We’ve got pictures on our website of tasty-looking fruit, yogurt and granola parfaits. This concoction is a favorite with athletes and outdoors people because it’s full of protein, calcium, vitamins and whole grains. You can order our freeze-dried fruit and you can order our crunchy granola – but if the food supply chain is interrupted, where does the yogurt come from? The good news is yogurt is ancient; humans have been making yogurt with rudimentary equipment for thousands of years. Yogurt also has health benefits that are hard to get from other kinds of food – here are 5 reasons you should add yogurt to your diet:

• Yogurt is easier to digest than milk; the live active cultures create lactase, the enzyme lactose-intolerant people lack.
• Yogurt contains lactobacteria, friendly bacterial cultures that keep your colon healthy and lower the risk of colon cancer. “Friendly bacteria” deactivates harmful chemicals before they can become carcinogenic.
• Yogurt is a rich source of calcium - a mineral that contributes to colon health and decreases the risk of colon cancer. 3. Yogurt improves the bioavailability of other nutrients. Culturing of yogurt increases the absorption of calcium and B-vitamins. The lactic acid in the yogurt aids in the digestion of the milk calcium, making it easier to absorb.
• Yogurt boosts immunity and aids healing intestinal infections. The bacterial cultures in yogurt have also been shown to stimulate infection-fighting white cells in the bloodstream.
• Yogurt is an excellent source of protein. Plain yogurt contains around 10 to 14 grams of protein per eight ounces, which amounts to twenty percent of the daily protein requirement for most people.

Right now it’s easier to pick up a few cartons at the store, but it’s handy to understand how to make it yourself in case you ever need to.

MakeYourOwnYogurt.com has a great website with videos that show you how to get started. It’s easy. All you’ll need is some basic equipment:

• Half gallon of milk
• 2-3 Tbs of plain yogurt (as a starter)
• 8-10 Qt stock pot
1 4-5 Qt pot with lid
• Metal or plastic spoon
1
• Dial thermometer with clip
• Heating pad

Basically, milk is heated to 175 °F to kill any “bad” bacteria and set the milk proteins together (so they don’t form curds), then the milk is then cooled to 112 °F, a bacteria culture (the few tablespoons of plain yogurt you saved) is added and allowed to ferment at that same temperature for a few hours. To create a mini-incubator, put a pan of hot water in the bottom of the oven, leave the oven light on and the door closed. Once you’ve got a bacteria culture going, you can keep using it.

Making yogurt doesn’t require electricity -  you can actually do it over a carefully controlled fire – but you will need natural or artificial cooling to keep it safe for more than a few hours.

When kids reach a certain age a beautiful thing happens for a brief period of time. They want to make their own snacks. This gives parents one less thing to do, gives kids confidence in the kitchen and teaches responsibility and independence. Lots of our customers use our outdoor meals, especially the fruit and veggie packs and dips, as an introduction to kitchen self-sufficiency and safety.

If your kids are starting to ask to help in the kitchen and are starting to express their little inner chefs, safety is the first thing to teach.

Here are some tips:

1. Establish a few simple things children are allowed to make on their own. Supervise them in the process until you’re sure they can safely do it alone.  
2. Take the time to explain kitchen tools and how to use them properly.
3. Teach fire safety right away. Explain how the fire extinguisher works, how to put out a grease fire, and when to call 911.
4. Teach by example. Even if you normally use a towel to move hot pants, start using oven mitts. Towels can catch fire too quickly on hot burners.
5. Teach sanitation. Wash your hands and explain how germs and can contaminate food.
6. Remind your little chef to never leave cooking food unattended.
7. Teach the restaurant mantra “Clean As You Go”. Spills can cause slips.
8. Decide which appliances the child is allowed to use then demonstrate how they work. Be sure they know that metal and microwaves don’t mix.
9. Teach portion control. When kids establish self-governance with food portions early, they’re less likely to struggle with weight gain as they grow.
10.  As your child gains confidence in the kitchen, consider investing in a kid’s cookbook or letting them experiment with adding toppings or seasonings to simply prepared foods.

Dehydrated food packs are an excellent introduction to cooking for kids - heating water in the microwave or on the stove is a simple way to introduce appliances. Also, clean up is extremely minimal and usually involves washing a bowl and fork. Younger kids might be trusted with running the tap until the water is hot and measuring the right amount of liquid into a bowl or right into the Mylar envelope.

Even if they are just measuring water and setting a timer for a few minutes, kids love the feeling that they “made” something. If you want to let them give it a try, we’ll even send you a sample pack for free, though we can’t promise they’ll share.

It doesn’t take a large-scale disaster to cause large portions of the population to be without power for days. In fact, last fall a surprise October snowstorm in Boston caused 43,000 homes to go dark – some for nearly a week.

Being without power for days probably means the loss of all food in cold storage. In the case of the Boston snowstorm, it may mean no access to a grocery store. Clean water may be also be limited.  If you find yourself without power, here are some tips from FEMA for staying safe:

Do

• Store food in covered containers.
• Keep cooking and eating utensils clean.
• Keep garbage in closed containers and dispose outside, burying garbage if necessary.
• Keep your hands clean by washing them frequently with soap and water that has been boiled or disinfected.
• Use only pre-prepared canned baby formula for infants.
• Discard any food that has come into contact with contaminated floodwater.
• Discard any food that has been at room temperature for two hours or more.
• Discard any food that has an unusual odor, color, or texture.

Don't

• Eat foods from cans that are swollen, dented, or corroded, even though the product may look safe to eat.
• Eat any food that looks or smells abnormal, even if the can looks normal.
• Use powdered formulas with treated water.
• Let garbage accumulate inside, both for fire and sanitation reasons.
• Note: Thawed food usually can be eaten if it is still “refrigerator cold.” It can be re-frozen if it still contains ice crystals. To be safe, remember, “When in doubt, throw it out.”

Cooking

• Alternative cooking sources indoors in times of emergency include candle warmers, chafing dishes, fondue pots, or a fireplace.
• Charcoal grills and camp stoves are for outdoor use only.
• Commercially canned food may be eaten out of the can without warming. And Wise freeze-dried meals can be eaten without warming. Just add cold water and let the contents soak longer than normal.

To heat food in a can:

• Remove the label.
• Thoroughly wash and disinfect the can. (Use a diluted solution of one part bleach to ten parts water.)
• Open the can before heating.
• Or if you have Wise freeze-dried meals, simply open the pouch and add hot water.

Managing without Power:

• Look for alternate storage space for your perishable food.
• Eat food from your refrigerator first, then your freezer. Avoid unnecessarily opening refrigerators and freezers. Plan your access to these and try to remove everything you need for a meal in one trip.
• Use dry ice if available. Twenty-five pounds of dry ice will keep a 10-cubic-foot freezer below freezing for 3-4 days. Use care when handling dry ice, and wear dry, heavy gloves to avoid injury.

Before I tell you what a “Fiber CSA” is and before you find out and click off the page, I’m going to ask you to give me 125 words of leeway. That’s not even half a blog post. That’s half of a half of a blog post.

Okay? Here goes:

A Fiber CSA is like a traditional community-supported agriculture operation for fruits and vegetables except instead of produce, it allows members to purchase “shares” of fiber like wool or yarn for use in weaving or…knitting. (Wait! You agreed to 125 words!) You may be thinking of your granny but please consider what you’d do for blankets, socks, hats, gloves, dishcloths and towels if someone wasn’t mass-producing them for you. (Just 55 more words, hang in there). Knitting and weaving are ancient, traditionally male, arts. Lots of men and women in the military learn how to knit as part of their jobs in combat zones or in field training. Many veterans of World Wars learned to knit to create and repair cold-weather survival clothes and blankets.

That’s 125. If I haven’t convinced you, you can go now.

If I have convinced you that fiber craft is essential to survival, a Fiber CSA should be considered as part of your plan. Here’s how it works:

You buy a “share” from a farmer raising “fiber animals” (sheep, goats, rabbits, lamas) then your fiber is provided to you in the form of either yarn or raw (cleaned) fleece.  The farmer benefits by having a sure market for their product and you benefit by getting high-quality, low-cost fiber on a reliable basis. You’re not likely to get a giant bag of fiber, so don’t worry. You’ll get a small batch and whatever you don’t use, you can trade or sell. In a long-term supply interruption, fiber will be a currency.

Also, a hidden benefit of fiber CSAs is that they introduce you to small farmers; fiber animals produce other life-sustaining products, so it’s not a bad thing to get to know a farmer!

If you’re interested, start with your local farmer’s market or look online for a CSA near you. For example, LocalHarvest (www.localharvest.org)  let’s you search for locally produced products, farms and CSAs.

 As for learning how to knit (or crochet), you might have to ask your granny. However, these days you might just have to ask the smart, warm, self-sufficient guy next to you.

For a growing number of people, backyard beekeeping is the next logical step in their long-term self-reliance plan. The benefits are numerous and beekeepers say that if you can keep a garden or a pet, you can keep bees.

Backyard beekeepers not only enjoy dramatic improvements in garden yields, there is, of course, the honey and other products that can be harvested, used, sold or traded:

• Beeswax is the glandular secretions of honeybees that divide the cells of a hive. Common uses are lubrication for wood and metal (think natural WD40), wax, sealant, polish, waterproof for leather,
• Propolis is a mixture of beeswax and resins collected by the honeybee from plants. This resin is used as an antibacterial and antifungal agent.
• Royal jelly is what honeybees make and eat. Though there have been no clinical trials, it’s believed to have antimicrobial, antitumor, antihypertensive, and immunoregulatory properties. It also seems to have an insulin-like action and may affect estrogen production, providing fertility and hormonal-balancing benefits. Royal jelly is also full of B vitamins, which can be difficult to get outside of a supplement.
• Bee Pollen is high in protein and may also be useful in balancing hormones, healing prostrate issues, and stabilizing blood sugar.

No bees = No Food

Honeybees play a critical role in agriculture - over 1/3 of all the food we consume (over 150 species of edible plants and fruits in the U.S.) relies on honeybees for pollination.  Without bees, we’re stuck with mostly rice, wheat, and corn and we’d be without fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Doesn’t sound like a fun diet. However, there is a critical decline in honeybee populations. Yale University reports that “colony collapse disorder”, a phenomenon caused by a decline in flowering plants, increased use of insecticides and air pollution, has destroyed over 35 percent of the U.S. honeybee population since 2006. Backyard and urban beekeepers are rallying to grow the population, placing and nurturing new hives on rooftops and pocket gardens all over the country. Since bees can fly long distances to do their work (up to two miles!), it’s not necessary to have a garden nearby.

Getting Started

If you’re interested in getting started, there’s no shortage of online information. Your community may even have free or inexpensive basic classes offered by enthusiastic backyard beekeepers in your area. Here are some basics:

1. Find out if there are zoning regulations concerning beekeeping in your area.
2. Educate yourself about beekeeping safety. Most “bee stings” are really from yellow jackets, not docile, non-aggressive honeybees, however, it’s important to ensure you or anyone in your family doesn’t have a severe bee sting allergy.
3. Plan where to put your hives. An area as small a tenth of an acre can support a hive, but you’ll want a screen of hedge plants or the wall of a building or behind a building so the bees are protected from curious people and so the bees have to fly up and away when leaving the hive (so that they aren't flying at human height).
4. Discuss your plans with your neighbors, most complaints have to do with the fear of being stung, so a little information about the safety and benefits may go a long way to winning them over.

After you’ve done your homework and gotten the green light from family, neighbors and zoning boards, take a basic class or get in contact with an online community of beekeepers who can answer questions and help you set up a healthy bee community.

Some good resources for getting started and getting plugged in:

Outdoor Place: http://outdoorplace.org/beekeeping/citybees.htm

HoneyLove Urban Beekeepers: http://iheartbees.tumblr.com/

Glory Bee Beekeeping: http://beekeeping.glorybee.com/beeblog