Tag: preparedness

There’s more to being prepared than just a face mask.

A major part of that emergency kit is food and water for you and your family. But, what types of food should you store?

FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, advocates disaster preparedness. They advise people to be informed, make a plan, and prepare an emergency kit.

A major part of that emergency kit is food and water for you and your family. But, what types of food should you store? How much food should you store? How will you cook it? Does it need to be refrigerated? How much water needs to be stored and how? Will these foods go bad during storage? Can my family or I become sick if we store these foods incorrectly? Can I throw these foods in my car in case I am forced to evacuate my home?

FREE

There is a printable book from University of Utah’s extension office on food storage for emergencies.

FOOD STORAGE BOOKLET

Food Terrorism

In 1984, a woman deployed a salmonella-tainted liquid onto a salad bar. It was exceptionally lucky that no one did, in fact, die.

“What if terrorists used fentanyl to poison our food supply?”

This was the frightening thought that raced through my mind while scrolling through Facebook. I came across an article with an image of a lethal dose of the opioid drug next to a penny. It was shocking how such a tiny amount of this white powder could kill a single adult.

I couldn’t help but wonder how easily this tiny amount of white powder could be mistaken for flour or powdered sugar. What would happen if a terrorist got a job at a flour or a sugar company and mixed this drug into the product? How many people would die before authorities could figure out what happened?

I know, what a scary thought, right?

Fentanyl is a highly-potent, synthetic opioid drug. It has legitimate uses for extreme pain management, such as with some cancer patients. Fentanyl, both legally and illegally made, is currently the leading cause of opioid overdoses.

Fentanyl, like most of our pharmaceuticals, is manufactured in China.

Some of the legally manufactured fentanyl falls into the hands of drug dealers here in the US. The precursor chemicals needed to manufacture illegal analogs of fentanyl are also largely sourced from China.

Mexican drug cartels have found fentanyl analogs cheap and easy to manufacture. They simply import the needed chemicals from China, synthesize it, and then sell their DIY fentanyl through the same channels that they sell other drugs. Fentanyl is often mixed with heroin or cocaine without the user knowing.

This is not just a problem in the United States.

When most people think of a terror attack, they think of mass violence with bombs, planes, trucks, and guns. It’s a shock and awe attack that leaves people fearful and confused.

We also think of biological attacks. Back in 2014, one of the biggest worries of many preppers was what if someone purposely became infected with the Ebola virus, and traveled to the US before symptoms surfaced to spread the disease.

We don’t tend to think of terrorism through contamination, and especially not through our groceries. When we consider how centralized our food production and packaging are, a large amount of food could be contaminated from just one or two locations. The illnesses and inevitable deaths would take place far away from the contamination site. The culprits would just walk away, free to strike somewhere else. No suicide vests necessary.

Let’s take this one step further. Let’s consider how “cheap and easy” it is to synthesize fentanyl powder. This powder could be manufactured in large amounts. Terrorists could then use this powder to contaminate products at any of the large flour mills and food manufacturers.

Is grocery store poisoning a real threat?

Terrorists have been threatening terror by food for a long time. Agroterrorism is the introduction of a biological agent into the food supply, for example, foot and mouth disease to livestock. This probably wouldn’t make anyone too sick, but it would disrupt the beef industry, as well as trust in the food supply in general. It would wreak havoc on the economy.

In 1984, a woman deployed a salmonella-tainted liquid onto a salad bar. It was exceptionally lucky that no one did, in fact, die.

Her act began the first — and worst — case of bioterrorism in US history. Investigators ultimately determined that the woman and her associates had contaminated 10 salad bars in the town of The Dalles with a strain of salmonella bacteria, giving 751 patrons nausea, diarrhea, bloody stools, fever and other symptoms of severe food poisoning. (Fortunately, no one died.) (source)

Contamination with a drug is a little different, as it isn’t a disease being spread. It would still result, however, in both hospitalizations and deaths. All the other problems of trust in the food supply and economic damage would follow as well.

Here are a few more headlines to make you think:

And this lovely article from September 2017, ISIS Supporters Call for Poisoning of Food in Grocery Stores across US and Europe

“In the third part of an English-language series promoting lone-wolf jihad in Western countries, potential attackers are advised to inject food for sale in markets with cyanide poison,” U.S.-based jihadi monitoring group SITE Intelligence reported. (source)

The article continues:

The potential use of poison is one that has been publicized by the group’s supporters for several years, but never used. Jihadists published a guide that directed “six ways to kill the Jews” in October 2015, the methods given were to “stab him, burn him, poison him.” They have also distributed a guide on how to poison food eaten by “crusaders.” Pro-ISIS groups have also published handbooks on how to make homemade poison. (source)

We know that terrorists are interested in poisoning our food supply. We should probably include our water supply too. We know that fentanyl is cheap and easy to synthesize. We also know that it only takes a tiny amount of fentanyl powder to kill an adult.

What could possibly go wrong?

What foods would be most at risk of a fentanyl terror attack?

“Street fentanyl” is a plain, white powder. Any food that is similar would be at risk. That includes (but is not limited to):

  • Flour (All types- white wheat, rice, coconut, etc)
  • Sugar, especially powdered sugar
  • Baking soda
  • Baking powder
  • Yeast
  • Cream of tartar
  • Artificial sweeteners (Splenda, Equal, etc)
  • Natural and alternative sweeteners (Stevia, Swerve, etc)
  • Protein powders
  • Potato starch
  • Corn starch
  • Clear Jel
  • Collagen powders

There are a lot of common pantry items on the above list

This kind of attack would be frighteningly simple to carry out.

All it would take is one lone wolf to easily acquire a moderate amount of fentanyl powder, get a job at one of the large flour mills in the US, and lace the product with this deadly substance. Poisoned flour would be on grocery shelves all over the country. It would take a little time for authorities to figure out what has happened. In the meantime, people would get very sick, and some would die from a drug overdose they never knew they took.

Safety is never guaranteed. One thing I do know is that the more you take control of the food you put into your body, the better off you are. You will be trading your time and labor for this, but you and your family are worth the effort.

Raising Competent Kids in an Incompetent World

It’s probably no surprise that the young people of today aren’t particularly independent. Not only does the “education” system take great pains to mold them into a bunch of terrified, follow-the-herd automatons, society, in general, doesn’t force them to do much for themselves either.

By Daisy Luther

It’s probably no surprise that the young people of today aren’t particularly independent.  Not only does the “education” system take great pains to mold them into a bunch of  terrified, follow-the-herd automatons, society, in general, doesn’t force them to do much for themselves either.

I’ll never forget when my oldest daughter came home for summer vacation after her first year of college.  She told me that her younger sister, age 13 at the time, was much more mature and competent than many of the kids in her student apartment building.  “I had to show a bunch of them how to do laundry and they didn’t even know how to make a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese,” she said.

Apparently they were likewise in awe of her ability to cook actual food that did not originate in a pouch or box, her skills at changing a tire, her knack for making coffee using a French press instead of a coffee maker, and her ease at operating a washing machine and clothes dryer.

One girl, she told me, kept coming to my daughter’s apartment for tea and finally my daughter said, “I can’t afford to keep giving you all my tea. You’re going to have to make your own tea in your apartment. The girls said sadly that she couldn’t because she didn’t have a tea kettle. She was gobsmacked when my daughter explained how to boil water in a regular cooking pot for making tea.

At long last, my daughter admitted that even though she thought I was being mean at the time I began making her do things for herself, she’s now glad that she possesses those skills.  Hers was also the apartment that had everything needed to solve everyday problems: basic tools, first aid supplies, OTC medicine, and home remedies.

This got me thinking about how life will be when disaster eventually strikes.

If the country is populated by a bunch of people who can’t even cook a box of macaroni and cheese when their stoves function at optimum efficiency, and who can’t figure out how to make something as simple as tea in a different cooking vessel, how on earth will they sustain themselves when they have to not only acquire their food, but must use off-grid methods to prepare it? How can someone who requires an instruction manual to operate a digital thermostat hope to keep warm when their home environment it controlled by wood they have collected and fires they have lit with it?

And honestly, we can’t just blame the young people of today. We know that these types of skills aren’t taught in school, so where have their parents been? Why hasn’t this generation been taught to cook, clean, problem-solve, and handle money? People often praise my kids for being competent but the things they do should not be that unusual. If you never give a kid responsibility or show them how to create a workaround, how do you expect them to magically be able to “adult” just because they hit some arbitrary age?

Let’s look at some less dramatic, but more likely, situations. This isn’t even about prepping, per se, but about life skills.

Job Loss

In the current economy, it might not even be as cut and dried as job loss – the new generation may never find work at all.  When you have little-to-no money, cost-cutting efforts in order to get by requires certain skills and adaptations to stay fed and clean.  Your kids need to know how to:

  • Cook inexpensive, nutritious meals from scratch using pantry basics
  • Do laundry by hand and hang it to dry
  • Get from point A to point B using public transit or – gasp – by walking
  • Budget limited money so that the most important things are paid first
  • Mend and repair items instead of replacing them

Power Outage Due to Natural Disaster

We’ve all seen the aftermath of hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, and super storms.  California just lost power for over a week to “prevent” wildfires.

Your kids should be able to:

  • Keep warm, whether that means safely operating an indoor propane heater, using the wood stove/fireplace, or bundling up in a tent and sleeping bags in the living room
  • Keep fed – they should have enough supplies on hand that they can stay fed at home for at least two weeks without leaving the house: cereal, powdered milk, granola bars, canned fruit, etc.
  • Keep safe – they need to understand when it’s dangerous to go out and about and they need to have basic self-defense and weapons-handling skills.
  • As well, they need to understand the dangers of off-grid heating and cooking, such as the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning in un-ventilated rooms, and to know how to lessen these risks.

Illness and Injury

This can happen anywhere at any time.  Keeping a cool head when someone is ill or injured is the absolute most important step towards a good outcome. My kids both took babysitting courses and First Aid courses to further their money-making abilities as young teens, but the skills learned there go much further than bandaging a toddler’s scraped knee.  Kids should:

  • Take a course in First Aid, CPR, and anything else applicable that is offered.  The more you know, the calmer you are able to remain during a crisis.
  • Have a good basic First Aid kit and know how to use everything in it. Yes, that means “wasting” a few supplies by tearing them open and going through the use of them.
  • Know some home remedies for various common illnesses: teas for tummy aches, treatment for flu symptoms, how to soothe skin irritations, and how to care for a fever.
  • Have some basic over the counter medications on hand, like pills for diarrhea, pills for indigestion, and pain relievers.

Automotive Safety

An astonishing number of young adults don’t know how to drive. Fewer people than ever are getting their driver’s licenses.

Back when I was a kid, the most exciting thing in my teenage life was getting behind the wheel of a car, getting a learner’s permit when I was fourteen, and having that permit turn into a real driver’s license on my 16th birthday. This was freedom, baby!

Now, many kids couldn’t care less if they ever learn how to drive.  Instead, they rely on public transit or friends and family members that drive.  It’s one thing if you live in a major metropolitan area, but in places with lower populations, it seems that this is a vital skill.  In order to transport yourself to work and school, or to help out in the event of an emergency, it seems to me that kids should know how to:

  • Drive.  Not only an automatic transmission but also a standard transmission
  • Change a tire.  You don’t want your teenage daughter stranded on the side of the road at the mercy of whoever stops to help. My daughter was not allowed to drive the car until she demonstrated her ability to change the tire with the factory jack.
  • Perform minor maintenance, like checking the oil and fluid levels, filling up the washer fluid, checking tire pressures and topping them up if needed, and changing the windshield wiper blades.  I have a background in the automotive industry, so I also taught my daughter how to change the oil, which is nice to know, but not absolutely necessary.

And finally, what about day-to-day life skills?

I was truly surprised when my daughter told me about the lack of life skills her friends have.  I always thought maybe I was secretly lazy and that was the basis on my insistence that my girls be able to fend for themselves. But it honestly prepared them for life far better than if I was a hands-on mom that did absolutely everything for them. They needed to realize that clothing does not get worn and then neatly reappear on a hanger in the closet, ready to be worn again. They need to understand that meals do not magically appear on the table, created by singing appliances ala Beauty and the Beast.

Here are some of the life skills that kids should have gained before leaving the nest:

  • How to use basic tools for repairs
  • How to cook a healthy meal
  • How to grocery shop within a budget and have healthy food for the week ahead
  • Speaking of that, how to budget in general, so that they don’t have “too much month and not enough money”
  • How to clean
  • How to do laundry, including stain removal
  • How to think for themselves and question authority
  • How to manage their time to get necessary tasks accomplished by the deadlines
  • How to tell the difference between a want and a need
  • How to be frugal with utilities and consumable goods
  • How to pay bills
  • How to stay out of debt (not easy with the college credit card racket that you see on campuses across the country and rampant student loans)

Competent kids turn into competent adults.

The more they practice these things under your watchful eye, the more competent they will be when they set out on their own.  We all want our kids to be successful and independent and this is on us as parents. Don’t allow your kids to become crippled by a world that babies them in the name of convenience.

What are some of the skills you’ve taught your kids to prepare them for the real world? Have you witnessed some young adults who seem to be struggling to handle real life? Let’s talk about it in the comments.

SOURCE:https://www.theorganicprepper.com/raising-competent-kids-in-an-incompetent-world/

Heads up

Start watching the news folks. Something is up. Pence recalled to Washington en route to new Hampshire. Putin canceled meetings to meet with defense secretary. Russian sub caught fire and killed 14. EU security council is meeting. First lady put on a plane out of DC and other air force assets taking to the air. Could all be coincidence, but doesn’t look good. Let’s hope for coincidence.

Pray it’s just coincidence… but pray!