Once upon a time, heading on down to the grocery store to fill the pantry whenever you needed to was not an option. Pioneers who traveled west in pursuit of religious freedom and a better life in the early days of U.S. settlement aimed to settle in areas where chances to buy supplies were few and far between.
This meant that they had to be self-sufficient, which required bringing along and preparing food that would last a long time, tending animals and hunting as needed, and eating what the land provided them.
While this self-imposed self-sufficiency is truly a measure of how passionate and hardworking the pioneers were, it’s also a glimpse into a future without the modern-day amenities we all enjoy in 21st-century America. If ever a situation arises that leads to the collapse of society as we know it, those pioneer foods may be more like our bread and butter (pun totally intended). Here are some foods that we’ll all have to become familiar with if doomsday happens.
Cornmeal
A favorite of Native Americans, cornmeal was often used in place of today’s more traditional wheat flour because it could be easily ground from whole corn while on the move. Bread, cakes, and pancake-like products were often made from cornmeal. It’s got the added bonus of a little sweetness that could be hard to come by in a SHTF situation. If you’d like to see how to make Corn Pones just like the Native Americans, follow this link: https://www.facebook.com/askaprepper/videos/2068662080037588/.
Dried or Cured Meats
Without refrigeration, meat from large animals like cattle, pigs, deer, and so on will have to be handled differently than it is today. Smoking, salting, and drying were all techniques employed in the pioneer days to keep meat from spoiling, and they’d be a handy way to keep our families fed for the long haul if we lose access to refrigeration. While cured and dried meats are more a novelty today, you can bet they’d quickly become a staple in more trying times. Here’s a long-forgotten recipe on how to make delicious lard with 2 years shelf-life (+ 5 tasty recipes)
Wild Game, Especially Small Game
You don’t find a lot of people eating squirrel and wild rabbit these days. However, a squirrel or rabbit that was happened upon and harvested in pioneer times surely wouldn’t go to waste. Fresh meat was few and far between, with the bulk of protein coming from dried or cured meats, and taking large game wasn’t very practical if you were on the move as you’d likely wind up wasting much of the meat. Small game was perfect for feeding you for a day, though. That’ll be very important, especially as people are likely to take on more nomadic lifestyles post-doomsday.
This also includes fish and native shellfish. In many places, fish may be even easier to get your hands than rabbits and squirrels. Learning about the local varieties could make it much easier to add some protein to your dinner. And here’s how to make delicious Biltong with 1 year-shelf life.
Animal Fats
Lard and other fats rendered from animals are definitely not the go-to these days, but they were far more readily available in pioneer society – and they were also a lot easier to process than the vegetable-based oils you’ll find in the average cabinet today. Because fat is a crucial part of our diets, animal fats are likely to make a comeback after doomsday.
Dried Fruits and Veggies
We know that drying produce is a great way to preserve it. People enjoy dried fruits and veggies even in modern times. However, if our society breaks down and leaves us with zero access to out-of-season produce and more modern preservation methods like canning and freezing, dehydrating fruits and veggies is likely to become common practice. You can even preserve produce this way using only the power of the sun.
Dried Beans
Beans tend to be fairly easy to grow, and dried beans can last a very long time. Pioneers packed dried beans to provide protein and fiber along the trail, and they’ll likely be popular for their high protein count and filling nature if ever the SHTF. You also don’t need much to prepare dried beans; a pan, water, heat, and a little patience is all it takes. Bonus: When you settle in somewhere, you can plant those babies and get a whole new crop ready for the next year.
Squash, Tubers, Onions, Garlic, and Apples
What do all of the above have in common? Aside from being fairly commonplace now, all of these produce items can be stored for fairly long periods in cool, dark places. As long as a little care is taken in storage, these will last through most of a winter. You commonly see references to these items in all sorts of literature written in earlier days, and root cellars were commonplace up until a few decades ago. If fresh produce was out of the question, wouldn’t some delicious fried squash or potatoes be an absolute treat?
Maple Syrup and Honey
While we as a society are pretty dependent on modern sugar, it was much harder to find in the days of the pioneers. In fact processed sugar was an expensive luxury for most people. Instead, they used other sweeteners like honey and maple syrup to help sweeten their dishes. Those items will likely become much more common in a SHTF situation because they’re easier to process than white sugar. With a little knowledge, and very minimal equipment that could be improvised easily, the common man can get syrup from tapping trees. A little bravery would certainly be necessary to collect honey, but it’s not impossible. Here are 23 survival uses for honey that you didn’t know about.
Foraged Foods
Obviously the foods you’d be able to forage vary from region to region, and the same was true for the pioneers, too. They’d forage local berries, greenery, wild fruits, mushrooms, and herbs to supplement their diets and add variety. If the SHTF it’ll pay dividends to be aware of the edible plants found in your region and have an idea of where to find them. These wild foods may also be propagated for home gardens if seeds and plants are unavailable for planting the more common gardens we see today. Here are 21 wild edibles you can find in urban areas.
If society collapses, you can bet that the foods the pioneers ate will become dietary staples. Those foods were wholesome, nutritious and, most importantly, available. Do yourself a favor and learn a little about how to find, prepare, and store these foods now, so that you’ll be prepared to feed yourself and your family in a SHTF situation.
You may also like:
Delicious Recipes Using Cattails “The Supermarket of the Swamp”
10 Foods Cowboys Carried With Them to Survive (video)
Pioneer Recipes That Survived The California Trail
10 Long Shelf-Life Canned Foods Every Prepper Should Stockpile
So when TSHTF, won’t animals, fruits, vegetables be affected thereby making them not fit for consumption?
It all depends. Nuclear, I would say yes. But even a pandemic may not be zoologically transmitted, so animals might be ok still with proper cooking techniques.
I am going into the weeds a bit here, but this is something I have studied with EMP in mind. While EMP will not negatively effect domesticated animals, fruits, and vegetables, it will make feeding these animals and transporting them, as well as the fruits and vegetables, to population centers next to impossible. My “Bug Out Location” is surrounded by multiple cattle feeding operations. This is not pasture, but industrial scale feeding of large numbers of animals in one area. Today this is done with large feed trucks that put feed in troughs a number of times a day. Preparation of this feed is also done on an industrial scale using large specialized machinery. Planting and harvesting of the feed crops is also done this way. Having the food animals is one thing, feeding and caring for them is quite another. Many will have to be used to feed the population, but careful husbandry will need to be practiced to keep the supply ongoing. Gathering the feed will have to be done manually as well as the planting and care of the feed plants. The only way I can see any of this being done in any successful way is for the return of the small family farm. This farm grows enough for the family, with some left over to trade for other things just as was done for nearly a century in this country. This is definitely an area where cooperation with others is going to be crucial and going it alone is going to be a hardship.
You make some very good points, Rod. If it does end up that there are small survival communities (something on the scale of small family farms) left scattered all over the countryside it goes without saying that they will have to be very careful with ALL the resources at their disposal including the animals and things like any crops and of course any wood lots near their location. Concerning wood being harvested for heat and cooking the rule should be that for every tree cut down at least 2 should be planted in their place if not more. If these communities learn of others near them then co-operation becomes even more important and a barter system needs to be set up between them. And everyone works and contributes as much as they can. You don’t work, you don’t eat. This time around we need to remember the lessons of the past and NOT repeat them. If we develop short memories then there truly is no hope for the human race.
One thing that communities used to do for defense was to live together in a walled village (with their livestock ) and have the fields outside. The farmers and livestock tenders would go out together to work and they would have lookouts in towers in the fields and in the village ready to sound the alarm if strangers approached. This “medieval” approach might work again.
Miss Kitty, you hit on something, as did Armin. I don’t think any of these things have been taught for a generation or so. Even if they were, do any of us think that the lessons taught would sink in to the majority of students today?I am not saying that the last couple of generations of students are stupid, but they have been bombarded with so much that is transient and shallow that it is difficult for most to even comprehend widespread hardship, let alone contemplate and prepare for it. For the most part it is those of us nearing or past the age of retirement that understand what is happening as well as the probable outcome,.
My survival plan is to be the best armed and most aggressive person I can be. Then I map out where all the Mormons and preppers have stashed their supplies and then take what I need for MY family.
Of course I jest, but this is the mind set we must be wary of. This is why I NEVER let anyone know I am preparing and I am arming to the teeth!!!
yes I agree with this. but my grandchildren are teens and adults. It scares me to hear them bost about how bad they r and how they can kill someone, i have to say they have no idea thing can turn on a dime.this younger generation has no idea what it will really be like.
Nena, I have 2 early teenage step daughters that were not happy about leaving the US of A, but I showed them the best financial breakdowns I could find, the ones that clearly show if other countries stop lending us money, we will have great problems soon after, and when the petro dollar is stepped around by most nations and they use the Chinese Yuan instead, we will have more great problems, these 2 points were understood by my girls, and we left home on the great adventure, they talked about home for a few months, but now it is seldom mentioned, they also understand the need to be self-sufficient in our new home and the need for secrecy. Our new home is in “way out” suburbia, almost rural, and inside and outside it looks just like a normal house. Logic worked with my girls, boys may not respond as well because they think they are invincible, and nothing can go wrong.
thanks for the reply, i am so happy for ur daughters to be listening to their mom. and love ur name..
It’s easy to brag. Doing is a different thing entirely. Most young people have a hard time going out side, much less trying to take something that belongs to someone else. If they try, it will usually end up going bad for them.
I have to agree with you, especially the last sentence. The post event learning curve is going to be steep and the consequences of failure will be permanent.
Rod, I have heard many people talking about their EMP preps, you know the generator that makes electricity somehow and 2 way radios with rechargeable batteries, but I never hear much about where the meat and vegetables are coming from. The farm owner can have something going on but the city dweller may have to settle for eating rats, I have read about people breeding rabbits and chickens in small enclosures, but this isn’t something that you want to do in your uptown apartment.
Shijiazhuang, Urban prepping and survival takes some specialized techniques. These can be found in many prepper forums. One thing to consider when thinking about EMP is that urban areas will quickly become untenable. There is also a school of thought that many urban areas will be permanently abandoned post-event. There will be fewer people left with most of the losses coming from those urban areas. When the grid and other infrastructure is being rebuilt it will be where it can do the most good and rebuilding destroyed cities won’t be economically feasible. The best advice I can give is study, study, study.
Well Rod, I read all the time how the cities and even suburbs will be abandoned, but I think those who choose to stay home or never leave will just make do with however much space their yard provides.
I believe that victory gardens will make a return and starving people will ignore silly regulations against raising livestock or growing food. It doesn’t take much space to raise bunnies or chickens and since everyone will be doing it, it’ll become normal and common to do so. A hot meal in an empty stomach beats any concerns about home owner association rules or zoning laws.
Frank, I don’t disagree with you at all. Survival will trump any and all laws we have to deal with today. The trick in an urban environment is surviving long enough to establish gardens and animal husbandry, and then being able to protect all of this from all forms of predators.
It’s exactly what people in England did during WW2. They kept rabbits in wire cages hanging outside their windows, and fed them on weeds and kitchen scraps. If your uptown apartment has a balcony you could have a few rabbits out there, waiting for the S to HTF.
Claude, something else that the people of England did during WW2 was to be allocated small plots in local parks and gardens to grow their own vegetables, I could never see that working in America.
S, that’s very true. In fact it was running on a smaller scale as early as 1908. City and county government in the UK has a legal duty to make small plots available for rent. Some of our cities do have community gardens, which are the same idea, and personally I think it would be a great idea to expand that. The government is holding on to plenty land, and I’d say it’s time they gave some of it back to the people so we can grow stuff on it.
The most likely SHTF is going to be economic., not nuke or EMP or anything along that line…..meaning folks are going to be scrambling for everything edible.
You may be right, Andy, and an economic “EVENT” will be just as bad if not worse than a formal declaration of war followed by the “appropriate” weapons being used. An economic disaster won’t destroy the infrastructure. At least not in the beginning. I’m sure the people will do that all by themselves. It doesn’t seem to take much these days for people to start rioting and destroy everything around them. I think the latest that sticks in my mind is something about a football game and maybe in Philadelphia? I’m hazy on the details. I had to look it up. It was Philadelphia and the post “celebrations” super bowl 2018. Why is there this terrible undercurrent of violence in people? Are we still Cro Magnon, just in better clothes? Is this veneer of civilization we wear so thin that it takes very little to bring out our animal nature? I am really afraid what will happen in a true grid down situation especially if the people in the big population centres run out of food and start heading out into the surrounding areas looking for any “tidbits” they can find. And it won’t be people singly going out. It will be people in the hundreds and thousands and maybe even the hundreds of thousands. However it happens, it will be very, very ugly.
To Armin, unfortunately many people growing up today are not taught by their parents to keep their emotions in check and not run away with them. A violent mentality is all too prevalent in their lives and when given the opportunity they think they can get away with, they act on it instead of self discipline and self restraint to tell them selves that this is wrong and I’m not going to do it. Probably most of them really do t think it is wrong I’m entitled or they just don’t care because they think they are entitled. So respect to authority is non existent because authority starts in the home with parents. So instead of direction and loving teaching and instruction from good moms and dads they find their influence in movies, music, video games, you tube. It’s a down Ward spiral of society from generation to generation. Fourteen and fifteen year olds of today are the anarchists of tomorrow. A very near tomorrow that has been building for about ten years now. Im sure longer than ten years but the movement has been unashamedly rearing it’s ugly head very recently. Teach your kids, teach your kids friends, reaffirm the teachings of good parents that want society to stay civil.
It will be very, very ugly for the urbanites when they come for our stuff. They will be panicked and desperate, we will be dug in.
@Andy, I agree with you that the first problem to HTF will be economic, this has to happen, it can’t be avoided forever, but we have too many enemies that are capable to throw an EMP at us, and what better time would there be if the US$ has just collapsed, we would be akin to our forefathers of 200 years ago, what better time for a nuke attack, and if that happens it wont be North Korea, it will be Russia.
Taylor,
Another point to consider regarding animal processing; don’t throw away the bones! Make stocks. The essence you get from the bones and marrow are very good for you. Making it is easy, economical, and does your body good!
Good point, Homesteader. Marrow is one of the best things for you. Ox tail soup is one of my favourites. H’mm, h’mm good.
And, when you’re done using the bones for soup stock and bone broths, you can grind the bones up and use the bonemeal in the garden.
MBL, I’m going to have to make a mental note about this; I know this can be done, but I have yet to actually do it. In my retirement years, I have had to deal with two troubling issues: 1) I can’t remember things the way I use to. and 2) I can’t remember things the way I use to. 🙂
THANKS, for the reminder!
🙂 Usually, I just throw them in my compost bin and they eventually break down. When someone mentioned she ground them after using them for stock, I wondered why I hadn’t thought of doing that.
I’ve also just buried the bones in my garden beds, figuring the stuff would get into the soil eventually.
It’s sadly the latter once they are ground you can put it in your soups and stews as well as feeding each one of your plants individually
A “food for thought” article! (pun intended) A couple of thoughts:
Dried beans can be planted, indeed — but the ones that will bear the same kind that were planted will have to be OP, open pollinated, not hybrid, F-1, crosses. So be sure to check that out when ordering seed.
Maple syrup, in addition to birch and other kinds of tree syrups, requires pretty specific day lengths and temperatures, which may or may not be what’s happening in your area [even now, it’s mostly in the northeast US and southeast Canada], so stockpiling sugar might help with the transition to a subsistence existence.
Rod’s observations about industrial farming brought to mind a thought-provoking movie called Food, Inc. I saw it 4 times, and really should buy it. So much to think about in that documentary, in so many “weeds,” as Rod said.
I think that honey will become very popular as a sweetener. While many of us fear the bees, there are those who have an interests and the knack and will realize in short time that their stock of bees will be an excellent way to earn a living in a post apocalyptic event.
Save the bees!!!!
Hi, Lucy. The caveat to this is that we need to do our best to keep all our supplies as dry as possible, including the cans.There can be no greater enjoyment in life then having to pick out all your rusting cans from your stockpile and trying to decide which are still edible. Little interesting side note which I find a bit disturbing as you mentioned sugar. Honey is wonderful to stock up on, if you can, because it never goes bad. And it’s very good for you. If it does crystalize a bit over time just re-heat it. Had to go shopping at Walmart today and had a little extra time to look around. Checked out the honey. I favour a brand called Billy Bee that used to come in 1 litre containers and could be had for a reasonable price. Not a single one on the shelves. Only very small containers of brands that I was unfamiliar with. Could be that it’s just the wrong time of year for a lot of honey to be around. We’ll see if the situation changes once the weather warms up. Could also be that the bees ARE really in trouble and honey stocks will continue to decline over the years. Only time will tell and I fervently hope it is NOT the latter. Will keep checking the stores. Wouldn’t mind stockpiling a little more honey.
on’t know if Costco is in Canada or not, but if it is, they carry a large stock of honey. It just might be that honey is a seasonal item in Canada. Here in SoCal, not so much. My neighbor next door has a pomelo tree and it is in blossom right now. It gets three crops a year. So some citrus can be in blossom all year round here.Not so much north of the 40th parallel.
Hi, Chuck. Yes we do have Costco up here in the Great White North. Hopefully not for too much longer. The great white part, not the Costco. LOL! From what I hear Costco can be very handy. If you’re a member. For me not so much. I’m basically a handicapped senior with no car and Costco is about 30-45 minutes away from where I live. We have a few other grocery stores in town that I can also check. As you say the apparent scarcity could just be a seasonal thing. Which I’m really hoping. I hope we haven’t screwed the bees so badly that now the decline in honey production can be seen in the stores. I’ll try and keep a positive outlook and keep checking the stores every few weeks. As for citrus trees, yeah, not so much. They don’t seem to do so well when temps dip down to -30 or -40 C. It would be so cool to have orange and lemon and grapefruit trees growing right outside your window. But alack and alas it is not to be. For that we have snowmobiling in the winter. LOL! Thanks for your suggestion, Chuck. 🙂
But you have all those other great winter sports too besides snowmobiling There is ice fishing, ice skating, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing — the list goes on. Have you ever tried snowshoeing on dry pavement?
Any way that you can order it online? I actually now purchase honey from a gal that represents a supplier out of Idaho. Brings it in twice a year. I just purchased 6 x 5lb jars. Will do so again in the fall delivery.
My son grows lemons in a big pot inside his house. Just sayin’.
And that’s the way I think many people will get started. They’ll grow trees in pots or backyard boxes, repurposed styrofoam coolers, barrels, etc., and it’ll help. Hopefully everyone will grow something to help increase their own food supply and maybe enough for others.
Check out Costco on line – here in the US it is Costco.com but it may be different in Canada.
Be careful of store bought honey. Most store honey is now just HFCS and/or sugar fakes. You should buy from LOCAL honey farms as local is better for you, plus you KNOW it’s the real thing.
Have you ever tried raw honey from a local apiary? Most of the “honey” in grocery stores has been so pasteurized that little of the good stuff remains in the honey. Raw honey keeps just as well as the grocery store kind too. Price-wise, I’m not sure how it compares to the grocery store. Where I live in southern Appalachia, I can get a quart Mason jar of raw honey for around $18, which will last us about six months or so. If you can’t get the brand of honey you like from the store, you might want check out some local stuff.
It’s sadly the latter
Armin, careful about ‘cheap’ honey: it is probably a knock-off of HFCS and other nasty stuff. Fake. You really should buy local from the beekeeper. The more local you can find, the better it is for you especially if you suffer from asthma, hay fever or allergies…Plus you are supporting beekeepers and their bees.
Don’t support China or other countries who export the stuff that our government buys that is harmful to us.
Someone in an earlier post suggested that the beans one buys in a grocery store have been heated to sterilize them so that they won’t sprout while in the store. Can’t say one way or another if that is a fact or if it actually works.
For a while we were feeding the backyard birds and the seed package said that the seeds had been heated to sterilize them. It wasn’t 100% though because we had niger seed plants come up and sunflower plants. They were scraggly and didn’t reproduce the second year.
I used to sprout bird seed for my budgerigars (Often called parakeets or Budgies) by just spreading some on a terra cotta dish (That you place under a pot) filled with some dirt and keep them moist.
They’d sprout and the birds would devour them. You feed them to the birds while young and short like maybe an inch or two high. After that they aren’t edible.
Another useful item for stockpiling is salt. Right now it’s cheap and plentiful, but unless you live near a natural source when the shtf you’re going to have to trade for it. Not only is it necessary for food preservation but your livestock will need a salt lick to stay healthy. Better to get your salt blocks now too so long as you have proper storage. You probably should also buy extra “luxury items” to store if you can. Pepper comes from overseas (most of it, anyway). So does cinnamon, vanilla, chocolate…the list goes on. Anything could disrupt trade or availability – anyone remember the coffee shortage a while back?
Great points there, Miss Kitty. Salt and pepper seem like small things, but that’s only because they’re cheap at the grocery store. In the past they were valuable. Roman soldiers got part of their pay in salt – that’s where “salary” comes from – and in the Middle Ages, pepper was an expensive luxury. The rich used to display small barrels of pepper to show how rich they were. Sometimes the barrels were mostly full of sand, with a layer of pepper on top.
Miss Kitty – get some vanilla beans from Amazon and make your own vanilla extract with vodka. WAY cheaper than the store bought kind.
When TSHTF don’t be near the fan.
One of the things we had planned on having during these times was fish. However, in our area, no fish can be consumed since they all are full of mercury. Unless you have your own pond that you can stock with clean fish, you need to be aware of the possibility of mercury-contaminated fish. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want a case of mercury poisoning even during the best of times.
Hi Homesteader. You comment also brings up the possibility of contamination of your groundwater and your soil. Best to get everything tested now. Your livestock will need safe water and pasturage too, otherwise milk, eggs and meat might be contaminated with lead or other poisons.
The main river in our area, which was a major source of fishing, water, etc, became polluted with mercury and other nasty stuff over the last 50 years or so due to various industries building along its banks and running unchecked for far too long. That water then polluted the tributaries, feeder streams and their corresponding lakes and any fish living in them. I was unaware of this contamination until I moved back into the area after being gone for nearly 40 years. Imagine my surprise when I learned that a food source I was counting on was now unsafe to eat and would remain so until long after I’m gone. That makes me wonder about the other game that has to drink that water. While I have no livestock at this point, it is a concern for later and for those around me who do.
Towns in the area had to digs wells after the river became unusable. So far, the deep ground water from these wells has been very clean. We get reports 2 or 3 times a year from the water department. The only thing they add is some chlorine.
Hi Homesteader,
I’ll bet they’re adding more than just chlorine. Fluoride is a byproduct of aluminum, and I don’t believe it’s in the water to “fight tooth decay.”
You’re right about the fluoride. The only thing it does is contribute to Alzheimer’s. Fluoride will help the teeth but it has to applied directly to the teeth like the treatments dentists used to do. I learned after I made my last post that there is fluoride in our water now. The county has started purchasing water from towns in the area that add that poison to the water. Time to put the fluoride filters in the old Berkey!
Homesteader, I have 2 Big Berkeys, but was told that their method of testing them was not according to proper methods. ProOne, has an identical set up and their filters can be used in BB gravity water filters.
Also, BB fluoride filters actually put MERCURY INTO the water, due to the type of filter material they use.
ProOne filters filter everything and there is no need for separate filters to do chlorine or fluoride.
Do a search comparing BB and ProOne.
The post I read about both BB and PO was not a seller of either nor were they connected to either company.
Here is the link:
What You Need To Know About PFAS & Other “Forever Chemicals” In Water
and a link to the post about water filters:
Best Whole House Water Filters of 2023
Lots of wild plums in Texas, from little shrubby thickets to small trees. They’re blooming now, easy to see with no leaves on the other trees so driving home every day I’m getting in mind where I can gather wild plums in a couple months. I like to cook em down and strain the skins, then can them w/o added sugar, it’s a wild sweet/sour base for sauces and condiments. With Bolton and Pompeo taking over now I’m going to have GrandMa’s old pressure canner running full steam, it’s a beautiful hunk of steel from the 40’s with bakelite handles. Going to practice with mesquite flour also, and plant extra corn and beans. Figure we’ll be bombing Iran by Xmas, only question, who’ll be bombing us?
One of the things us macho males often overlook is hand protection, yes gloves. I prefer leather gloves for most tasks and heavyweight rubber gloves (nitrile ones tear too easy) when potentially-hazardous liquids are/may be involved such as poison oak (been there, not fun), or the contents of a baby”s diaper! Cut-resistant gloves also have a place of honor. Boiling water with bleach should sterilize the rubber gloves and may be the best option in a SHTF situation since replacements probably won”t be available. However, I don”t know the best way to clean/sterilize leather gloves after exposed to liquid hazards. Can anyone give me advise on that? Also, just daily (or more) washing/scrubbing of your hands (especially) and other body parts can prevent a lot of problems at any time not just SHTF. Hygiene is King! GLAHP!
The first thing that came to my mind when you mentioned leather, was to use saddle soap to clean it. That’s what I’ve done with saddles in the past, but I never tried cleaning them so that they’d be sterilized, just clean.
When I want to soften leather, I like neat’s foot oil. I have a pair of rose gloves that are long-armed jobbies. I like using them when I’m pulling out brush, as my arms don’t get as scratched up. there’s special stuff you can get to put on them to help retard poison ivy, poison oak and the like to keep from doing anything, I think a brand of stuff is called ‘ivy off”? You can use it on your bare hands, too, before you start pulling up stuff. I just checked, the stuff I have currently is “technu.”
Anyhow, when I’ve used the rose gloves and want to clean them, I usually wash them in dish soap and water, get them clean, let them dry, and then apply the oil to soften them.
Where I live, jewelweed grows right next to the poison ivy, so if p.I. gets on me and starts to make me itch, a leaf of jewelweed slapped on the spot takes care of that. I’ve also pulled up some jewelweed plants to make a tea of them and freeze the liquid in ice cube trays. Very handy to pop a cube out, and rub it on the itchy spot.
I realize in a shtf scenario, you may not have ice cubes available, maybe in that case you’d want to make a tincture of jewelweed.
For the rubber gloves and using bleach, I’d caution that you don’t want the bleach solution so strong it eats through the rubber.
For leather, though, I’d definitely go for soap, then oil. Try it now, to see how it works for you.
If there is still power, or you have generators, steaming will sanitize items that can’t be boiled (or boiling them !) or soaked. although boiling will most likely result in shrinkage, unless you immediately, before they dry, put them on and wear them to help them stay the right size.
Well Cialisonline, I’m personally waiting with baited breathe for someone to let us know how to clean/sterilize leather gloves that won’t leave them as stiff as a board, hoping for the best with this one.
This kind of game gives a real experience of building a aadebceeekdafdfe
Beans are more than for boiling. A lot of varieties of beans, like the pinto, were bread for flour. Asians like bean noodles. If you come across a patch of wild cana lily, keep it to yourself. Leaves are used to cook in and are eatable, if fibrous. Shoots are steamed and eaten like asparagus. Roots make the 2nd best cooking starch. Just peel, wash, slice thinly and dry. Grind them to a powder, sift out the fibers, and you’re ready to use. Add water to make a dough and you have starch noodles, or something that little kids giggle over, invisible noodles. niio