Ready for Anything: Mental Preparedness

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Amanda East

Being mentally prepared for emergencies is not something we talk about very often when we discuss disaster preparedness, but it may be the most important survival skill of all. Physical preparedness (having food and water stored, etc) will keep you nourished, but psychological preparedness is what will help you survive.

Sometimes we hear stories of people who have lived through drastic survival situations—the most dramatic example that comes to my mind is Aron Ralston, who cut off his own arm to free himself from a boulder that had pinned him down for 5 ½ days—and we think, I could never do that. The goal of mental preparedness is to make you more able to survive situations that are extremely challenging, situations you might not be able to handle otherwise.

First Things First

In order to get anywhere with mental preparedness, you must first be physically prepared by gathering all the food, water, and emergency supplies your family needs. Being prepared for all the physical necessities of an emergency situation will automatically put you in a better mental state during the emergency. When you are prepared with the resources your family will need, you don’t have the burden of figuring out how you are going to feed your family, what you are going to cook their food with, and how you are going to keep everyone healthy and safe. You also don’t have to bear the guilt of relying on someone else who is prepared (and generous) or worry about taking precious resources from them. This is why the first part of getting yourself mentally ready is to get yourself physically ready.

Once you’ve got the physical stuff figured out, you can then focus on sharpening your psychological readiness.

Five Ways to Mentally Prepare for Emergency Situations

1. Develop mental toughness. Recent studies have shown that while resilience can be an inherited trait, it can also be developed through certain habits. Here are a few practices you can carry out to help you toughen up mentally:

Get physically fit. You can’t toughen your body without automatically toughening your mind. Challenging workouts strengthen your mental ability to endure discomfort and pain, and they also give you more confidence in your physical and mental strength. Run an extra mile, do an extra set of squats, push yourself beyond your former limits so that you are constantly increasing your strength and stamina.

Live a disciplined life. Set rules for yourself when it comes to work habits, eating habits, exercising habits, and sleep habits.

Don’t get too comfortable. On a daily basis, make yourself do something that takes you out of your comfort zone physically or mentally. In a great article on mental toughness, Erich at tacticalintelligence.net recommends randomly doing things like fasting for 24 hours, taking ice-cold showers, going sky-diving, or making yourself wake up at 3:00 in the morning every now and then. Many of these may sound like just plain torture, but anytime you make yourself do things you don’t want to do, you become tougher and better able to handle stress. Remember Woodrow Wilson’s famous words: “Let me remind you that it is only by working with an energy which is almost superhuman and which looks to uninterested spectators like insanity that we can accomplish anything worth the achievement.”

2. Practice a positive attitude. It’s on every motivational poster known to mankind, but that doesn’t make it less true: Attitude is everything. Especially when you are in a life-threatening situation. Last April, TIME reported on a U.S. military program being implemented in which drill sergeants were receiving what they called mental toughness training. In this training, the main goal was to make soldiers more resilient by helping them to—get this—think like optimists. The idea behind the training was that positive thinking makes people more able to endure and thrive in difficult situations. It’s classic psychology: You become who you think you are; you achieve the things you believe you can.

3. Know (and regularly use) some basic relaxation techniques. Practice calming yourself down in stressful situations throughout your daily life so that you can calm yourself during bigger, more stressful situations in an emergency situation. Consider practicing meditation, breathing techniques, yoga, or any other practice that works for you. The important thing is that you make use of these techniques now, when you are not in a survival situation, so that when you are, they will be second nature to you.

4. Do your homework. Spend time filling your brain with emergency procedure knowledge. Collect survival skills like they are scout badges. Whether it’s learning how to identify edible wild plants, perfecting your fire-starting skills, taking a first aid class, or learning how to gut a fish, any survival skill you acquire will give you a leg up mentally when the time comes to use it. Not only will you know how to do this new skill, you will also have more confidence in your ability to rely on yourself for survival in an emergency situation, making you more mentally prepared in the process.

5. Trust yourself. There are two things that most people discover quickly in emergency situations: (1) Life is hard. (2) People are tough. In general, people tend to be much stronger than they think they are and more resilient and adaptable too. Trust your instincts and trust yourself that you are going to be able to tackle any situation. Many people who have survived disaster situations are surprised to find that they didn’t even have to consider what they would do; they immediately found themselves stepping up to challenges and doing what had to be done. If you have prepared yourself physically and mentally, you will likely find this to be true of yourself too. Any time you doubt your abilities, remember the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.”

Any survival situation requires a great deal of mental effort to keep you positive, long-suffering, relaxed, and confident, but these traits are what will ultimately keep you alive. Foster them now and increase your chances of staying alive later.

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Pets and Emergency Preparedness

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Amanda East

Every good pet owner makes sure that pets are fed, groomed, exercised, sheltered, and sometimes even clothed, but one area of care that many pet owners forget is to prepare their pets for emergency situations. If you are in the process of gathering supplies and knowledge to get your family prepared for a disaster, don’t neglect your favorite furry, feathery, or scaly friend.

For the most part, pets’ needs in an emergency situation will be very similar to humans’ needs. The most important things you can do to prepare your pet for a disaster are to put together a basic pet survival kit, plan an evacuation location, and learn how to keep your pet calm during stressful situations.

Assemble a Pet Survival Kit

A good pet survival kit will include most items that a human survival kit will, with a few notable exceptions. Following are some crucial items to store to keep your pet happy and safe during any situation:

1. Food and water. When you are figuring out how much water to store away for your family, don’t forget to store enough water to keep your pet hydrated and clean too. When choosing emergency pet food, moist or canned foods can be a good option because they will help to quench pets’ thirst and thereby help you to conserve precious water resources.

2. Medications. Just like people, many pets have to take medications to keep them healthy. Don’t forget to store extra meds for emergencies.

3. Sanitation items. Store a brush or comb, pet shampoo, a blanket or towel, extra kitty litter, and whatever other sanitation items your pet needs to be clean and well-cared for.

4. First aid supplies. First aid supplies for pets will largely be the same as first aid supplies for people, but make sure to have a little extra of certain items, such as large bandages, medical tape, and gauze.

5. Portable food containers. If you have to evacuate your home, you will want to have some lightweight food containers to pack with you to feed your pet wherever you go.

6. Manual can opener if your pet eats food out of a can.

7. Leash or carrier. During chaotic situations, even regularly sedate and docile animals can become erratic and aggressive. It is vital that you have some way to keep your pet contained and calm until disasters settle.

8. A picture of your pet. Having a picture of your pet handy will be vital in case he gets lost and you need to ask people if they’ve seen him. It’s even better if the picture has you in it so that you can prove ownership.

9. A collar with ID tag, vaccination tag, and license tag. Also have veterinary records handy. These are all crucial in emergencies in case your pet gets lost, needs to be boarded, or requires medical attention.

10. A list of emergency numbers. Include the number for an animal emergency medical treatment center, your local kennel, your veterinarian, and the local animal shelter.

11. Comfort Items. Keep a favorite toy, blanket, or sleeping pillow close by, or whatever will help your pet feel more comfortable and relaxed. Don’t forget to store some favorite treats along with the pet food. Just as with humans, pets will need treats to give them a sense of normalcy in abnormal situations.

With all of these items, your pet will be well provided for in any disaster. You can also talk to your veterinarian to see what suggestions he or she has for you when preparing your particular pet for an emergency. In addition, the local animal shelter can be another good source for pet emergency preparedness tips.

Find a Sheltering Place

If you have to leave your home, know that many shelters will not accept animals. Most disaster experts warn pet owners against leaving their pets behind. Pets who are left to fend for themselves have very low chances of survival. One good option is to consider contacting a family member or friend now who lives outside of your area to see if you can evacuate to their house with your pet in case of emergency.

If you don’t have a family member who is willing to have your pet come to their house during an emergency evacuation, contact your local kennel to find out if they have a plan to board pets during an emergency. If so, see if you can reserve a spot in advance since space will be limited. Also call a kennel outside your area in case the disaster affects the one in your area and makes it non-functioning. Another option is to call hotels and motels that accept pets to see if they have a plan to shelter people/pets in an emergency.

If you absolutely have to leave your pet behind, don’t leave him chained up outside. Leave a note outside that says what kind of animal is in the house and where he is located. Also leave a number at which you can be reached. Remember that leaving pets at home puts them in serious danger. Avoid this alternative if at all possible.

Keep Them Calm

If a natural disaster begins to brew in your area, bring pets inside right away. Animals can often sense that a disaster is coming, and one of their instincts is to isolate themselves if they are panicked. To keep your pets safe and sheltered, it’s important to bring them inside before they can run away.

Remember that pets will be upset and emotionally weary too. Give them extra love. Expect them to be more than ordinarily needy and less than usually obedient. It will be an uncomfortable and unfamiliar situation for them, and stress can affect animals just like it affects people. Keep a close eye on them, pet them, snuggle them, and keep them close by.

For many pet owners, the family dog, cat, or parakeet is as much a part of the family as the kids are. As you prepare your family for emergencies, don’t neglect to prepare your pet too. Having a basic survival kit ready and an evacuation plan in place will save you from hassle and heartache in the event of a disaster.

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A Brief Education on Food Storage Shelf Life

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Amanda East

When a survival situation arises and you go to your cupboard to break out the emergency food you have had stashed away for ages, do you want to be anxiously sniffing it and crossing your fingers that it’s still good and not going to make you very sick? I’m guessing you probably want to be able to trust that the food storage you have spent so much time and effort collecting is going to last as long as it is advertised to.

A reliably long shelf life—specifically, 25 years or more—is vital in food storage products for several reasons. Long shelf lives that you can trust give you peace of mind knowing you have provided for your family in the event of an emergency, and that you have done so safely. In addition, investing in food storage with a 25-year shelf life can be cheaper in the long run because it saves you having to replace food storage that has gone bad. It also makes your life a little easier without having to deal with the hassle of frequent food storage rotation.

As you research different emergency food options, you’ll find that many food storage companies advertise a 25-year shelf life. Before you make a pricey investment, keep a few things in mind. Many companies use the claim of a 25-year shelf life as a nice-sounding marketing tool without having any real evidence to back it up. Watch out for these companies and make sure you are getting a product that will perform as well as it should. You can do this by becoming educated on the factors that affect the shelf life of emergency food: ingredients, preservation, packaging, and storage.

Factors that Affect Shelf Life

Ingredients

It’s a simple fact of nature: some foods last longer than others. Case in point: potatoes versus fresh greens. (I swear we had the same bag of potatoes in the pantry the whole time I was growing up. In contrast, I buy a bag of fresh greens at the grocery store, and if I haven’t eaten it up within a few days, I end up with a pretty slimy salad.) There are wide variations in the shelf life of different ingredients that make up food storage, and it’s important to keep these in mind so that you can judge how long your food storage will truly last—outside of marketing claims.

Brigham Young University has been conducting research on various food storage items and determining which types of foods last for long periods of time. Here is a brief summary of their findings:

  • Salt, granulated sugar, and baking soda have no currently known shelf life if they are in their original containers and stored correctly.
  • Wheat and rice stored in foil pouches, cans, or buckets have the potential to last 30 years or more.
  • Powdered milk, oats, instant potatoes, beans, dried apples, and macaroni stored in foil pouches with oxygen absorbers or in cans can last 15 to 30 years when stored correctly.
  • Wet-pack canned foods last five years at most, depending on their ingredients. Yeast and cooking oil typically last 1 ½ years.
  • Powdered eggs last about one year.

For more information, you can check out more research here.

Preservation and Packaging

The way a survival food is preserved and packaged is monumental when considering its shelf life. Following are some common food storage methods and their relative shelf lives.

  • Meals-Ready-to-Eat (MRE’s) are exactly what they sound like. You open them up and dig in. These types of emergency food meals typically have a shelf life of only three years.
  • Wet-packed canned foods, as mentioned above, typically have a shelf life of five years at best. Canned foods with acidic ingredients like tomatoes last for an even shorter amount of time because they can begin to corrode the cans.
  • Canned dry foods typically have a long shelf life, depending on the type of food stored in them (see above), and especially if sealed with oxygen absorbers.
  • Freeze-dried and dehydrated foods have a similarly long shelf life because of their particular fitness to last long periods of time. Both the freeze-drying process and the dehydration process remove large amounts of moisture from the food, keeping microorganisms from spoiling the food.

Whatever the packaging, food should be stored with a residual oxygen level of below 2%. Nitrogen flushes and oxygen absorbers can help to achieve this goal. Find out if this is a practice employed by the food storage company you are researching.

Storage

The last factor in the shelf life of any emergency food is its storage conditions. When selecting a place to store your emergency food, remember the four components of a good storage area: low temperature, low moisture, low oxygen, and low light. If your food storage is exposed to too much of any of these, it can cause the food to lose nutrients, have off flavors, or spoil. Aim for your food to be consistently somewhere below room temperature (garages and attics are not a good idea because of the high summertime temperatures they reach), and try to keep it out of unnecessary moisture and light. The oxygen level should be taken care of by the packaging if it is trustworthy.

Becoming familiar with the factors that influence shelf life will help you make wiser decisions when buying emergency food. Selecting food like Legacy Premium’s that is proven to last for 25 years saves you money and hassle, and it allows you to rest easy knowing that you can trust your food storage to still be nutritious and tasty when the time comes for you to use it. Make an investment in your family by storing food with a shelf life you can rely on.

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Winter Composting: Make Your Garbage Work for You

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Amanda East

In the snowy, white-washed winter months, sometimes it’s hard to remember what green grass looks like or recall the smell of dirt. This is one of the reasons winter is my least favorite season, and I am always looking for ways to bring a little bit of June into January. One pretty great way to do this and to become more self-reliant in the process is to practice composting through the winter.

Why compost?

Composting is a responsible and rewarding habit. One third of landfill space is reportedly filled with materials that could be composted. Composting our own waste keeps the landfills a little bit freer and is thus an efficient and self-reliant way to dispose of waste. It is also a supremely beneficial practice for the garden. Compost adds crucial nutrients to soil and makes it a wonderland for plant life to grow in. There are few things as advantageous as good compost for the vitality of a garden and for keeping soil healthy and productive. Composting is not hard to do, and when you get in the habit of it, you start to feel like you are participating in a beautiful process: consuming food and then putting it back in the earth to help more food grow. At the risk of sounding too cheesy, it simply feels good to compost.

And the best news is, composting doesn’t have to end when the first snow begins to fall.

Winter Composting

The big goal in composting any time of year is to help aerobic bacteria thrive and multiply within the compost pile so that it can decompose the pile and turn it into compost. Successful decomposition of any compost pile requires three things: proper aeration, the right amount of moisture, and the right carbon to nitrogen ratio.

Composting in winter time is different from composting in summer time for obvious reasons. In the winter time, you must battle cold temperatures and excessive amounts of moisture. Cold temperatures can slow or even stop the composting process, and if a pile gets drenched, it can lose its valuable air pockets and become ruined. However, with the right conditions, decomposition can still go on in the deep center of the pile, even in the cold winter months, and if it does stop, it will start again when things warm up.

Following are a few tips for keeping your compost pile viable through the winter.

Winter Composting Basics

1. Cover it up. Building a roof over your compost heap will help you control the amount of moisture it receives. If you don’t want to build an actual roof, you can also cover it with a tarp.

2. Protect it from the elements. To keep the cold from getting to the center of the pile, you will want to make sure it is walled in somehow. You could construct a basic structure out of cinder blocks, put your pile in a compost container, or surround it with hay bales for an excellent insulating measure. Having some kind of barrier around your pile will shield it from the cold weather and give it a better chance of continuing its processes. Another great option is to dig a hole and bury your pile for the winter. Then every time you add some fresh matter to it, put a layer of dirt over it.

3. Make it big. You can also make your pile very large to help it last longer. The bigger the pile, the more heat it will generate and hold in. If you have long and cold winters, build up a big pile in the fall to keep your pile strong through the winter. You will want your pile to be at least a cubic yard, more for very cold places.

4. Add more brown matter than usual. Brown matter includes leaves, tree branches, and other yard waste. Brown matter gives bacteria energy whereas green matter (like kitchen scraps) helps bacteria reproduce. In winter months, whenever you add green scraps, add a layer of brown material too, like leaves or shredded newspaper.

5. Keep scraps small. In the winter time, because the bacteria will not be as active, it will be harder for it to break food scraps down. Break your food scraps down before you put them in your pile by shredding or cutting them into pieces smaller than two square inches to give the bacteria a little help. This will allow the pile to heat uniformly.

6. Don’t turn the pile. Turning your pile is a great idea in warm weather, but in colder temperatures, it’s best to just leave it alone so that precious heat doesn’t escape.

Following these tips can help you extend the life of your compost pile and allow it to stay active until spring comes again, but if you don’t feel up to the extra work required to keep your compost heap going in the winter, you might consider simply moving your composting indoors. There are a variety of indoor composting systems available, including composting containers that heat up your kitchen scraps for you and turn them into compost within a few weeks, vermicomposting systems (worm boxes), and bokashi systems (anaerobic composting buckets). For more information on indoor composting, read this great review of three common indoor composting systems: http://www.chow.com/food-news/54730/indoor-composting-systems/.

Winter can be a desolate time largely because of the lack of growing things and working with the earth. Composting extends the satisfaction that comes from gardening into the dead winter months. Anyone who regularly composts their kitchen scraps knows that once you have started composting, you can never throw a banana peel in the garbage again without feeling wasteful. Composting in the winter is an earth-friendly, garden-loving, self-reliant habit, and it is entirely plausible if you take the right measures.

More winter composting resources:

http://earth911.com/news/2012/01/26/your-guide-to-winter-composting/
http://www.compostguy.com/winter-composting/
http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/cold-weather-compost?page=0,1

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Why GMO-free Matters

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Amanda East

What goes into the food you eat matters—especially if it’s food for your food storage. When you buy emergency food, you buy it with the aim of keeping your family safe and provided for in an emergency situation. It’s only logical then that you would make sure the emergency food you buy is actually safe and free of harmful ingredients.

Did you know that Legacy Premium food is the only emergency food on the market that is certified to be 100% free of genetically modified ingredients? Many of you know why being GMO-free is important, but if you are one of the many who are still in the dark about the risks of genetically modified food, here is a brief summary of the reservations many experts have about this increasingly common process.

Genetically modified foods are foods that contain organisms that have been changed from their natural state into an enhanced state with the goal of offering certain desired benefits. This enhancement is done either by taking genes out of an organism, like removing the genes from a plant that make it susceptible to drought, or adding genes from another organism into it, like adding in genes that give a food better nutritional stats. Sounds like a pretty miraculous and wonderful practice, doesn’t it? The big corporations who fund genetic modification of foods would like you to think so. However, there are some serious concerns in the scientific community about the safety of genetically modified foods. Specifically, many experts worry that we do not know enough about the effects of genetically modified foods and that there is not enough regulation over their creation and circulation into the mainstream food market.

So are GMO foods safe? Scientists don’t know. Some studies done have found that animals fed GMO-containing foods showed toxic and allergenic effects. Even if not all scientists agree on the effects GMOs can have, most of them agree that there is simply not enough research on the effects of GM food, and the testing that has been done is insufficient. Currently, GM food corporations hold the patents on the foods they create. As a result, most of the research that is done lies primarily in their hands. Understandably, GM companies are very careful about the results they share with the public.The fact that we don’t have evidence of GM foods’ safety and that regardless they are still being mass-produced and incorporated into the food market unrestrained and without regulation or labeling requirements is particularly alarming. Most people feel that without knowing more about GM foods, we should not be consuming them as thoughtlessly as we are.

Safety concerns aside, genetic modification of foods is also problematic ecologically. A big concern is that GM crops will spread and overtake or cross-pollinate with natural crops. Neither of these possibilities is good. If GM crops spread and overtook natural crops, farmers could suffer. If GM crops cross-pollinated with natural crops, the result could be new plants that we have no control over. In 2010, researchers at the University of Arkansas found genetically modified Franken-canola flowers (used to make canola oil) spreading all over the wild in North Dakota. In many cases, these new crops were resistant to herbicides. In other words, they were human-engineered superweeds. Without more research and monitoring, genetically modified crops pose a threat to biodiversity and the delicate ecological balance.

In addition to safety and ecological risks, there are also compelling economic reasons to avoid genetically modified foods. In some parts of the world, farmers are carrying an increasing financial burden because of their dependence on GM seeds. Because only a handful of companies control the GM seed market, it’s easier for these companies to take advantage of their monopoly. In the U.S. it has been reported that GM companies have limited selections of non-GMO seeds available and then raised the prices steeply on their GM seeds. It is also reported that GM seeds typically produce less and require more pesticides. Farmers shoulder these costs as well. Things can become risky when large corporations can patent and control the world’s food supply.

These safety, ecological, economic concerns are what the fuss is all about with genetically modified foods. Knowing what you know now, keep in mind that packaged foods and foods that are meant to have long shelf lives (like emergency foods) are prime suspects for containing genetically modified ingredients. Be aware of this when you are in the market for emergency foods. Also keep in mind that in the U.S. there are no requirements that GM foods be labelled as such. Legacy Premium emergency food is the only food in the industry that is certified to be 100% GMO-free.

You’re here because you want to protect your family. Make sure you are protecting them from unsafe food by storing emergency food that is free of potentially harmful genetically modified ingredients.

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Be Prepared for Winter Driving

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Amanda East

Winter has arrived and with it all the cold, icy trappings. While some of us might love the beauty of the snow and the recreational activities that go along with it, most of us don’t love the driving conditions winter weather creates. If you live in an area of the country that gets a lot of snow, it’s important that you be prepared for hazardous snow conditions. You can do this by storing essential emergency supplies in the trunk of your car and knowing what to do if you find yourself stuck in your car in the snow. What follows is your guide to being prepared for winter driving.

Essential Items for Winter Driving

It’s not big news that winter driving can be very dangerous. In order to be prepared for the hazardous situations that can occur as a result of winter conditions, having some emergency items in the trunk of your car whenever you drive in the snow can be life-saving. To start off with, you should always have a small supply of non-perishable energy foods and drinking water with you when you drive. You should also have items to keep you warm, including blankets or sleeping bags and an extra coat, pair of gloves, warm socks, and hat for every person who usually rides in the car. Gathering these items and taking up precious trunk space might seem inconvenient now, but if you are ever stuck in your car in extreme weather conditions, you don’t know how long you will have to wait for help to find you.

In addition to food, water, and warmth, you’ll also want to have some other items to make snowy situations easier to get out of. These include an emergency flag or flares to let others know you are there and need help, a small shovel to dig snow out from around your tailpipe or other parts of the car if necessary, a windshield scraper, a first aid kit, a tow rope, a fully-charged phone, a bag of sand for traction, prescription medications, a flashlight and batteries, a tin can and candle, and matches (these last three items are for melting snow to drink water).

Remember, in extreme snow storms, rescuers are very busy, and it can be a very long time before they find you. If you have the right supplies with you, you can keep yourself safe until they do.

What to Do If You Become Trapped in a Blizzard in Your Car

During extreme snow storms, the best advice is to not drive. If you must go somewhere and you find yourself stuck in a blizzard, here are a few tips to follow to keep you alive.

1. Stay in your car. In a blizzard, it is really easy to get disoriented and become lost. Only leave your car if you can see a building very close by. Otherwise, stay in your car and wait for rescuers to find you. Remember, it is much harder for rescuers to find a lone walker out in the middle of the snow than to find a car.

2. Stay calm. If you are prepared and know what you’re doing, chances are good that you are going to be fine. Any time you are faced with a survival situation, a positive attitude gives you a much better chance of making it through unscathed. The storm will end, and help will come.

3. Run your heat off and on, but not for too long at a time in order to conserve gas. Most experts recommend running the heat for 10-15 minutes for every hour you are in the car. Any time you run the heat, make sure your tailpipe is free of snow to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning. Also keep a window slightly cracked while you are running your heat.

4. Let others know you are stranded. If you have emergency flags or flares, put those out. If not, tie a red or orange piece of cloth on your antenna. If it is nighttime, turn the interior light or your hazard lights on so that rescuers can find you. When the snow stops, stamp “help” in the snow and lift the hood of your car to signal distress.

5. Keep yourself warm by moving around in the car as much as possible. Stomp your feet, wave your arms around, even do pushups or sit-ups in the back seat if you are in pretty good shape. However, don’t do so much that you start to sweat; sweat will make you chilled. Also, don’t do so much that you overexert. In extreme cold conditions, the cold plus extreme exertion can equal a heart attack. Just keep yourself moving so that your blood is flowing well.

6. Stay awake if possible. If there is more than one person in the car, take shifts staying awake so you can watch for help.

7. Conserve. This might seem like a no-brainer, but you don’t have any idea how long it will be until help arrives. Conserve batteries on your phone by only using it to call for help. Conserve food supplies and water supplies as well. Depending on your location, you could be there for a while.

8. Stay hydrated. If you don’t have water with you, you can use snow, but don’t eat snow directly as it will lower your body temperature even more. Put it in some kind of container if you have one and melt it and then drink it. Avoid caffeine and alcohol.

9. Keep your seatbelt on as much as possible so that if other cars run into you, you will be in a restraint. Remember that your car will be hard to see, and the roads will be very hard to drive on.

10. Use floor mats, seat covers, road maps, or anything else you have to keep warm if you have no blankets. One man stuck in his car for days ripped off the interior lining of his car and used this to keep himself warm.

Driving in winter weather is inherently dangerous, but if you are prepared with the right supplies and the knowledge of what to do if you become stuck, you don’t need to find yourself in an unnecessary and scary situation.

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Water: Your Most Important Preparedness Item

Posted on January 13, 2013 by Amanda East

Water is hands-down the single most important thing for you to have stored in an emergency. You can survive without food for up to a month or more, depending on the circumstances, but you can only go without water for three to seven days. Water is essential for our bodies because it is involved in every bodily function: metabolism, temperature moderation, digestion, transporting nutrients, organ cushioning, and detoxification, to name a few.

In addition to supplying our bodies with crucial hydration, water is also essential for a surprising amount of day-to-day tasks. Go through a typical day for a moment to discover how much you rely on water for nearly everything you do. In a typical day, I take a shower, brush my teeth, do a load or two of laundry, cook meals with water, wash the dishes, wipe off the counters, water the garden, and give water to pets. Water is truly a part of the whole day.

Because we have water running through our faucets at any time we need it, it’s easy to start to feel like water is an endless resource. However, in an emergency, water can be shut off for days or longer. If you haven’t got water stored, it will be a very difficult and dangerous situation for you and your family.

FEMA recommends storing one gallon of water per person per day for at least three days. To me, this is a conservative amount, but I tend to be more-than-usually thirsty and typically drink nearly a gallon of water a day. I would want another gallon or so for cooking and grooming, if I could. You might also consider that you will need more water if the disaster occurs during a hot part of the year, probably close to double what you would normally need. You might also need more water for emergency medical conditions, like caring for wounds. Think about your habits and your family’s needs and store accordingly.

When you store your water, here are some recommendations to keep in mind. Using plastic containers with tight lids is probably the easiest way to go. Many people choose to buy bottled water because it is already ready for storage, but you can also bottle your own. Just make sure you are using food-grade plastic and not plastic used for other things as bad substances can leak into your water. Also, be aware that plastic bottles that formerly had anything sweet or sugary in them (including milk and fruit juice) are not good to store water in because the sugar in these products is almost impossible to remove from the plastic. When you then store water in them, that sugar will be an instigator of bacteria growth. Also, don’t use metal containers as they can corrode and leak dangerous substances into the water. You can use food-grade glass or stainless steel containers as well, as long as you have sterilized them.

If you choose to bottle your own water, first be sure to sanitize your containers well. This could mean washing them with hot water and dish soap and then rinsing them out with a solution of 1 tsp. of bleach to 1 quart of water. Then be sure to rinse everything out thoroughly with water and let them dry well.  When you fill them with water, try not to touch the inside of the lid or the lip of the bottle with your fingers.

Rotate your water every six months if you have bottled it yourself or every year if you have already bottled it to ensure that it stays fresh. Store it out of light and away from heat.

If your emergency situation lasts and turns into a survival situation, you may find that no matter how much water you had stored, it wasn’t enough. In this case, you will need to know how to purify water and/or be supplied with appropriate water purification gear.

How to Make Most Water Safe in an Emergency

One option for purifying your water is to purchase a water filtration device and store it with your emergency supplies. BuyEmergencyFoods offers a variety of different water purification systems, from water bottles to family-size pitchers to filtering straws–to offer you the ultimate in convenience. (There aren’t many options more convenient than having your water purified for you as it travels through your straw.)

If you don’t have a water purifier around, you can follow FEMA’s recommendation and use chlorine bleach. It takes 16 drops of regular household liquid bleach to purify one gallon of water.

You can also boil water vigorously for 1-2 minutes. Some experts even claim that you don’t have to get water to a boil; you simply have to bring it to pasteurization temperature, which is only 150 degrees. Because you may not have a thermometer around, bringing it to a boil will probably be your safest bet. If you’re wondering how you would boil something in a survival situation, you’ve got several options. If you’ve planned ahead and have got some kind of camp stove and fuel stored, you are set. Another option is to use a solar oven, either one you have purchased or one you have made (They are very simple to construct and use materials you most likely have around.)

Another option for purifying fresh water is to use water purification tablets. Water purification tablets typically release iodine into the water, which kills most pathogens in fresh water. They often come with a partner Vitamin C tablet, which you put in the water after the iodine one has done its job. The Vitamin C tablet takes away the taste of the iodine and makes the water ready for drinking. Purification tablets can be purchased online or in outdoor gear stores and are pretty inexpensive.

When a natural disaster strikes, cracked water lines can allow polluting substances into the water that feeds into your house. Alternatively, the water can be shut off altogether. In many cases, you will have to rely on the water you have stored to keep your family from dehydration and to perform daily household and hygiene activities. Because water is so essential for survival, storing water is the most important thing you can do to be prepared for an emergency. Start now and make sure you have enough water stored for your family. Also be sure you have stored it safely, and become educated on ways to purify fresh water should this become necessary. You will never regret having water on hand when things go bad.

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Tips for Keeping Your New Year’s Resolutions

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Amanda East

Every year at the gym I attend, there is a huge surge of people who show up at the gym starting on the first day of January. Go to a fitness class in January and there is no room to stand. Try to get an open treadmill in January and you are going to have to wait a while. Luckily, the crowds don’t last long. Usually by the first or second week of February, things have gotten back to normal. The fact that this cycle is a yearly occurrence highlights a disconcerting truth. It’s almost laughable (if it weren’t so sad) how much failing at our New Year’s resolutions has become a part of the definition of being human.

Did you make New Year’s resolutions this year? Maybe you’re not a resolution-setting type, but you just have some big goals you’d really like to accomplish. Perhaps you’ve been reading our blog for a while and would like to once and for all tackle emergency preparedness by getting enough food and water stored for your family, gathering emergency supplies, and making a family emergency plan. If you are like most people and have made goals in the past that have failed, this post is for you. What follows are six tips to help you turn your goals into successful habits that are a part of your daily life, not just wistful plans spoken and then broken.

1. Be specific. When you are setting your goals, be sure they are specific, achievable things and not just general ideas. For example, saying something like, “I am going to become more self-reliant this year” is much too vague and subjective. A better goal would be something like,  “I am going to budget in $20 a month with which to buy emergency food this year.” Without specifics, goals have too much space for excuses and procrastination.

2. Be realistic. Choose goals that you know you can achieve. There should, of course, be some challenge involved, but do not expect yourself to be a completely different person than you are right away. Know your tendencies and weaknesses and make goals with them in mind. Change is possible, but only gradually and in small increments.

Consider making smaller goals right now that will bring you closer to your ultimate goal. For a while, my husband and I had a goal to learn Mandarin Chinese. This is a monumental task, and whenever we sat down to “learn Chinese,” we would become overwhelmed at the enormity of it. Because we were trying to teach ourselves and didn’t have much familiarity with the tonal variations that make Mandarin so tricky, we eventually gave up. If we had made a more realistic goal to start off with–like learning 100 Chinese words or mastering the nuances of the five tones–we might have had more success and then been able to move on to bigger goals.

3. Analyze your choice of goal. Take some time to figure out how serious you are about your resolutions. Why do you want to achieve this particular thing? Make sure your reasons are good enough and your motivation is strong enough to keep you going even when it’s hard. For example, if your goal is to shed some pounds this year, first analyze your reasons for wanting to do so. Simply wanting to look better may not be strong enough motivation when you have worked a 12-hour day and there is no healthy food in your house and you don’t have the energy to exercise and those cookies your neighbor made are sitting so conveniently on the counter. You are going to need some weighty reasons for your need to change. If you want to lose weight because you want to live a long, vibrant life or you want to be able to wake up in the morning and feel more alive, you might be more likely to stick to your purpose when it gets rough.

3. Replace an old habit with a new one. Some experts suggest that getting rid of bad habits and putting good ones in their place is a good way to make big changes. Maybe you have a habit of coming home from work every day and watching two hours of TV. Maybe one of your goals is to start a business. Instead of saying, “I am going to work on my business for two hours every day,” say “In place of watching TV after work, I am going to work on my business for two hours.” Taking away an old habit and replacing it with a new one gives that new habit a place in the daily schedule. It also makes you rely on that new habit more, making you need it to fill the hole that taking the old habit out created.

4. Write it down and outline the specifics. Make a written record of your goals. When you write something down, you make it real. Writing down my goals has allowed me to be more accountable to myself and given me a stronger desire to reach those goals because I don’t want to blow off a commitment I put in writing.

After you have written your goals down, make a written plan for how you will accomplish your goals. Decide what your daily steps will look like. When I am training for marathons, I write down what my daily mileage has to be in order to reach my final goal. The satisfaction that comes from putting a checkmark next to those miles as I accomplish them might be more than the later satisfaction of crossing the finish line.

5. Be vocal. Tell others about your goals. When you tell others about something you are trying to accomplish, it makes you feel more pressure to actually reach your goals because others are watching your progress. One year I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), in which you write a 50,000-word novel in thirty days. I told lots of people about it, including my husband, my mother, my mother-in-law, and my sister, and having told these people was a great motivator for me when I was two weeks in and all out of words and wanting to quit. I didn’t want to have to say when asked about my progress, “Oh, I gave that up.” The avoidance of shame is an excellent motivator.

6. Expect some bumps along the way. Don’t be too hard on yourself when you fail. You will fail (at least) a few times; it’s part of being human. If you beat yourself up over failing, you may not have the desire to start again. But if you recognize that a little bit of slipping up here and there will be part of the process, you will be much more likely to stick to your goals for the long haul.

If all we do is make goals and then discard them year after year, it can start to feel like change is impossible. But this is not true. In fact, one of the best parts of life is that glimmer of possibility that we can shape ourselves into better people. By using these tips, you can turn your New Year’s resolutions, or any goals you make, into realities. Then you can taste the euphoria that comes from doing hard things and looking back at the progress you’ve made along the way.

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Why Freeze-Dried Meals Top the List of Best Emergency Foods

Posted on December 30, 2012 by Amanda East

Wandering around any food storage supply store, one of the first things you’ll notice is that there are a slew of different types of emergency food methods—canned foods, bulk grains, meals ready-to-eat, freeze dried and dehydrated meals, and emergency food bars, to name just a few. The eager prepper embarking on her self-reliance journey can easily become overwhelmed at the different options available. Which type of food storage is the best?

As you know, Legacy Premium offers emergency food that is a mix of freeze-dried and dehydrated foods. We have chosen this method because we think it is the best way to make food last an incredibly long time without having to compromise on taste or quality. In this post, we will make a case for freeze-dried meals and why we think they are the best food storage option available. The reasons are simple: Freeze-dried and dehydrated meals offer greater variety, nutrition, convenience, and shelf life than other methods of food storage.

Variety

Meal fatigue might sound like simply an inconvenience, but in real time, it can be a serious morale killer. If you store only large amounts of bulk items like wheat and beans and rice, you will end up eating most of the same foods over and over. The same is true of large number-10 cans of foods. If you open one of these cans, you usually have to eat its contents up within a day or so. As a result, you end up eating the same thing meal after meal or having to be really creative with the foods you make out of them…bean pancakes, anyone?

Freeze-dried and dehydrated meals offer a greater variety of foods than any other type. With freeze-dried foods, meals can be as varied in an emergency situation as they would be in real life. You might have stroganoff one night, corn chowder the next, and chili the next. The variety afforded by freeze-dried meals will ensure that eating will not be added to the list of chores your family has to worry about in an emergency situation.

Nutrition

Without variety in the food we eat, our health can suffer. If the emergency situation is prolonged and you are eating the same foods for a long period of time, you won’t be giving your body the full complement of vitamins it needs to function. According to a study done recently by Brigham Young University, a year supply of common bulk food storage items (400 lb wheat, 60 lb dry beans, 60 lb sugar, 16 lb powdered milk, 10 qt oil, and 8 lb salt) provides adequate calories but is lacking in calcium as well as vitamins A, C, B12, and E. In addition to the nutrient deficiencies of a diet made solely of this food, relying on wheat as your main emergency food can be a gamble. Many people have allergies to wheat and may not be aware of it until they are living on mostly wheat products. Only when they are subjecting their bodies to large amounts of it do their bodies exhibit their allergy.

The variety of foods in freeze-dried and dehydrated meals, including vegetables and fruits and even meats, allows for the ultimate mix of vitamins and minerals. More than perhaps any other food storage method, the freeze-drying process is particularly tailored to maintaining the original nutrients found in the food. In addition, the freeze-dried and dehydrated process makes it easier to tailor meals to specific needs, like gluten-free options that will help you avoid the problems associated with wheat allergies.

Convenience

Not only is freeze-dried emergency food more nutritious and varied than other types, it is also the winner in the convenience category. Consider with me for a moment the realities of possible emergency situations. It is likely that there may not be an easy way to cook and prepare meals from bulk foods. How will you make your wheat into flour for bread? How will you bake it? Without advanced preparations, you could be caught in a difficult situation.

Freeze-dried meals are an ideal emergency food type because they are ready to eat as is and require just water, which is something you should be storing in your emergency supply anyway.

In addition, with freeze-dried meals stored, you won’t have to worry about knowing how to cook things out of your food storage food. There may be some super savvy cooks out there who know how to whip up delicious homemade bread from memory, but I am not one of them. Are you?

Freeze-dried meals are also easier to store and move if necessary because the freeze-drying process makes foods super lightweight and compact, unlike big heavy cans of food.

Shelf Life

Freeze-dried and dehydrated foods also outclass the competition because of their potential for a very long shelf life. Meals ready-to-eat (MREs) typically have a shelf life of just three to five years, and canned foods with wet ingredients have a similarly short shelf life. Because of the efficiency of the freeze-drying process, 98% of the moisture is removed from freeze-dried foods so that the shelf life can be more like 25-30 years. Best of all, this preservation method does not require any preservatives.

You can probably now understand why we are so into freeze-dried products at Legacy Foods. Freeze-dried meals are the whole package when it comes to emergency food. They offer more variety, better nutrition, extreme convenience, and a uniquely reliable shelf-life. What else could you ask of your emergency food except that it also taste delicious? (Try one of our sample packs if you haven’t already, and you’ll see we’ve got that covered too.)

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Emergency Survival Kit Checklist

Posted on December 23, 2012 by Amanda East

Perhaps you’ve heard the good news that the world didn’t end this week. Whether you put your stock with the Mayan prediction or not, you probably agree with me that it’s a good thing life as we know it is still running along, if for no other reason than that it means you’ve still got some time to sharpen your survival skills. (I’m also pretty happy that I’ll get to see my two-year-old open her Christmas presents, but you know.)

We talk a lot about the importance of emergency food storage on this blog, and today I want to switch to a little different gear. Once you’ve got your stash of emergency food built up and you’ve got a solid supply of water, your next step in getting yourself and your family prepared for every eventuality is to gather emergency supplies. When you think of emergency supplies, you might think of matches and a first aid kit, but there’s a lot more to a good emergency supply kit than these. If you’re a serious prepper, your emergency supply list is probably pretty extensive already, but if you are just starting out on your self-reliance journey, you might need a little help. Today I’d like to get you thinking about emergency survival kit items that will prepare you to not only survive an emergency situation, but thrive in it.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) offers a good list of basic emergency supplies to have stored along with your food and water. Here’s FEMA’s list, along with our own suggestions in parentheses:

1. Prescription medications and glasses

2. Infant formula and diapers

3. Toilet paper

4. Pet food (Remember to store water for your pets too)

5. Important family documents in a waterproof, portable container (Think birth certificates, social security cards, marriage certificates, and important financial documents. You might also consider having a copy laminated.)

6. Cash or traveler’s checks (In an emergency, cash is king. Without electronic ways to pay, your credit card won’t mean a thing.)

7. A basic first aid manual

8. A sleeping bag or heavy blanket for each person

9. At least one change of clothes for everyone (Consider having a cool pair of clothes and a warm pair of clothes.)

10. Chlorine bleach and medicine dropper for disinfecting and for purifying drinking water

11. A fire extinguisher

12. Matches stored in a waterproof container (You can never have too many matches.)

13. Feminine supplies

14. Mess kits

15. Utensils and napkins

16. Paper and pencil

17. Activities to entertain kids (and adults)

18. Battery-powered or hand-crank radio and NOAA Weather Radio

19. Extra batteries (You can never have too many batteries. Rechargeable batteries and solar-powered chargers can be an excellent option.)

20. A basic first aid kit

21. A flashlight (If you have kids, you might want to store enough flashlights that every kid in the family can have one so that they feel safer in scary situations.)

22. A whistle to call for help

23. Dust masks

24. Plastic sheeting and duct tape for sheltering in place

25. Garbage bags

26. Plastic ties

27. Moist towelettes or baby wipes

28. A wrench or pliers to turn off utilities

29. A can opener

30. Maps

FEMA’s list is pretty basic but will put you in a much better situation than you might otherwise be in. Once you have been able to gather all of their recommended items, you can go a bit farther in your emergency preparedness. Here is our own list of items you may not have thought of that are extremely useful in emergency situations:

1. Lots of fuel. Many will say to store as much fuel as water, whether that be propane, gas, kerosene, or firewood and fire starter.

2. Recipes for your food storage. You don’t want to be left with buckets of wheat and no idea how to make it into bread.

3. Comfort foods like chocolate or coffee or a favorite snack. In my family, we always have bars of dark chocolate around, and I suspect this is something we would wish we had in a long-term survival situation. Remember, never underestimate the importance of morale-boosters in emergencies.

4. Kitty litter if you have cats

5. A guitar player. Someone mentioned this when asked what he wished he had in the emergency situation he went through. Keeping busy and entertaining yourself can help you stay calm and positive in stressful situations.

6. A full tank of gas. We learned this one from watching the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and the hours-long lines people had to wait in for gas.

7. Vitamins to complement food storage.

8. A head lamp.

9. Ways to keep cool in hot weather: fans, misters, etc.

10. An alternative cooking method. There are lots of options for alternative cooking. Think camp stoves, dutch ovens,  solar-powered ovens, etc.

11. Candles or kerosene lamps for light

12. Rope

13. A backup generator (and carbon monoxide detector to keep you safe while using it). Solar-powered generators are a great option.

14. Gas containers to carry gas in

15. Saw to cut down trees if necessary

16. Box with craft supplies to keep kids entertained.

17. A basic set of hand tools

18. Containers to collect rainwater in if necessary

19. Flint and steel in case matches run out

20. A mirror. Mirrors can be useful to signal for help, and they can also be placed behind a candle to double its light projection.

21. Extra blankets to section off an area in your home to keep the area you have to heat smaller.

22. Glow-sticks. If you have to evacuate and are worried about looters, hang a glow-stick somewhere near the window to make it look like you are there, and then leave.

23. Hand warmers

These are the supplies we have found most useful. Do you have any supplies you like to have stored that you don’t see on this list? We’d love your feedback. Let us know in the comments below.

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