Rockridge Press: The Preppers Cookbook

Plain old household bleach (sodium hypochlorite) is your best friend in an emergency situation. It quite literally kills everything that could possibly harm you in water or on surfaces, and it’s dirt cheap. Simply add ¼ teaspoon to a gallon of water, and give it 30 minutes or so to work and your water is good to go. Use unscented bleach, and change it out every six months or so because it does degrade and lose its effectiveness.

The same stuff that people use to keep their pools clean and clear will do the same for your drinking water, and it’s extremely affordable. Unlike bleach, it doesn’t degrade, and a five-dollar bag will purify about 10,000 gallons of water. There are several different kinds and strengths, so you need to read the label carefully when you’re buying it. Make sure that it’s at least 73 percent sodium chlorite with no other chemicals or harmful additives.

Remember the red disinfectant from your childhood that goes on cuts and scrapes and burns like crazy? It’s also good for purifying water. It changes the taste and color of your water, but either liquid 2 percent iodine tincture or commercially available iodine tablets will work. Iodine isn’t completely effective when it comes to killing harmful protozoa that can make you sick, but if you add 8 drops of liquid iodine to a gallon of clear water or 16 drops per gallon of cloudy water, it will kill most bacteria and viruses.

These are perhaps the easiest way to kill everything in water that could harm you, especially if you have to leave your home, but they take about four hours to work. They don’t expire and they don’t change the taste or color of your water, so they are great options whether you’re in your home or have to leave in a hurry. Make them part of your emergency supply and add some to your bug-out bag as well.

Several different types of ultraviolet light machines are used to purify water, but to be truthful, they are much less effective than heat or chemical purification methods. The water has to be clear, and UV light doesn’t kill viruses. Considering how easy the other more effective methods are, this just isn’t the way to go as far as most preppers are concerned.

As you can see, there are many different options at your disposal when you’re making plans to meet your water purification needs. Which one you choose is entirely up to you, and you should base your decision on what type of disaster you’re planning for and what your individual water needs are. The most important thing is that you do prepare, because without water, you won’t make it for long.

Learning to preserve food via canning is a great way to efficiently stock many different types of food for both daily use and emergency preparedness at a minimal cost. Another benefit is that you know exactly what goes into your jars; you don’t have to worry about hidden chemicals or loads of sodium.

Canning a variety of foods allows you to eat whatever you want at whatever time of year you like, and it will be just as delicious as when it was harvested. Remember that fresh fruits and vegetables from your own garden or from a farmers’ market are the best choices for canning. When done correctly, canning also preserves most of the nutrients in your foods, so in an emergency situation, you’ll still be well fed and you won’t need to worry about food fatigue.

Nearly anything you like can be made and canned, ranging from simple meals to delicious side dishes, condiments, and even complex desserts. Basically, what you preserve through canning is limited only by your imagination and a few basic rules.

For canning, foods are divided into two groups according to pH levels: strong-acid foods and strong-alkali (low-acid) foods. To prevent the growth of Clostridium botulinum , the microorganism that causes botulism, each group has its own method of canning.

Strong-acid foods can be canned using the water-bath, or boiling water, method of canning because their higher acid levels prevent the growth of the organism. Strong-alkali foods must be pressure canned because they require higher temperatures for longer periods of time to kill and inhibit the growth of C. botulinum .

Fruits, jams, jellies, fruit juices, pickles, tomatoes, relishes, condiments, salsas, and chutneys are all examples of strong-acid foods. See the chart below for the pH rating of some popular canning foods. High-acid foods are fairly easy to preserve and provide a whole new level of flavor to your cooking.

Vegetables, meats, and some sauces are examples of low-acid foods that need to be preserved using the pressure-canning method to destroy and prevent the growth of C. botulinum spores and other harmful organisms. This is a bit more complicated at first and requires special equipment, but pressure canning is a piece of cake once you get the hang of it.

Since strong-acid foods require the simpler method of canning (water bath), they tend to be more popular among beginners.

Water-bath canning is a relatively simple process that involves packing your food into jars and boiling them to increase the temperature inside the jars enough to kill residual bacteria and force air out of the jars so they seal. The environment inside the jars will then prohibit the growth of organisms that cause spoilage and disease.

All that you need besides jars, lids, and bands is a stockpot deep enough to submerge the jars in boiling water and racks in which to place the jars. Water-bath canners with jar racks that fit perfectly into the canner are readily available, relatively inexpensive, and preferred. This method is perfectly acceptable for use with high-acid foods that have a pH lower than 4.6, such as fruits and some vegetables. Tomatoes are typically canned as a high-acid food, but you should probably add a bit of vinegar, lemon juice, or citric acid to increase the acidity enough to create an environment prohibitive to C. botulinum .

With water-bath canning, racks are placed in stockpots or water-bath canners filled with water, and the pot is brought to a boil on a stove top. The filled canning jars are placed on these racks and processed (boiled) for specific times according to the food being canned. Then the jars are cooled, which is when the lids seal shut. Once the jars have cooled and the seals are tightly shut, bands are added to the jars and the food can be stored away.

As the name implies, this method of canning uses a pressurized canner to increase the heat inside the jars enough to kill C. botulinum in low-acid foods. This method has a dangerous element to it because you are dealing with a highly pressurized metal container full of hot water, food, and glass, so you need to exercise caution. That being said, it’s a perfectly safe process as long as you follow safety procedures, and it is an excellent way to preserve foods such as meats and vegetables.

Both types of pressure canning use a pot with a lid that typically has a rubber seal that swells and keeps the pressure inside the pot. The lid will have a steam vent or petcock in the top, which is a short, hollow pipe that goes from the inside to the outside and vents the pressure canner when it’s open or holds the steam in when it’s closed. This is what the gauge attaches to in order to regulate the pressure. Don’t ever remove this when the pot is pressurized. Pressure canners come in many sizes, and which one you choose will depend primarily on how many jars you want to process at one time. As in water-bath canning, metal racks are placed in the pressure canner, the canner is filled with water, and the jars are placed inside. The jars are processed under pressure (dictated by the foods you’re canning) for a certain period of time (also dictated by the foods you’re canning) and then removed to cool and seal.