All Things Prepping, Simple Living, Back to the Basics [Survival Today, an on going thread]

vanity | 2/26/18 | CottonBall

[V K Lee]

Shocked to learn of tomato shortage. (Love tomatoes!)
In Marfa/Ft. Davis, Texas there is a very large hydroponics
greenhouse (acres) growing fresh vegetables for commercial
use. Where do they find water for their operation in the
middle of no where? Wells? DH ready to prep by buying multi
bottles of ketchup. Myself, it’s Ragu and canned tomatoes.

We do live in interesting times.

[JudyinCanada]

Hi CB....

This is how China has operated for years - social credit system. They’re working on bringing in the Chinese communist control system here. You do nothing, go nowhere, without the consent of the communist party. They can cut you off of anything, anytime....if you have to purchase with digital rather than cash, they have full control of what you qualify to buy, as far as they’re concerned.

[JudyinCanada]

Please keep me on this list, CB. Thanks!

[Big Red Badger]

Interesting,,,
Thanks!

[CottonBall]

Hi! I noticed you weren’t on the general ping list I had so I thought I would ping you separately. I’m trying to revive the prepping thread again, yet again! I think it’s needed more than ever.

I’m asking for volunteers this time, cuz I know I can’t be counted on! So if you ever want to take a month or a week to add something to the thread and ping the group that would be fantastic.

You have a lot to offer and a lot that I need to learn.

I’m just using the general list I had before I gave it to you, if you have an updated one we can merge them. I just added one more person today.

[CottonBall]

You guys are on!

Any information you want to share, please post. I don’t think I could learn too much on this subject, I’ve been rather lackadaisical. ( and I’m glad I’m dictating because I never could have spelled that, lol)

[CottonBall]

Great idea! Do you want to post it whenever you think it should be done or do you want me to?

[CottonBall]

So there’s no point even having savings. Although those would get eaten away with inflation anyway.

A nice underground economy will be created.

[metmom]

Honestly, generators are something I know very little about. That’s mr. mm’s department.

I just see the value in them.

As for posting, do you mean as in a new thread, or as a topic in this thread?

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

CottonBall :" I've read that freezers are good as long as they have a consistent temperature.
So that leaves off any freezers with a defrost cycle.
I get serum tears for my eyes that are frozen and need to be kept at a constant temperature."

Defrost cycles in a freezer are designed to prevent 'ice-up' on the cooling tubes; the ice on the tubes result in increased need for electric energy.
This increased need for more electrical power during ice build up is offset by the intermittent defrost cycle which dumps into an external pan for ambient evaporation.
As I recall, it was FReeper 'Greeneyes' wh made the observation that frozen meats lasted longer, with no 'Frost Burn' in an older freezer that had no "Defrost Cycle".
However, that situation would necessitate periodic, or semi-annual, manual defrost of that freezer to minimize power consumption.

[Pollard]

https://www.primalsurvivor.net/fish-antibiotics-humans/

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-drug-expiry-date-a-necessary-safety-measure-or-yet-another-big-pharma-conspiracy/

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ajaz-Hussain-2/publication/7060597_Stability_profiles_of_drug_products_extended_beyond_labeled_expiration_dates/links/6109d044169a1a0103dae375/Stability-profiles-of-drug-products-extended-beyond-labeled-expiration-dates.pdf

In general, 1-5 years after expiration date if unopened. “Ideal conditions” are mentioned but not explained. I would think cool, dark and dry.

[Pollard]

While bearing the above points in mind, it is useful to look at the results of the SLEP program to help us make our own decisions about the drugs in our cabinet. Each batch of each drug in the SLEP program is tested separately, and the shelf life extended for each batch individually. The following table summarizes the expiration date assessment results for some of these drugs that have been published so far.

Each batch of each drug in the SLEP program is tested separately, and the shelf life extended for each batch individually. So, for example, for Ampicillin capsules the range is listed as 22 to 64 months, which means the shortest batch was extended by 22 months, and the longest by 64 months. So the mean, or average, extension across all the batches tested by the program was 49 months.

Category	Drug	Expiration Date Extension (months)
		Mean	Range
Antibiotics	Ampicillin capsules	49	22 – 64
	Amoxicillin tablets	23	22 – 23
	Cephalexin capsules	57	28 – 135
	Ciprofloxacin tablets	55	12 – 142
	Doxycycline capsules	50	37 – 66
	Doxycycline hyclate tablets *	27	15 – 91 *
	Tetracycline HCl capsules *	50	17 – 133 *
Anti-parasite	Mebendazole tablets	58	28 – 89
Pain relief / Anti-inflammatories	Acetaminophen pseudophedrine capsules	24	24 – 24
	Codeine sulphate tablets *	89	16 – 144 *
	Naproxen tablets	52	46 – 62
Heart drugs	Enalapril maleate tablets *	34	27 – 42 *
Stomach drugs	Cimetidine tablets	67	59 – 75
Respiratory drugs	Albuterol inhalant**	–	–
	Guaifenesin ER tablets	85	39 – 122
Emergency drugs	Atropine sulfate autoinjector*	57	12 – 135 *
	Diazepam autoinjector*	63	12 – 100 *
Eye ointments	Sulfacetamide eye cream *	39	35 – 44 *
	Neomycin, polymixin B, bacitracin eye cream*	79	21 – 115 *
Skin medication	Aluminium acetate tablets*	52	16 – 70 *
	Povidone-iodine ointment	65	35 – 134

Table adapted from Lyon et al. 2006

* Some batches (<50%) failed and could not be extended, or failed on repeat testing. Reasons for failure included failing chemical analysis, and changes in texture or appearance.

** No batches of this drug could have their shelf life extended.

These expiration date extensions make a big difference to the usable time of a drug. To take Ciprofloxacin as an example: the licensed shelf life is 3 years, and as a result of the SLEP program the shelf life was extended by an average of 4 years, giving a total shelf life of 7 years. Even the batches that were granted the shortest extension still received an additional year on top of the licensed shelf life.

https://www.askaprepper.com/the-real-expiration-date-of-common-drugs-in-your-cabinet/

https://www.askaprepper.com/how-to-store-your-drugs-for-an-extended-shelf-life/

Both articles above play it pretty safe but that's not a bad thing. Looks like antiotics are all pretty safe for 3-5 years in a cool, dark, dry place. Second article mentions a 'medicine box' with dessicant used. I would think an ammo box would be ideal. Since an ammo box has seals and you's ideally be using dessicant, a nice cool basement should work. Maybe bring the box upstairs once a year on a day with low humidity and put fresh dessicant in it and then bring it back down to the basement.

[metmom]

Manually defrosting a freezer is a pain depending on how big it is, that is true.

We have a chest freezer that we defrost once a year on the coldest nights of the winter. We put everything in coolers and stick it out in the cars overnight to keep away any potential critters, and give the freezer a good cleaning and let it dry.

We then repack it and rotate stock so we use the oldest stuff first.

[metmom]

Penicillin is something that definitely goes bad after its expiration date. It is one medication that is not worth trying to store as bad penicillin is dangerous to take.

Another med that doesn’t have a great shelf life is thyroid medication.

[Pollard]

I noticed the _____cillin were the lowest of all antibiotics.

[CottonBall]

As a topic in this thread. One of the weekly topic thingies. Yeah I don’t know much about electricity other than I like it. We got a pretty cool generator from costco, it can use three types of power. I think we are using the Natural Gas version. But that’s all I know, like you, it’s not my domain.

[CottonBall]

Wow, thank you for all your research!

Cool dark and dry sounds like my basement, as long as I put everything in mylar.

Do you see any advantage to getting rid of oxygen?

[CottonBall]

That’s great to have the individual antibiotics tested. You are a wealth of knowledge!

I’m going to copy that and put it into my medical files. And then like Northwest granny always talked about, I need to print them out and put them in binders. All I did was buy the binders and create the tabs!

[deport]

We have a chest freezer that we defrost once
a year on the coldest nights of the winter.

***********

We all had a chest type back in the day, 40/50s.
Had empty them out and defrost/get the ice out.
Then reload making sure you got the oldest on top.

[GOPJ]

...batch of each drug in the SLEP program is tested separately, and the shelf life extended for each batch individually. The following table summarizes the expiration date assessment ...

interesting...