disagreement and hope the comments will give me some good ideas.

SHTF Happens and you are at Home

Reacting rather than data gathering is the key to all of these situations. As humans used to experiencing normal conditions the sudden ending of the normal is a shock and many react to it by standing still and trying to find out what is going on. The lights go out, you check your phone, you look out the window, and you try to find your battery radio and the flashlights. You are in bed and the loud bang shakes the house violently and the power goes out. You use your phone, you turn on the TV, and you go outside to find out what is going on. You might even go through these actions several times!

I am not saying these responses are always wrong. Geography, etc. has an input into your plan which is a pre-written plan. If you are hundreds of miles from cities then your response might be different especially if you have large volumes of water stored. What I am saying is get moving early and start using the Water Bob, the clean rain barrels from storage within minutes of any alert that normal no longer might exist. Finding out what has happened is a secondary concern to preparing to survive. Who cares if Russia has attacked the USA or if it was a terrorist bomb? Listen to your gut not to CNN.

Even worse is leaving the home to collect wife (or husband) and kids. During the opening hour you have to prepare the home for a possible prolonged end of normal life. The wife (or husband) and kids have a plan and they will use it. It might be to hunker down and wait for you knowing it might be a day or two or come home immediately but they know it and you know it. Fight the very human desire to gather the loved ones immediately at the time of crisis unless is your plan and they know it. If you (or they) are at home then the preparing of the home is the best thing you can do for them in the opening hour. You have no idea how long the water or electricity will last.

Obviously if your children are young you need a plan to collect them but do you need to go immediately? If yes, then go. But the decision is a logical one not an emotional one. Emotional reactions to sudden shocks often lead to faulty decision-making. It might be best to protect your food and water supplies while the electricity and water remain on before heading out to collect your child from school. An hour or two’s delay in setting out means they get to eat and drink for sure.

If it is a temporary thing you have at worst wasted the water bob and will have to buy a new one (people say you can reuse it but I am not sure water safety is worth the risk). Other things you may consider doing during the first hour is nailing tarps over your raised garden beds and moving supplies into the house or bug out vehicle. What you do not want to be doing is chatting to neighbors or wasting time trying to get information. Something bad seems to have happened so deal with it. How much you know about it is a human desire but preparing is the essential thing in the first hour.

SHTF Happens and you are on the Road

This is the hardest of all situations to experience sudden SHTF yet it is the most common one in society. Motor Vehicle Collisions (they are not ‘accidents’) kill and maim many people each and every day.

However in a sudden SHTF of major local, national, or international scope what is your plan if you are in the vehicle? If the vehicle works get fuel as soon as possible and buy food and water in the first gas station you see using cash but only if it is safe and uncrowded. Then get home or to the preplanned bug out location using the vehicle. Do not delay at all. In sudden SHTF people literally drive miles in one direction, usually to collect family, and then end up being directed the opposite way by Police. When they finally get home it is burned down or looted. As ever everyone in your family know to stay in place or come home in an SHTF and when to do so. You are not their savior. Your role is to trust them and the written and discussed plan. 

Some SHTF scenarios will see the vehicle fail or be blocked in its progress. Abandon the vehicle immediately gathering all useful supplies and get moving away from people and towards home or the bug out location. Drive alternative routes if possible but a vehicle is not going to last long in a major SHTF so try not to be attached to it! Again chatting to people, trying their phones, and wondering what is going on is pointless. It is bad and that is all you need to know. Use the sides of highways to move away from the groups of scared, annoyed, and confused people on the road. No need to walk up the exit ramps as you have the physical ability to use less usual routes. You always have a paper map however basic and a get home bag in the car.

Transit by boat, plane, or train in a sudden SHTF is problematic. In your Golden Hour gather supplies, learn exits, and start thinking how best to get out and home. Water in train, boat, and plane washrooms is not drinkable but empty a recycling bin and fill up those bottles with it. You should have a few water purification tablets on you at all times. Do not bother washing out those bottles. People are not really that infectious (this advice is NOT to be followed in a pandemic) and you can easily get 10 liters or more of okay water stored up in the first few minutes of the SHTF while everyone else is shouting into dead phones. By Day Two you will be very happy you did this in those first few minutes.

As a rule I never travel by boat other than short ferry rides and I cannot see a good outcome in SHTF on a cruise ship but if you cruise at least carry your own flotation vests and survival kit.

Experiencing a sudden and dreadful SHTF on a plane might be interesting. If it falls out of the sky then all the prepping you have done will hopefully be used by your loved ones. However diversion and being kept in an airport is more likely in a sudden SHTF. Carry cash in large amounts and try to carry some cash that can be used in the countries you are flying over or near. If the power is on and you can use credit cards to immediately start an alternative route home. In 9-11 people were stuck in Canada for up to four days when they could have got home via train and bus if they had started immediately. A few hours later and there were no seats available! If a small nuclear war is the cause of air travel suspension imagine how long you might be stuck somewhere and how likely is it you will be well treated?

If a SHTF is likely I’d advise you to call sick and stay at home even if you have a cruise booked but SHTF can happen with almost no warning and what you do immediately can make or break your survival chances.

SHTF Happens and you are at Work, School, or the Mall

Ideally using your preplanned route(s) and get home bag you will immediately start home. If the car park is a mess or the car will not work immediately abandon it after getting the supplies. In a sudden and serious SHTF roads and car parks likely will be both slower than walking and less safe.

If it is a chemical or nuclear SHTF you might need to shelter in place. Know where the washrooms are especially those deep in the building and infrequently used. If mushroom clouds bloom on the horizon people will mainly rush to their cars and attempt to flee home not that home is a magically safe place. Go to the nearest couple of recycling bins, open them, and carry the trash bags loaded with cans and bottles to the washroom (preferably one on a lower level). Dump them out and start filling them with tap water. Don’t bother cleaning them out. Try to get 50 litres or more. Do this immediately and you can store up 4 weeks’ worth in minutes. Store it in a cubical, lock it, and climb out. At this point try to buy food as you head for the car but do not if it will take time. At the car grab everything useful and back to the washroom. Bunker in and trust your loved ones are similarly safe.

It is unlikely people will use the washrooms in Malls and schools in these scenarios especially those out-of-the-way ones. If they do all your stuff is in a locked cubical. Food and warmth are not the priority in the Golden Hour but water and security are. Consider breaking all the lights in your washroom after securing the water and jamming the door. Consider breaking all the lights in the corridor outside and pulling stuff into it. Initially people will not take hard routes.

Looting supplies is reasonable once people have gone and Security has left. Before then the chances of getting into trouble makes it not worth the risk. Most fast food places have the food (such as it is) in the back. Mall, workplace, and School offices have lockers and many will have something to eat inside if you take your time looking through them. At work know who keeps food at their desks (you do I hope!). Most people will grab their keys and bags and flee towards home leaving behind a lot of food and useful items.

Many people think about using coins to raid vending machines. Maybe this is a good idea but water is from the washroom taps and the recycling bins and lining up slowly buying chocolate bars might make you a target. In a sudden SHTF it is more than likely you can use your small crow bar from your get home bag to access the vending machines the next day. You are going to be sitting in dark for at least a week but I’d try to do this for four weeks. Then you go home. Radiation will hopefully not kill you in four weeks but likely will the first day.

Many places have drapes and carpets that you can cut up to make sleeping ‘bags’ and this is the sort of re-purposing you need to do in SHTF. Keep active and do whatever you need to do to optimize your survival chances.

The hardest part is not fleeing but thinking, planning, and acting. Prepping is a state of mind as much as anything and I hope this article gets you thinking a bit. Much of it is arguable so please argue!

A second catastrophe promises to follow in the foot steps of a first — it’s a catastrophic food shortage. The time to prepare for that is now.Lessons passed down by expert preppers on storing up emergency food on a budget…

Emergency foods are something that families, church and relief organizations, schools, institutions, and food banks should be stocking up on nowadays, while it’s still possible, while there’s still food to be had.

Our nation is sitting on a ticking time bomb and we unfortunately cannot tell exactly when this bomb is going to finally detonate. But we can hear it ticking. Louder with every passing year. Yet, no matter how frantically government and the military work to defuse the bomb, defusing this bomb continues to elude them. Of course I’m using an analogy to describe some serious crap hitting the fan.

When it does, we are looking at a famine on a level that this world has never seen before.

Nationwide Food Shortage And Then —

Famine. No more food coming in from anywhere.

What if the day comes where stores never re-open? At the point where your survival food stores become exhausted after several weeks following a collapse, you’re either going to have to turn to begging for food, or a very difficult and frustrating life trying to hunt, fish, trap or forage in the adjacent forests — called living off the land — but truly, only the adept, the knowledgeable, and the experienced are going to be able to “live off the land” and the ones who do won’t be found in any nearby woods or hills.

Because there won’t be anything to hunt or forage for in the nearby woods or hills following a major disaster.

Wildlife is very sensitive to the presence of people.

So a large number of people fleeing into wilderness regions is going to send much of the wildlife fleeing for remote regions. It’s these remote regions that the hunting can be good; but only the most adept are likely to make it that far where there are no roads, where there may be rugged mountains and canyons and rivers to cross; there may be dangerous weather conditions to deal with depending on the season. If you can make it to a remote region, I’m talking really remote, it will be possible to live off the land, but it won’t be easy.

Are You Just Fine Right Where You’re At?

In a worst case scenario, we may see martial law, a government collapse, a civil war of sorts. Our nation weakened, it’s defenses obsolete, it’s critical infrastructure all but destroyed, a scene from Red Dawn (I’ve referred to this movie in another article) may play out in a number of communities. Are those Russian jets in the skies? Are those parachuters dropping down onto main street, Chinese or North Korean? The sky is full of them. The clouds were a perfect cover when radar defenses on the ground were no longer working, having been fried by the EMP that had first wrecked America’s power grid six months back.

Parachuters are landing in residential neighborhoods. Quickly gathering up parachutes. Quickly checking weapons and gear. Firing at people who had been watching it all unfold from front yards and porches.

Who’s cargo planes are landing at the local municipal airport with tanks and military vehicles streaming out? Chinese symbols. Russian symbols. What the hell is going on?

Hopefully That’s Not Your Community

But it may be more than one community at some point. It’s very possible that your community will make it through the weeks and months following a collapse that we can feel in our blood and in our bones is heading America’s way some point soon. We can see the signs in the heavens and the earth, I believe, that Jesus warned about when he was here and told us to be on the watch for. Impending judgment. We were told, and cautioned as Christians, to watch for it. When we see it, we will know. It’s almost like Yoda talking to Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, telling Luke he will know the time when the time is the right time. What Yoda? That makes no sense. On reflection though, Luke finally one day figures out what Yoda was telling him. What is the Lord telling us right now through the Spirit? For the unbelievers out there, who don’t yet know God, for a Christian this essentially means what is God leading us to do or prepare for without using words to tell us?

Some Of Us Should Be Stockpiling Food

Some communities, some neighborhoods, some small towns and cities will likely make it through the first few months following a collapse relatively fine, all things considered. Other’s won’t do so well and will be very dangerous places to live.

You’ll need some friends, you’ll need some fire power, hopefully God is on your side with all that fire power and he’s going to use you in some way to make a difference, for good. The violent hand of God is something we see repeated in Old Testament chapters of the Bible. I expect it’s something we’re likely to see again some day. There’s just too many examples of God going to war through his people, though not all of them of course, just a few at a time. Because if God used too many people, to give the enemies of Christ a beating, they might make the mistake of thinking that they did this by their own power. That’s not God’s style in the Bible though. That’s not the pattern we see in scripture.

Who remembers this phrase? “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.”

When God favored the Israelites, the Israelites were successful at wiping out enemy nations, success after success after success.

But when God was angry with the Israelites, over rebellion, over disobedience, over wicked acts and atrocities, just the opposite happened. The Israelites were overrun, beaten down, many killed, many more ended up enslaved to other nations.

That first part sounds a lot like America. At one time we were a nation under God. Success after success. Innovation after innovation. Dreams and bigger dreams. America had God’s favor and was the gem of the world. People from around the world dreamed of moving here and many did. But today America no longer has God’s favor. We have become God’s enemy. Not all of us. But a lot of us.

Jesus warned the wheat would be separated from the chaff. If you don’t know what he meant by this, you better figure that one out fast. If should be the first thing you do before you do anything else in life.

What the hell did Jesus mean when he said he would seperate the wheat from the chaff? There’s nothing difficult with that statement. So why do so many people have a hard time grasping those words?

They just don’t care.

Tick.

Tock.

Time’s up.

How Long Will Your Emergency Food Last?

If disaster struck today, how long would your stockpile last? Careful, it’s a trick question. I’m not asking how long you would be able to live off your stockpile — I’m asking about the actual shelf life of the foods in your basement or pantry.

Though you may have beans and cereal that, in theory, can last 10 years or more, the way you store them can substantially decrease or increase that amount. In other words, you may have quite a bit of food in your pantry right now that has less than a year until it expires… and that’s a tough position to be in if a serious, earth shaking disaster struck today.

The Scoop On Emergency Food Storage

Extending The Shelf Life Of Several Foods

Food storage done right, so you can double, triple or even quadruple the shelf life of your foods. Let’s talk about that for a moment. It all starts with the 5 food storage enemies: Oxygen, moisture, temperature, light and pests. The 6th one is time but there’s nothing we can do about that except rotating our stash. Now, if you’re looking to get 10, 20 or even 30 years of shelf life off your foods, you need to tackle all of these enemies. No exception.

Extending The Shelf Life Of Grains, Beans And Rice

Grains, beans, white rice… These are some of the foods with a long shelf life preppers like to stockpile that are also cheap. However, not all varieties are worthy to be in your stockpile.

For example, Cheerios and other breakfast cereals you typically buy at the supermarket have a shelf life of 6 to 8 months. Processed cereals have many refined and hydrogenated oils in them, oil goes rancid so, even if you were to use the preservation techniques we’re going to talk about in a minute, it still wouldn’t be worth it. Thus, step one in storing your food for a really long time is to pick the right food. When we’re talking about real long term emergency food storage, opt for storing white rice (not brown), dried beans and whole wheat berries (not breakfast cereals); rice, beans and wheat berries should be the staples of your survival stockpile.

Mylar Bags With Oxygen Absorbers For Storing Emergency Food

The best way to store your emergency food is in Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers. This is a no-fail combination used by most preppers, provided your food is dry before you store it. Otherwise, you can wake up with condensation after you seal the package — not a good thing.

The process is simple. You fill the bag nearly all the way to the top, seal it using an iron or a hair straightener (but not before you add a pack of the oxygen absorber), depending on the size of the bag. Oxygen absorbers are small packs of iron powder and create a nitrogen environment by removing any oxygen present through chemical reactions.

So, even if the bag will look like it’s got air inside, you don’t need to panic because that’s just nitrogen.

It’s worth mentioning that neither the nitrogen nor the iron powder can affect your food (provided you keep the O2 absorbers inside the original packaging).

As you can see, you don’t need to vacuum-seal the bags; the absorbers will do the trick to prevent growth of aerobic pathogens (such as mold) as well as preventing oxidation. These are the two ways oxygen can spoil your food. Besides, your cereals will crumble under the pressure of the bag.

Put Mylar Bags Inside Airtight BPA-Free 5 Gallon Buckets

Next, you should put the Mylar bags inside airtight BPA-free 5-gallon buckets. This may seem unnecessary but it’s actually a good idea. First off, the bucket will shield the bags from light (another declared food storage enemy), thus improving shelf life. Second, it protects the bag from accidental puncturing (Mylars aren’t that strong, by the way).

We talked about aerobic bacteria but anaerobes need very little or no oxygen to develop. The most important one is called Clostridium botulinum and is responsible for a disease called botulism (not something you want to suffer from post-collapse). Fortunately, this doesn’t really occur when storing grains, beans and rice as long as they’re not moist. It’s something that mostly shows up in canned food, which we’ll tackle in a moment.

The last thing you need to do after you’ve taken care of oxygen, light and humidity is ensure the proper temperature. Anywhere between 50F and 70F will work, preferably closer to 50.

If You Do Everything Right, How Long Can Food Last In Storage?

What shelf life can you expect if you do everything right? This is pretty amazing:

– White rice can last at least 7-8 years with some sources going as high as 25.

– Hard grains such as wheat and corn can store for at least 10 years.

– Soft grains can last about 8 years (because the outer shell is not as strong as that of hard grains)

Emergency Food Storage For Pasta

Storing pasta for the long term is just as easy as storing beans or grain. If you read the label, they tell you it lasts for 1-2 years but if you store it in Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers, that shelf life can increase up to ten times… that’s 20+ years in shelf life!

Place it in plastic buckets to protect it from light, from crumbling inside and from accidental puncturing of the bag. Speaking of punctures, you may want to consider storing things like spaghetti in 5-mil bags instead of the more common 3.5 mil to avoid any sharp noodles accidentally poking holes in the mylar.

Some people like to freeze pasta before storage to prevent larva eggs from hatching. So, to kill these eggs, noodles should stay frozen for approximately 5 days but this method is not needed as long as you use oxygen absorbers. Ultimately freezing the noodles won’t hurt them but it won’t really help either. If you do decide to do it, you need to allow the frozen noodles to reach room temperature before you seal these noodles in Mylars. Otherwise condensation will form and allow the growth of mold.

Canned Food Can Last Several Years Past Expiration Date

There are a lot of myths about canned foods and I want to bust the ones that have to do with shelf life, the one related to the expiration date. Food experts on shelf life have looked closely at unopened cans of food from several decades back, sometimes recovered from shipwrecks, and the data they found was a real eye opener: Canned food can last several years past it’s expiration date.

As long as the can has been properly stored and it looks good on the outside (it’s not leaking and the lid is not swollen or punctured), it’s probably safe to eat. You still have to check for suspicious smells but there have been reports of cans of food that were safe to eat even after 30 or 40 years.

Nevertheless, plenty of people have reported being absolutely fine after eating canned food past the expiration date. Of course, you need to give your cans the same conditions you do to your beans and rice: Keep them in a cool, dry, dark place away from moisture.

Now, there are two types of canned food when it comes to how long they can last: High-acidic and low-acidic. The USDA guidelines tell us that high-acid food (canned fruit and pickles) can last up to 18 months while low acid food (canned meat, beans, corn, potatoes etc.) up to 5 years. The acid in these cans contributes to the deterioration of color, texture and nutrients (over time, of course).

As mentioned earlier, if the can looks, smells and tastes ok, you can ignore the expiration and the “best by” dates (in a post-collapse you might not have a choice anyway).

Extending The Shelf Life Of Peanut Butter

Peanut butter is jam-packed with calories and can last a long time if properly stored… but there’s a catch. It’s full of oils and, as previously said, oils go rancid over time. It depends which type of PB you’re storing, because natural peanut butter only last a few months while smooth and crunchy can last up to a year.

To improve its shelf life, you need to keep peanut butter tightly sealed and in a cool, dry, dark place. You should also store it in a glass rather than a plastic jar to increase longevity even more.

The alternative to PB is powdered peanut butter, which should store for at least 5 years, closer to 10 actually, and it’s good for another year after you open it. That’s considerably longer than traditional peanut butter.

Food Items With An Indefinite Shelf Life

You probably heard that honey has an indefinite shelf life. The only thing that can go “wrong” with it is crystallization, meaning the sugar molecules align themselves in a certain way. This is not a sign it went bad but still, there’s an easy fix: Place the open jar in a pot full of hot water and stir it until the crystals dissolve. In order to slow down the crystallization process, simply store the honey at room temperature. Since most of your foods need to be in cool places, you can keep honey in your kitchen or pantry where you probably have more space.

The other items with an indefinite shelf life are salt, sugar and molasses but the one thing you should do is keep them away from moisture. It’s common for basements to develop mold due to poor ventilation so the two options you have are to either install a fan (if your basement has windows), a dehumidifier (which, unfortunately, will incur electricity costs) or use some of the other recommended options depending on how bad things are.

No long-term survival plan is complete without the seeds that will allow you to start a garden once the dust settles after a collapse. In a worst case scenario, especially those who live in heavily populated areas, that may mean a long and difficult evacuation from a disaster struck region. The good news about seeds is that they don’t take up a lot of space and you can transport them with relative ease; when the time is right, plant that garden finally.

The most important thing to seed storage is to keep these seeds dry. Moisture is the biggest enemy but, fortunately, one you can easily defeat. Keeping your seeds in a cool, dry place should work and don’t forget to add desiccants to the container and seal them afterwards. Another thing you need to do is dry them before storage.

If you don’t want to use desiccants you have other options, such as putting them in paper envelopes. Other options include storing them inside the fridge or the freezer but if you’re left without power in the next disaster, you’re still going to use one of the aforementioned solutions.

The shelf life of various seeds varies.

Some people say they can last up to a hundred years. They actually found seeds inside the belly of a frozen mammoth, meaning they lasted thousands of years! It’s hard to say but if you do it right, you can expect to get at least 5 years of storage life and a 70% germination rate. The ones that have the longest shelf life are:

Bean (2-3 years)

Radish, muskmelon, cress, collards and cucumber (5 years)

Tomato, squash, turnips, eggplant, sorrel, cauliflower Brussel sprouts and watermelon (4 years each)

…but, again, the life of a seed can increase if you do a good job storing them.

Emergency Food Storage For Your Pet

How To Store Dry And Canned Pet Food

There are essentially two types of pet food you can stockpile and they’re the same ones you feed your pets every day: Dry and canned. Surprisingly, canned food lasts a lot longer than dry because dry food has a lot of fat in it, which causes it to go rancid quickly. Dry food usually lasts a year while canned food for 2+ years.

If you’re thinking of using oxygen absorbers with dry pet food, it might not work. You might wake up with mold rings around the absorbers which will, in turn, spoil the entire bag as several preppers have cautioned.

The good news about storing pet food, though, is that there’s no difference between survival food and what they regularly eat for your pet. The other good news is that pets can eat “human survival food” (for lack of a better term). For example, dogs can eat white rice, which we already know can last a lot longer if properly stored (being one of the most popular survival foods).

As long as you store your pet food in a cool, dry dark place (such as a ventilated basement), you’ll surely get a lot more than the 1-2 years it’s stated to last.

How Temperature Fluctuations Affect Emergency Food

Before we wrap this up, I need to address an overlooked aspect: Fluctuations in temperature. We said earlier that some foods need to be stored at temperatures between 50F and 70F but that’s only half the story. The other half is that you need to keep temperature variations to a minimum because they too can (negatively) affect shelf life. Even if you keep it within the interval at all times, fluctuations between 50F and 70F should be avoided.

Why Store Up Emergency Food? So You Can Survive During A Famine!

In the modern age, with so many grocery stores and restaurants bustling with activity and low prices (sometimes high) on many common food items, it’s hard to imagine what life would be like if suddenly it all came to an end. Unfortunately, if someone were to pull the plug on interstate shipping and nationwide commercial food processing and commercial agriculture, literally overnight stores across several regions would slam shut their doors and before you knew it the greatest disaster in America’s history would unfold right before our eyes.

Famine. Food shortages. Long lines stretching possibly miles for a government handout (until the government closes it’s doors as well). Long lines seeking food at churches (that is until churches run out of food) and soup kitchens — soup kitchens once popular with the homeless but now attracting crowds of hungry and scared citizens and their families looking for food and also looking for a solution; but there won’t be one.

What about organizations like the Red Cross and Salvation Army? In some communities, in the first few hours and days, they may also be a source for food, but expect incredibly long lines. When or if food finally gets into your hands unfortunately it may not be something you really find that palatable.

Isn’t Storing Up Food At Odds With Living By Faith?

For those of us who live as Christians, it would seem that way. Living by faith means we know that the Lord will provide. It takes great faith not to store up so that we can see how the Lord will provide and many times he can astonish us. I think though that there’s another angle here to look at; it’s knowing that there are a lot of people who will be hungry during a massive food shortage and subsequent famine, who haven’t stored up food, and first and foremost that could end up being a neighbor or even family and friends who simply never believed that the Terrible Day of the Lord as warned in the Bible was one day headed our way.

A lot of people, and I’m sure a few readers here, may not believe today in these Biblical warnings I’ve shared at different times on the site. I’m going to predict though that a lot of you will start believing in the times ahead.

I get that assurance from the Bible — most people who end up believing in Jesus don’t believe until God is dropping the hammer. In other words: People are some hard eggs to crack!

Food Storage Happens Now — Not Later

It’s a sad, unfortunate fact. There will be a day where tens of millions of people realize that so many signs about a coming catastrophe were all around them, but they were just too glued to their daily routines and complacency and stubbornness about life to notice. They felt life should be lived whatever way they wanted, even though for many the way they live their lives is in direct disobedience to God.

I know it. I’ve been there. And it’s not just the banksters at the top of the food chain preying on the consumers or the super elites at the head of our corporations; no, it’s the rest of us also, the people that make up modern day nations caught up in what the Bible describes as carnal, worldly lives — with a complete disregard for God and his warnings about the coming wrath on the world to deal with it’s many evils and atrocities. Atrocities are committed somewhere on our planet on a daily basis.

God Sees All

The prophets, apostles, Jesus himself assured us that there is a terrible day coming for our planet.

If we don’t get our lives right with God, we are going to be caught up in the midst of it. It may start with a government collapse and famine and food shortages, but really that will only be the beginning. A serious storm is heading to our world and we see it’s waves starting to beat against our shores; consider ISIS (or another faction of Radical Islam) as one of those waves; if you look at the ocean during a storm you cannot count the number of waves that hit; but you can see how strong and violent the waves get as the storm approaches.

The Storm Is Approaching

Matthew 21:25-26 – 25 “And there will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world…”

Matthew 21:29-33 – And he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree, and all the trees. As soon as they come out in leaf, you see for yourselves and know that the summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all has taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”

Matthew 21:34-36 -“But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

Hacktivist group Anonymous has released a chilling new video – urging people around the world to prepare for World War 3 – warning that the US is maneuvering its military for battle.

“All the signs of a looming war on the Korean peninsula are surfacing,” the group claimed in a six-minute clip, posted on YouTube over the weekend.

“Unlike previous world wars, although there will be ground troops the battle is likely to be fierce, brutal and quick. It will also be globally devastating on environmental and economical levels,” Anonymous warn.

During a SHTF situation, pain could become an annoyance for some, but unbearable for others.

If doctors are scarce and medicine becomes even scarcer, this one little weed, found all over North America and similar to morphine, could be a saving grace.

Thefreethoughtproject.com reports: For more than a decade, North Korea has been unsuccessfully attempting to prove its military might to the world through a series of failed missile launches, nuclear proliferation, and threats to anyone who attempts to come near their border. And for more than half a century, the US has enabled it. In spite of threatening nuclear war on the world, most countries have never acted. However, the Trump administration appears to want to change that.

As the Free Thought Project has faithfully reported, tensions between the US and North Korea continue to rise — almost intentionally — as the US rattles the saber at the crazy Kim Jong-Un.

Just last week, North Korea, feeling pressure of encroaching American and allied vessels, threatened to make a ghost ship of a U.S. nuclear submarine.

“The moment the USS Michigan tries to budge even a little, it will be doomed to face the miserable fate of becoming an underwater ghost without being able to come to the surface,” railed propagandic North Korean outlet, Uriminzokkiri, quoted by the Independent.

“Watching as each country moves strategic pieces into place,” Anonymous notes, in their signature distorted robotic voice behind the Guy Fawkes mask. “But unlike past world wars, although there will be ground troops, the battle is likely to be fierce, brutal and quick. It will also be globally devastating, both on environmental and economical levels.”

The very real threat of nuclear war would most assuredly be devastating on all levels.

Instead of attempting to achieve peace, the US is responding in kind with intercontinental ballistic missile tests of their own.

To show Kim Jong Un that launching test missiles won’t be tolerated, the United States, last week, launched an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) from a US Air Force base in California — just seven days after a previous launch.

“This is a real war with real global consequences,” Anonymous explains. “With three superpowers drawn into the mix, other nations will be coerced into choosing sides, so what do the chess pieces look like so far?”

“The citizen will be the last to know, so it is important to understand what the other nations are doing,” the group stated.

“The pragmatic Chinese, it seems, are starting to lose their patience.”

The Chinese do appear to be making moves for a potential conflict.

Last month, China’s Foreign Minister warned that an armed conflict with North Korea may break out “at any moment,” urging Washington and Pyongyang to tone down their hawkish rhetoric and realize the price to pay for both sides if a new Korean War were to start.

Shortly after the warning, China issued a notice to its citizens telling them to leave North Korea at once.

Anonymous also points out that war is likely imminent due to President Donald Trump meeting with the murderous president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte.

Duterte, who compares himself to Hitler and publicly calls for the extrajudicial murder of his own citizens for using drugs, was invited to the White House by Trump.

“When President Trump starts reaching out to those like President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines to assure they are on the same page, one must start to wonder,” Anonymous says in the video. “However, even Duterte has advised the US to back away from Kim Jong Un.”

Preparedness Hacks: Once a nuke is heading your way, you might think that there isn’t much left to do, but you would be wrong!

Because we will show you America’s natural nuclear bunkers that are also EMP proof. When the sirens start wailing, all you need to do is pick the closest one to your home, where you can take cover before it hits.

“Prepare for what comes next,” warns Anonymous.

“We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.”

https://youtu.be/GfOC2nz5Nmc

The riots in Ferguson, MO may have died down for now, but they leave a lasting memory that serves to once again proven how fragile society is and how many problems can be caused by violent looters. All it takes is one police shooting, one jury verdict, one natural disaster. A town can melt down into utter chaos and look like a scene you’d expect to see in Iraq or Afghanistan.

And remember, it doesn’t matter where you live in the U.S., every town is susceptible. This is why you need to know how to survive. Especially when you’re surviving social unrest and protestors begin lobbing Molotov cocktails left and right and looting run rampant.

The fact is, looters and violent protestors are so dangerous. They’re not a group of human beings who you can deal with rationally. Clearly, if people were rational – use Ferguson, MO as an example – they would wait for the facts to come out before destroying buildings and robbing small business owners of their life’s work.

Hopefully, you can agree that if Michael Brown had his hands up and was not a threat to the officer but was shot six times anyway, then that would be murder and the officer should go to jail. On the other hand, if the officer’s account of the situation is true that Michael Brown was fighting with him and trying to take his gun, then the officer was correct in shooting Michael Brown and deadly force was justified.

The facts will eventually come out but the damage is already there. Ferguson and many people were injured as a result. The world can get more out of control. So here’s what you need to do to keep yourself safe if you suddenly discover your town in a civil disturbance and has become the next Ferguson, MO:

How To Deal With Looters

1. Control Your Emotions

Unlike the looters, you need to have self-discipline and be able to control your emotions in a civil unrest. If you’re walking down the street and you see guys running out of Best Buy with TVs in their arms, just keep moving. Don’t stop and lecture them or yell at them or try and stop them. Yes, looters are low-lifes but now is not the time to give them a lesson on the Ten Commandments.

2. Blend in With the Enemy

If you have to make your way through town, you want to blend in with the protestors or looters. If they’re holding a sign that says, “Death to Police”, then you better start chanting that too or grab a sign of your own. The worst thing you can do is to let them know you’re not on their side. This can easily make 100 angry protestors turn on you.

3. Do Not Go Out at Night

I once heard a wise man say, “nothing good happens after midnight.” When it’s dark out, people tend to become more out of control. They think they can get away with more violent behavior. Unless it’s an emergency, don’t leave your home if your city is in the midst of chaos.

4. Always Have Your Gear on You

Since you never know when a city is going to erupt, you always need to have certain gear on you. For instance, I always carry concealed. A few of the different guns you might find me carrying are a Ruger LCP, Glock 19, Smith & Wesson M&P, Sig P226 or Sig P250. If I had to leave my house while looting was taking place I’d have a gun on my hips, such as the Glock 19, a gun in my pocket, such as the Ruger LCP, and a gun on my ankle, such as the Glock 26.

In addition to guns, I always have a knife on me, usually, a Benchmade clipped to my pants pocket or a TOPS Knife clipped to my belt. I also carry a tactical pen on me at all times. A tactical pen is one of my favorite weapons because I can bring it virtually anywhere. And since it’s a pen, it doesn’t draw much attention.

Other gear that I carry with me includes paracord, a lock pick set, bobby pins, a credit card folding knife, a hair barrette, a handcuff key, and $300 in cash with one $100 bill.

5. Watch the Flow

If you’re walking around in the streets and run into a mob of several hundred people, never try to walk through them and go against the flow of traffic. First, you’ll draw a lot of attention to yourself (remember, blend in) and second, you’ll likely get trampled. Simply go with the flow of the mob and have patience. You might have to delay your plans to get to your destination. Though your life is far too valuable not to have patience and take your time.

6. Stay Away From the Leader

Every mob has a leader who others follow. You can find him usually at the front of the pack. This person is the most vocal and draws the most attention to himself. If this leader starts fighting with police, others will follow… if this leader starts hurling rocks, others will follow… if this leader decides to smash a storefront window and start looting, others will follow. The area around this mob leader is very dangerous. You don’t want yourself or your family anywhere around this person. Once you identify this leader keep your distance and stay near less violent and less volatile individuals.

7. Be Prepared to Ruthlessly Fight Back

By following the first six tips above, you’ll hopefully be able to keep yourself safe and won’t ever have to defend yourself against a mob. However, because a mob of looters is such an unpredictable group, anything can happen at a moment’s notice.

Check out this video by epicfailthis about a flash mob in Washington DC:

If somehow the mob turns against you, prepare to strike back quickly and ruthlessly. If you hesitate at all it may cost you your life.

In addition to reading, you also need to train. You need to take a defensive pistol course. Practice your draw so you can get your gun out lightning fast. You also need to learn some hand to hand combat moves and some knife defense. This way you’re ready if you’re put to the ultimate test.

The bottom line is, I hope your city never turns into a Ferguson, MO where they throw the rule of law out the door and people are having a free for all. But, if it does, following the above tips will keep you and your family safer.

Think you can survive a mob of looters given the situation? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!