The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

Si_Clist

@RAS - all I know from experience is that the Mylar bags we use, which are the thicker ones, can indeed be successfully re-sealed.  When we first used Mylar bags we sealed them with an ordinary domestic iron but it was such a faff that we straightaway bought  heated tongs.  Now the whole process is a doddle.

Can't help re the LFT bags as we don't have one around to check, and I'm no help re pouches as we never buy anything that's in them.  Sorry!  Having said that though, don't forget that doing a proper job with Mylar bag + oxygen absorber is one thing, but doing it without the OA would be something altogether different.  To my way of thinking that wouldn't even be a halfway house between Mylar + OA and vacuum-sealing, but hey, what would I know?

 

littlemoney

Not good news for food production.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60623941

Si_Clist

littlemoney said:

Not good news for food production.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60623941

Same prognosis on German news sites yesterday but with added concerns about their energy supplies ...

daz378

Bought couple of tins of stewed steaks today...usually about  1 pound 60....2.70 from iceland....oil/petrol going through the roof...bumpy timed

Si_Clist

We've just got the first early spuds planted, and are right now wondering how much cash we can turn into coffee and tinned meals with long shelf lives ...

MingVase

Same here Si_Clist. Time to move up a prepping gear and get serious.

MingVase

I'm trying to work out how to heat this place without using the gas central heating. Think I chose the wrong time to leave my solid fuel and calor gas last house.

euronorris

I picked up some chunky candles at the weekend, and then I saw something about 9 day candles. They've probably been mentioned here before, but just in case, I thought I'd mention them again. They have a literal burn time of 9 full days. Available on that big online store.

Certainly starting to get very concerning out there!

Happy_Sloth

Si_Clist said:

@RAS - all I know from experience is that the Mylar bags we use, which are the thicker ones, can indeed be successfully re-sealed.  When we first used Mylar bags we sealed them with an ordinary domestic iron but it was such a faff that we straightaway bought  heated tongs.  Now the whole process is a doddle.

Can't help re the LFT bags as we don't have one around to check, and I'm no help re pouches as we never buy anything that's in them.  Sorry!  Having said that though, don't forget that doing a proper job with Mylar bag + oxygen absorber is one thing, but doing it without the OA would be something altogether different.  To my way of thinking that wouldn't even be a halfway house between Mylar + OA and vacuum-sealing, but hey, what would I know?

 

i would second heated tongs on Mylar bags, an iron is a pain in the butt mostly because you need to lie them down to iron them which involves spilling half the contents.  I bought a cheap £7 pair of hair straighteners it does the trick perfectly.  

regarding re-opening and resealing...my real long term storage (I have a section that's deemed 20 year storage) i don't open as I don't want the introduce contaminants.  However i keep alot of my "Deep Pantry that's normal food in rotation, even in Mylar and i open them all the time,  i just snip off the top, take some of whatever is in it out and re-seal little lower.  The bag gets smaller over time but it works just remember the foods not going to last years if you do this.  

Happy_Sloth

Ok so things are indeed getting scary out there and I've decided i need to beef up my preps. I've spent most of covid running them down due to one disaster or another... so we are no-where near as prepared as we where 2 years ago *sigh*. 

I did some shopping last week just before payday spent about £100 on basic's, i've just been paid, OH started his new job having not worked for 2 years so the financial stress has suddenly eased.  So i had a Food delivery yesterday of mostly tinned food. 

Today i need to do a full stocklist of my tinned and dried goods see where we are at, there is no way i can get it back to pre-pandemic levels this month but i can plug a few of the bigger holes. 

In the next few days i also intend to check my heating and lighting situation.

I STILL have wax/jars to create candles which i really need to do. Also alot of my candles are quite small, they will do in a pinch if the lights go out for a few hours but i probably need some of the big 9 day candles so i might price them up.  I know we have 2 calorgas canisters and 2 heaters so they can keep one room heated if required for a short while.  

Finally... i've decided i need some good old fashioned blankets, like most modern families we tend to use duvets, we have a few sleeping bags we can layer if needed, but i think we need some good woolen blankets so i may see if i can source a couple.