Practice in Both Practice and Theory

As I was taking a look at recent posts by my fellow authors, and reading comments on the Facebook group from some of the members concerning those posts, it struck me that I am facing a somewhat serious crises of conscience right now.

We talk a lot about skill sets, and making sure we have the proper tools on hand to meet whatever types of emergency that life and Mother Nature happen to throw in our direction.  Whether those proper tools happen to be an in-car emergency kit with reflectors and a pair of jumper cables and maybe a few tools to change a hose or belt in a hurry, or a water filter straw, emergency blanket, and fire tab emergency stove in a GHB that happens to live in the trunk next to the jumper cables, its not always about what we have, so much as it is how we use what we have.

During a recent discussion concerning manual can openers prompted by Chaplin Tim's post, many of us were jokingly about whether, what type, and how many manual openers we happened to have on hand in various locations.  I've got... a lot of them.  Let's leave it at that.

I realized something important, though: out of the plethora of styles that I happen to have easy access to in my home, my car, and my camping equipment, there are only 4 or 5 out of the dozen or so that I've actively used more than once or twice.  My first reaction to this realization was to tell myself "No big deal, we don't stock much in the way of canned stuff in this house anyway -- it's all fresh, or shelf-stable non-canned, or home canned!" 

Then I started thinking about it further, and realized that the deficiency extends further than to just my multitude of can openers in various styles. I maintain 6 or 7 different non-bic lighter methods of starting a fire in my BoB/GHB, as well as always carrying at least one or 2 lighters in my pockets (I'm a smoker, what can I say - I'm never without fire!)  But I've done very little work with most of those methods.  I used them just enough to assure myself that with some work, I could use them.  I did not, however, use any of them sufficiently to actually become proficient with them, or for any of them to become second nature.

Skills deteriorate over time if left unused, and it's been a couple of years since I even made an attempt with some of my various methods of lighting a fire.  I honestly don't know, as I'm sitting here writing this blog post, whether I can still accomplish the task with most of the tools available to me.  And while its not such a big deal today - right this minute, right this second, or even probably tomorrow or next week - it could be, because you can never be sure during an Oklahoma winter whether Ma Nature is gonna toss a rather nasty ice storm in your direction that takes down the power lines and causes massive problems.

So I need to start making myself practice with all of my gear more regularly, instead of smugly allowing it to simply sit in its bag in the car.  And so do you!  Make sure that you actually practice with the tools at your disposal, instead of blindly assuring yourself that you're in good shape simply because you have access to them!

Sew You Say

The question "What would be good things to have in a SHTF basic sewing kit?" was recently asked in our Facebook Group.  Erin referred that question to me, the go-to seamstresses of the writer group.

My personal "emergency" sewing kit is likely a lot more extensive than most folks would ever need, use, or want to haul along with them, mostly because it contains extra items  that only someone who sews frequently would have a clue what to do with it all. I'm paring things back to the bare basics for this little tutorial, to dump all that extraneous "stuff" most of you will never need.

Barest Basics
At its most simple, an emergency sewing kit should contain four items, all of which are small enough to be folded up together and placed in an EDC kit:

1. A needle
2. Black or white thread
3. A couple of all purpose buttons
4. Something to cut the thread with, such as tiny scissors or a small folding knife that's nice and sharp. 

Since most of us keep one or more sharp pocket knives in our EDC anyway, that last item could easily be omitted from a sewing kit. 

If you have poor eyesight or a lack of coordination, you might also consider a needle threader as the fifth piece to this utilitarian kit. This is a tiny, flat metal disk "handle" with a wire attached in a loop, and which can be more easily poked through the eye of the needle and used to pull thread through without making yourself crazy trying to get it done. I use them often, even when I'm working with a sewing machine.

To make a pocket kit of this type, start with a small square of scrap cloth. (Any sort of cloth will do; it doesn't have to be anything fancy.) This cloth serves two purposes: first, it serves as a place to store your needle, thread, and buttons in a single little packet; second, it can serve as an emergency patch for whatever it is you need to repair in a pinch.

Stick your needle through your cloth square several times to hold it in place and to keep it from accidentally stabbing you or other things in your EDC. Place the buttons, thread, and threader (if you've chosen to include one) onto the center of the square over and around the needle you've made safe. Now it's simply a matter of folding up the cloth, holding it together with a safety pin, and sticking it into one of the various places where you keep EDC or emergency items. 

Voila, you have spare buttons if you lose one, something to make a quick patch with, and needle and thread to attach either of those to whatever they need to go on.

Stepping It Up a Bit
If you're looking for something a bit more inclusive than that barest of basics set-up, you have a lot of options open to you. Some of them not only remove the guesswork of what to include, but come at a price that even a die-hard penny-pincher can appreciate.

The upgrade that tops my list is a $1 sewing kit that I purchased at Dollar Tree not far from home. (Yes, the same Dollar Tree where I managed to put together a comprehensive medical kit for $30.)  This sewing kit comes in a small clear plastic case with handles, so that you can easily see everything it contains. Around the size and shape of a deck of standard playing cards, these weigh in at only 2-3 ounces, making them very portable.

These kits come with 5 to 7 small spools of thread in assorted colors (typically black, white, red, green, navy blue, and gray) as well as a thimble, a short measuring tape, a seam ripper, a tiny pair of (not terribly sharp) scissors, an assortment of needles in their own case, an eyelet needle threader. and a small box of "extras" like multiple buttons, safety pins, and both sides of a couple of hook and eye closures.

Truthfully, this may seem like a lot more "bang for the buck" than that bare basics throw-together kit, but its honestly not. While it falls under the category of "the absolute minimum that I'm personally willing to keep in a bag, and only because I have to save space and weight for other things!", for most folks this is going to be all they ever need.

• Realistically, most folks aren't familiar with the use of a thimble these days, and therefore are more likely to ignore it or promptly lose it than they are to utilize it for fingertip protection while doing quickie hand sewing. 
• Measuring Tape? Sure, folks like Evelyn and I are going to dig those out and use them often, but what about normal people? Men, how much more likely are you to dig that measuring tape out to use in a woodworking project, and then forget to put it back where it belongs? Then again, that measuring tape is an automatic multi-tasker, since it can be used for things other than sewing!
• The box of "extras" to keep all the buttons, safety pins, and other types of spare closures in is nice for organization and neatness, but unless this is going into a bag you expect to be living out of for several days at a time, how likely are you to need more than a couple of buttons or a single safety pin? 
• The same can be said for the multitude of needles in a dedicated disk case. You aren't likely, most days, to need more than one - and if you weave it through your cloth patch, its going to stay in place and be easy to find.

The Mother Lode
This is where we delve into the deep end of the pool with all my eccentricities.

While either of the above styles of sewing kit are easy to throw together, and come with price tags that range from $1 up to about $15 depending on how many colors of thread are included and where you happen to purchase them, now we're going to get into a "Seamstress's Choice" of emergency sewing kit. This style of kit isn't for the faint of heart, or for those uninitiated in sewing. Kits of this sort are not available through places like Amazon or Wal-Mart or Target; they're personally put together by the seamstress (or tailor) in question, and as such tend to vary wildly. Due to the nature and extent of the variants possible, I'll only be going over my Personal Mother Lode Emergency Sewing Kit.

NOTE: this is not my standard traveling kit. This is my "TEOTWAWKI has happened, I'm packing up everything I can and will never get to return" kit.

• We'll start with my mini portable battery operated sewing machine. Yes, my personal kit contains an actual sewing machine. While this isn't the exact model, and it's slightly more expensive ($19 as opposed to $14),  it's very similar to what I have and is the current equivalent to my 10 year old portable. It comes with an AC adapter, so it can be plugged in when outlets are available, as well as being capable of running on AA batteries. It only produces a basic machine interlocked chain stitch, but honestly that's all it needs to do. 
• The one available on Amazon also has the option of adding an "extras" kit, which I have for mine. These extras are a variety of colors of thread spools, bobbins wound in the same colors, a good pair of scissors, an extra measuring tape, needle threader, seam ripper, thimbles, and hand needles. This extras kit can actually work as a "beyond the barest basics" emergency kit for most folks as well, though at $10 instead of $1, the only serious improvement is a significantly better pair of scissors.
• I have two pairs scissors in this Mother Kit. One is a dedicated pair of fabric scissors, which do not get used for anything other than cutting fabric. Talk to any serious sewer you happen to know, and you will find they have a pair that they will threaten gross bodily injury over if you use them for cutting anything else. The other pair of scissors is a "catch all" pair and honestly, you can use them on almost anything and I don't care as long as they go back in the box when done.
• Next in the Big Box of Emergency Sewing we have a zip top gallon baggie, in which are a pair of replacement zippers (one black, one white or grey) 2 rolls of elastic (1 each of 3 yard length 1 inch wide and 1/2 inch wide) to repair things like waist bands or cuffs, and several colors of bias tape - usually three yard lengths of black, white, red, blue, green, purple, and yellow. This may seem like a lot, but those in the know have a myriad of uses for bias tape that run the gamut from creating a quick and easy casing for an elastic waistband to using it for a simple hem that won't fray. 
• There's also a quart zip bag full of various colors, widths, and lengths of ribbon usable as everything from shoe laces to a short length of cordage to tying your hair out of the way.
• Where smaller kits typically have a tiny box of odds & ends with a few buttons and safety pins, I have the Big Bag O' Buttons. It's a 1 quart size zip top baggie, stuffed full of buttons of every size, shape, color, and material you might imagine. Every shirt or skirt or pants that I've owned has had their buttons removed before scrapping and stored in this bag. Every spare button purchased as a set that wasn't needed on the project went into this bag. 
• I also have a box the size of an Altoids tin which contains safety pins. A second, smaller box contains hook and eye sets and snap sets. A third small box contains straight pins, both with and without the plastic ball caps on the non-sharp end, enough to lay out at least 2 full patterns at any given time.
• I have a trio of chalk pencils, used for marking fabric along cut lines and instructions and in different colors so I can use what shows up best on any given fabric. 
• There are also no fewer than 4 seam rippers in the box, mostly because I tend to toss my spares in there when I wind up with a new one.
• Finally, because I deal with a lot of costuming I also keep an unopened package of plastic featherlight boning to fix corsetry accidents, as well as horsehair braid to help stiffen hems. I also try to keep a roll of instant hem tape because it makes for a quick and dirty repair of a folded seam.

What You Should Know
Even I keep one of the small Dollar Store kits in my normal BoB/GHB. It's light, it's portable, it doesn't take up space that could be used for something more critical, and it has everything I'm likely to need in a pinch. My Mother Lode kit is for extreme conditions, and even I don't take it out of the closet lightly! Unless you're a serious die-hard tailor/costumer/sewer, the Mother Lode Kit is so far beyond normal as to be impractical for most SHTF applications, even for someone as flamboyant and impractical as myself!

Stop the Bleed

We recently had several posts concerning a challenge issued among all the writers to produce an IFAK (Individual First Aid Kit) on a strict budget of $30. One thing that was rather common among all those articles is that they are tailored to the skill, training, and comfort levels of the individual writers. This was expected, since we all try very hard to write what we know.

We had some equipment that was fairly common among all of us, and things like bandages and gauze were, in fact, pretty universal. My personal kit is very trauma oriented - not just the standard scrapes and bruises that most contend with, but treating serious wounds, burns, broken bones, and life threatening situations.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not medical personnel, though I have taken courses over the years on doing First Responder duties, helping with triage, giving CPR, and basic first aid.  I'm no expert, but I'm not completely in the dark either.

I recently had an opportunity to take a free course in how to control bleeding from a traumatic injury until emergency services can get there to tend to the injured person. 80-90 % of traumatic injury deaths happen because a person bleeds out before they can get to the hospital to be treated by medical professionals. This course, called "Stop the Bleed", was developed by the American College of Surgeons in conjunction with The Committee on Trauma.  Information on the classes can be found at BleedingControl.org. Their site can give you information on the purpose of the courses, the basic content, and where the courses can be taken.

The course is aimed at non-medical personnel and teaches them to be able to quickly respond to a situation while waiting for medical help to arrive. However, I was amused to find that I was the only non-medically trained person in the course when I took it! I'm not joking, I was the only person in class who wasn't a nurse, EMT, LEO, or medical student. Oddly enough, I was also the person in the class who carries the most comprehensive first aid kit, and the only one who carries that kit every where they go.

Don't think that traumatic injury can only happen in SHTF situations, though.  Life threatening bleeding injuries can happen under any number of circumstances, ranging from auto accidents to kitchen knife slips to natural disasters like a tornado throwing debris around. And of course, for those who prefer to be prepared for the potential ugliness of life, there are always things like lunatics bent on mass murder in a public setting, school shootings, gang violence, home invasion, and robbery at work to think about as potentials for traumatic injury.

Knowing how to stop, or at least seriously slow down, the bleeding from an ugly wound could mean the literal difference between life and death for you or a family member or friend.  Knowing how and when and where to use that tourniquet you bought, or whether its better to pack gauze into a wound or use the QuikClot you purchased, might make all the difference to someone. 

Take the time. Learn to use the equipment you have, and under which circumstances to use that equipment. Take a course designed to give you that knowledge (even if you aren't a medical professional) and you'll feel much more confident that you can handle any situation you happen to find yourself coming up against.

Rhi's $30 IFAK Challenge

I don't do as much writing for BCP as I used to, but I still like to keep my hand in. This means that when something like this challenge is presented, I enjoy taking part, both for the chance to write about something that interests me and for the competitive edge against myself.

Our ever-faithful Editrix Erin posted yesterday about her own take on the IFAK Challenge from Chaplain Tim. Its a good read, and the take is much like Erin: solid and with a unique perspective.

Like everyone else who decided to take part, I budgeted $30 total and shopped only at places available to everyone, either retail outlets or online. My choices included Wal-Mart, Dollar Tree, and Wish.com. The vast majority came from Dollar Tree, simply due to pricing; I can purchase a lot there for a very small amount, and it was a fantastic means of stretching a budget so much that I could hear my change squealing in pain.


Wal-Mart

My first stop was at Wal-Mart for my only major purchase. It was also my most expensive purchase at $11.13 after tax and it is composed of two separate items.

The Equate All Purpose First Aid Kit (cost $9.88) is the same one I use in my personal BoB. This comes with gloves, antiseptic wipes, a wide variety of bandages and gauze pads for wound closures as well as medical tape for the gauze pads. Also included are a few small packets of antibiotic ointment, tweezers, an instant cold pack, and butterfly closures. Its a good all-around start for a basic first aid kit that comes with a very reasonable price tag.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Equate-All-Purpose-First-Aid-Kit-140-count/421170443

The other addition from Wal-Mart was a pair of white terry wash cloths from the bath & bedding department. They were on sale in a 4 pack for $1, and I just couldn't pass that up. Wash cloths have a huge variety of uses ranging from bandaging to wound dressings to the simple use of cleaning an area of blood so that it can be better treated. They can also be cut into multiple long strips for tying splints.


Online

My second "stop" was actually a bit of online shopping which took place months ago, before the challenge was issued. The items purchased, however, should still be available, and since I already had them it meant I wouldn't have to wait on shipping times to include them.



My first choice from my various Wish.com list is a Tourniquet that I managed to purchase for $1. I actually got 3 of them when I made the purchase initially, and they're still available at that price, so instead of ordering more I simply moved one of my spares into this Challenge Kit.







Second choice from Wish was a couple of rolls of Self-Adhering Elastic Bandage. I chose 2 rolls so I would have some spare for my personal bag, but I'm only counting 1 roll for this, at $2.





Third on the purchase list at Wish was a set of Iodine Swabs for wound cleaning. They are currently listed for $6, but I managed to get them while they were on sale for the impressive price of $1 for 100 swabs.





The total spent at Wish.com was $4, other than shipping, which I'm not going to include since it depends on your location.


Dollar Tree

By this point I had spent almost exactly half my budget. I knew I could add significantly to my kit for the amount I had remaining, but I also knew I was going to have to get seriously creative on some of my additions.

I'm cheap. I admit that I'm cheap. I love shopping when I can spend very little and get a lot, and that's why Dollar Tree has appealed to me for several years. Being able to stick to the rest of my budget and still achieve a wide variety of useful items was a decided win.

This would be the whole haul of 14 separate items from Dollar Tree.

I started with the obvious stuff in the health area: Ibuprofen and Acetaminophen, along with Low-Dose Aspirin. Not everyone can take any one type, and the Aspirin is good for potential heart attacks as well.

The anti-diarrhea and laxative meds speak for themselves, as should the Daytime/Nighttime allergy relief. An ace style bandage wrap, antiseptic wipes, and alcohol-based hand sanitizer were all obvious choices to me.

The items which weren't so obvious were still easy picks to my mind. There's a package of crafting Popsicle sticks to use for splinting, and as something to hold things open in a hygienic manner.

Tampons make a good wound packing material, since they are absorbent cotton and come in a individual packaging. The plastic applicator from those could also easily be used either for wound drainage, or for an emergency tracheotomy.

The small travel sewing kit has a wide variety of materials held within, which can be used for anything from holding bandages in place (the safety pins) or as an impromptu suturing kit. It also contains a small pair of scissors, which will ultimately help with the medical tape when using the gauze from the initial basic kit.

The final item from my brief spree at Dollar Tree was a roll of Duct Tape. It has far too many uses to start listing them here, unless I want Erin growling at me for the next 2 days.

Total spent at Dollar Tree was $14 plus tax, which around here meant $15.62 total.


My Money's Worth

At the end of the day, I managed to stay mostly in budget, mainly by fudging on the shipping costs from Wish.com since I was ordering for myself at the same time as for the challenge, and the shipping charges wouldn't have changed.

• Wal-Mart = $11.13
• Wish.com = $ 4.00
• Dollar Tree   = $15.62

Grand total = $30.75 due to taxes.

Rhi Readies for the Ride

A few years ago, Evelyn and I took a month-long sabbatical, camping out here in my home state of Oklahoma on the land owned by some good friends of mine. We had some interesting adventures together out in the piney woods, with bacon-stealing dogs who let themselves into my tent, horses that decided to investigate Evie's tent, fishing, and one bitey duck who was rather delicious once we got through with him.

We're both in need of another month away from the stress of modern life, and this time, I'm going out to Arizona for the trip.

Equipment
Unlike last time, Evie and I won't be someplace where it will be convenient to hop into town on any sort of regular basis, which means that there are items that stayed home on our prior trip which will go with me this time, like my full blown camp kitchen with its own pop-up canopy, all of my camp kitchen gear, more than one stove, my foldable Coleman camp oven to set up over one of the stoves, and several extra pieces of cast iron cookware that usually only go to Reenactor events with me.

Cast Iron Waffle Maker!

One of the better finds during a recent flea market scavenger hunt for cast iron was a really neat waffle iron! I'm planning on packing it into the camp kitchen gear box, along with some already made up "just add water" waffle batter, so we can have waffles and homemade buckboard bacon for breakfast early in the trip. The bacon is currently curing here at home, and will be going into the smoke house for a 12 hour maple smoke bath tomorrow.

You can see from the photo that the waffle iron I found comes with its own ring stand (also cast iron) to set it over the fire. I'm planning to replace the old handles with a new pair of wooden dowels that will have a nail through the pin hole to hold them in place. It was a truly spectacular find at only $7.

I'm also taking along a custom made cast iron tripod to hang things over the fire, such as my 6 quart dutch oven, my 8 quart cauldron, and the ever important coffee pot!

While I was able to repair the tent I previously used, it has since gone the way of the dodo and been replaced. My new tent is about the same size as my old one (meaning it technically has room for 12) and is what I still consider to be a pretty near "perfect" size for me. It wouldn't do for backpacking, or even for bugging out unless I had enough warning to pack up the car first, but it's great for my Reenactor Weekends or a long term camping trip such as this one will be.

Food
Many of my food preparations are quite similar to those which Evelyn is making. Foil-packed tuna in several different flavors has become a staple in my home and is a part of my bug out bag. They're cheap, they pack small, and they make great individual size servings. There are also a few types of Ramen style noodles in my kitchen box as well, along with regular pasta, regular rice, and quick cook boil-in-bag rice.

I'm also packing honey rather than regular sugar. It takes the same amount of space, but I like the flavor and nutrient value of honey over processed sugar. Whether it be Honey Stix or the ubiquitous bear, honey is an all-around great way to add some sweet to morning coffee, fireside pancakes and waffles, or just as a quick pick me up when added energy is needed.

I've also been experimenting with pemmican. These days, it's easy to find freeze-dried vegetables and fruits at the grocery store, all of which powder well. There is even freeze-dried cheese powder, if you're willing to look for it. So rather than just the standard pemmican of meat + berry + tallow, there are going to be a few different varieties to try out: I'm adding powdered freeze-dried veggie mix to some, cheese powder to at least one batch, and freeze dried fruit to another batch. I'm also making a couple of batches with just meat, but which will be seasoned with various herbs as they're being put together.

In all, I'm hoping to have about 10 lbs of pemmican ready in time for the Ride. I'll probably also pack along the remaining tallow that I rendered for use in campfire baking during that month. If we get a strong response on our Facebook Group, I'll include my pemmican recipes and methods (along with my notes about what worked and what didn't) in the future.

Rhi (finally) Builds Her Bug Out Bag

When I first started writing for Blue Collar Prepping, I wasn't much of a prepper; I was a hobbyist re-enacter who happened to have a set of skills that meshed well with the other authors here. I honestly didn't know much about what folks consider prepping these days, other than things I'd grown up with as "common sense readiness for tornado season."

My Bug Out Bag at that time... wasn't. Not really. It was simply a really large day bag with spare clothes, a toiletries kit, a basic first aid kit, and a couple of granola bars. Oh, and a notebook with important paperwork, phone numbers, that sort of thing.

As I've read the posts, both here and on our Facebook group, written by my fellow writers here, it finally dawned on me that I needed to stop putzing around and actually put together a BOB / GHB (Get Home Bag) that was more than a slightly bad joke. It has taken me a while, due to various excuses - mostly money - but I finally managed to start getting serious about it today (Jan 4th) during my Post- Holiday Shopping.

The Bag Itself 

My original Bug Out Bag

Now when I say that my old BOB was a big day bag, what I mean is that it was really more of an oversized purse/girly gym bag that got preempted for the duration of tornado season here in Oklahoma. It finally gets to go back to being a designer Gym Bag. Yay!

What I replaced it with is an Ozark Trails Montpelier Adventure Pack, bought at Walmart for $49.97. The Montpelier is a rigid frame, 45L capacity backpack in rip-stop nylon with adjustable shoulder and waist straps. It has a large interior pocket that's perfect for the 2L hydration pack I bought to go with it (sold separately, but on the shelves right next to the pack).

While this backpack is considered a rigid frame, it is not an exterior metal frame; it has a pair of removable metal bars  inside that lay along either side of the spine to help maintain alignment.

The "new" Backpack

I've found that while the 45L capacity is good for a start, I've already run into the problem of space vs. weight vs. necessity for survival and/or comfort. I'm going to have to eventually  upgrade to something closer to a 70L capacity, which is something I've been eyeballing.

Word to the wise: if you can afford a larger capacity backpack, and have the strength to carry it loaded, get the larger size. You will spend less time trying to decide what you can live without as far as essential gear goes in the long run, and you'll spend a lot less time and money constantly upgrading your pack. Also consider making sure that any pack you buy can accommodate MOLLE gear hung from the outside, which will increase your capacity in much more affordable monetary chunks.

Inside the Bag
It's already stuffed to the gills. Everything inside the bag, however, is useful in one or more ways. I'm still tinkering with how I want things to go inside, and how many of certain items I really feel I need to carry. After all, this isn't a bag intended to see me through months out in the wilds; tts main purpose is immediate survival for 2 or 3 days at most.

Let's start with the basics of what I've got tossed in there.

Clothing

• I've gone with minimal clothing because this is for short term use. 
•  I opted not to add an extra pair of jeans because of the space allocation they take up, even when folded well. I'm not likely to be wearing a dress or skirt at any given time that I'm more than 5 miles from home, so whatever pants I have on will do for the 2 or 3 days I'm living out of the bag. 
• 2 extra shirts, however, hit my personal "critical" list as a morale issue. Hiking makes you sweat, and having to wear a sweaty, nasty, smelly shirt for several days in a row can do serious things to your motivation to keep going. 
• The same went for packing underpants and socks, both for basic hygiene/comfort, and the socks so they can be changed if they happen to get wet, to prevent foot issues.
• Something that we women have to think about, but you male types don't, is foundation garments for our torso as well. That's right, an extra bra. 

 For you ladies who read the blog, consider taking an old bra that still fits but "needs replacing" and tossing it into your BOB; having a change when you're going to be living rough for a few days is on the same order as extra socks, underpants, and shirts. Its both a hygiene and morale issue, getting out of sweat soaked clothing.

A small packet of ultra-thin day liners for your underpants can help stretch the use of those as well, before you want to just burn them and have done with it.

First Aid

While all of us know that having a first aid kit can be good, if you're as accident-prone as I am, it becomes critical to have a seriously comprehensive kit. I started with an $8 basic kit by Equate (Wal-Mart store brand), then added "personal touches" to the basic kit:

• a tube of antibiotic ointment
• bug bite itch relief pen
• extra gloves
• extra butterfly closures
• a small pair of scissors
• a small bottle of Merthiolate for wound cleaning
• a white wash cloth that I boiled to sterilize and then sealed into a plastic baggie
• 7 day's worth of each of the 3 medications that I'm on for my Lupus, Fibro and Arthritis
• a package of cotton swabs pre-impregnated with Iodine, again for wound cleaning. These were found at the Geek portion of Wish.com, and I managed to snag them for $1 for a set of 30 individually packaged swabs.

After additions, the cost came out to about $15, and there is no room left in the case to add more "extra" stuff. I do want to find and purchase a good field surgery kit and probably a suturing kit as well, but both of those are on the "want" list rather than the "must have now" list.

Fire Starting
I may have gone a bit overboard here, but I doubt it.

Schrodinger's Tin
with Tinder & Lighter

I started with a miniature cookie tin (you know, the Schrodinger's Tin that is both cookies and sewing gear until you open it?) filled with wood shavings (from a whittling project the HusBeast is working on) and a Bic disposable lighter. I also added 2 packs of strike anywhere waterproof matches (4 pack for $3).

Waterproof vs Tin for size comparison

Then I started looking at other possibilities, and added a waterproof case containing a Magnesium Bar, Flint and Striker, spare Bic lighter, and paraffin impregnated cotton "tinder" pieces. Somewhere in the bag is my trusty old Zippo lighter, and a small can of extra fuel, extra wicks, and extra flints, in a plastic baggie.

• Magnesium bar with shaver was $9 on sale, $11 normally. 
• Waterproof Fire Starting Kit was $10 with the flint, striker, and paraffin tinder. 
• The 5 pack of Bic lighters, 2 of which went into the bag, $3.95. 
• The small cookie tin was purchased during the Christmas Season, and I got several (filled with cookies that didn't last long) for $1 each. 
• I can't remember what that Zippo cost me almost 20 years ago, and I always keep spare flints, wicks, and fuel around for it. It also wasn't a new purchase.

Contents of Waterproof Set

Total spent on fire starting equipment: $25 worth of peace of mind. Can you tell I absolutely want to be able to start a fire for warmth, comfort, protection, and light, regardless of the circumstances or weather conditions?

Hydration
I've kept this a lot simpler than either my first aid or fire starting portions: a 2 liter hydration bladder fits into the inner pocket of my backpack perfectly, and to that I added a Sawyer Mini filtration system which includes a small mylar bag that holds about 6 ounces of water. 

There are outside pockets on either side of my bag and each currently holds a 16 ounce disposable water bottle. These will be kept after they're empty for refilling, if I ever find myself having to use my bag in an actual emergency. I also put a small bottle of water purification tablets in the bottom of the bag, as a back up to the Sawyer.

• The hydration pack = $10, and a good buy at that price. 
• The Sawyer Mini kit = $20, so not what I personally consider "cheap" but still well worth the price. 
• Iodine tablets for water purification = $4 and a good price as a back up, since there were 2 bottles in the package. 

Total for keeping myself hydrated: $35. 

Shelter
These items fall into both the "necessary" and "creature comfort" categories, mostly because while I have both the knowledge and skill set to build myself a temporary shelter when it comes down to it, I may not have the time and energy searching out materials and building. 

• A mylar space blanket style A-frame emergency tent, with center tent rope included. It weighs less than an ounce; folded, it takes up about the same amount of space as one of the emergency space blankets. I consider it a good middle ground between building a shelter and carrying a backpacker's tent, since it weighs so little and only cost me $5.
• A simple mylar space blanket at $2 is great for warmth and for insulation between myself and the ground or air. 
• I also added a space blanket Emergency Sleeping Bag/Bivy Bag for $15 which takes up about the same amount of room as the tent or the blanket itself. Think of it as 2 space blankets that have been sewn together to form a bag, and you have the basic idea. Layers are a wonderful thing to keep you warm, dry, and comfortable, and I'm big on staying as comfortable as possible. 
• One thing that I decided to include from my already existing camping gear was an inflatable pillow and its pillow case, which came as part of a camping bedding set intended for use with a queen air mattress. 
• I've also tossed in a small but extremely comfortable fleece throw blanket from Wal-Mart for $2.50

Total for emergency shelter, so I don't have to stop and build one every night: $23 all told, and well worth it to me to maintain some semblance of "camping trip" rather than "fight for my life."

Food
There were only a few purchases made in this category that was strictly for the bag. 

• A small folding emergency stove with fuel tabs ($5). This will likely get upgraded in the relatively near future to one of the Solo Stoves that the guys here all rave about. This small one was "better one than none" as an alternative. 
• Ozark Trail 5-Piece nesting Mess Kit, $6.75, and used the extra space inside to store a pair of small can openers ($1.50 at Academy Sports - you never know what you'll find in a survival situation) a Swiss army/multi tool style eating utensil set I inherited from my granddad, and a folding corkscrew.

To that I added from my kitchen:

• A package of 8 servings of Folgers instant coffee ($3.85) because I'm as mean as a momma bear without my coffee. 
• A half dozen single cup size servings of coffee creamer in individual packets - don't laugh, I need it with my coffee to feel human.
• One dozen Honey Stix. These are typically sold as candy, and are basically thin straws filled with honey and sealed at both ends. They take up less room and less weight than putting in a baggie of sugar for my coffee, can also be eaten as quick energy to boot, and generally can be found in groceries or other stores for $1 for 4 to 6 of them.

What got tossed in for food was simple: "add boiling water" stuff or things that don't need to be cooked at all. While the space taken by two Ramen cups is much higher than by the little packets, they can be dealt with by simply pouring hot water into the container rather than dirtying a pot. The same goes for the mac & cheese cup and the two soups that I decided to include. They are all things that I know I will eat and enjoy, because I normally keep them around for quick meals when I don't feel like cooking. 

To those I added four single-serving packets of tuna in various flavors as well as individual packets of Ritz Crackers to eat with the tuna. The tuna packets are $1 each, store flat, and are a good source of protein. There are also packets of cooked chicken that are available in a similar packaging and price range. 

Finally, I tossed in several packages of filled crackers (crackers with peanut butter or cheese in between them) that come in packs of six crackers for snacking. While they probably aren't the most nutritionally dense or wisest choice, they're inexpensive when you're simply snitching them out of your home cupboard, and an 8 pack can be had for $1.98 in various flavors from the grocery. They can also be eaten on the go without having to stop and heat water.

Total spent on keeping myself fed: under $20 if you don't count what I snitched from my own pantry, and probably $28 if you do count that stuff. While I know that I could empty most of that space by purchasing one or two high calorie MREs. this list is composed of things I know that I'll eat and I know that I like. That can go a long way towards keeping me motivated, so to me the space used is worth it.

Update: Ultimately what I've decided to do is to move all of the food (except 2-3 packs of filled crackers) into a separate day pack drawstring closure bag that I got for free at the State Fair. This has freed up an enormous amount of space in the backpack proper, and can be easily hung from any of a number of secure points on the backpack. Moving the food over to the spare bag as a test also clued me in to something I hadn't realized: my food stocks, while important and light weight individually, actually comprised almost half the overall weight of my pack! I may have to completely rethink what and how much food I intend to carry.

Miscellaenous Extras

• 4 tent stakes, salvaged from a dead tent years ago, and kept as part of my collection of such. They'll come in handy for staking down the corners of the emergency tent so I don't have to look for rocks.
• 2 more of the "Schrodinger's Tins" - one of them with fishing line, hooks, etc; and the other with sewing supplies - because being able to supplement food is important, and being able to repair clothing and shelter is more than handy. 
• Mini fishing rod and reel which fits well into one of the side pockets with a water bottle (Wal-Mart, $10, 2 years ago.)
• Toiletries kit - it has for the most part the standard stuff in travel sizes, but I added a package of baby wipes to it because I've learned after years of camping on "primitive" sites with my RenFaire group that if there is no water available other than what you're carrying with you, they can make you feel so much better. I also included a small can of Dry Shampoo, for cases without water available, for the same reason.

Travel Size for the Win!

• Mini denture repair kit and mini glasses repair kit. Found both at the Dollar Store, they're about the size and weight of a space blanket, and they are incredibly handy.
• A trio of mini LED flashlights, kept in various pockets so that at least one of them will be easily accessible, along with a spare pair of batteries for each. 
• Also 1 LED headlamp, for hands free.
• A small can of Deep Woods Off bug spray, and a small tube of sun screen - trust me, they'll get used.
• 1 pair Ozark Trails compact binoculars.
• Two emergency foul weather ponchos.
• Crocheted warm hat and a spare pair of gloves.
• My multi tool and my Swiss army knife. While both of these get used frequently here at home, they are now placed back in one of the outside zipper pockets of the backpack when not in use, so that they'll be with me in a grab-n-go situation.



To Help Composting




• Small folding camp toilet, bags for same, and an 8 pack of dry enzyme packets to help with composting, along with a roll of toilet paper. (Because having to use leaves SUCKS.) The Enzyme packs were found at WinCo grocery while they were doing a promotion on Emergency Preparedness Supplies, for $12.
• Portable 14W solar charger to keep my tablet and phone charged. If the phone is charged, I can call for rescue when I have signal; if it's not, its nothing but a doorstop. My tablet contains nearly 200 books on various survival skills and techniques, as well as just plain reading material. This also helps with the various scanned important papers and phone numbers that are currently stored on a thumb drive that lives in the bottom of the bag and can be read by my tablet.

The Lowdown
While needs are going to vary (as always), you can get a good idea from my bag compared to the bags set up by other writers here at BCP as to where you might consider starting when building your own.

I spent more money on initial outlay to rebuild my GHB/BOB than a lot of folks would simply because there was so much gear I didn't already have that I considered crucial. All told, I spent about $300 getting everything together, almost from scratch, all at once. No doubt, some of it could have been done differently or more inexpensively had I waited and shopped sales, but patience has never been my strong suit!

Go at your own pace, spend what you're comfortable with, and consider how much you can realistically carry so you don't do yourself in physically.

Woven Glory

Two years ago, I started an extended series on Fiber Arts, but never finished it due to health problems. Now that I'm no longer over my head, I intend to finish that series. I've managed to cover the types of fiber, processing it, spinning, and dying it, and today I talk about weaving it into usable form.

Weaving is an art form that is almost as old as civilization itself, and has been practiced since the very beginnings of agriculture (and possibly before that). Every known society throughout history has had some form of woven textile goods that were produced from a variety of source fibers.

As societies grew and gained technological advances (either through study and innovation, or via trade with their near neighbors) the looms they used to produce cloth became more complex, allowing for a much wider range of patterning in the finished product.

In its most basic form, a loom is simply something to hold long threads in place and under tension (called the warp) while other, usually much shorter, threads are passed over and under them in succession (called the weft.)

These days, looms come in a huge variety of sizes and shapes, from lap-held looms that can produce both simple and elaborate trims or strips of fabric, all the way up to looms that require their own rooms for making extensive rolls of fabric, large rugs and carpets, or hanging wall tapestries*. When talking about home or artisan use, there are three different types of  basic looms, which is what I'll describe today, along with a fourth which is mainly a historical curiosity.

None of these looms require power to operate, and all can be made by hand with proper woodworking tools and knowledge, meaning that they are a good investment for a prepper interested in making woven fabric.

*Yes, tapestries are still a thing, though they aren't specifically used for keeping out drafts these days. They're very labor intensive, ornate, and time consuming to produce, sometimes taking upwards of two years to manufacture and costing thousands of dollars. Weaving specialists work hand in hand with draft artists and painters and can turn practically any piece of flat visual art into a one-of-a-kind tapestry to hang for viewing!

Style One: The Inkle Loom

Rhi's inkle

Inkle looms are small, portable, typically lap-held looms that weave very narrow strips of cloth. The width one can handle is determined by the length of the bars that make up most of its form, and is seldom over 3 1/2 inches in total width. The warp threads are wound individually, with every other thread passing through a loop of string which is tied off separately and is referred to as a heddle. The heddle is what allows a weaver to move alternating sets of threads into place (up/down or back/forwards, depending on the type of loom) before a pass is made with the weft (crossing) thread.

Inkle looms are fantastic for beginning weavers. They're inexpensive, easy to learn, and very forgiving of potential mistakes. With the addition of cards (also called tablets), some seriously intricate pattern work can be performed on an inkle loom, giving it a huge amount of versatility for its size and price.

I've seen inkles run between $45 and $150, depending on the quality of the woodworking done during manufacture. My inkle cost about $80, and is made of scrap hardwood from other projects. It will weave 2 1/2 inch wide pieces of fabric, which I primarily use for things like belts, trim on costuming, straps for purses, strips of it sewn together side by side and then into a shoulder bag or pouch, etc. It also doubles as a warping stand for my floor loom, where I use it to measure the lengths of thread to be warped onto the Big Boy (see below).

These are great for kids, beginning weavers, those who don't intend to invest a lot of time and money, and those who are wanting to see whether its a hobby they actually enjoy before making the larger time and money investment required with a tabletop or floor loom. They're also well loved by experienced weavers who make complex ribbons of trim via tablet (or card) weaving on an inkle.

Style 2: The Box or Tabletop Loom

Tabletop loom by
Tumbleweed Woodworks

Offering lightweight portability that still allows for significantly larger pieces of cloth than an inkle, the box or table loom is a good choice for those who don't want the expense (both monetary and floorspace) of a traditional floor loom. 

These guys are little work horses, reliable and easy to learn how to use. Though they're less forgiving of mistakes than an inkle, they're also a lot more versatile in the types of patterns available to the weaver. 

Most of the box or tabletop looms that you'll find are rigid heddle looms. Instead of a piece of string tied around every other thread like the inkle loom, a rigid heddle loom has rows of very thin metal bars with eyelets in them to pass the thread through. In the photo above, you can see the three sets of rigid heddles in the raised areas featured in the center of the "box" frame.

Each thread gets its own heddle instead of only half the threads getting held in position this way. The more heddles a loom (tabletop or floor) has available, the more complex and ornate the pattern can become. Since each thread gets its own means of moving up and down, the shed (current weaving area) is determined by which heddles are up.

These looms are good for slightly more advanced beginners, intermediate weavers, advanced weavers who want something small and portable to relax with while out of the studio, and those who want to dabble and are willing to spend more than what an inkle generally costs. Plan on spending between $250 and $600 if you decide to purchase a good tabletop loom.

Style 3: The Floor Loom

Modern LeClerc Floor Loom

This is the "Big Boy" category of looms; the largest available outside of the strictly commercial cloth production market. Floor looms come in a variety of sizes, measured by the width of the cloth they can produce. They are very large, often larger than a good sized desk and requiring a chair or bench to sit at while working the loom itself.

As you can see from the photo above, this particular style of loom requires a great deal of space to set up and use properly. They are also a significant investment financially, often costing anywhere from $1,500 to $8,000 depending on brand, weaving width, number of heddles (which partly determines how complex a pattern you can produce) and number of sheds available.

I own a 48" weaving width standing jack loom with six heddles and four sheds. It currently resides at Knight's Rest in storage, because I haven't had the space to set it up. Floor looms are not for dabblers, nor are they a good choice for those on a serious budget; I only managed to acquire one because an acquaintance in my RenFaire group had too man, and needed the space, so she gave one away. I was the lucky winner of the "First to say something gets it" lottery.

Style 4: The Warp Weighted Loom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp-weighted_loom#/media/File:WarpWeightedLoomCTMLodzPoland.jpg

Seldom used by any except the most dedicated historical re-enactors, a warp weighted loom doesn't look much like what people think of when they hear the term "loom." These are usually very tall (in excess of six feet) with a weaving area that ranges from three to eight feet wide. Tension is maintained on the warp threads by the expediency of tying bundles of warp thread to clay weights, which can then be adjusted to allow more thread as the weaving progresses. 

These are easy to build, but can take years of practice to become expert in its use. Due to their size, and how they are warped, some seriously fancy pattern work can be achieved by someone who knows what they're doing on one of these. Sadly, I am not one of those people!

A Final Word

Weaving is both a skill and an art form, much like many of the other obscure skills I've been known to discuss. True proficiency requires a time investment, and definitely has a learning curve involved. I'm far from being an expert in weaving, though I am a devoted hobbyist. Thankfully, I have friends who are truly experts in the field, and I highly recommend the advice of those well versed while learning.

Rhio Reviews: Grant Cunningham's "Prepping For Life"

Recently, our dear Editrix Erin asked who within the group of writers, both part time and full time, identified as a Bibliovore - someone who feeds on books. I was the one who answered and raised the proverbial hand in class.

I say "proverbial hand in class" because for my trouble I was tasked with a book report. Fortunately, digesting books is easier on my system than digesting some of the Emergency Foods that I've been asked to test and review!

Grant Cunningham is familiar to many of us as a Gun Guy - an instructor and author in the field of firearms safety and firearms-based self-defense. It seems that Cunningham, like many of us, also doesn't believe in the concept of a "One Size Fits All" approach to being prepared for whatever life happens to throw in your general direction.

http://amzn.to/2vBbZvK

His new book, Prepping for Life: The Balanced Approach to Personal Security and Family Safety, is what's under review today. It's a comprehensive look at his system and methodology of maximizing your preparedness, developed over the course of several years. His writing style is relaxed and easy to follow, and he lays out how he developed his system, and what sorts of trial and error went into getting it to the point its at today.

His system, which he refers to in the book as Adaptive Personal Security (APS), revolves around that key word: Adaptive. Everything about this system is flexible and intended to make your life easier by being adjustable to suit your own needs.

APS is broken down into four separate, easy to comprehend parts:

1. Anticipate - figure out what your personal risks/dangers in life happen to be, and build a plan around them. He even provides a framework for a simple, logical method of prioritizing the risks you face, so that you can concentrate on the ones that are most likely and ignore the "fun to think about but highly unlikely" scenarios such as zombies.
2. Deter - this is where you figure out the most likely and effective methods of avoiding those previously-identified risks, and adjust them to suit your preferences, income, and desired investment of time and money.
3. Detect - noticing and acknowledging those risks you identified, and (hopefully) attempted to deter, when they actually arrive on the doorstep of your life.
4. Respond - this is where your actual preps come into play, be they a sidearm to protect yourself from criminals breaking in, or those cases of bottled water, blankets, and extra clothes you have stored in your storm cellar for when a tornado hits.

Cunningham gives plenty of examples of what sorts of things you should be considering, while making it very plain that Your Mileage May Vary! He manages to lay out a system that is easy to follow, easy to adapt to personal finances and circumstances, and is suitable for everyone from the single individual to the retired couple to the young business couple with 6 kids, 3 dogs, and a mother-in-law living with them!

While I enjoyed reading this, Cunningham does manage to lay out a few truths in this book that, as a longtime member of the preparedness community, I found difficult to come to grips with, such as how many preppers overestimate their abilities. There's no getting around the fact that some truths are unpleasant; however, a healthy dose of realistic expectation is required in life, especially when considering what things we honestly need to be prepared to face. It took me several days of arguing with myself before I could finally come to terms with everything, but logical, rational, dispassionate, and objective analysis finally won in the end.

All in all, I'd say this one is a Must Read. I'm definitely going to be keeping a copy in my library, and will most likely take a closer look at the system to see how it would work for me.

Grant Cunningham's Prepping for Life: The Balanced Approach to Personal Security and Family Safety  is available in Kindle format for $6.99 and in paperback for $14.91 with Prime shipping.


As a general side note - all opinions expressed in this post are strictly those of OkieRhio, not necessarily those of my fellow writers, or the editorial staff of this blog.  I was not paid to write this review, nor was I given any input as to what should and should not be covered.

For Science! Rhio Reviews the Food4Patriots 72-Hour Food Supply

Recently, our ever-lovely Editrix Erin was asked whether we here at Blue Collar Prepping would be interested in doing a product review. Most of us have done a review of something prep related at some point or other, and we like doing them. It gives us an opportunity to test gear, and it gives you, our readers, a heads-up on both good and bad investments when looking at your own gear purchases. And in cases like this, where we've specifically been asked to review a product by its manufacturer (or think we have), it can hopefully give that manufacturer some feedback -- either to keep doing what they're doing, or to make improvements if necessary.

Erin was contacted by the guys over at 4Patriots.com (this link has been left deliberately not functional, so that folks won't be tempted to go spend money there) to request that we test and review "their" Food4Patriots product. 

A little note on this: While the 72-Hour Food Supply is indeed packaged for the folks at 4Patriots, that's as far as it goes to being "their" product. The contents are produced by someone else, and the larger amounts they have available on their website are not produced by them or, even packaged for them. They are produced and packaged by Patriot Pantry.

Since it was a food-related review, I volunteered myself to be a Guinea Pig. I'm probably the most "Foodie" of the lot of us (Evelyn is a huge foodie as well, but due to her multiple allergies it's not a good idea for her to do this sort of review!), so I figured this would be right up my alley.

And then there's the fact that I have no problem with telling the blunt and brutal truth, even if that truth isn't all necessarily good.

The Product We Were Asked To Test

Patriot Pantry Meals are a line of freeze-dried survival food, purported to be solely grown, harvested, prepared, and packaged here in the USA. I say purported because that's what they advertise, and the company that actually produces the contents may very well be using ingredients grown and/or manufactured in America.

I say "manufactured" because a common ingredient in all of the meals in this sampler pack isn't a base ingredient -- it's manufactured chicken stock just like you buy off the grocery store shelf -- which isn't made here in the USA for the most part.

I'm definitely in favor of Made In America products from an economic standpoint; keeping money in the loop here at home in the USA is a good thing in my estimation.

On the 4Patriots website, they advertise the product as being:

• Strictly non-GMO
• Filler-free (not accurate, and I'll go into that further down)
• Preservative-free (again, not exactly accurate.) 

And lastly, they offer a 25-year, 300% Money Back Guarantee* that the food will still be edible and in good condition after that amount of time.

And So It Begins
I was eager for the package to show up so I could start the task. It arrived on my doorstep exactly when I was expecting it: bright and early on the Monday morning before I was scheduled to leave on vacation. With only four meals in the 72-Hour Kit, I figured we could taste test them one per day, or just wait until we got home from vacation.

Opening the Priority Mail package showed me exactly what I expected. It was, indeed, the exact same 72-Hour Food Kit that is shown on the website of the folks who asked us to do this review! Shown, but not really advertised there. You won't find the 72-Hour Kit on their website at all, except as a pop-up special, but more about that later. (See What We Found, below.)

Sadly, this was the high point of my experience. 

I decided to open the kit up immediately and take a look at what it contained, and perhaps try one of the meals for Lunch since they're relatively low cook times and zero prep work.

Four smaller packages were contained within, each one with the name of a meal :

1. Traveler's Stew
2. Granny's Home Style Potato Soup
3. Liberty Bell Potato Cheddar Soup
4. Blue Ribbon Creamy Chicken Rice

My partner and I were both looking forward to this little taste test, but we're also both big on doing research before we consider eating highly processed foods. There are things that we found during a half hour of research which were both revealing and (to a lesser extent) alarming. See What We Found, below, for more on this.

Day 1: Traveler's Stew
J, my partner, was the first to turn one of the packages over and start looking at the list of ingredients and the nutritional information. I was busy taking photos of the packages for this review, so that there would be plenty of visuals.

When I looked at what had J in a bit of a dither, I was shocked at what I found. And I'm a tough old bird - I don't shock easily. However, reading the nutrition information on the Traveler's Stew (the one we'd chosen to try for lunch) made my heart sink and my stomach clutch.

The multiple allergy warnings (Soy, Wheat, Milk) made me take a much closer look at the ingredients list.

The sheer amount of Sodium was absolutely mind boggling! 1070 mg of Sodium per 1/3 cup (dry/pre cooked, or 1 cup cooked) 190 calorie serving. Those numbers are, quite bluntly, nearly as high as some of the 10 Saltiest Foods In America as reported on the Eat This, Not That website. However, all the meals that ET, NT lists are a minimum of 650 calories for that level of salt -- not fewer than 200 calories like this Traveler's Stew -- and those numbers are for an entire meal, not just the entree.

I was, however, committed to giving this a try with an open mind.

5 Cups of water went into the big pot and brought to a boil, and the contents of the package (minus the oxygen eliminator) were dumped in.  This is what it looked like at that point.

Lots of dehydrated carrots; a tiny half handful of elbow macaroni, lentils, and dehydrated peas; a whole bunch of rice; and some unidentifiable bits that I assume were the listed dehydrated potatoes and onions and soup base.

By the time it had boiled for the specified 5 minutes, though, we were feeling much more hopeful.  The aroma was actually appetizing, and the kitchen was smelling fairly good. As it simmered for the next 25 minutes, my hope that maybe I was going to be pleasantly surprised rose.

But the actual taste test of the product without additions, adjustments, or tampering -- straight up "following the directions printed on the package" -- were a lot less pleasant than the initial aroma made us hope for.  Now I suppose if you've never had really good Traveler's Stew, this could be considered okay... for certain values of "okay."  Like. "Okay if you don't mind something that is overall bland, tasting almost exclusively of salt, and completely lacking in the flavor of any other seasonings or the protein that it's supposed to be made of/mimicking." The vegetables, despite boiling and simmering, had an unpleasant texture to them.

By the time the "stew" had finished cooking, the rice was so overcooked it had turned into almost nothing but tiny starch goo pieces.  The elbow macaroni -- grossly outweighed by the significantly cheaper rice in the first place -- had turned into what may as well have been little nuggets of rubber.  And those unidentifiable bits of dehydrated vegetable matter? I'm now fairly certain that while they're billed as potato, they're actually made of chalk. Fortunately for my stomach (and my sensibilities), this "stew" was at least nominally salvageable with a bit of tinkering.

To make this something other than incredibly bland (which might have been an improvement, considering it was nearly inedible due to the salt content), I decided to work my kitchen wizardry on the pot and see whether I could salvage the contents. Even with my skills and well-stocked herb cabinet and basic pantry, I wasn't completely successful. I'm not sure anyone -- even a world class, Five Star Chef -- could be completely successful with this starchy salt bomb glop.

My Changes

• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon table pepper
• 1 teaspoon dry thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 8 ounces cooked turkey from the fridge (any meat would work, but that's what I had handy)
• 4 extra cups water
• 1 cup dry pasta (to bolster the elbow macaroni that was already in there)

I added those ingredients, then returned the pot to a boil for 10 minutes, until the meat was heated through and the additional pasta was cooked.

While not a complete success, it at least turned this into something that didn't make me want to crawl away and whimper for a while, or simply go hungry because that would have been a more acceptable alternative.  It finally had some flavor other than "SALT!!" 

There was nothing I could do, really, to salvage the dehydrated vegetables in the initial adjustment period. They were bits of slight color that still maintained a slightly off texture to them, but at least they had lost most of the overwhelming sensation of eating chalk.

After sitting for an extra six hours between lunch and dinner, the dehydrated vegetables finally managed to absorb every bit of the remaining liquid, reconstituting them sufficiently to become a texture that no longer reminded me of cardboard.

I had to add yet more liquid before reheating the pot so we could have leftovers for dinner. It was still mostly bland, the rice having disappeared into a starch paste that with the addition of more fluid almost resembled gravy, and the elbow macaroni becoming mush.

We ended up doing something that I am always loath to do: we tossed it in the trash rather than putting the remaining leftovers into a container in the fridge. Even though this had been sent to me for free so I could test and review it, I despise throwing away the money that tossed-out food represents. However, J and I both agreed that there was little chance that we would willingly eat this for a third meal unless there was literally NOTHING else in the house (or on the planet) to eat.

Appetite fatigue, food ennui, "I'd rather starve than ever eat this again" syndrome... whatever you want to call it, we were feeling it after only two attempts  and much tampering with the contents.

Rating
All in all, I'd rate the Traveler's Stew at a 1.5 Stars: 1 star for ease of cooking, 1/4 star for ease of adjustment and 1/4 star for potential to accept a wide variety of adjustments to suit your taste. That is offset by a -4 stars for its initial, un-adjusted taste! (Seriously, it was that bad!)

Day 2: Granny's Homestyle Potato Soup
We were much less disappointed by this than by Day 1's offering, despite our initial trepidation. We were leery of opening the package simply because of the utter disaster that the Traveler's Stew turned out to be, and we were not looking forward to a repeat of that experience. We had a rather tense conversation just prior to lunch, debating whether we wanted to risk subjecting our stomachs to the nightmare a second time.

"Granny's Potato Paste" would be a more appropriate name if you followed the package directions exactly. We more than doubled the amount of water to get it in the neighborhood of soup-like consistency, and in the three minutes it sat in the bowl while I typed part of this, it turned back into the consistency of potato starch glue.

The package directions read "stir frequently". That really should be changed to read "Babysit the pot, because if you turn your back on it, it's going to cause grief like an unsupervised toddler," because if not stirred constantly, it will congeal into a mass in the time it takes to turn from the stove to the sink (two steps away), get another 1/2 cup of water to add to the mass, and turn back.

While the flavor wasn't bad -- in fact, it was even edible from the start without making adjustments -- it did not taste like "creamy potato soup". When J  and I finally compared notes and pinned it down, we decided that the flavor was closer to "Instant mashed potatoes that someone had simply added too much water to, and for some completely incomprehensible reason added chicken stock, and then left out the butter."

My Changes
The flavor would be tremendously improved with the addition of bacon bits, but unlike Day 1 it didn't need additional help to keep from being stomach turning or making me desire starvation in its place. You'll definitely need to triple your water use expectations, though, if you're expecting soup.

If you treat this one as a mashed potato side dish instead of a potato soup, then you won't be too terribly disappointed... so long as you don't mind the taste of chicken stock in your mashed potatoes. (Seriously, chicken stock? Who, in the name of all that's holy, adds chicken stock to potato soup or mashed potatoes? Are they Insane?)

Rating
I give this one a solid 4 stars: 1/2 star for ease of preparation (due to the amount of extra water needed) 1 star for convenience, 1 star for ease of adjustment, 1 star for basic flavor that wasn't strictly salt or bland, 1/2 star for potential versatility if used as a side rather than a soup, and -1 star for giving both of us indigestion and heartburn within 20 minutes of eating it.

Day 3: Blue Ribbon Creamy Chicken Rice
By this point in the experiment, my partner J was actually fearful of me opening another package and testing what was inside. Fortunately for him, he needed to sleep for work that night, and thus was spared. I was feeling more than a tad fearful myself for that matter, but I had promised to deliver on this article and test all of the contents, and I was determined to see that through to the end.

Based on my experience as a cook, combined with my experience with the other 2 meals we'd tried so far, I decided before I ever put this one into the pot that I would go ahead and make adjustments: half of the package contents (there was no way I was making four servings when I was the only one eating) and half of the water called for plus 1/2 cup extra to account for the fact that rice absorbs water in order to become tender enough to eat. I didn't want to alter the flavor until I'd at least tasted it, so I refrained from seasonings or additions of that sort.

My Changes
It was in cooking times and method where the big alteration took place.

It didn't help that, as with the previous meals we'd tested, this one required constant babysitting of the pot to keep it from sticking, even at extremely low heat. The whole flavor profile is best described as "bland"; despite the claim of "Creamy Chicken" on the package, there was practically no chicken flavor to this conglomerated mess. That lack of chicken flavor actually disappointed me, considering that this was the one and only meal in the group that was supposed to taste like chicken!

I ended up tossing out the majority of this flavorless rice and salt goo. I tried offering the remains of my bowl to the dog, but even he turned his nose up at it after only a couple of hesitant bites.

Rating
This one gets 2 stars: 1 star for ease of use, 1/4 star for ease of adjustment, 1/4 star for un-adjusted flavor, 1/2 star for potential versatility as long as you don't expect it to actually taste at all like chicken.

Day 4: Potato Cheddar Soup
J and I left for vacation, my stomach and intestinal tract both joyous that I was leaving off the taste testing for several days. After we came home and unpacked, I was forced to contemplate (with much dread) the final offering from the 72-Hour Kit, and how best to overcome my utter revulsion at the idea of trying yet another of these meals.

I whined. I pleaded. I threatened. And I got soundly reminded by J that I had given my word.

I decided to spare him the ordeal that I knew was forthcoming, and waited to make the "soup" until after he'd headed off to work that night. (He owes me for that one; he just doesn't know it yet.)

I knew from the moment that I opened the package that this was not going to go well. There was no expected scent of cheddar (expected since it was potato cheddar soup) There was, however, a somewhat familiar and slightly nauseating scent which I mistakenly put down to the ubiquitous chicken stock that these jokers apparently put in everything except for the actual chicken dish.

I should have checked the ingredients list at that point, and saved myself several hours of immediate grief, and a few days of minor Lupus flare issues.

Remember those chalky bits I mentioned in the Traveler's Stew, the ones that are supposed to be bits of dehydrated potato, but I was fairly certain actually weren't? Yeah, this thing was full of them as well, just like the Traveler's Stew and the Granny's Home Style Potato Soup, and they were still the texture of cardboard and the taste of chalk. By about the 4th bite, I had, to my horror, managed to identify the unpleasant aroma emanating from the "cheddar" potato soup. It was something that never, under any circumstances, has any place near cheddar soup: Blue Cheese.

I love cheese. I'm a huge fan of cheese to the point that I learned how to make cheese, and know what sort of cultures are used to both flavor and ripen various types of cheese. The one and only variety of cheese that I'm unable to enjoy is blue cheese and its variants, because I'm allergic to the specific bacteria cultures used to create blue cheese! This is, in fact, a rather Common allergy where Cheese is concerned.  So much for any thought I might have about this being something to turn to during an emergency, as it turned me into an immediate intestinal emergency with several rather unpleasant hours spent on the toilet, and I'm going to be paying for this for the next several days.

Moreover, the taste of blue cheese is distinct and, for those of us who are allergic to it, unpleasant. Its flavor profile is not at all like that of cheddar. It is sharp, musty, and has none of the pleasant qualities that a complimentary cheese such as Monterrey Jack or Colby happen to posses. It has absolutely no place in a dish that is supposed to taste like potatoes, much less cheddar!

• Was it soup? 
• Nominally yes, with the addition of 2 extra cups of water. 
•  Was it potato soup? 
• Yes, for certain values of "yes", such as if you consider bits of chalk coated cardboard to be potato bits. 
• Was it potato cheddar soup?
• No! It was potato & cheese soup, and there was (technically) some cheddar powder in there, but if you ate this expecting to taste cheddar rather than the nastiness that is blue cheese, you'd find yourself either incredibly disappointed, or simply spitting it out as inedible.

Sadly, this was the one and only meal out of the four that could otherwise have been palatable, with the only adjustment made being extra water. It being full of something that I'm allergic to, though, ruined what appetite I had gained from the flavor.

Rating
This gets 3 stars: 1 for ease of use, 1 for un-adjusted flavor, and 1 for ease of modification. It also garnered -2 stars for the addition of a type of cheese other than the cheddar that is in the dish's name.

What We Found At Their Website
I'm going to be blunt: the folks who asked us to do the product review, 4Patriots, are NOT the folks who actually manufacture the product, despite their website giving the appearance that they are the originators. The folks who actually manufacture these survival foods are Patriot Pantry, based out of Salt Lake City, Utah, and not the guys who asked for the review, who are based out of Nashville, TN.

Comparing the two websites was an education in itself: 

• The website of Food4Patriots proclaims that they are the originators, and it states that the packaging system is !Space Age Technology! that uses a CO2 flush to drive out free oxygen as well as oxygen absorbers to keep the food in good condition. 
• The website of Patriot Pantry makes a much different claim: they use a nitrogen flush to drive the extra oxygen out of the packaging as it's being sealed. The individual meal packages state on the front that the package has been either nitrogen flushed or has an oxygen absorber in the package.

What we saw were mylar bags with a oxygen absorbers like the ones on Amazon.

Then there's that whole "GMO Free, Filler Free, Preservative Free" thing on the Food4Patriots website. I've gone into detail about the GMO Free issue below, because it deserves its own area. The Patriot Pantry website does not make the "filler free, preservative free" claim. I looked, carefully, and it was nowhere to be found... and considering the things I saw in the ingredients lists, I know why their website didn't make such claims.

The other claim they made was that there is "no added MSG". Having a slight allergy to more than trace amounts of MSG (like many people, it gives me migraines, and the last thing I need is to find myself incapacitated that way during a crisis) this was much more important to me than a lack of chemical preservatives (which are there in a couple of the base ingredients) or fillers (small amounts, and none added directly, but they are there from one of the ingredients used.) 

Now, this is not to say that there is zero MSG in the product, because there is. What this means is that they haven't added it directly as a flavor enhancer. Unfortunately, like the filler and preservative, it's there as one of the sub-ingredients in part of their formulation, which means that making a claim of not having any in there is absolutely misleading and ultimately false advertising.

About Allergens!
Not one of these meals is suitable for those with any sort of food allergy issues, and that's a growing number of us both in the general population, and in the preparedness community.

Corn is in literally everything I tested. 

While corn isn't a common allergy, it is out there, and these are all full of corn starch, hydrolyzed corn protein, and corn sugar. Bad News in a Bag for folks like our own Evelyn, who has allergies to ALL of those things.

Wheat, soy, and milk are present in some form in pretty much everything I tested. 
When I say milk is present in some form in all of the meals, I'm not joking. Three out of the four are recipes which , when done normally, call for milk or cream or butter, or which have loads of cheese. Instead of using dry milk (which would actually make sense), they use dry coffee creamer. 

Now, you might look at that and think "Oh, then you're wrong, there's no milk in dry creamer!" BZZZZ! Read the ingredients list on your jar of coffee creamer, and you'll see a specific form of milk solids listed in the ingredients. The main difference is that creamer is significantly cheaper as an ingredient than actual dried milk, saving the manufacturer tons of money at the expense of our collective intestinal tracts and taste buds.

Even I didn't escape the allergen issue completely, and I have very few food related issues.

Caveat Emptor!
If you have any sort of food allergies, check the Patriot Pantry website carefully for the ingredient lists (thankfully, they have them available) before you purchase any of these foods. Don't bother looking for ingredient lists at 4Patriots; you won't find any there as of this writing.

About The Pure Starch Issues, Glycemic Index, and Potential Problems for Diabetics
This is a serious consideration for those who have blood sugar issues controlled by diet rather than by medications. Not one of these meals should contain sugar. None of them. Not a single recipe that I have in my (rather exhaustive) supply of cook books, learned skills, or recipe files both off and online calls for sugar to be in something like Potato Soup or Traveler's Stew or Chicken-flavored Rice.

And yet every single meal that was sent in this sampler pack was absolutely loaded with straight up sugar, both as an individual ingredient in its own right and as an ingredient in the chicken stock that was used (rather unsuccessfully) as a flavor component in all of them. For those who have to carefully control their blood sugars, this entire experiment is an utter disaster waiting to happen.

While there were indeed about four single cup servings when I finished cooking any of these dishes, they are composed entirely of starch. Starch by itself is not going to keep you going for the long haul, because it gets used up rather rapidly by the body as its converted into simpler sugars which we process and utilize easily and quickly. Starches and sugars are fantastic if you need a rapid burst of energy -- like, say, while running away from the tiger that escaped the local zoo, who thinks you would make a great snack -- but not so much so on the long term, "I've got to chop enough wood to last in the fire for the next 3 days while this storm blows over" kind of way.

Protein
This is what you need to keep going for long periods, as it takes significantly longer for the body to digest and distribute, and does so without causing brief, sharp spikes in your blood sugar. This means that it won't cause that "slump" you get a couple of hours after eating a lot of starch, which makes even those of us who don't have blood sugar issues feel like they have a lead weight attached to their ankles

Now the nutritional information on all of these meals will list a protein value, but don't be fooled by it. What protein exists in any of these meals is from hydrolyzed soy and corn, not from animal sources, which means they aren't digested and processed by the body in the same way. The limited amount of vegetable protein that exists in any given serving is so overwhelmed by the extremely heavy carb load that it is utterly insignificant.

These meals have no real staying power as far as your digestive tract is concerned. You'll get a brief blood sugar spike, and feel hungry again within a couple of hours.

About the Whole GMO-Free Thing
While there are concerns about some of the most recent genetic modifications being done to the food supply -- specifically those which are only possible in a lab setting, and tinker with things at the level of specific cell DNA modification that wouldn't be possible in nature even with selective breeding -- humanity has been tampering with and altering the natural state of its food supply for upwards of 6,000 years. This is not a new development as a concept.

Face it: Forced cross-pollination, selective breeding, hybridization, and reinforcement of desired traits through breeding have been the standard for a couple thousand years now. The wheat in your sandwich loaf is no more closely related to the ancient wheat grown by Egyptians and Romans than you are to the Romans who were growing it. Yes, you're both Human, but that's as close as the relationship gets unless you're specifically Italian with no other nationality in your family tree at all.

Unless you're a research scientist in the field of botany, you're unlikely to have ever had food that wasn't modified by humanity in some manner at some point in time. Calling something Non-GMO or GMO-Free is, in my opinion, little more than the use of buzzwords and hype to increase sales.

*About the Guarantee Offered by 4Patriots
Okay, this one is sort of out there. 4Patriots hasn't been in business anywhere near 25 years, and they aren't likely to actually last anywhere near 25 years, either, considering the sheer volume of false advertising and misdirection I found in my research.

They aren't the actual manufacturer of this product, regardless of what sort of claims they're making on their website. While the 72-Hour kit is indeed packaged for them, they have nothing to do with production of the contents: they didn't come up with it, they didn't create the recipes, they aren't doing any of the manufacturing processes, and they didn't develop any of the manufacturing processes regardless of what their website implies.

Given all this, offering 300% money back if the food is spoiled when you go to open it is... well....

1. First, it would depend on the company still being in business. That in and of itself is doubtful considering their not so honest claims. They're no doubt headed rapidly for a lawsuit of some sort.
2. Second, it would depend on someone purchasing and storing the food for the 25 years to find out whether it was still good after that amount of time. This is actually possible, considering what I saw with the packaging and actual contents, but the caveat is actually having it around for that long.
   
   If the world collapses, then you aren't likely to be eating stored, dehydrated and freeze dried foods for 25 years; you'll be growing your own foods (or dead) long before you reach that point.  Oh, and if the world collapses, then even the actual manufacturer won't still be around to offer you a refund, much less these jokers.

About The Rest Of The 4Patriots Website
I have to admit, I went and took a good long look around their entire website. I wanted a better feel for the company besides just their food, which I'd already found didn't actually originate with them. I'm glad I did, considering all the utter nonsense I found there in the course of researching things for this article.

I was less than impressed by what I saw there.

My impression of their website, and the attendant advertising of their various products (which include more than just survival foods , and my money is on every single product being from someone else that they're claiming as their own), is that it is primarily aimed at extracting large amounts of money out of the gullible, the easily-panicked, those who don't show due diligence in their research, or those prone to falling for frequent use of scary buzzwords.

The entire site read like a recent version of Chicken Little, with  "The Sky Is Falling! The Sky Is Falling" replaced with "The sky is about to fall! Giving us money will help you survive when it does!"

On a strictly emotional level, everything on their site is aimed at instilling fear of the future and then offering a quick but expensive fix for the fear that's been generated with the scenarios they paint. As someone who trained as a psychologist during one of my trips to college, I find the rather blatant manipulation and unsubtle emotional appeal to your desire to be a good provider for your family, regardless of circumstances, to be rather distasteful and decidedly off-putting.

I found it absolutely infuriating when viewed with the knowledge that they're trying to claim credit for someone else's product, rather than making it plain that these meals, specifically this kit, is only packaged for them, rather than made by them.

If I had gone to their website first and then written a review based strictly on that... well, the review would never have been made, because I would have been so annoyed at all the overpriced, poorly hyped bait for the gullible that I would have refused to try the products 

"Free"
One very specific problem I found when I went to their website to look at the Food4Patriots portion was something that I personally consider to be clickbait scam tactics. They were (are?) running a "special limited time offer" for a "Free" 72-Hour meal kit. The very kit, in fact, that I've reviewed, which normally sells on Amazon and the Patriot Pantry website. I couldn't find it listed anywhere on the 4Patriots site other than as a special limited time offer.

Now to me, when I see the word free, that tells me I won't be spending any money, not even a dime. A free sample, a free trial; these are typically used to get you to try something in the hopes that you like it and will therefore start purchasing it. But they are also usually what they claim to be, free of absolutely any cost other than your time and willingness to try something for a short period or extremely limited amount.

Only when I went to order the "Free 72-Hour Kit" from their limited-time offer -- it was supposed to be free, and I was about to try one, so why not have a couple of spares around to experiment with, right? -- it turned out to be not free. Granted, I wasn't asked to pay for the meals (four of them, costing roughly $25, at the Patriot Pantry website.) No, I was simply expected to pay $10 for shipping and handling.

Now, a lot of you might consider that to still be free. Why quibble over $10 S&H, after all, when practically all companies do that? My answer is "Because that's not free." It's deeply discounted, yes, but they are still trying to get money out of me after telling me that I'm not going to be spending any money in order to convince me to look at the offer.

I declined the offer, being both annoyed and more than a bit put off by what I consider bait and switch tactics. I had already been sent one of the kits anyway for review, so there was less than no chance that I would be willing to give them $10 that could go towards other things.

My thoughts are these: the "free" offer that isn't actually free is a last-ditch effort to get at least some money out of you, because they know that once the kit shows up and all the packaging lists a completely different company other than that outer bag that says "Packaged For", you'll never send them another penny of your hard earned money.

Last-Ditch, You Say?
I say this because outside of their "special limited time offer," you cannot order the 72-Hour kit from 4Patriots. They only offer three choices: one week, one month, and three month sizes, none of which are what could be considered inexpensive. In comparison, the real manufacturer's site offers a huge range of sizes, has a bunch of options that I saw nowhere on the 4Patriots site, has a few specialized kits of varying sizes (even one that is strictly snacks) along with the 72-Hour Kit which they advertise as a sampler.

The three month kit, for example (450 servings of various proportions of 19 food products, one of which is multiple servings of a form of dried milk) is $497. They offer free shipping with that -- after all, you're already giving them a hair shy of $500, so they have to toss you some sort of bone! In order to purchase a 1 year supply via 4Patriots, you'll spend just a hair shy of $2000. Considering that the 1 Year Supply size you can find at the Patriot Pantry website is only $1797, you'll save yourself more than $200 going directly to the manufacturer and taking advantage of their greater selection.  While $200 might not sound like much when you're looking at a purchase this large, that's still $200 you wouldn't have for other critically needed supplies. The 1 Year size at Patriot Pantry also offers a slightly greater variation in meal varieties, which will help in the long run to dispel Food Ennui as well, as well as individual meal types by themselves in #10 cans so you can customize things to your own preferences.

At the other end of the spectrum, while the 1 week kit isn't prohibitive on the face of things -- $67 + $5.95 S&H (again, the same price as that offered by the actual manufacturer) -- I have to quirk a brow at spending that much money for one week of "meals" that are more like side dishes or single entrees without sides, unless you're talking about the various soups. I spend significantly less than that for one week of meals for two people, with enormously more variety and a decent shelf life when I go shopping. And J and I eat well in our house, with two gourmets sharing the kitchen!

The Final Results
These meals are, at their heart, glorified MREs with fancier packaging to appeal to the masses. 

The Meals' Positive Qualities:

• Convenience
• Portability
• Store-ability
• No prep time needed
• The capacity to be adjusted for taste (somewhat)

The Meals' Negative Qualities:

They are very bland and incredibly over-salted, so unless you're used to eating absolutely tasteless food, you will have to make some allowances in cooking time, and I hope you have a spice cabinet that has things other than salt and pepper. Of course, considering the sheer volume of salt in any given meal, it would mean you didn't have to keep much on hand in your other stored foods, as you'd be meeting your Recommended Daily Allowance just by eating lunch. 

They are also not cheap. Certainly no pre-packaged, long-term storage food item is cheap, per se, and these are no more grossly expensive than most of the rest out there, but don't go looking to build a serious Survival Pantry out of them on just a few bucks a month. As one of the wide variety of alternatives out on the market today, while they are far from the worst, they certainly aren't even in the neighborhood of the best.

4Patriots

AVOID THESE PEOPLE. Seriously, just avoid them. Over-priced, over-hyped, with an extremely limited selection, and set up to induce panic purchase by the gullible, they are a rip-off and a half. 4Patriots are just middlemen who are mass-marketing at a mark-up and claiming the products as their own.

Patriot Pantry
These are the actual manufacturers of the meals, who package the 72-Hour Kit for 4Patriots. They have a wide selection of survival food products available, an easily navigated website that was surprisingly user friendly and decidedly lacking in the scare tactics, hype, and sensationalism of 4Patriots. While still expensive, they weren't really any more expensive than the ubiquitous Mountain House brand. 

They also seem to know their stuff, and I didn't find anything on their website that was blatantly false advertising when comparing web claims with actual product labeling. If you're looking for something long-term and easily stored, in line price-wise with other offerings out there and with a fairly decent variety of stuff, they're not a bad choice.

Just check the labels and nutritional content of their food. 

FTC Note:  We didn't receive any compensation for this review, which ought to be obvious since we savaged the product.