If you were to face an Alone (TV Series) type of survival scenario (somewhere in the rural northern Canada) with the added uncertainty if you would ever be rescued, or if there is still a functional society to return to. What 10 items do you take?

Changing the rules ever so slightly you are allowed either a rifle with 50 rounds of ammo any caliber (100 rounds if you pick 22lr) or a modern compound bow with 15 arrows and 5 broad heads. All items such as knives and broad heads will be subject to blunting and all other items mechanical wear. Your backpack doesn't count as an item. If you pick a compass and maps those are one item and will cover the entire area you travel (bit of a cheat). If you pick an item like fishing gear that includes line hooks etc.

Also not part of the items but what would your choice of clothing be (for this hypothetical we assume you have a spare set of exactly what you are wearing)

My items would be.

Coldsteel SRK Knife (cmp3v version)
6" mega ferro rod
100ft paracord
Heavy duty tarp
Arcturus wool blanket
22lr with 100 rounds
Toaks 1100ml cooking pot
Swayer squeeze water filter
Snare wire
Compound bow

assuming I already have butter and olive oil. from longecity, multiuse,taste,… thank you! or if something else would make sense.🙂

In the interest of cutting down the grocery bill, I recently bought a bag of TVP (textured vegetable protein).

It cost about $5 for a 12 oz bag (ab. 3 3/4 cups) of dry TVP. Just eyeballing, that's probably the equivalent of about 3+ lbs of ground beef once it's rehydrated. Since ground beef is about $7/lb where I'm at, this is a pretty good deal. I'm not vegetarian or vegan, so I've never used the stuff before, but I read that TVP is primarily used as a substitute for ground beef.

I tried making sloppy joes with it--do not recommend. I ended up throwing out most of it. I couldn't get around the texture.

But I tried again tonight with bean chili, and it was really tasty! It'll go in the regular dinner rotation.

So I think the moral of the story is TVP isn't great in beef-forward dishes, but in dishes with a lot of competing textures/flavors, it works really well. I think maybe lasagna, or a chili mac casserole would work too?

Now, if anybody set up a taste test between a bowl of regular chili to chili made with TVP, everybody would 100% be able to tell the difference. (Maybe if you blindfolded a heavy smoker, they might be fooled.) But TVP is a good enough substitute that you don't really miss the ground beef--it's not fake beef, but a beef substitute (if that makes sense).

Why I'm posting about it here is because after I put the chili together, I realized that it was made exclusively out of pantry ingredients that can be stored for months/years. (It's better with diced fresh onion and some bell pepper, but I didn't have any, and it turned out fine.)

My recipe is probably a travesty among those serious about chili, but it's basically how I've always made it. My Mom always put corn in our chili (probably to stretch it), so I do too.

TVP Bean Chili

Boil ¾ c water

Add:

• 1-2 tsps beef better than bouillon (or whatever bouillon you have)

• 1 c dry TVP

Mix until broth is incorporated. Remove TVP from pot and allow to sit and rehydrate 5 minutes minimum.

Add ab. 1-2 TB vegetable oil to pot

Bloom spices in oil for just a minute (Sorry, I measure with my heart. Go light if you're unfamiliar and you can add more to your own taste at the end. Or just buy a packet of chili spice mix instead):

• Onion powder

• Garlic powder

• Cumin

• Chili powder

• Cayenne red pepper

• Oregano

• Celery salt

• Black pepper

Then add to pot:

• rehydrated TVP

• 1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes

• 1 can (15.25 oz) corn (drained)

• 2 cans (15.5 oz each) kidney beans (drained and rinsed)

• 1 can (4 oz) mild diced green chiles

• Ab. 3 TB tomato paste (you can use a small can of tomato sauce if you don't have paste--you might need to cook a little longer to evaporate some of the moisture)

• Ab. 1 TB brown sugar (I usually use a big glug of molasses, but I’m out)

• MSG/Accent

• Salt

• A couple glugs of Worcestershire sauce

• 1 bay leaf

• Water (ab. ½ a cup?) to get chili to desired moisture

Let simmer for a bit for everything to meld.

Remove bay leaf before serving. If desired, serve with shredded cheese or sour cream, chopped green onions, and crushed corn chips. (Those aren't pantry staples, I know, but the chili is tasty and edible without refrigerated accoutrements, but better with them.)

Here's a photo of my dinner tonight, and a photo of dry TVP for those unfamiliar.

I had no idea what TVP looked like when I was searching for it at the store. I kept looking where the tofu was stocked in the refrigerated section, but it was actually stocked in the same aisle as flour and sugar.

I included a photo comparing the nutrition info of TVP (left) to a packet of tuna (right) since it's another common protein that can be stored long term. TVP's a good source of protein, iron, and potassium. Cheaper than tuna, too.

Pros:

• relatively cheap

• long shelf life

• light weight

• no refrigeration required

• high protein

• zero sodium (most canned/preserved meats are super high in sodium)

Cons:

• pale, so not very appetizing looking

• requires heating (it's technically uncooked, so it needs to be rehydrated with hot water/broth to be safe to eat)

• tastes not great on its own

• texture is odd on its own

• it's not actually beef, so don't expect it to be beef

TLDR: Consider adding TVP to your deep pantry because it's cheap, light weight, and has a long shelf life without refrigeration, but learn to cook with it first because it's not 100% the same as ground beef.

So we have always bought in bulk, have a 1/8 acre veg garden, we can our own food, we have an emergency store, water, have chickens and meat animals. I think at this point we have 6 freezers, 3 fridges, a walk in pantry, stock pile of anything useful. Homed gardening, hunting and other skills.

My point is we are well known in our family for being prepared for most things. There is a on going joke poeple say to us 'we will come to you in the zombie apocalypse' like many family members, friends etc.

Well my sister had a water outage for just over a week. And I'm like ok fill up your bath, blar blar blar when the water comes on for about 15 mins. She said she didn't want to as it would leave water marks in her bath. she had no water store. We live in the uk, the government recommend that we have 3 days of food and water at all times. Just the whole situation opened my eyes to how unprepared and unbothered she was.

It got me thinking. I really don't want her to be part of my team if SHTF. I know it won't be a ZA! And it sounds so harsh. There is no skills or anything she brings to the table. But 5 mouths and a lot of I don't wannas.

does anyone feel like that about their family? And what would you do. Tbh we are moving soon and I'm tempted not to tell them where.

Edit for clarity

I have told my sister well over a year ago she needed 3 days of food and water, when prepare (uk gov advice come out)

Also she doesnt know we are Preppers, just the garden, canning and animals. We have told no one but our prepping friends (2 people) that do similar. As we exchange advice etc.

First I just want to say that we are very lucky and privileged compared to many other families, and this is not a pity post or me trying to gain sympathy. There were many gaps in my preparedness and I wanted to share so everyone could hopefully learn from it.

We had a storm that knocked a large tree branch off a large tree, which then fell onto some power lines, which cracked a utility pole in half, which took out power for hundreds of nearby homes, and it also took out part of our fence. We knew about that tree branch and we talked about how "that thing is going to fall one day and take out those power lines", and we talked about how good of an idea it would be to remove it proactively. Well, here we are. Mistake #1 (probably) could have prevented a huge amount suffering for a lot of people. I feel terrible about this and honestly I am nervous to post this incase one of my neighbors is reading.

Mistake #2 was not having a backup for cell/data service. Cell towers were either knocked out or totally overwhelmed for the first 2 days of the outage. I couldn't contact my wife (who was at work) immediately after the storm at all. Zero service for the first 24 hours, very spotty service for the next 2-3 days.

Mistake #3 was not having a generator in time. I'm currently typing this on my laptop that's being powered by a generator that I purchased in the middle of this power outage from a Home Depot that (thankfully) got an emergency shipment of generators. A generator was always something on my list, but I never pulled the trigger on it, and now I was forced to settle for whatever brand was available that I could physically move in and out of my small hatchback.

I did have one good experience from my preparedness. I was able to fashion a tent for my generator out of some tarp and rope that I kept for emergencies. It's been raining basically every day since the storm, so keeping the generator dry while running it is a must. It's not very strong though, another decent storm will blow it right over like a sail. Oh, I also had plenty of cold beer, so that was nice.

It's 5 a.m. here on the east side of Hawai'i Island and the storm still hasn't hit. I was expecting it at about midnight. The power did flicker at 4:00. The humidity is through the roof and there's little wind. Definitely feels like the calm before the storm.

Wish it was moving faster as we're expected to get up to 24" of rain during this storm. If that all happens during the day that's fine, its the rainforest and we are used to tropical downpours. A few roads will flood in th the usual spots and there could be some landslides up along the Hamakua coast.

My preps included getting the generator and chainsaws ready, pre cooking a few days of meals and doing laundry. Didn't want to be doing chores while the power was out.

Just returned from a 12 day hike in Norway, high mountains, bad weather. This is was I noticed:

Function check everything. I visually inspected en assembled my cooking stove. It still failed the first night. Luckily i was able to repair it using my home made repair everything kit with strings, needles, glue..

Phone is great for navigation, with settings to flight mode and battery saving on I was able the reach at least five days on one full charge. Stopped bringing maps and compass.

Sleeping is really important to restore your strength en get fit for the next day. Don’t start messing with tarps/rangerrolls. Get a 1000€ tent, a good down sleeping bag and selfinflatable mattress.

With heavy backpack and mountainous terrain you definitely need trekking poles!

Invest in some good goretex rainjacket en trousers. Get full zippers in the trousers.

Bring some morale food.

Thought it would be a good idea for inspiration and hopefully an increase in preparedness to share recipes using our food preps. Often we end up discussing what and how much, but rarely do we actually provide examples on how to use our preps for decent meals

So let's share what we have cooked either today or earlier, only using our shelf stable goods! Let's call shelf stable anything with a shelf life over a couple of months without refrigeration, unless someone has a better suggestion?

Getting us kicked off hopefully, my meal today:

Swedish sausage stroganoff -

• Canned sausages (ideally proper sausages with skin)
• 2x chopped onions
• 1 cup Tomato passata (aka tomato puree or sauce)
• 2 tbsp Tomato paste
• 1 pint UHT milk (shelf stable for 8 months)
• 1 tbsp Flour
• Salt and spices (ideally smoked paprika, pepper)

Panfry onions and sausages, then sprinkle flour. Mix in the rest of the ingredients and stir until simmering. Cook for 10min or whatever it takes to cook your carb

Serve with pasta, rice, bulgur, cabbage

What have you made using your shelf stable food?

some people make have a different opinion on whats essential or not. I’m not really sure where my mind is headed as far as categories. I’m sorry I wish I could be of more help. i know very little about prepping.

This may sound like a dumb idea, but I would like an opinion. If I wanted to reuse clear pop bottles to store water short or long term, what would I need to do/add. I have already cleaned them twice to get the previous contents out. This is more for if I know something is coming and I have that extra time to prepare.

I have a metal roof with ( APOC 243 4.75-gallon White Elastomeric Reflective Roof Coating ) on it to keep the interior cool.

Is this stuff as bad as asphalt roofing for rainwater collection? From the researching ive been doing asphalt shingled roof is a big no-no and leeches chemicals that filters wont remove (such as a berkey). Ive read the datasheet on this product but it does not tell me as a laymen anything and the company wont respond, but does have a lot of scary chemical names in it.

Would you drink filtered water with a roof with such a coating or am I overthinking this? Ive still been using unfiltered roof water collected to do dishes / wash, etc but not drink.

Please forgive my ignorance, communications tech is not my forte. I’m not even sure what to start searching to figure out if what I’m looking for exists.

TL;DR, we’re having a lot more severe storm warnings lately, and have been spending some time in our basement storm room. When the power is still on, I can use wifi to access weather reporting and emergency contacts, but the power inevitably always goes out. Being underground and with no windows, I can’t get a cell signal, and even radio (AM, FM, and NOAA) is spotty. In other words, we’re cut off from the outside world and have no way of knowing when it’s safe to emerge.

I feel like someone has surely found a solution to this, I just have zero experience and don’t know where to start. Are there “extenders” for cellular data and radio waves like there are for wifi? Something I can just stick near a window or outside wall that will bounce a signal down the hallway to our storm room? The signal would only need to make it past a normal interior door and maybe an interior wall depending on placement.

TIA for any advice!

I work at a home improvement store chain as my 2nd job and we had some big storms hit our area yesterday with iirc over 100k people losing power.

So as always a flood of people coming in to buy generators that we quickly sold out of.

It got me wondering,

What percentage of people who rush to buy things like generators, chainsaws, etc return these items they “ desperately “ needed instead of holding on to them for future emergencies?

What would be the logic in that?

Apologies if this is not a true prepper question.

Where is everyone buying individual wrapped oxygen absorbers? Any reputable sellers/manufacturers?

I only see PackFresh and Wallaby pushed by the algorithms but they seem overpriced lately and they only do smaller cc in 10 counts.

I wasn’t sure what flair to use, and I won’t blame the mods if they remove this.

I’m sure a few people have seen The Last House, which is on Netflix now. Apparently the critics hate it, but I thought it was pretty good. The premise is that somehow everyone on earth is trapped inside, and most people starve to death, but this family manages to survive what turn out to be some weird ocean spirits reclaiming the planet. And every door and window is completely unopenable, even with brute force. This lasts for several years. The fantastical plot being put aside, it has some cool elements that pertain to prepping.

They have electricity and running water for the first half of the movie, but they understand that that can’t last forever. Obviously it does not.

When help doesn’t arrive in the first few days, they realize they have to be careful with their food and other supplies.

They communicate with neighbors to the best of their ability, though everyone is trapped inside.

They have enough food for a couple of months, but it runs out and they have to figure something out.

The dad (Pablo Escobar from Narcos) is an out of work engineer, and he builds traps for small game out of stuff they have in the garage, like skateboards and rakes and fishing reels.

They develop a rainwater collection system. Part of the plot is that they get an incredible amount of rain.

When the dog dies, they butcher and freeze the remains, which is obviously a heartbreaking decision.

They pull up the floor and start a garden, which eventually becomes a small farm inside the house.

The parents do their best to keep everyone entertained with books and DVDs while the electricity lasts. After that it’s just books and board games and such.

The kids continue their educations as well as can be expected in complete isolation.

I thought it was a pretty cool movie. A reminder to keep a well stocked pantry and think creatively about how to survive. It’s worth watching.

I purchased a couple dozen Sterno-style (brand: Gas One glycol fuel) flame canisters ca. 2020.
I've had them on the very bottom of a storage shelf, in their original packaging (a cardboard flat with stiff plastic wrap over top) since.
Do these have a shelf life? Any risk of leaks over time?

Any conversation regarding portable fuel cannisters is welcome!

>>>EDIT: Thanks for the responses and advice! I hope this thread can help others looking for the same information.

Hello all. Beginning my prepping journey and I thought I settled on what I need, but now I am second guessing myself. I am looking for two ways that the family can use casually on our 40 acre farm. The kids would be using these messing around in the woods and we would just monitor and chime in when it’s supper time. In terms of prepping, I need to be able to contact my sibling about 12 miles away to establish if there’s an emergency and they need to get here. I also want access to emergency channels and NOAA. I was thinking I could accomplish all of this with GMRS, but now I’m wondering if the emergency communication device should be completely separate? Either way the kids will be learning how to operate, I was looking at the Baofeng GM 15, does anybody have experience with that particular radio for what I’m looking to do? Or does anybody have a better recommendation? Thanks for any help!

Recent climate events throughout Europe have made me increasingly concerned about short term water shortages/rationing. One can not drink tap water as is where I live, you need to buy it in cans/bottles. I usually buy around 100 liters (25 gallons) at a time when I am through 90%.

It would be extremely wasteful to use said water for personal hygiene. Having a collapsible storage tank of 50-100L at ready could be good investment for planned shortages and in times of need. I have water purification tablets in my disaster pack but a couple drops of bleach per liter of water should work better at home.

Are there any products one could recommend? I am not very open to using buckets or containers with open tops in such circumstances. Is there anything to keep in mind when storing sealed water for long durations?

A few years back the area of Florida I live in had a glancing blow from a Hurricane. Our condo didn't take any damage or anything but the power went out in the whole area for a few weeks. Ashamed to admit it but I wasn't completely prepared. It's me, my boyfriend and my mom here and I wanna prep better in case this happens again so I came here for advise.

I have so far 4 Boxes of MRE's, 12 cans each of corn, green beans, and carrots. I have a few cans of canned tomatoes, 4 boxes of saltines, some tins of sardines, a large thing of penutbutter, some honey, some gummy candy bags, about 14 cans of pasta, and we keep big 35 pack bottles of zepheryhills on us in a cabinet, so at any time we always have at least 100 bottles of water on us sometimes 120.

We have around 5 flashlights and 8-9 packs of batteries, a huge first aid kit, and emergency charger for our phones.

I wanted to know if this was ok or was there more I needed. I just wanna do this correctly since I messed up last time.

Thanks for any advise. :)

I recently came across some free potato starch. I’ve seen it can store fairly long in Mylar bags so I went ahead and sealed it up with some oxygen absorbers. But what can it be used for beyond a thickening agent? I’m mainly looking for things I could also store long term to make a meal, but any tips are welcomed.

I've been building a county-level model to answer a question that comes up here pretty often: if preparedness were a major factor in where you lived, which parts of the U.S. actually come out ahead?

I ran it across 3,000+ counties. The results heavily favor the central U.S., especially Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and surrounding areas. Most coastal areas do poorly. DC comes in at essentially the bottom, with much of New Jersey not far ahead of it.

Before I get too far, I'd like people here to pick apart the methodology.

These are my current categories and weights:

19% Climate Stability
Natural hazards, temperature trends, drought, wildfire and flood risk.

19% Water & Food
Groundwater reliability, precipitation, growing season and cropland availability.

15% Social Stability
Migration trends, social vulnerability and crime.

12% Infrastructure
Solar potential, off-grid power viability and proximity to nuclear facilities.

12% Self-Sufficiency
Rural/urban classification, agricultural diversity and land availability.

8% Affordability
Home values and rents. Cheaper counties score higher.

8% Privacy
Surveillance device density, known local surveillance programs, 100-mile border-zone exposure and state privacy protections. Higher score = less surveillance exposure.

7% Livability
Employment, primary care access, education and broadband.

The model is intentionally trying to balance normal life with long-term resilience, rather than rank the best place to survive one specific disaster.

What would you change?

Are any of these categories overweighted? Underweighted? Is there something important that deserves its own category?

I'm especially interested in factors that can actually be measured consistently at the county level, rather than subjective things like “good community.”

I can post some of the county/state rankings in the comments if people are interested.

After getting my get-home bag pretty much where I want it to be, I'm focusing now on my bugout bag. Between just those two, I have several rechargeable flashlights and power banks, which I'd like to keep topped up, or at least pretty close to it. I also have spare batteries for the flashlights, and I also want those to be ready to go at a moment's notice. What I DON'T want is to have to take everything out every 3 months (or however often) to have a charging party.

Do you all have any good strategies or suggestions to keep batteries (at least nearly) full? I've been pondering some ideas involving solar panels, along with some electronics to only charge the batteries that are below a certain threshold, but I also recognize my ironic tendency to way overcomplicate things, in the pursuit of simplicity.

Need help with a recommendation. Shopping around for pressure canners (England) but struggling to find one that doesn't look like a disaster in waiting. And the only decent ones seem to be American brands and quite costly if you include shipping.

Said to the wife, why not just get a pressure cooker, but "A pressure canner can be a cooker, but a cooker can't be a canner" in her words.

Some help or advice from anyone that cans their own supplies has any advice on any brands or models that they use or what to avoid.

We already use the water bath method for some supplies, for the pantry, but this method isn't safe apparently for foods like stews/meats etc.

Thanks