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Mountain House Sale

It is the last week for the 20-25% off sale of Mountain House canned foods at Emergency Essentials. Storing of dehydrated and freeze-dried foods such as Mountain House is an outstanding way to prep and have foods on hand should you not be able to go to the store and buy it.

These cans are ideal for use in home storage or emergency preparedness. Did you know that they can have a shelf life of up to 25 years? So why not buy some today while they are still on sale and put up a few extra items in your long-term home food pantry. Remember you never know when you may be faced with a situation where you will have to rely on your pantry to feed you and your family. It’s always wise to be prepared.

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Water Jug Storage

We drink a lot of apple juice and I reuse the jugs for water storage. The jugs are nice and sturdy for storing water in. Unlike some of the lighter weight plastics, it is Polypropylene (PP) which has a plastic code of 5 and is not known to leach chemicals into your drinking water. Polypropylene is the same plastic that yogurt cups are made from and they are safe to reuse. You need to be aware of this as some plastics breakdown over time and can cause serious health problems even cancer so beware of what you may be using to store water in.

You may be saying, yeah recycling those apple juice jugs is great but the water smells like apples. Well, I found a cure for that problem. First rinse out the jug thoroughly and then add about a half cup of white vinegar. Put the cap on and shake it well. Leave the jug to soak in the vinegar with the cap on overnight. Shake it a few more times if you get the chance to. The next day rinse it thoroughly again with water to get all the vinegar and odors out. Let the jug dry upside down on a towel until completely dry.

Now for the smell test. There shouldn’t be any apple odor at all. If there is, it will be ever so slight that it shouldn’t prevent you from using the jug for water storage. Fill your jugs right up to the top. Leaving little area in the jug does help prevent bacteria from growing. Also some people recommend adding 8 drops or 1/4 teaspoon of bleach to the jug if your water isn’t already chlorinated to ensure long-term clean water.

So if you have water stored in milk jugs that is wonderful. Use that water to flush the toilet or wash your clothes but just don’t drink it.

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Food for Thought

I recently read a book that asked the question, what would you do if you couldn’t go to Walmart for groceries and other supplies? What if something happened that caused a situation where there was no way to get to a store or if you could, the shelves would be empty. Frightening thought isn’t it?

Now mind you while I find Walmart and other such super stores handy and to have good prices, but I’m not reliant on them for my daily needs. But the issue here is the availability of things you might need in a emergency not whether or not Walmart is open.

Okay here is the food for thought issue — Picture this scenario.

A big ice storm has just hit your area. Many large trees have fallen and power has been knocked out in your community. You dig out a battery operated radio and find some batteries to fire it up to listen in on a local broadcast about the conditions. According to news reports, thousands of people are without power, local roads are closed due to downed trees and very icy conditions. High winds and snow showers are continuing which is causing power crews hazardous conditions as they attempt to repair downed power lines. State Patrol and Department of Transportation is warning citizens to stay home and off roadways until the weather and highway conditions improved. Advisories are being issued that should people ignore warnings and attempt to travel that should they do so at their own risk. As emergency crews are so limited should people run into problems venturing out against warnings, calls for aid will not be answered until which time personnel and resources can respond in a safe manner. Power company officials are warning that it may take several days to restore power to its customer but conditions currently are hampering all efforts to make repairs to broke transmission lines and to remove the many trees that remain across lines…

So are you ready? Do you have some food in the house you can prepare without power to eat for the next couple of days until conditions improve? Remember you can’t go out to the store now to buy what you need. This is where prepping or making preparations in advance pays off. Do you have a woodstove or fireplace you can use for heat? Do you have extra batteries on hand to run your radio so you can keep informed?

It may only be a day or so but are you prepared to survive without a grocery store or other modern conveniences? So back to the topic of this post as this is all food for thought. Make sure you have some extra food stored up that you can prepared without power. Learn to cook on your woodstove or have other cooking options available that you can fall back on should you not have electricity. Have water stored up that you can use if your water source is not functioning. But most of all consider how to prepare and be ready should something of this nature happen because sooner or later it will happen and you want to be ready.

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Food Storage Tool

Here is a handy tool I came across at Emergency Essentials.  It is a free food storage analyzer to help you determine the amount of food you and your family need to have on hand. It will help you organize, analyze, customize, and easily plan for future food storage needs.

Simply check out Emergency Essentials blog for this tool and other great ideas on food storage and planning. I found the tool very easy to use with nice graphics that just requires you to click on images to use. You enter the number of people you are planning for, their ages and if male or female, then you submit the details to get the results for your specific needs. I especially like that you can track the foods you already have on hand and be shown what additional supplies are needed to meet your food storage requirements.

So whether you are planning for your family’s current food needs or prepping for future long-term food storage, I hope you find this site as helpful as I did.

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