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| Photo by Burning Image |
As a parent my biggest fear is something happening to one my children. I watch the news coverage of recent natural disasters and I hold them tight worrying that someday I might face a similar situation. That is why I decided to post a new series on my blog: Emergency preparedness for the primal home. I'm going to be taking steps to prepare my family and I hope you will be inspired to prepare your family as well- the primal way!
Some people scoff at the idea of emergency preparedness and food storage envisioning stacks of dusty #10 cans forgotten in the back of a closet. Or they believe an emergency situation would never happen to them. But being prepared is one of the best things you can do to protect yourself and your family.
You never know when you will get hit with a flood, hurricane, earthquake (isn't California long overdue?) or economic downturn. What would you do if the power was out for several days? Several weeks? What would you do if you suddenly lost your income? Would you be able to feed your family for a month? How about 6 months? A year?
Most preparedness websites and blogs will tell you to store large amounts of rice and beans. So what is the primal family to do? You may be thinking "In an emergency I won't care about sticking to a particular diet I will do what I can to survive." That's true but why would you waste the money to store food you normally wouldn't eat and will probably have to throw out in a few years? In addition many of us who are used to avoiding grains have unpleasant and sometimes painful side effects when we do eat them. Why would you want to be dealing with that on top of the already stressful emergency situation if you don't have to?
The best advice I've heard regarding food storage is "Store what you eat and eat what you store." This means store primal foods! Of course that is a lot easier said than done. Most of the food on the primal diet is fresh and would go bad pretty quickly without refrigeration. However I've been able to come up with several ideas on how to store real whole primal food.
Monday I will discuss which foods I will be storing in my primal emergency pantry.
How exciting! I've had the same idea, but no clue how to make it happen. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteInteresting - I'm looking forward to your next installment!
ReplyDeleteThis a very cool idea. I've been thinking about this a lot, myself. I also think it would be interesting to take a look and longer term natural disaster preparedness - there was a book out a year or so ago called one second after that dealt with an EMP from an air-burst Nuclear detonation over the United States (which in turn knocked out power, communications, etc.) - and it's hard to think about what you would be able to store for that long. Ultimately you might have to grow your own to handle something like that...
ReplyDeleteThanks Hal! In part 4 I'm planning to talk about skills that you could be learning now to help in those kind of situations such as gardening, foraging etc.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I'm not the only person who wonders about preparing our family.
ReplyDeleteKara, great - I look forward to reading more! Keep going, keep going :) I want to know more.
ReplyDeleteOur daughter is disabled which adds another glich no one seems to addresss
ReplyDeleteHal, I think the book you're thinking of is "One Second After" by William Fortschen. An excellent book on what might happen after an EMP.
ReplyDeleteBEFORE any emergency, consider stocking up for the following catagories - water, weapons/safety/security, light, shelter, food, health/first aid/medical care, heat/cooling, cooking, sanitation (bathing, toileting, laundry), special needs (infants, children, elders, disabled needs), communication, transportation, entertainment/education, pets and livestock etc. As a new-to-paleo person, I am revising my evacuation bags and my shelter-in-place storage stuff. Do it now before it's an issue. Also, buy a half-dozen 5-gallon buckets with Gamma lids, fill them with packages of rice/pasta/white flour/instant potatoes and give them away to your neighbors in an emergency so they won't steal your stash! Stick them in your cool basement and for $100 consider it a zombie insurance policy. :)
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