Rule Three: Get Out of the Pantry

This post and the other in this series are taken from an article I found online with the same name as the "Subject Line". They were written by Tove Danovich and posted on 9/16/15. The entire original post can be found here: http://bit.ly/2T8oqu0

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Unfortunately, even the best-stocked food supply doesn't last forever. Bedford points out that food storage doesn't exist in a vacuum. "You'll open that can of beans and then what?" she says. "The purpose of stored food is to buy you time." In her family's case, the year or so their supply could carry them for would be enough time to connect with other families, work together, barter, and so on. "Right now if there was a massive power grid failure, millions of households would only have a couple weeks of food," she explains. "They have no margin."

Henry supports the idea of keeping chickens both for meat and eggs as well as investing in the time to learn about technology like aquaponics or even hydroponics, which can both create comparatively large amounts of food in small spaces. Surprisingly, he doesn't advocate relying too much on hunting. "If you're out there looking for food and things are that bad, chances are hundreds and thousands of other people are doing the same thing." There are only so many deer and pheasants to go around. That's why in the process of increasing their food supplies, many preppers also teach themselves how they could grow more.

Prepping is just as much about creating a sustainable source of food as squirreling it away. Because the end of the world doesn't just last a week or month or even a year — it's forever. And we all have to eat to survive.


Hope you enjoyed the series,

e a lake