Answers to Questions
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Time to answer a few more questions:
I have what may seem like a silly question. When buying the canned fruit, do we include in that 5 cans per person, canned apple sauce? Or would that come under a separate heading for stockpiling easy-on-the-tummy foods for anyone who maybe be recovering from sickness?
Great questions. We have talked about needing to store foods specific to a pandemic. When I ask you to purchase items for your three month supply you should include those foods that will be needed to feed to those who are ill due to a pandemic or the yearly flu. I will remind you next time when these foods are a part of the purchase for the week. You do not have to store extra applesauce. Just be sure some of the fruit you store is applesauce. I suggest you ask your family which fruits they like the best and store in those proportions. I love canned pears so we have more of those than apricots, which I don’t like nearly as well. So, for those of you who have not purchased your fruit this week, be sure to include applesauce as it is an important part of the BRAT diet which should be followed when recovering from any stomach or intestinal upset. If you have purchased already we will be adding more fruit during the year and you can add applesauce when we have our next fruit week.
We need to know what to purchase if we missed weeks 1 and 2. Please respond so that we can be caught up. I can’t find the list any where on the blog page. I would also be interested in a list of the total year if it is prepared so that I might buy things along as they are on sale.
If you have missed the first few weeks here is the recap: 1. Get a jar and place all your change in the jar every night. You will use this to supplement your food storage budget when there is a week that the budget just won’t cover. 2. Set a food storage budget to spend each week. Place that money in an envelope or keep it separate in your records and spend it only on food storage. 3. Get a three ring binder where you can keep all your food storage information organized. 4. Mark all the cans in your pantry with a permanent marker. Just draw a slash across the top of each can. These are the cans you will use first as your pantry fills. 5. Date items that are multi use such as ketchup, oil, and toothpaste. As you use them up you will know how many you need to store for a three month supply. 6. Store water see: http://blog.totallyready.com/?p=319 and http://blog.totallyready.com/?p=15 7. Purchase 4 cans of soup per family member. Some may be soups you eat, some soups used as ingredients and include a few that are good for those recovering from an illness, such as chicken noodle or broths. Finally, this week..purchase 5 cans of fruits per family member, don’t forget some applesauce.
I am working on a list for the year with some hints and suggestions. I have noticed that when I am too vague the final food storage is not really adequate to meet a family’s needs for three month.
Glad to see you’re answering questions, as I’ve also got one! I’m always looking for more water storage options. I have a few 10-gal yellow rubbermaid containers with spouts. (They’re the ones you see on the back of work trucks that guys use when they’re out working.) I thought of using those for extra water storage, but my husband thought they would be wrong to store water in since they have the spout. Is that correct? What do you think? Thanks ahead of time for your help.
As with all water storage you have to know how the water will be used. Storing in coolers is fine for washing yourself, your clothing and surfaces and of course flushing. I would not use it for drinking unless you have a purifier you can run it through or you boil it for 10 minutes before using it. I would never put bleach in water stored in a cooler. Everything thereafter will taste like bleach. If you are without water you will be amazed how much you need…store away.
If I use juice bottles for water storage do I put bleach in the water?
If you are on city water you do not need to add bleach. If you are on a well you may need to, or have bleach on hand to purify before using. With juice bottles the most important thing to do is to clean them really well before using. Be especially careful to clean all the grooves in the rim. The sugar left behind will grow a great batch of mold!
This is not really a question but a comment which was posted last week. I received an email about the comment and felt you needed all the information I now have. I find the second recommendation is the more current and worth copying to include in your binder. Thank you both so much. Without the first comment we would never have learned about the more current advise.
About the flushing waste being safe in a pandemic. My son in law was in Marine bootcamp when 9/11 happened & was one of the first shipped off to war. When he received his small pox shot he was required to keep it covered with a bandaid for a predetermined amount of time. He was also required to change the bandaid at least daily AND to flush the bandaid down the toliet. No putting it in the trash – orders were to flush!! Our best guess was the length of time a pathogen can survive away from the host, waste treatment plant chemical or if a home septic – no one digs into the tank just for fun. Pandemic should be similiar.
A Reader’s Response
Luckily I spotted it and my hubby is very, very vigilant about pathogens from his own previous medical training, so we took the military/CDC cautions and doubled them. (Yes, really…he didn’t even change a diaper or hold our son unless he washed his hands first.) It shouldn’t even have come into our household (as per the CDC document he handed hubby!) unless there was an actual small pox outbreak in our area - even then they would weigh whether it should be given – and this guy didn’t even *ask*. So it behooves your readers to verify the information before they get such an immunization. (Side note, we aren’t anti-vaccine, so I’m not trying to tell anyone to defy any orders they are given to get one if they are military. I just want them to know that they *might* be exempt due to the risk/danger to their medical history or that of a family member in certain cases.)
Thank you for the update on the smallpox vaccine. (I was the first comment). I’m not surprised that the standard has changed, at the time sil had his shot everything was in such a turmoil & so new. My dd came home before her husband’s site had scabbed over. I was pregnant and had to ask my ob/gyn what to do – his answer “I don’t know, I’ll have to ask that was not covered in our briefings. Nobody around here expected to be in a possible contact situation.” btw it was safe. This does show in a pandemic situation *expert* recommendations can & most likely will change as more is know about the disease.
Thanks so much for your time, effort, and enthusiasm for preparation. Reading your blog never fails to inspire me and motivate me.
Thanks for the clarification to this issue, and for all the information you and your readers share!
There was a lot of great info in this post. Thanks Carolyn for all you do, and thanks to everyone else for the great questions and comments! Stuff I never would have thought to ask…
Carolyn,
Can you suggest a good quality manual wheat grinder in the $100-$150 range?
Thanks! ~ Patti
Thank you for this info. There is som many differeing things out there!
About the start of the general store, I have heard you mention “put this in you binder” before, but I’m not really sure what the binder is, how it is set up, etc. Is there a post where this first began?