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I posted a thread yesterday about dehydrateding and then vacuum packing your own food. I like may preppers have been disappointed by opening cans of dehydrated food to find the can is as much as half empty. I am making a batch of vegtable soup today and I am using a jar of dehydrated Roma Tomatoes. Below you will find pictures of these tomatoes that I put up in March of 2010.

There’s a whole slew of things that I want included in my food storage pantry, but many of them don’t lend themselves well to the canning process (chocolate!), can’t be dehydrated (walnuts!), or aren’t a great candidate for the classic 5-gallon bucket (sunflower seeds!). Packing these foods in canning jars and then using a vacuum sealer, such as a Food Saver, to store them long-term is super easy.

HSBC is imposing restrictions on large cash withdrawals raising a number of red flags. The BBC reports that some HSBC customers have been prevented from withdrawing large amounts of cash because they could not provide evidence of why they wanted it. HSBC admitted it has not informed customers of the change in policy, which was implemented in November for their own good: “We ask our customers about the purpose of large cash withdrawals when they are unusual… the reason being we have an obligation to protect our customers, and to minimise the opportunity for financial crime.” As one customer responded:...

As a survivalist/prepper, I hear a lot of, "I don't want to be a prepper, but I want to be prepared. What should I do? How do I start?" So I compiled a lot of information from FEMA, Red Cross, and other places that have very "basic" information and started typing up a list for them. The four "basic" areas I decided would be a good starting point: getting your whole family involved, what to do before an emergency, what to do after an emergency, and emergency sanitation. I say "basic" because this is only a starting point! This by...

Lots of regular people in todays society see us prepper and survivalists as weirdos in camouflage suits, conspiracy nuts and similar. Most of them are right, lots of „survivalists“ also help in building that image of survivalists. It is hard for some people to just shut up and prep, what they should do to keep low profile. But some people make survival so much part of who they are they want to show off. Their choice. Point is that there are lot of definitions of survivalists there, and each one of them is like „written in stone“. I think survival...

Event Phases: Phase 1 – Pre-Event Phase 2 – The Event Occurs. Phase 3 – Reaction of the General Public to the Event. Phase 4 – Government Reaction to the General Public’s Reaction to the Event. Phase 5 – Individual Reaction to the Governments Reaction to the Event: Phase 6 – Stabilization of Situation Post Event. Phase 7 – Long Term Adjustment of Population and Governments to Situations Resulting from the Event.

Have you been paying attention to what has been happening in Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, Ukraine, Turkey and China? If you are like most Americans, you have not been. Most Americans don’t seem to really care too much about what is happening in the rest of the world, but they should. In major cities all over the globe right now, there is looting, violence, shortages of basic supplies, and runs on the banks. We are not at a “global crisis” stage yet, but things are getting worse with each passing day. For a while, I have felt that 2014 would turn...

Did you know that financial institutions all over the world are warning that we could see a “mega default” on a very prominent high-yield investment product in China on January 31st? We are being told that this could lead to a cascading collapse of the shadow banking system in China which could potentially result in “sky-high interest rates” and “a precipitous plunge in credit“. In other words, it could be a “Lehman Brothers moment” for Asia. And since the global financial system is more interconnected today than ever before, that would be very bad news for the United States as...

Survival is double edged sword. You want to be mentally prepared for worst case scenario but nobody can without having been there. Sometimes when I read survival forums I see people living in fear, even life is not bad for them at the moment. If I have wish for everyone for 2014 it is that people get serious about survival and preparedness but also enjoy good times as long as they last. Anxiety, depression and negative thinking can take your energy away before anything starts. This here now is post I wrote some months ago, to put my feelings and...

When toxic chemicals spilled into the Elk River in Charleston, West Virginia a couple of weeks ago we got another glimpse into what the world might look like in the aftermath of a major, widespread disaster.

Travel Restrictions. Confiscation of wealth. Food Shortages. Squatters Rebellions. Riots. Martial Law.

I’ll be honest: for years, I never considered the survivalist/prepper crowds as target audiences. I mean, we’re on totally different ideological wavelengths, right? I’m not into shooting things, and they likely think I’m a touchy-feely hippie who wouldn’t survive a week after SHTF. What could we possibly have in common? Quite a bit, it turns out – apparently, ideology ain’t everything. As we’ve started doing more DIY/upcycling/self-sufficiency content, we’ve seen a steady rise in readership from sites like The Homestead Survival and Knowledge Weighs Nothing. And, as you might expect, I’ve spent more time checking out these sites and those...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)With NASA reporting a “potentially hazardous” asteroid nearly half-a-mile wide possibly heading toward earth, and some upstate New Yorkers claiming they experienced a loud boom and a bright light in the sky last night caused by a meteor, a doctors’ organization is offering some timely advice: Just as when the American populace first prepared for the possibility of a nuclear blast, a person’s best option for surviving a meteor strike is the same “duck and cover” created during the 1940s and ’50s when nuclear weaponry was still in its infancy. The warning comes from Physicians for Civil Defense, which issued...

On a tight food budget? Here are seven inexpensive and nutritious items you should consider adding to your grocery list.Trying to live on a food budget of about $4 per day can be quite a challenge. People quickly discover this when they take the Food Stamp Challenge and try to learn what it's like to be poor for a week. The challenge mirrors what someone can get through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the federal program that helps low-income people buy groceries. One in seven Americans receive the benefits, which were significantly reduced by Congress in November. To...

Ballooning debt levels in advanced economies pose biggest threat to the global economy, World Economic Forum report warns ___ pose the biggest threat to the global economy in 2014, a report by the World Economic Forum has warned. Ahead of next week's WEF annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, the forum's annual assessment of global dangers said high levels of debt in advanced economies, including Japan and America, could lead to an investor backlash. This would create a "vicious cycle" of ballooning interest payments, rising debt piles and investor doubt that would force interest rates up further.

We ripped on bloated Doomsday Prepper Tyler Smith in November for his shameless plan to loot his neighbors at gunpoint in the event of a disaster. He is the antithesis of real preppers, who tend to be self-sufficient people intent on helping themselves and others in the event the worst comes to pass. It was obvious during the cringe-worthy episode that Smith possessed no more than a room temperature IQ, but asserting that he was even that smart turns out to have been far too generous: Smith was prominently featured in a segment that aired in November 2013. On the...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)BOUNTIFUL -- It sits in the parking lot of the Emergency Essentials store in Bountiful, all but daring you not to stop and stare. The massive, bright yellow, corrugated metal section of pipeline is 10 feet across and thrice that length, with a few smaller sections of pipe sticking out at various angles. And just in case that's not enough of a draw for the terminally incurious, there's even a banner on the side -- at least there was until the last Bountiful windstorm -- that reads "Tour a 'Bomb Shelter' ... Atlas Survival Shelters." Bomb shelter? Trust us, you...

There are crimes that mark a society. I started wondering whether I should write this entry in Spanish. But there is enough local outrage on the web, and tomorrow on print, that English must be the vehicle. The affair started early when we learned that Monica Spear was murdered with her (ex?) husband inside her car, in front of her 5 year old daughter whose cries eventually alerted other passerby. In a way the casual observer could wonder why the murder of two people should matter in a country which had this past year around 24,000 murders, more than twice...

West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin declared a state of emergency Thursday in several counties because of a chemical spill into the Elk River. The advisory was expanded at night from five to eight counties. The state of emergency includes West Virginia American Water customers in Kanawha, Boone, Clay, Jackson, Lincoln, Logan, Putnam and Roane counties, according to NBC station WSAZ. Residents were told not to drink the water, bathe in it or cook with the water and only use it for flushing and fire emergencies. Boiling it will not remove the chemicals.

(JANUARY 20-26TH, 2014) This January, the founders of The Prepper Project will be hosting an exclusive online event that we’re calling ‘The Survival Summit’: It’s going to be a FREE, five-day, online training summit where 25 of the world’s most sought-after experts on Survival and Self Reliance will be teaching online classes, giving you 5 solid days and over 24 hours of training and strategies with the single focus of keeping your family alive, safe, and fed during a triggered societal collapse.