Hey meeshy, what kind of dehydrator do you have if you don't mind me asking, I've been thinking of getting one but I'm not sure which one beat suits my purposes. Is there anything you would change about it?

I also have one of those same dehydrators meeshy has. It works well for an inexpensive unit. Like her, banana's take FOREVER. I have a slicing thingy that makes very thin apple slices and it makes apple chips overnight really well. Beef and venison jerky also turn out well on it. I think I got it for like $50 at wal mart, well worth it.

Something told me to go to my local Canadian Tire on Saturday. Guess what? They had .22lr in stock! It wasn't the stuff I usually buy but it's been so damned dry I didn't care, I've been looking all over for .22lr lately. Picked up two bulk packs of Winchester hollow point .22LR. about 1,000 rounds.

Costco run to restock and add to the shelves. Forgot we already had Nutella at home so bought another pkg of 2. So... Now we have 8 jars at home 😉 This would make for the sweetest zombie apocalypse ever!

Went to the gun range with a friend and my wife and bought extra ammo to replace what was used and add to the stored amount.

Made a couple of small fishing kits for the GHB, a small investment that can pay off in an emergency.

http://www.costco.ca/Chef%E2%80%99s-Banquet-Emergency-Food-Storage---ARK-%28All-purpose-Readiness-Kits%29.product.100075390.html

Just picked up one of these.

Hi Crownsown,
I did a quick nutritional analysis of the "one month supply". According to my calculations if you ate every morsel of food and licked the packages clean you would be getting 1726 calories per day over the course of 30 days. Most sources would say that an active man needs 2500 - 3000 calories per day. Since in a SHTF situation we will probably be "active" this is the figure I use for my food storage calculations.
I have found that most companies supplying prepackaged foods tend to overestimate how many days their product will feed you! Plan accordingly.
The selection of foods look nice. You might want to do a trial and try eating them for a week to see if your body can easily make the adjustment from what you are currently eating to the prepackaged foods.
Just some thoughts- use or ignore as you wish!
Arkbuilder

Hi Crownsown,
I did a quick nutritional analysis of the "one month supply". According to my calculations if you ate every morsel of food and licked the packages clean you would be getting 1726 calories per day over the course of 30 days. Most sources would say that an active man needs 2500 - 3000 calories per day. Since in a SHTF situation we will probably be "active" this is the figure I use for my food storage calculations.
I have found that most companies supplying prepackaged foods tend to overestimate how many days their product will feed you! Plan accordingly.
The selection of foods look nice. You might want to do a trial and try eating them for a week to see if your body can easily make the adjustment from what you are currently eating to the prepackaged foods.
Just some thoughts- use or ignore as you wish!
Arkbuilder

Of course, being well fed first worlders, many of us going in will be able to spare a few calories from the storage we've put on so we might be able to survive on a few less calories for a while! 😀

FYI I once went camping with some pre packaged mountain house freeze dried just add water meals. By day 3 I was sick of them because of the salt, and I was sick of constantly pumping water through my Kadatdyn filter to both make the meals for everybody and the extra drinking water we all needed because the meals were so salty.

I have some of those types of meals stored as they are tasty and different and easy to prepare. But I would use those meals as a supplement and not a constant supply just because of the huge level of salt they seem to contain.

My two cents.

you just answered my question Red, as someone who teeters on the brink of hypertension i'm always conscious of salt content. if i could find some lower sodium meals that would be ideal. As you say we all carry around some extra insulation and may be a potential weight loss home run for me since i traded in my smokes for 55 lbs of excess lard and i could definitely benefit from a few days of reduced calories!

you just answered my question Red, as someone who teeters on the brink of hypertension i'm always conscious of salt content. if i could find some lower sodium meals that would be ideal. As you say we all carry around some extra insulation and may be a potential weight loss home run for me since i traded in my smokes for 55 lbs of excess lard and i could definitely benefit from a few days of reduced calories!

Congrats on quitting smoking! That right there is a HUGE prep you just did. I smoked for 10 years and I'm going on year 10 of not smoking, this September coming up will be the 10th anniversary. Yea, the pounds come on but then as you adjust you can take them back off again.

I'll tell you too that when I was smoking, every year when spring came and I got on my mountain bike the first day was absolute hell as my lungs couldn't cope and they needed to stretch out or something. The first year after quitting smoking I got on the mountain bike and it was 1000% better I kid you not. The lungs do heal and it makes a huge difference.

Plus you won't need to obey your habit and stockpile expensive smokes, right?

Ark and Red.

Good points for anyone to heed when buying pre packaged buckets like this. I think your both right. They definitely arn't the "end all and be all" but these products can supplement a food storage plan (at least for us) quite nicely.

The Pro's I find:
-Usually have been fortified with various vitamins and minerals which would be lacking and not on your mind in an emergency.
-Easy to prepare, good to store long term (file and forget until needed), minimal time/effort and space needed for preparation and clean up.
-The smaller serving sizes means that in a moderate disaster scenario like ice storm, etc. that may last a week or so I'm not opening up a 1 Gallon bags of stored food for only a week or two if needed. Leaving me with a bunch of bags of stuff I'd have to go and repackage again, use up o2 absorbers, etc. Granted the stuff in the larder would probably suffice before hitting the prepackaged food buckets...but sometimes in cold weather or extreme circumstances you just want to make something quick. That being said, I can't imagine living off of nothing else but these buckets...

Cons:
-Cost way more than doing long term storage yourself (mylar bags, etc.). They appear to be a good starter product or for those people who just want to have a 72 hour or a bit better kit. And imo if everyone did this we would be more resilient as a society...so I cant knock it. 🙂
-The quality of food just isnt the same as what you are used to. As Jack Spirko has pointed out, in a time of stress its good to have food your used to and comfortable with and holding onto a bit of that normalcy.

A couple reviews I did on another forum for similar products. They are "bad" persay....they arnt "great dining" either. lol

http://enucleus.net/threads/food-for-health-international-5-gal-food-bucket.75/

http://enucleus.net/threads/mre-star%E2%80%99s-meal-ready-to-eat-menu-7.159/

I really liked the food bucket review. Wouldn't mind going in a group buy with some folks if we can get a distributor to get us a good price.

That reminds me, I need to check expiry dates one of these weekends and rotate my canned good supply

Just a bit of knowledge and know-how added over the weekend.

In the past i've tried a bunch of different impromptu/for-fun torches... but this weekend was the first time i've tried my hand at a real torch that could be used in a SHTF scenario.

The Pine-knot torch.

-Find a healthy green pine tree
-Choose a branch that seems healthy and likely full of sap, but also of a size you could manage to lug around, held above your head for a few hours
-Cut the branch off close to the tree, where the "knot" of the tree/branch meet
-Scrape the bark off the torch end about 12"-18" down
-Use a fine saw to cut, or a sharp axe to split the branch lengthwise down the shaft in an X or +
-With your axe still sunk down the split, use a twig to jam the prongs "out"
-When you've got the twigs holding your prongs out in both directions, jam up the centre of the torch with tinder & fuel (sawdust, sappy wood chips, etc)
-Optional: wrap/weave old cotton rags thru and around the torch for added fuel and structural strength
-Optional: drizzle or dunk torch with fire starter, kerosene, diesel, etc
-Optional: wrap the handle end of your torch with something... the heat from the fire gets the sap running and you will get sticky.

Ours did have some scrap cotton towels added and because of the very cold temps i did use a little diesel to help get them burning fast and hard.

This was done to entertain my daughter who has been begging to have a "torch parade" for over a year since she saw torches in a disney movie. I decided to take it a bit further than the "tissue paper taped to a flashlight" idea my wife wanted to go with. lol

These torches burned super bright and hot for 1.5 hours before we doused them in a snowbank. I laid them on an ice-covered gravel driveway and the wind reignited them and they burned for another 4.5 hours.

Just a bit of knowledge and know-how added over the weekend.

In the past i've tried a bunch of different impromptu/for-fun torches... but this weekend was the first time i've tried my hand at a real torch that could be used in a SHTF scenario.

The Pine-knot torch.

-Find a healthy green pine tree
-Choose a branch that seems healthy and likely full of sap, but also of a size you could manage to lug around, held above your head for a few hours
-Cut the branch off close to the tree, where the "knot" of the tree/branch meet
-Scrape the bark off the torch end about 12"-18" down
-Use a fine saw to cut, or a sharp axe to split the branch lengthwise down the shaft in an X or +
-With your axe still sunk down the split, use a twig to jam the prongs "out"
-When you've got the twigs holding your prongs out in both directions, jam up the centre of the torch with tinder & fuel (sawdust, sappy wood chips, etc)
-Optional: wrap/weave old cotton rags thru and around the torch for added fuel and structural strength
-Optional: drizzle or dunk torch with fire starter, kerosene, diesel, etc
-Optional: wrap the handle end of your torch with something... the heat from the fire gets the sap running and you will get sticky.

Ours did have some scrap cotton towels added and because of the very cold temps i did use a little diesel to help get them burning fast and hard.

This was done to entertain my daughter who has been begging to have a "torch parade" for over a year since she saw torches in a disney movie. I decided to take it a bit further than the "tissue paper taped to a flashlight" idea my wife wanted to go with. lol

These torches burned super bright and hot for 1.5 hours before we doused them in a snowbank. I laid them on an ice-covered gravel driveway and the wind reignited them and they burned for another 4.5 hours.

was the fuel the wood or the pine resin? Sounds interesting. Would one be able to burn fresh pine logs in a stove for the same benefit?

was the fuel the wood or the pine resin? Sounds interesting. Would one be able to burn fresh pine logs in a stove for the same benefit?

The fuel was a combination of the wood, the resin and the fabric i wrapped/wove around the torchs' split. The greener and more full of sap your branch is, the better and longer it'll burn. The heat actually pulls the sap up the entire torch, into the flame, feeding it longer.

AFAIK, you are not supposed to burn green pine/spruce/balsam/fir in furnaces or stoves because they cause a dangerous amount of creosote to build up in your stove pipe or chimney, increasing your risk of flue-fire.

Hard woods like oak maple or ash are best for home heating and cooking out of doors as they give off longer more sustainable heat.
Soft woods like pine are great for quick heat and give off more flames and light because of the pitch in them, makes nice nite time crackling by the camp fire fires.
But like already mentioned to much creosote in the chimney

Awesome jerky gun.