 emergency or basic food preparation. I brought in a bunch of stuff over there on the table, different various forms of food. We've got freeze-dried food mostly. I also have some magazines of a magazine I subscribe to called Backwood's Home, which is a homesteading magazine. A lot of great information in some of those magazines and a couple of homesteading books and various other stuff too in there also. I didn't bring any canning goods in yet but I don't have those. I'm still working on trying to get that going. But a basic emergency preparedness by failing to prepare you are preparing to fail. Benjamin Franklin said that too as well and he said a lot of wise things. Unforcing events and preparedness. Some of the things that we prepare for are economic collapse. You know our economy is not really doing all that great right now and if you look at some of the other economies around the world especially like Venezuela, they're really hurting down there and you know their food is very expensive, their money is in hyperinflation. They have to carry wheelbarrows of cash around just to be able to buy below for bread. Grid down or power loss if you're without power for an extended period of time. As I recall there's been two incidents in St. Louis within the past few years in which one was in the summer and one was in the winter where power was up for an extended period of time. Thinking of winter it was there was a lot of people that were down for about a two week period right in the middle of winter during an ice storm and there was also an incident that occurred where some storms rolled through the area and there were hundreds of thousands without power during the middle of the summer when it was real nice and hot right in the middle of July and fortunately I had some friends and family members who were down without power and they actually relied on me to kind of help them out because they weren't necessarily prepared to be able to handle that situation. Government takeover the risk of that happening as well you know and you never know given the current conditions. Martial law well with the events of Ferguson and some of the other areas around the nation where they've had some rioting and so forth you could see some possible events of that happening. Okay this this slide here currently our government is Obama has signed an executive order 13603 the National Defense Resources Preparedness allows the president to have absolute control over food resources for all commodities and products that are capable of being adjusted by humans and animals and this has been in existence since 2012. At the time the president's choosing of the federal government may take over all forms of energy all forms of transportation all usable water from all possible sources all commodities and products that are capable of being food and health resources which includes drugs biological products medical devices materials facilities health supplies and services so the president has the power to commandeer all of these things which means for us we have to be able to have access to those things and the only way you do that is by preparing and stocking up on some of those food prices also have a effect on our food preps to and our food access over the course of 2010 as you can see here the black line is your standard inflation and then you see all these other lines here of the food prices food has gotten very expensive and I don't think anybody here you know doesn't realize that all you have to do is go grocery shopping a couple of times and you know I know the amount that I used to spend for grocery shopping I would say ten years ago way less than what I'm spending now and in an emergency everything can be gone in only a few hours so if you wait till the emergency happens and then go I'm gonna go to the store hurry up and stock up on milk and bread and eggs chances are there won't be anything left there's been you know hurricanes and so forth down south there's been massive snowstorms in the Northeast and every time one of those instances occur you tend to get the grocery stores stripped of everything very very quickly two of the things that you want to start storing our water and food water can be stored in varying methods you have a method there where you have the large barrels it's recommended that you store one gallon per day per adult in your home and obviously you know for an extended period of time you're going to have to store a lot of water and then you also have to remember and take an account that you're going to need additional water for sanitation and for pets and sanitation is very important because you can't keep things clean then you introduce some disease storage containers are the difference between life and death don't take the easy option invest in quality containers what you want to do is you want to invest in containers that are BPA free that do not promote bacteria growth inside of them a lot of the blue ones do that you also may want to introduce some chlorine into some of the water to help preserve it as well regular water bottles actually does out declare water bottles that like are shown in the upper left-hand corner up there what happens to those is over time they start to the water starts absorbing the chemicals that are in the plastic and not only that but because of is clear if light were to shine on that on an extended period of time it would you would actually get some bacteria growth in there and that water would be no longer good for you so clear water bottles are really not the way to go it may be a short-term storage where you rotate it out a lot but you want something that's going to keep the sunlight out the shelf life it's recommended you have the means to store in or treat enough water for a minimum of one year it's highly suggested to rotate your water every six to nine months so even if you do have those barrels up there you want to rotate that water out you don't want to leave it get in there getting stale you know you know water is not something that you can store for years on end like you can freeze dry food it's highly suggested to seal long-term storage or generally rotated every five years so those are the long-term storage barrels that are that can handle that bottled water should be rotated every six months to avoid chemicals from the plastic mixing with the purified water and that's where they break down it does break down over time you want to protect the water from the sunlight UV rays stored in dark cool locations or containers with UV protection to avoid spores or algae the bathtub there filled with water would be just an emergency situation that would be a short-term solution you obviously would not want to leave that water sitting in there for years on end or months on end or days on end for that matter purification unpurified water can be the difference between life and death there are several methods for water purification and you'll need to figure out what works best for your situation you can use a bleach iodine boiling filtration systems and various other methods there are some gravity-fed water filtration systems that are very popular I think they're like the ceramic globe type ones are filled with carbon and so forth that filters out all the chemicals are not chemicals but algae and bacteria and things of that nature the things that can make you sick there are other systems such as Berkeley that are expensive but they can also provide you with up to six months of drinking water some instances for using some chlorine and iodine on pure purifying your water you want to use like for example for a quart you want to use a couple of drops of bleach and if you use bleach you want to make sure did you get the bleach bleach you don't want to get bleach mixed with fragrances or things of that nature because that would tend to really change the taste of your water if you store it and then there's obviously wait times for the purification when you're when you're doing it you want to you know clear water you want to want to keep the water temperature at a prime condition you want to make sure that you know if your water is cloudy you're gonna want to wait an hour for some of those purification steps in food storage food storage is kind of tricky there's so many methods to food storage where should you begin how much food should I have on hand how do I store food for the long term and you know I don't necessarily have the money to buy some of the expensive freeze-dried food or I don't know how to grow a garden or I don't have a method of cooking without electricity all of these are questions that you need to ask yourself and mow over when you're preparing you know food storage or starting food storage so where do I begin determine what you and your family eat on a weekly and monthly basis put it down on paper you know see what your family favorites are and what some of those items that are non perishable are another step is run a cost sheet to see who's to see what the non perishable items cost and how much your funds you can use to allocate to food storage you know sometimes it's just a matter of buying that extra couple of cans of food and stashing it away it's simple simple as that that's a good start purchasing the extra items every week you know and finding a place in the house and storing them and then you repeat those processes until you feel comfortable that you have enough food for your family at a time of crisis you know food and food storage does take up a lot of space it is recommended that you have a year supply of food per person per household obviously that is a lot of food so you have to you know you have to be able to have sufficient storage of that it's recommended that you store extra dry goods during a crisis to share with neighbors and families not only that but you can use them as a bartering tool also you know someone may have some medicine or something like that and they're they're missing some nice cheesecake freeze-dried cheesecake that you might want to trade that off to them FEMA and FEMA recommends that you have three to seven days worth of food obviously that's not a whole lot three to seven days in a major catastrophe or a major emergency isn't really a whole lot of food to live off of it seems like that they want to go ahead and just give you know tell you to have that much until they get there and wonder you off to someplace else if you read further on FEMA's website though they actually recommend three months of food for an act of God or disasters like a five tornado maybe even a hurricane things of that nature during cert one of the instruction instructions that was told to the class the more recommends to SEMA and cert team members have two to four years of provisions in a cataclysmic disaster that affects more than 51% of the nation so that is a lot of food to store up to four years worth different types of storage you got your long-term storage solutions the cheapest way to start this is just using simple five gallon buckets with sealable lids and mylar bags the five gallon buckets generally store approximately 25 pounds of certain foods such as rice beans oats things of that nature reusable or resealable bags are another great way to start storing dry products you can get a five pound bag of flour or sugar and you can store it in a Ziploc bag you've tripled the recommendation of the shelf life of that product just by doing that mason jars and canning are an excellent way to store some dried products as well as fresh products you can store beans rice etc and mason jars with sealable lids and they'll last an extremely long time sealed in those lids regular Tupperware works wonders on storage of dry products as well and you know always remember if you're going to store your food you want to store it in a cool and dry location in your home so a garage probably would not be a very good place to store your food you'd want to store it somewhere like a basement or maybe a cabinet that's in a cool place in in your house basement would be ideal if you have one I I'm actually challenged on some of my storage locations because I don't have a basement I just have a crawl space so I can't necessarily store my food there so I you know I'm challenged on some of my stored food some of your more advanced food storage is freeze-dried or dehydrated food which there's a lot of the product over there on the freeze dried or in dehydrated food it's great because you know they have a shelf life of 10 to 25 years but they can also be a little bit expensive one of the things that I try to do is I try to buy whenever I buy freeze-dried food I try to buy it when they have sales or they're trying to get rid of you know I don't buy it at the prime prices I keep watch on it it's more costly but it is worth the investment because you get a lot of diversity fruits vegetables proteins grains you get milk butter a lot of different things fish chicken meats and a lot of the meats are actual meat some of them you know it's not the fake TVP protein stuff that they produce another option is MRE's that's great for long-term food storage and they usually have a high calorie count generally though they only last for three to six years depending on how they're stored I actually watched a video not long ago of a guy who stuck a MRE in his desk like 15 years ago and left it sitting there it was sitting in his desk and they him and his buddy pulled it out and ate it and you know sometimes they do last a little longer they said it tasted pretty good so they didn't seem to get sick from it or anything so a lot of it is is basically how it's how it's processed and how it's packaged you know the downfall to these though that they're high protein high calorie sources and you'll need some other source of fiber and vegetation and some of the items that doc was talking about in your diet you know you can't live on these definitely needs a variety needs a variety in your food stuff in your food supplies obviously if you're sitting there and you're eating nothing but beans and rice for a whole entire month and your next meal is beans and rice you're not going to be looking forward to that it also isn't very healthy for your body to be eating the same things over and over and over your body will stop processing some of the protein some of the calorie part of the minerals and so forth that are in the food gardening it's probably the hardest of the storage methods learning the season and planting time frames or a skill set and practice practice practice I have a garden and I'm practicing practicing and practicing I found that there are some things that have to grow very very well and some things that I just can't grow worth a darn I have no idea why there are certain things I've always had a problem with like broccoli and cauliflower just do not want to seem to grow for me at all and then I have other items such as green beans and and okra that just bloom and take off and I have you know abundant sources of that yeah so so and I do have some of the survival seeds and stuff too so I'm learning what I can grow what I can't grow corn's another one for me I have a hard time growing corn one of the reasons why I have a hard time growing corn is is I can't keep the squirrels away from it they just don't want to stay away there's another source of meat yeah yeah squirrels yeah and but you know if you do the gardening approach definitely practice don't rely on this as your prime source of food for when something happens obviously unless you have a greenhouse or something there are some foods that you can't grow during the winter and there believe it or not there are some foods that you can grow during the winter such as broccoli and some of those hard cabbage and things like that some of those thrive in some of the colder environments believe it or not for the area that we live in obviously with your gardening you can you can some of your vegetables basically you can also can meats soups chilies things of that nature but some of that canning you can't just do a boil can canning method for that you have to use a high pressure or pressure cooker to be able to can those things the reason why is it's because with the boiling method you can't get the heat to use the heat you can't get it high enough to kill off the bacteria and so forth that that lives on me you got to be able to achieve a much higher temperature the only way you do that is using a pressure cooker cooking without electricity you know many are items in in your food stores you'll need some type of fuel to cook or heat it up most of the freeze-dried food you need water you just need water and be able to heat water up and and mix it in that way some of the places that you can purchase some foods are be prepared calm they have a lot of variety of freeze-dried foods they have occasional sales specials I'm on a mailing list for them so whenever they do have specials and and so forth on some of their items you know I'll browse there and check it out plus they have catalogs I haven't brought in a couple of catalogs over there from them and another place that I have personally bought some of my food supplies is campingsurvival.com they have a wide variety of selection various different items they always have some very good deals on things I get an email from them on a special Teotwaki deal of the day and if you're not familiar with Teotwaki it means the end of the world as we know it and so they send me an email every day on little special items little items that you might want to put in your prepping stores and they always like I said they always have reasonable prices and question and answer comes later so I'm sure that some of you will have some questions on a lot of the food stores later on and like I said