Bring on the Sun!

By Kellene Bishop

A new book has been released illustrating with surprisingly reality and extensive details what would happen to America in the event of an EMP attack (Electric Magnetic Pulse). The book is "One Second After" by New York Times best-selling author William R. Forstchen, who talked about the possible impact of such an attack on the Sean Hannity Radio Show today. I’m also quite partial to a book by Pat Frank, “Alas, Babylon” that was wildly popular in the 1950’s which explores a similar situation and the necessary results of human beings having to get back to basics and innovation. For those of you who don’t know, such an attack is very possible and would paralyze our world as we know it. It would cause a financial, social, medical, and technical chaos as you’ve never seen previously. And it would certainly put us all in a true survival mode. Your world without electricity is much more restrictive than you can imagine. But with a little preparedness now, you’ll be just fine. All you have to do is simply learn how to harness the unfailing power of the sun.

Even in the winter, sun powered items will prove to be a boon to your comfort. Additionally, using the sun in as many instances as possible will enable you to conserve your other fuels such as kerosene, wood, and propane for other purposes.

My favorite “toy” is my solar powered oven. It not only cooks things wonderfully, but it can also be used to pasteurize water. (It also bakes bread, cookies, cooks meats, and everything else I can think of just fine and dandy.)

I also love my solar powered battery recharger. I had no idea how much I used batteries until I tried to put myself on a battery buying hiatus and started using my stored up amount. I was so disappointed in how many countless batteries I had in my storage that didn’t work any longer. Rechargeable batteries are clearly the answer, but not when you don’t have any electricity. Duh for me! Now, I’ve invested my money in the rechargeable batteries and a great solar powered battery recharger. You can even find one that will recharge your laptop battery!

Solar powered outdoor lamps are a good idea as well. I believe that they will provide some semblance of security for my home as I ride out the ensuing chaos in the event of an EMP attack or like magnitude.

Obviously there are some significant alterations you can make to your home at present by adding in solar panels for electricity. (It’s safer and more practical than using a gas-powered generator, folks.) With technology like this you don’t necessarily need to go without a hot shower. This doesn’t need to be an expensive, new-fangled kind of solution. For less than $350 you can make your own solar powered generator! (see: http://www.energyrefuge.com/how-to/solar_power_generator.htm)

There are also solar powered lights, radios, and cell-phone chargers. Also a mere 15 minutes of sun daily can provide you with an entire day’s worth of Vitamin D. Now that’s some lifesaving solar power!

There are far too many options on the types of solar products for me to give you a run down of a specific brands and costs. I recommend that you do a search on “solar powered + emergency” on the internet. Just take it one step at a time, but it would indeed be wise to take such steps. And read “Alas, Babylon.” I really think you’ll like it!

Copyright 2009 Kellene Bishop. All rights reserved.
You are welcome to repost this information so long as it is credited to Kellene Bishop.

Preparedness Pro Note: If you would like Kellene Bishop to present an Emergency Preparedness message for your community or church group, please contact us at 801-788-4133. Ms. Bishop is an experienced speaker on Emergency Preparedness topics and also has created a great “Preparedness Party” platform which makes the learning of such a topic more enjoyable for all.

Will Your Wheat Storage Kill You? Exploring the utilization of wheat in your food storage

When most people think about eating from their food storage, they think about mundane wheat, rice, and beans. If I had to live on that, I may very well starve to death out of boredom, also known as “appetite fatigue.” There are two key ways to avoid this from happening to you and your family if you’re forced to live off of food storage.

1) Store what you eat
2) Learn to use what you store

While this may sound simple, I find that frequently when I evaluate a person’s food storage they are storing items which they have no idea how to convert into an edible food and in some cases they are even storing items which they are allergic to!

Here are the facts. If you attempt to go from what you’re eating every day now to surviving off of whole wheat, you will be dead within 3 months from the shock of what the wheat will do to your digestive system. If you intend to use wheat in an emergency, you better begin acclimating your body to wheat right now. (It’s the only reason why I learned to make bread, but boy are my husband and father-in-law glad I did. They love my bread!)

So introducing wheat into your diet on a daily basis now is one way to avoid shocking your system literally to death. And it’s part of the fundamental of “learning to use what you store.” I’ve had one woman show me her ample supplies to make some wonderful sounding dishes, but she’s never attempted to make them for herself or her family. That’s a catastrophe waiting to happen.

Remember, the time for preparation is over when the opportunity (or disaster) appears.

Another way to prevent a system shock when you’re forced to convert your lifestyle as the result of an emergency is to store items such as Kamut, Amarath, Quinoa, Millet, and Spelt. These types of grains mixed in generously with wheat will prevent the negative effects of shocking your body with straight wheat. Oh, and by the way, be sure you learn how to eat these items as well. (Yes, you can sprout them also).

Given the choices though, I prefer to introduce wheat into my body regularly. The reason being is that the other grain choices above are 4 to 10 times more expensive than wheat. And that’s saying a lot considering how much wheat has gone up in pricing over the last 2 years.

Learning to use what you store also requires a level of awareness. As you use recipes in your regular meal making activities, ask yourself if you have the items necessary to create such a meal with what you’ve got in storage (This includes what you may need to actually cook the meal with such as a Dutch Oven, Solar Oven, alternatively fueled stoves, etc. I frequently use my Joy Cook stoves for testing emergency preparedness recipes. They are made in Korea and I always see them being sold at sporting goods stores as well as trade shows for camping, boating and guns).

I also specifically look for recipes in which I can adapt the items easily, or already stock in my food storage. For example, today I played around with using peanut butter, ginger vinaigrette and fettuccine. It turned out nicely. But then again I like Thai flavored types of food as well. My husband on the other hand… not so much. Back to the drawing board for me on that one, I guess.

Here is the recipe for you to test out on your finicky eaters:

Ginger Peanut Fettuccine
1 box of (8 oz.) of fettuccine
½ cup of peanut butter (crunchy is ideal for this recipe)
¾ cup of ginger vinaigrette dressing
1 tablespoon of minced garlic. (I buy mine by the large jar and use it all year round)
Reserve 1 ¼ cup of the pasta water

Cook fettuccine according to box directions. Drain completely, setting aside the reserved pasta water. Set aside your pasta while you make the sauce. Returning your pan to the hot surface, simply add your garlic, dressing, peanut butter and pasta water, stirring until smooth. Add cooked pasta. Stir well until mixed.
Makes four servings which include necessary fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. I like to sprinkle a bit of dried parsley over each serving as well.

Enjoy!

I’ll address more of the fundamental of “storing what you eat” in future blogs.

Kellene

Copyright 2009 Kellene Bishop. All rights reserved. You are welcome to repost this information so long as it is credited to Kellene Bishop.


Preparedness Pro Note: If you would like Kellene Bishop to present an Emergency Preparedness message for your community or church group, please contact us at 801-788-4133. Ms. Bishop is an experienced speaker on Emergency Preparedness topics and also has created a great “Preparedness Party” platform which makes the learning of such a topic more enjoyable for all.