Crock Pot Dangers

Readers who are familiar with this blog know that I think preparedness is not very useful, unless you do your best to be healthy enough to survive, before any particular disaster strikes.

This post is part of my ongoing effort to help readers stay healthy enough to survive disasters. The specific subject is dangers to your health from crock pots.

Some crock pots contain lead in their glazes and it leaches out into the food that you cook in your crock pot. Eating lead is definitely bad for your health. Even very small doses of lead is bad for your health, because it builds up in your body over time and it is very hard to get out.

I became aware of this problem from reading a review on crock pots on the Amazon site. I like to use this site to do research even on things I don't want to buy from them, because the reviews and comments are so often very helpful.

The reviewer that I read, on Amazon, is a chemical engineer and he tested his own crock pot and threw it out after he got the dreadful results. I am very glad I read his helpful review before I bought a crock pot. 

I hope you will be able to use the information I got from him and others to help you make a choice of crock pot that will help you and your family stay healthy.

Some crock pots cite FDA guidelines as to safe amounts of lead to have leaching out of their crock pots into your food. I don't think ANY lead amount is safe to have leaching into my food. I have therefore decided to include crock pots here that are not supposed to have lead in their glazes, in their liners, or the crock pots without liners.

Bear in mind that no matter how lead-free the glaze on your liner is, it can still leach lead into your food if it becomes damaged. You need to get rid of your crock pot or liner, if you see chips, tiny cracks, or a hazy look to the glaze that probably indicates that the glaze has become dangerously thin for some reason. The hazy look may mean that your crock pot is now leaching lead into your food, even without any cracks.

Essenergy (VitaClay) brand does not leach any lead, but comments made me fear that it is a fire risk, so I don't want one of those.
Procter Silex does not have lead in their glaze.
Kitchen Aid does not have lead in their crock pot glazes.
Miriams Earthen Cookware (liners and cookware only) is lead free.
West Bend has lead free glazes on their crock pots.
Hamilton Beach also does not have lead in their crock pot or liner glazes. 
Cuisine Art was also mentioned as safe and one or more of their pots even has a probe that can be placed in meat to maintain or reach a specific temperature. This sounds extra safe for meat eaters, to me.

There may be other brands that are safe. I don't care to list the ones that are definitely not safe. The above were good enough for me to do further looking. 

Before you rush out and buy one of the aforementioned brands of cookware, I think you might want to go to the company site and look at their materials and the mandatory statements they have about them. Things can change very fast and you need to keep checking to stay safe.

I wish to make my own herbal supplements, etc. in a crock pot, so I not only want a lead-free crock pot, I need one that will not scorch precious herbs with long cooking times at low temperatures. That was what I was looking for when I found the alarming news that many crock pots are leaching lead into our food that we cook in them. 

I am off to find the elusive safe crock pot that will not burn the herbal stuff I want to cook in it. Best wishes for your own good health.

Preparedness Through Good Health - Juicing

I have only been juicing for 2-3 months, but the results have been amazing. This decided me to share the health benefits with my readers.

You may already know that I believe that one of the basics of emergency preparedness is staying in good health. This is because medical providers are usually overwhelmed during an emergency. This is the last time you want to have a non-emergency health problem. 

The line at the emergency room door will probably go around the block at least once, and you will have a long wait behind the people who are bleeding a lot and screaming in pain.

You may also be aware that I think staying healthy through good nutrition is the best way. One of the ways to do this is through making and drinking your own fresh juice.

If you get your juice from a bottle in the store it will not be very fresh. After the juice in your bottle left the farm it went through an assembly line full of people. You have no way of knowing whether each one of those people washed up after using the toilet or how many scratched themselves, etc.

If you make your own juice you know exactly what happened to that juice after you washed the fruits and veggies that made it. It is also very fresh.

Fresh is good. According to experts on juicing, you will get the most benefit from juice if you drink it within 30 minutes of when it is squeezed. Part of the reason for this is that the natural enzymes in the juice start to become inactive after 30 minutes. 

Other people tell me that they do not get as much of a boost in energy from juicing as I do, but I drink juice almost every day. Most of them do not drink fresh juice that often.

I have health problems that make me tired a lot. Drinking fresh juice has made me so much more energetic that I am now able to get a lot more done each day. It is possible that you can have this happen to you also.

Naturally, I put a lot of my extra energy into working on emergency preparedness. You could do the same if you get more energy from juicing.

I have found two juicing experts that I like quite a bit. One of them sells juicers, the other one does not, but she has ads for them. 

I bought my first juicer from Wal Mart. It was on sale. It has a wide mouth so you are not supposed to have to cut up your produce as much before you put it in the juicer. Hah! Sure my carrots will go into the juicer in big pieces, but that doesn't mean they won't get stuck in there. 

That means that the juicer makes a horrible noise and no juice comes out. I shut it down and take it apart and put the veggie back in the juicer and try again. 

I am working out the optimum size for getting everything to go through the juicer without jamming and still big enough to get ground up before getting shot into the pulp catcher. 

The Hamilton Beach Wide Mouth is the brand I have been talking about. I can't say I really recommend it. I think I will get my next juicer from the juice expert that I mentioned before. His name is John Kohler. He sells juicers on the internet and his online store is Discount Juicers. Here is a link to his site:
http://www.discountjuicers.com/bestjuicer.html
He is pretty up front about his products and makes nice comparisons between different juicers. He has lots of videos explaining the differences between juicers and how to use them.

He also makes hundreds of videos about how to grow your own food to put in those juicers. It is a wonderful public service. 

I am busy now working on making a hydroponics set-up to grow my own food and herbs. I plan to share information on how that goes, when I get that far. 

Here is a link to Food Babe:
http://foodbabe.com/

She has some especially good posts about why juicing is good for you and recipes to get you started. 

Most people do better when they start juicing by having mostly fruit in their juice. It is better for you to have mostly vegetables in your juice, though. I find the vegetables give me more steady energy for a longer time than when I have more fruit in my juice. Beets and ginger roots seem to give me the best energy boost when I include them in my juice. 

If you decide to use beets in your juice you might want to start out with only 1/4 of a beet, or less, for a glass of juice. It may take a bit to get used to the taste and get to like it. I am happy to put a whole beet in my juice now. Yum.

I gather that greens like chard and kale give you the most benefit when you juice them. They are pretty expensive and you can go through a lot of greens very fast when you juice. That is one of the reasons why I am getting ready to grow stuff with hydroponics. I want more greens to make my juice with.

I wish lots of readers will start juicing and get healthy and ready for whatever emergencies come your way.

Food Allergies And Genetically Modified Foods

Bioengineered food is increasing on our supermarket shelves. This is something we deal with whether we pay attention to it or not. 

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002432.htm


The link above says the following about genetically engineered foods:

"Genetically engineered foods have had foreign genes (genes from other plants or animals) inserted into their genetic codes.

Genetic engineering can be done with plants, animals, or microorganisms. Historically, farmers bred plants and animals for thousands of years to produce the desired traits. For example, they produced dogs ranging from poodles to Great Danes, and roses from sweet-smelling miniatures to today's long-lasting, but scent-free reds.

Selective breeding over time created these wide variations, but the process depended on nature to produce the desired gene. Humans then chose to mate individual animals or plants that carried the particular gene in order to make the desired characteristics more common or more pronounced.

Genetic engineering allows scientists to speed this process up by moving desired genes from one plant into another -- or even from an animal to a plant or vice versa."

I am not a big fan of genetically modified food for several reasons. The biggest one is testing, or lack thereof.

They make a genetically modified food and whip it right out onto the market in no time. In nature the process takes much much longer to change a plant or food animal than genetic engineering. There is plenty of time to not eat it if there turns out to be problems with the gradual changes.

When a genetically modified food, comes right out from under the microscope onto the field and then onto your plate that is really different than the way nature does it. If there is a problem, it happens inside you.

One of these problems that has already arisen is allergies. Lots of people have many different kinds of food allergies. Some of those food allergies cause anaphylactic shock. That is when your respiratory passages swell up so much that you can't breathe. If you don't get medical help fast enough, it will kill you.

Allergies are a dominant trait. That means that every generation has more people who are allergic. That includes food allergies. 

Right now, it is not necessary to even label food that has genetically modified food in it. That means that if people have food allergies, they can't even tell what it was that put them into anaphylactic shock. Some people have to eat only organic food to try to avoid eating genetically modified foods with genes spliced into them from unknown other plants or animals. 

As you may have noticed, organic foods can be rather pricey. This is an unnecessary hardship on people who have food allergies.

Most of the rest of the world labels foods that are genetically modified. There is no good reason why the USA can not do the same thing. This can save people with food allergies a lot of pain and trouble. It can even save lives.

A Cheap Way To Make Sure Your Microwave Is Safe

Making sure your microwave is safe is not hard to do, but most people never question that it might not be. If your microwave starts leaking, it can be very bad for your health and others who are around it. There are inexpensive testers that will let you know whether your microwave is safe.

I am giving you a link to one that costs just under $40.00 American. It checks to see whether all four zones are working okay and you can also check outside to see if the seals are leaking. Here is the link: http://www.toolexperts.com/micro-check-microwave-leak-detector-tester.html

Here is another microwave tester that is only about ten dollars: http://www.geostar.com/mrmicrowave/magic.htm

You can place the dish to be tested inside the microwave and turn the microwave on for a few seconds. If you see any arcs or sparks inside the microwave, turn off the microwave immediately. The dish has also failed if it starts smoking or anything else that looks bad. 

My preference for this test is to plug the microwave into a power strip with an on/off switch. I turn off the microwave from a safe distance if the dish inside fails the test. I use a broom handle to turn it off.

The above test is probably not a good idea, but I sure am not paying an expert to test every potential microwave dish in my home. 

Some glass dishes have a small amount of metal in them and should not be used in a microwave. I have even run across some that were labelled as microwaveable. Ergo, another test. You put some water in the glass dish and heat it in the microwave for one minute. Take the dish out and see whether the water is hot, but the dish is cool. If so, the dish passed the test. If the dish is hot and the water is hot, the dish flunked. Do not use that dish in the microwave.

If you have mugs or other dishes decorated with metallic designs, it is pretty sure they will not be microwave safe. You can save yourself the trouble of testing them and just not use them in the microwave.

I took a class in how to use a microwave a long time ago. It emphasized "standing time". This is about the time after the microwave oven stops operating, but the microwaves are still bouncing around inside the food you just cooked. Those bouncing microwaves in your food are still cooking the food even with the oven turned off. You are supposed to let the food, "rest", do "carryover cooking time", or do "standing time". 

If you eat the food while it should be sitting while it finishes cooking, that extra cooking can be going on inside you. You could be cooking your insides. I don't like this idea, so I like to pay attention to the "standing time" rule of thumb estimate for how long to let the food sit and cook by itself before I eat it. 

I was told by a professional home economist, with a college degree in home economics science, that it is safer to allow about as long as the microwave cooking time plus half again, for standing time.

There are a couple of other things to watch out for in microwave cooking. One is uneven cooking. If a recipe tells you to stir at certain intervals, do it. If you do not follow the directions it can ruin your food or even make you sick.

The other problem is with cooking times and the food not reaching a high enough temperature to kill bacteria. This can be caused because your recipe was made for a different power of microwave than yours. The way to solve this problem is a bit too long for this blog post, so I am giving you a link to a site which tells you  how to solve your microwave problem. The site is on, "About.com", and it is for a cooking "guide" on the site. She is excellent at her job: http://video.about.com/busycooks/Cooking-With-a-Microwave-Tips.htm


It is a bad idea to attempt do-it-yourself microwave repair. Let an expert do it. They earn their pay with the risks they take.

Microwave ovens actually save energy when you cook things in them that do not take a long time to cook. The longer you cook something in a microwave, the less energy efficient they are. Your Thanksgiving Turkey is probably better done in the regular oven if you are interested in saving energy.

I was reluctant to begin using a microwave oven a long time ago when I was gifted with my first one. I took the class to learn how to use it right and be safe with it. I used it for many years.

Friends have convinced me that microwaves may be as unhealthy for cooking your food as I originally suspected. I have again stopped using a microwave oven. I barely miss it since I have come up with substitutes for it. 

I also have another reason for not wanting to use a microwave all the time. Electric power in a TEOTAWKI scenario could be rare. If I use a microwave all the time, it will make cooking in the aforementioned scenario, more difficult. I think things could be quite difficult enough without adding problems knowing how to cook the food that is available.

One of these is bamboo steamer baskets. They are more efficient when you want to heat up several dishes at the same time in a stack of dishes over the same heat source. They do not take long to cook or re-heat food on them.

I also use a griddle on a burner on the stove top for things like tortillas, thin slices of bread and melting cheese on something.

I don't know whether I will continue with my self-imposed ban on microwaves, or if so, for how long. For now, it makes me happy.

Getting Your Feet Wet In Aquaculture

If you want to be self sufficient aquaculture is an efficient way to make sure you have enough to eat. Some fish need very little to eat and can be fed off of scraps and leftovers from other creatures including humans. 

The fish wastes are very good for plants and can require less work to keep the plants thriving and healthy. 

Aquaculture is still mostly a dream for me. I am in the stage where I got my first aquarium so I can learn how not to kill fish. The idea of killing fish while I learn to do this stuff is no good for me, so I don't even have any fish yet. 

The pet store where I bought a few fish items offers free water testing, so I am going to use that to see whether it is safe to risk putting fish in there yet.

The aquarium tank and most of the rest of the equipment were given to me, so that lowers my investment. It is a good thing, because getting going in aquaculture is not going to be cheap to start out. 

I guess if you start very small with a glass bowl and one goldfish it could be.
According to a friend who has raised fish professionally, goldfish are not very demanding for the conditions they need to live in. 

One goldfish is not going to provide enough plant nutrients to get you very far, however.

Thrift stores in different areas vary, but it is likely that a thrift store near you will sell you an aquarium and perhaps air hoses and filters and bubblers to help lower the cost of getting you started towards aquaculture. If you do that, be sure to clean them very well in case the fish that used to be in there had something contagious.

My aquarium has a bunch of plants as the only live non-microscopic thing in it. This aquarium comes from healthy fish and some of their friendly microorganisms are probably already happy in there. I hope this will make things easier for my fish when I get them.

The pet store sold me some aquatic fish tank kinds of plants by the bunch. I haven't taken them apart yet, but there seem to be 5 or 6 of them. The fish guy for the store told me that the plants I got don't require a lot of light. The light that came with the aquarium was an incandescent and had one bulb out. 

Costco (big box store) has 6 packs of daylight compact fluorescent bulbs that fit in the aquarium light holder. That made it even brighter than the store aquariums with only one bulb in there. I was afraid it might hurt the fish or plants with two right off, so now it is only one bulb. The plants seem to like it a lot and are growing at an amazing rate. It is much faster than most dry land plants grow. If my fish like those plants, they are sure to be happy in there.

The motor for the bubbler is loud. I have to turn it off at night to sleep. Articles on the internet say that some brands are especially quiet compared to others. 

They are also supposed to last a long time. They are also quite pricey. They probably work out to inexpensive over several years, but they can cause sticker shock.  I am not going to post about those, until I feel more confident about my knowledge. 

As soon as I learn more and get fish in there, I'll share that with readers. It might save you from making a few mistakes.

I hope all of you have a nice Holiday Season, whatever way you like to celebrate it, or call it.

Keeping Poisons Out Of Your Diet

I believe that staying healthy is important to being prepared for emergencies. You will have greater difficulties coping with emergencies if you are not healthy. During an emergency medical care can be very difficult to get. It is hard to work on preparedness if you are sick. Knowing how to stay well is a very good preparedness skill and knowing how to care for yourself and others with minor illness is another preparedness skill.

I think a lot of your health is affected by your diet. Good health is dependent on good nutrition. Just eating a balanced diet is not enough any more. We have to think about extras like GMOs and pesticides. 

I have already posted about GMOs. There are four GMO foods that are most common. They are: Soy, Corn, Cotton, and Canola. They make oil out of the last three and all four end up in a lot of food that are not necessarily labelled to let you know the GMOs are in them.

I found a list of foods to avoid because of having a lot of pesticides on them. I also found a list of foods that are relatively free from pesticides. I made a small print list of all of these foods, both good and bad ones, to carry in my wallet for shopping. I thought readers might like the list as well:

Wallet-sized list of good and bad foods for GMO's and pesticides.

Here is a link to the article about the dirty foods loaded with pesticides and the relatively clean foods:
http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/eat-safe/Dirty-Dozen-Foods

The list of the Dirty Dozen Foods changes from year to year. This is due to different growing conditions that cause growers to use more pesticides or not. If the weather is especially wet, for example, more fungicides will be sprayed. If the crop is hit by a large infestation of a particular insect, the food will be sprayed for that.

There is another site that lists the pesticides that have been tested as being on a particular food. It is more specific than the Dirty Dozen list. This can be helpful if you want to avoid specific types of contaminants on your foods. It also lists the way the type of contaminant affects you. One that I find particularly edifying is neurotoxins. I believe that those would be especially likely to encourage autoimmune diseases and Alzheimers and Dementia.

Here is a quote from the site:

Learn More: ADHD & pesticide residues

"A new study out of Harvard shows that even tiny, allowable amounts of a common pesticide class can have dramatic effects on brain chemistry. Organophosphate insecticides (OP’s) are among the most widely used pesticides in the U.S. & have long been known to be particularly toxic for children. This is the first study to examine their effects across a representative population with average levels of exposure. Finding: Kids with above-average pesticide exposures are 2x as likely to have ADHD."

Here is the link:
http://www.whatsonmyfood.org/index.jsp

You can also search the site by pesticides that you particularly wish to avoid, or the types of by products that the pesticides break down into. These can be very toxic and have different effects than the original pesticides.

I cannot afford to eat only organic foods. This information is especially useful to those of us who are forced to eat non organic foods. We can avoid the worst culprits this way.

I hate to tell you this, if you don't already know, but there is another problem that we are dealing with. Organic foods can be contaminated by pesticides too. Some of this can be airborne or come from dust or water. 

This is one reason why I have ambitions of living out in the Alaskan Bush and growing as much of my own food as possible. I would like to avoid all pesticides. I think I have a better chance of doing it that way.

If you live in or near a large city, even if you grow everything you eat, you are getting pesticides. It is tough to avoid all that nasty stuff. I hope my wallet list will help you to stay healthier.

Make Cheap Convenience Food For Emergencies And Everyday

Surviving in place will probably mean that you will have a lot of times when you will be very busy. Digging neighbors out of their collapsed home, for example, or hauling injured to the nearest doctor.

During these times you will still need to eat. You can make your own convenience food for these times. One of the ways that I do this is with small flat pies that are thin enough to pop into a toaster. I am not suggesting that you can use a toaster if you have no electric power, but having them this thin means they will thaw out quickly and if you do heat them you won't need much fuel.

They will fit easily into a pocket and are not difficult to eat without making a mess or dropping most of it while you are still moving. They would be even good to use for part of your go bag food if you have enough time to get them out of the freezer.

I already posted about these, but did not go into a great amount of detail. I am giving the detail here because the readership on the other post was low. My turbocharged gift of service is kicking in and I'm going try to help you with this some more. :-)

You can use commercial biscuit mix or even those pop open cans of biscuits. I hate both of those because they have chemicals in them, but whatever it takes  you to get started is good.

I make my own whole wheat biscuit mix with no chemicals in it and am giving you the recipe right here:

QUICK MIX      about 13 c mix use within 10-12 weeks

8 1/2 C all-purp flour (or 4 1/4 c all-purp

 flour and 4 1/2 c whole-wheat flour)

4 T baking powder (increase to 5 T for 

whole wheat)

1 T salt

2 t cream of tartar

1 t baking soda

1 1/2 c instant nonfat dry milk or dry

buttermilk powder

2 1/4 c vegetable shortening

In lg bowl, sift tog all dry ingreds.

  

Blend well. With pastry blender or a

 heavy-duty mixer, cut in shortening

until mixture resembles cornmeal in

 texture.  Put in an airtight container.

 Label w date and contents.  Store in a

 cool dry place.  Use within 10 to 12

weeks. Makes about 13 c of QUICK

 MIX.

Here is the recipe for the biscuits to 

make with this mix:

Biscuits (Also pizza dough, pies, fruit

 cobbler, etc.)

    

3 c Quick Mix

3/4 c milk or water

Preheat oven to 450F.  Grease a baking

sheet.  Combine Quick Mix and milk or

 water in a medium bowl.  Stir until just

 blended.  Drop dough by tablespoonfuls

 onto prepared baking sheet.  Bake 10 to

 12 minutes, until golden brown.  Makes

 12 lg drop biscuits.

Once you have biscuit dough made you 

can easily make the little pies I 

mentioned. You will need to add a little extra flour to make the dough stiff enough to roll out. The dough should be rolled very thin. If you don't have a rolling pin, you can use a water glass, jar, or can.  I like about an eighth of an inch or less. Any of these items will also work to cut out circles of flattened dough. I use a small zippered pouch from a chef's supplies shop. It makes crusts about six inches across. I put the filling to one side and form the pie by folding the crust in half.

 If your pocket is small this size will be 

too big. You might do better with a tin 

can cutter. You can use a zip lock bag to

 roll them out in, but you might need to

 oil or flour the inside between each crust

 to prevent sticking.

If you plan to use these pies to carry

 around in your pocket, you need to be

 sure to place only a very small amount

 of filling in them. If you put too much

 in, they will leak. 

If you are using a very small glass or tin can to cut out your pies, you may want to  use two of them instead of folding over your crust on top of the filling.

I crimp the edges together with a fork. Next I cut a tiny opening to let air out while it is cooking. If you neglect this, your pie may burst open. I like to put some kind of glaze on top of the crust to make it brown attractively. Milk, butter or beaten egg all work well. If you have no pastry brush for the glaze, your fingers will do to spread it on the crust. A very thin glaze is fine. It does not take much.

Don't have the pies touching on your baking sheet or pan. They will be likely to stick together if you do that. 

The amount of cooking time varies a lot according to many things including the thickness of the crust and amount of filling. Until you are used to this recipe and how you do it, I would check every five minutes or less to see how they are doing. Keep track of the time for the next batch. When the oven is already hot, they will cook a little faster, so you need to allow for that in your timing.

I allow them to cool before I put them in the freezer, usually on the same sheet they were cooked on. Once the pies are frozen solid, you can remove them from the baking sheet or pan and put them in containers or zip lock bags. They will keep for several months once frozen. 

When you want to thaw the pies, you can put them in a toaster, or up on top of your refrigerator to thaw out. I like to put them on top of the fridge the night before I plan to eat them. They will be ready the next morning. 

I especially like these for snacks when I plan to go shopping. Several previous posts on this blog were about how shopping on an empty stomach is very expensive. You are much more likely to buy things you don't need. These pies are part of my tactics to avoid this problem.

I seldom use these pies for dessert. If that is your wish, you can fill them with canned pie filling, or instant pudding. Chopped fruit with a little corn starch and sugar or honey will work also. That should be simmered until tender in a pan on the stove, before using it for filling.

My preference for fillings is to use anything that would go into a good casserole dish. Spicy Mexican style beans, egg roll fillings, etc. are good. If the dish you want to use is too liquid, you can add a little corn starch and cook it on a low temperature for a little bit to thicken it. 

These little pies are your chance to have exactly the kind of filling you especially like. I don't eat meat, but there are lots of nice meat dishes that would go well in these little pies. Ham or hot dogs and sauerkraut might be good. 

Children love these little pies and will devour almost anything that is in them as long as it isn't too spicy. This is a way to get them to eat things that are good for them and enjoy it.

These pies are excellent for emergency preparedness storage. You can thaw them quickly even without heat and avoid cooking smells bringing in the whole neighborhood. If you happen to like the idea of feeding the whole neighborhood, you need a different recipe. :-)

Avoid Killing Yourself And Your Loved Ones - Basic Food Safety For Emergencies And Every Day

I hope you read my recent post on a new contaminated food recall. The main contaminated food was peanut butter, but it also included almond butter, tahini (sesame seeds), and other nuts and products such as ice cream and baked goods made with them.

When I was looking for more information and links for you, it occurred to me that some of you may need to learn about basic food safety information and others could use a brush up on it. During emergencies it is easy to neglect basic food safety. The last thing you need during an emergency is to get sick from food poisoning.

A government site told us that one out of every six Americans gets food poisoning every year. That is a lot. We really need to do better than that. For readers in other countries, you get food poisoning also. You will have to find your own statistics about how many of you get it, however.

"This problem is more serious than many people realize. Food poisoning not only sends more than 100,000 Americans to the hospital each year – it can also have long-term health consequences."

The quote above comes from Foodsafety.gov.  http://www.foodsafety.gov/index.html They say that only four easy steps will help keep you safe from food poisoning at home.

The four steps are:

1. Clean
2. Separate
3. Cook
4. Chill

Sorry, but this is going to be a long post. I don't wish to split it. I just finished this thing and am not techy enough to fight with the formatting at the end. That means I wrap it up here.  

My further apologies for not enlarging the chart at the end of this. It will not fit in the blog space that way. I know this is more like a book than my usual post, but deal with it. Most of you do not persist with my posts when I break them up. I think this is too important to let you do that without trying everything I can to prevent it. So we are going to explain about each of the four steps separately now.

Clean

Wash hands the right way—for 20 seconds with soap and running water.

Washing your hands the right way can stop the spread of illness-causing bacteria.
Here’s how to do it:

• Wet your hands with warm or cold running water and apply soap.
• Rub your hands together to make a lather and scrub them well. Be sure to scrub the backs of your hands, between your fingers, and under your nails. Bacteria can hide out here too!
• Continue rubbing hands for at least 20 seconds. Need a timer? Hum “Happy Birthday” from beginning to end twice.
• Rinse your hands well under running water.
• Dry your hands using a clean towel or air dry.

And when to do it:

• Before eating food.
• Before, during, and after preparing food.
• Before and after treating a cut or wound.
• Before and after caring for someone who is sick.
• After handling uncooked eggs, or raw meat, poultry, seafood, or their juices.
• After blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing.
• After touching an animal or animal waste.
• After touching garbage.
• After using the toilet.

• Wash surfaces and utensils after each use.

  Bacteria can be spread throughout the kitchen and get onto cutting boards, utensils, and counter tops. To prevent this:
  
  
  • Use paper towels or clean cloths to wipe up kitchen surfaces or spills. Wash cloths often in the hot cycle of your washing machine.
  • Wash cutting boards, dishes, utensils, and counter tops with hot, soapy water after preparing each food item and before you go on to the next item.
  • As an extra precaution, you can use a solution of 1 tablespoon of unscented, liquid chlorine bleach in 1 gallon of water to sanitize washed surfaces and utensils.

  • Wash fruits and veggies—but not meat, poultry, or eggs!

    Did you know that—even if you plan to peel fruits and veggies—it’s important to wash them first because bacteria can spread from the outside to the inside as you cut or peel them?
    Here’s how to wash all your produce effectively…

    1. Cut away any damaged or bruised areas.
    2. Rinse produce under running water. Don’t use soap, detergent, bleach, or commercial produce washes.
    3. Scrub firm produce—like melons or cucumbers—with a clean produce brush.
    4. Dry produce with a paper towel or clean cloth towel… and you’re done.
    5. The good news? Bagged produce marked “pre-washed” is safe to use without further washing.

    Why not wash meat, poultry, and eggs?

    Washing raw meat and poultry can actually help bacteria spread, because their juices may splash onto (and contaminate!) your sink and countertops.

    All commercial eggs are washed before sale. Any extra handling of the eggs, such as washing, may actually increase the risk of cross-contamination, especially if the shell becomes cracked.

    
    

    I am not enthused about the last bit about not washing meat, poultry and eggs. This is because every year, when I check for the latest government advice on how to prepare your turkey safely so you don't share food poisoning for the holiday, they say to wash your turkey before you cook it. I always washed the expletive deleted out of mine and then disinfected the sink and anything else the turkey or its juices touched.
    
    They always have a hot line or several of them about tips for turkey preparation during the holidays. I will publish it when I find out what it is this year. Then you get to decide which government agency you want to pay attention to.

Separate

Don’t cross-contaminate

Why it matters

Even after you’ve cleaned your hands and surfaces thoroughly, raw meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs can still spread illness-causing bacteria to ready-to-eat foods—unless you keep them separate.
But which foods need to be kept separate, and how?

Follow these top tips to keep your family safe

Use separate cutting boards and plates for produce and for meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs.

Placing ready-to-eat food on a surface that held raw meat, poultry, seafood, or eggs can spread bacteria and make you sick. But stopping cross-contamination is simple.

• Use one cutting board for fresh produce, and one for raw meat, poultry, or seafood.
• Use separate plates and utensils for cooked and raw foods.
• Before using them again, thoroughly wash plates, utensils, and cutting boards that held raw meat, poultry, seafood, or eggs.
• Once a cutting board gets excessively worn or develops hard-to-clean grooves, consider replacing it.

That last bullet of information is probably talking about plastic cutting boards. Glass and wooden ones may be safer according to some things I have read. Wood gives off something that has a natural antibacterial effect and it works better if you clean it with ammonia after cutting meat on it. Glass is not as subject to surface wear and contamination in scratches on its surface. 

If wooden cutting boards became extremely worn, I have sanded them down and oiled them again. Nobody told me to do this, but I am not dead yet. Make up your own mind. I couldn't afford a new cutting board at the time.

Keep meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs separate from all other foods at the grocery.

Make sure you aren’t contaminating foods in your grocery bag by:

• Separating raw meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs from other foods in your shopping cart.
• At the checkout, place raw meat, poultry, and seafood in plastic bags to keep their juices from dripping on other foods.

I don't have to worry about anything but eggs, mentioned above because of being a vegetarian. I think you should also be careful in the same way about any dairy.

Keep meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs separate from all other foods in the fridge.

Bacteria can spread inside your fridge if the juices of raw meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs drip onto ready-to-eat foods. But stopping this contamination is simple…

• Place raw meat, poultry, and seafood in containers or sealed plastic bags to prevent their juices from dripping or leaking onto other foods. If you’re not planning to use these foods within a few days, freeze them instead.
• Keep eggs in their original carton and store them in the main compartment of the refrigerator—not in the door.

Cook to the right temperature

Why it matters

Did you know that the bacteria that cause food poisoning multiply quickest in the “Danger Zone” between 40˚ and 140˚ Fahrenheit?
And while many people think they can tell when food is “done” simply by checking its color and texture, there’s no way to be sure it’s safe without following a few important but simple steps

Follow these top tips to keep your family safe

Use a food thermometer.

Cooked food is safe only after it’s been heated to a high enough temperature to kill harmful bacteria. Color and texture alone won’t tell you whether your food is done. Instead, use a food thermometer to be sure.

• If you don’t already have one, consider buying a food thermometer. Learn more about the different types of food thermometers available.
• When you think your food is done, place the food thermometer in the thickest part of the food, making sure not to touch bone, fat, or gristle. (Get tips on correct thermometer placement.)
• Wait the amount of time recommended for your type of thermometer.
• Compare your thermometer reading to our Minimum Cooking Temperatures Chart to be sure it’s reached a safe temperature.
• Some foods need 3 minutes of rest time after cooking to make sure that harmful germs are killed. Check our Minimum Cooking Temperatures Chart for details.
• Clean your food thermometer with hot, soapy water after each use.

Keep food hot after cooking (at 140 ˚F or above).

The possibility of bacterial growth actually increases as food cools after cooking because the drop in temperature allows bacteria to thrive. But you can keep your food above the safe temperature of 140˚F by using a heat source like a chafing dish, warming tray, or slow cooker.

Microwave food thoroughly (to 165 ˚F).

To make sure harmful bacteria have been killed in your foods, it’s important to microwave them to 165˚ or higher. Here’s how:

• When you microwave, stir your food in the middle of heating.
• If the food label says, “Let stand for x minutes after cooking,” don’t skimp on the standing time. Letting your microwaved food sit for a few minutes actually helps your food cook more completely by allowing colder areas of food time to absorb heat from hotter areas of food. That extra minute or two could mean the difference between a delicious meal and food poisoning. (I took an actual microwave cooking class that called this wait "standing time". I was told that standing time is necessary because microwaves start from the inside of your food and work their way through to the outside of the food. If you do not allow standing time, you will have microwaves bouncing around inside of you cooking your insides. This was a long time ago, and perhaps theory has changed. I do not like the idea of what microwaving my insides might do, so I always allow standing time. It was suggested that the standing time be half the length of the cooking time.)
• After waiting a few minutes, check the food with a food thermometer to make sure it is 165˚F or above.

Chill

Refrigerate promptly

Why it matters

Did you know that illness-causing bacteria can grow in perishable foods within two hours unless you refrigerate them? (And if the temperature is 90 ˚F or higher during the summer, cut that time down to one hour!)
But by refrigerating foods promptly and properly, you can help keep your family safe from food poisoning at home.

Follow these top tips to keep your family safe

Refrigerate perishable foods within two hours.

Cold temperatures slow the growth of illness causing bacteria. So it’s important to chill food promptly and properly. Here’s how:

• Make sure your fridge and freezer are cooled to the right temperature. Your fridge should be between 40 ˚F and 32 ˚F, and your freezer should be 0 ˚F or below.
• Pack your refrigerator with care. To properly chill food (and slow bacteria growth), cold air must be allowed to circulate in your fridge. For this reason, it’s important not to over-stuff your fridge.
• Get perishable foods into the fridge or freezer within two hours. In the summer months, cut this time down to one hour.
• Remember to store leftovers within two hours as well. By dividing leftovers into several clean, shallow containers, you’ll allow them to chill faster.

Never thaw or marinate foods on the counter.

Many people are surprised at this tip. But since bacteria can multiply rapidly at room temperature, thawing or marinating foods on the counter is one of the riskiest things you can do when preparing food for your family.

To thaw food safely, choose one of these options:

• Thaw in the refrigerator. This is the safest way to thaw meat, poultry, and seafood. Simply take the food out of the freezer and place it on a plate or pan that can catch any juices that may leak. Normally, it should be ready to use the next day.
• Thaw in cold water. For faster thawing, you can put the frozen package in a watertight plastic bag and submerge it in cold water. Be sure to change the water every 30 minutes. Note: If you thaw this way, be sure to cook the food immediately.
• Thaw in the microwave. Faster thawing can also be accomplished in the microwave. Simply follow instructions in your owner’s manual for thawing. As with thawing in cold water, food thawed in the microwave should be cooked immediately.
• Cook without thawing. If you don’t have enough time to thaw food, just remember, it is safe to cook foods from a frozen state—but your cooking time will be approximately 50% longer than fully thawed meat or poultry.

To marinate food safely, always marinate it in the refrigerator.

Know when to throw food out.

You can’t tell just by looking or smelling whether harmful bacteria has started growing in your leftovers or refrigerated foods.
Be sure you throw food out before harmful bacteria grow by checking our Safe Storage Times chart.

Here is the aforementioned Safe Storage Times Chart:

Storage Times for the Refrigerator and Freezer

These short but safe time limits for home-refrigerated foods will keep them from spoiling or becoming dangerous to eat. The guidelines for freezer storage are for quality only. Frozen foods remain safe indefinitely.
For storage times for eggs and foods made with eggs, see Egg Storage Chart.

Category	Food	Refrigerator(40 °F or below)	Freezer(0 °F or below)
Salads	Egg, chicken, ham, tuna & macaroni salads	3 to 5 days	Does not freeze well
Hot dogs	opened package	1 week	1 to 2 months
	unopened package	2 weeks	1 to 2 months
Luncheon meat	opened package or deli sliced	3 to 5 days	1 to 2 months
	unopened package	2 weeks	1 to 2 months
Bacon & Sausage	Bacon	7 days	1 month
	Sausage, raw — from chicken, turkey, pork, beef	1 to 2 days	1 to 2 months
Hamburger & Other Ground Meats	Hamburger, ground beef, turkey, veal, pork, lamb, & mixtures of them	1 to 2 days	3 to 4 months
Fresh Beef, Veal, Lamb & Pork	Steaks	3 to 5 days	6 to 12 months
	Chops	3 to 5 days	4 to 6 months
	Roasts	3 to 5 days	4 to 12 months
Fresh Poultry	Chicken or turkey, whole	1 to 2 days	1 year
	Chicken or turkey, pieces	1 to 2 days	9 months
Soups & Stews	Vegetable or meat added	3 to 4 days	2 to 3 months
Leftovers	Cooked meat or poultry	3 to 4 days	2 to 6 months
	Chicken nuggets or patties	3 to 4 days	1 to 3 months
	Pizza	3 to 4 days	1 to 2 months

Nutrition - The Basis Of Emergency Preparedness

There is not much point in being prepared for emergencies if you die from malnutrition because neglected your nutritional requirements. You need the food supplies and you need the knowledge. 

It is not possible for all of us to become nutritionists, but we can learn the basics. We can get reference books to help us out with the extras. 

I had been learning about the health benefits of every day foods for years before I ran across a great book about it. The book is called, "Prescription for Nutritional Healing". It is by James R. Balch, M.D. and Phyllis A. Balch, C.N.C.

There are many books that cover the area of healing through nutrition and various aspects of it. This one is particularly helpful because of the way it is organized. It is easy to refer to without being an expert.

You do not need to read the entire book to find out about one particular problem. All of this makes it a good book for average people.

In an everyday situation or in an emergency, it is a lot better to not get sick than it is to try to get well after you are already sick. One of the old sayings that I like is, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

Nutrition is a very good way of preventing illness. You can not do a good job of building anything unless you have good materials. That includes our bodies. We need to know what our bodies need as building blocks or fuel to stay healthy.

I have posts on this blog about basic nutrition. There are things all over the internet on it. I put in links to some of them and I made some easy diagrams on the posts. If you don't know basic nutrition, please print or copy off my diagrams and learn it. Just keep my copyright information on the diagrams, please.

Most people would not dream of driving a car without knowing what to put in the tank to make it run. Those same people may have no idea what their bodies need
to run on. 

Our whole society is stupid that way. American doctors only learn about nutrition for two hours during their whole time in medical school. Most doctors are not going to be a lot of help to you about nutrition, unless they refer you to a nutrutionist.

It is up to you to learn enough nutrition to stay well and speed your recovery if you do get sick. 

Nutrition must be an important, part of your emergency preparedness. I believe it must be the basis of all of your emergency preparedness.

Diatomaceous Earth To Protect Stored Food

I have already posted a little about diatomaceous earth. This post is going to be about how to use diatomaceous earth to protect your food. I will fit in a little about other ways to protect your food as well.


I like to use hardware cloth to keep out rodents. It is a lot tougher than wire screens, so they can't get through it as easily. 


If you are making raised garden beds, you need to put hardware cloth on the bottom, before you add extra soil or even  think about plants. 


If you absolutely cannot afford hardware cloth you can put pieces of broken glass down deep so the rodents will cut themselves. I hate this method and it make become a risk to you and others later.


Your root cellar really needs to be protected against rodents. Even if everything is safe in glass jars and cans, rodents can contaminate and carry disease with droppings. If you have barrels of apples and potatoes, etc., those can become a rodent haven.


Pick hardware cloth to line your root cellar with that is smaller than you think you will ever need. You do not want a surprise to find they can get through smaller holes than you thought. We can also expect new species of rodents to invade new territories. You could get smaller rodents than you were used to.


You need to be fanatical to make sure there are NO GAPS in your hardware cloth. Cover vents as well, even small pipes and areas around the pipes and vents.


Put diatomaceous earth into food that could be infested by insects. If you are not aware of this, I have to inform you that there are already insect eggs in most of your food. This includes everything from dry pet food and grains, to prepared foods that are ready to put into your toaster.


Once any insects hatch from eggs in your food, they will die as soon as they eat any food with diatomaceous earth in it. 
This post is getting too long so I will continue it.

How To Keep Your Stored Food From Spoiling 2

When you place food inside a mylar bag you need to remove as much oxygen as possible from the bag to prevent the food inside from spoiling. 


They have expensive specialized sealers that seal and pump out the air as they seal the bag. I use a clothing iron and a bicycle pump. 


Seal the bag almost closed leaving a small gap open. You use the opening to get the air out of the bag and put in oxygen absorbers. You can also seal the bag entirely and throw in the oxygen absorbers just before you close it. Then you puncture the bag and pump the air out. 


I read about problems with the oxygen absorbers spoiling and not working if purchased and some were saved to use later. It was suggested that one buy only enough oxygen absorbers for the bags that you are processing immediately.


I have never used oxygen absorbers, so I can't speak from experience yet. I plan to do so soon, however. I have never had enough food stored to worry about long term food storage. A year or less was all I dealt with. Since shipping costs are rising very fast in the USA, I am planning more long term food storage for some items than I used to have. Storing them now will be much cheaper than purchasing them and shipping them later.


I do not know how long you can expect 5 gallon buckets to last. I know some plastic can get brittle over time, especially if exposed to the elements. I plan not to expose my 5 gallon buckets for food storage to the elements. I expect them to last the rest of my life. They can be reused for many years if you are careful with them.


Some 5 gallon buckets are stronger than others. You can get an idea of the strength of your buckets by filling them and stacking them. Look at the sides of the ones on the bottom. If they are bowing at all, you need to protect them from excess weight. One way to do this is to put a piece of plywood on top of a bucket before placing another bucket on top of it. 


Even if you have strong buckets, it is a bad idea to stack them more than 4 or 5 high. I don't like more than two high. You have to plan for more floor space for storage of the buckets if they are in lower stacks, however.


Another way to protect your buckets and still save floor space is by using shelves sized for holding only one or two buckets  high per shelf. They will need to be very strong shelves. Heavy metal ones are good. You can find the weight capacity for shelves that you would want to use for your food storage.


I found a nice site that has calculators to help you know how much food of different types will be needed for your family. It also has a calculator that tells you how many buckets you need to store the food and how much floor space those buckets will require.


It was a shock to me to realize how much food is actually required per year for one person. The same applied to how much floor space it takes for the food.


If I was shocked and you are just beginning your preparedness, you had better sit down before you use that calculator. 


I do some things that most preppers do not do, like my indoor year-round greenhouse, microgreens, sprouting, and drying my own food. That means I do not need to store as much as some other preppers, for some kinds of emergencies.


In spite of those different things that I do for my regular diet that work for preparedness, I am far short of the amount of some kinds of food that I need to meet my preparedness goals. This is not something you want to find out during an emergency, so maybe you need to do some checking, too.

The Importance Of Spices And Herbs For Preparedness

You can survive indefinitely on nothing but beans and rice. You may not want to, however. I did live for an extended period where my food consisted mostly of beans and rice. I was grateful that I was able to eat as much as I wanted, of beans and rice, but I got very tired of it.


That experience taught me a lot about the importance of spices for giving some variety to a diet. It made a tremendous difference to be able to make the same food taste very different simply by adding some spices. I was also inspired to learn to grow fresh herbs for the same reason. 


I was very sick during the first part of my beans and rice period. It was a relief in many ways when I became well enough to go outside and collect native plants to add even more variety to my diet. 


Variety of taste is not the only reason to vary your diet. When you eat the same food all of the time, you are probably going to get some kind of malnutrition. 


People who study nutrients and nutrition have discovered that different foods contain "phytonutrients". These are very small, or trace amounts of nutrients. Herbs and spices can supply phytonutrients. 


An example of what phytonutrients can do is iodine. It is a small component of table salt. People who do not get enough iodine in their diets get goiters. These are   swellings in the neck. They are caused by swelling of the thyroid gland.


Most people are in absolutely no danger of getting goiters because we eat many times more salt than we need. I don't know the numbers for other countries, but Americans average 30 times more salt per year than is necessary. Eating so much salt is causing other kinds of illness, including heart trouble, so we need to stop that.


I just mentioned iodine and table salt and goiters to give you an idea what a difference something in very small amounts can make to your health and your life. Phytonutrients can have an effect far out of proportion to their quantity.


Spice and herbs often have known medicinal value. They can be used to treat many kinds of illness. It is a good idea to investigate what some of these are when you make your selection of what to put in your preparedness supplies. They can even be part of your first aid kit. 


Garlic is a strong antibiotic in addition to making food taste better. Garlic might be a good dual purpose choice for preparedness supplies. 


Cinnamon is a spice that can reduce inflammation. Since strokes have been discovered to be partly caused by inflammation, use of cinnamon could be prevention for strokes. I like to put it on my breakfast cereal a lot for that reason. The same applies to nutmeg and turmeric. I don't like the taste of turmeric in oats, so I reserve that for main dishes.


Herbs and spices could be a very useful addition to your preparedness supplies, if you take a little time to learn enough to select the ones you need and like.