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Mylar Bags: The Key to Manageable Food Storage That Lasts

Mylar Bags: The Key to Manageable Food Storage That Lasts

There has been a lot of excitement recently regarding emergency preparedness. Both the wide range of “end of the world” movies and theories that have come out recently and the unfortunate string of severe natural disasters have caused people to be more aware of what they would do if caught in a disaster situation. Nobody can predict what is to come in the future but we can all be sure that taking the time for emergency preparedness is only going to make things better in a crisis situation. And although it does require an investment of both time and money, the piece of mind it affords is something that pays off immediately.

At the heart of any emergency preparedness plan should be building a good supply of food storage. It is far more plausible for most people to build their supply gradually and it is important that the necessary steps are taken to keep the food storage you buy fresh for as long as possible. When it comes to keeping food preserved long-term, mylar bags should definitely be a part of your plan.

Mylar bags are metalized storage containers that create an oxygen barrier to protect food and keep it from going bad during extended long-term food storage. The bags are composed of a polyester film laminated to aluminum foil so the seal is strong enough to keep out both oxygen and unwanted moisture. The material also makes them much more puncture resistant than other storage bags so it is far less likely that you have accidental spills, tears or rips.

Another distinct advantage to using mylar bags is variety in storage container size. Many common food storage items (rice, beans, flour, wheat, etc.) come in large fifty-pound bags or sturdy plastic containers. Containers this large make it difficult to rotate and use food storage systematically. Dividing up food into smaller, more manageable, mylar bags allows you to more conveniently access your food storage while still maintaining long-term freshness.

Using mylar bags is simple and can be done relatively quickly without the need for any professional equipment. Mylar bags can be found in most places that emergency preparedness supplies are sold or in many places online. There will also be a variety of sizes available and the bags often come in traditional bag shape or pouches that can stand upright.

After purchasing your mylar bags the first step is labeling them. It is important that you label each bag before sealing it because the bags are not see-through. After clearly labeling the bag (also include the date it was packaged) you will want to carefully transfer the food from its larger container to the bag. In most cases, it is a bad idea to try to pour directly from a large container into the mylar bag so use a pitcher, ladle, or other type of scoop. It is also not a bad idea (depending on the food) to throw in an oxygen absorber as well.

Make sure to leave several inches of space at the top of the bag to allow for heat sealing. Heat sealing can be done with commercial machines (check local food storage centers, many will allow you to use theirs for free) or can be done with a standard clothes iron. Ensure that the top of the bag is free from any food (especially with messy contents such as flour) because it will negatively affect the quality of the seal. Fold over the top inch or so and press the iron down firmly for several seconds, moving it across the length of the opening. And as easy as that you have smaller, more manageable, food storage containers that still effectively maintain food longevity.

Lee Flynn is an outdoor fanatic and personal preparedness writer.

Austere Provisions holding a giveaway…..

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If you are a Facebook user go visit http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151647625079382&set=a.10150192681004382.327894.216662174381&type=1&theater and enter their contest to win a cool survival kit.

FREE GEAR!!! Pay attention. Austere Provisions will be giving away a new FastFire Large SUMA Pro Survival Kit to one lucky fan when we hit 3,500 fans. To be entered you must LIKE the Austere Provisions page, like and share the photo. If you do not do all three you will not be part of the pool that is drawn from.

Good luck….

Rourke

DEAD TANK GETS REVENGE

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What follows is an excerpt from “Sole Surviving Sons, a Marine Tanker in Vietnam“. The book is unpublished as of yet and is a Marine odyssey in Vietnam. Please comment if you would lie to hear more…..

Although these short stories stand on their own, they suffer greatly from having the art and photos stripped out as well as being out of context. My book takes the form of months, not chapters and each month is prefaced by one letter that I sent home and paraphrasing of others….and then the real reality.

DEAD TANK GETS REVENGE

by D.

There was one shitty week that I got stuck in the Company area, on light duty, due
to a foot infection. Things got real interesting one of those evenings.

Two other Marines, also on light duty, and I spent most all day unloading a tank
that had taken four or five RPGs and had just about been turned to junk. The hydraulics
were blown out, the electrical system was haywire and it had to have certain areas
bypassed with jumpers around the shorts. Not to mention the holes blown through the
turret and TC’s cupola.

The vehicle was no longer serviceable, even by Marine Corps standards, and was
being stripped down to be sent back to the States, for refitting. I had had to bang an
empty cartridge case into part of the electrical system to jump around a short, just to get it

started and moved to the ammo bunker. Once there, we could off load the ton of
ammunition. We had to unload twenty or so 90mm rounds, a few hundred .50
machinegun rounds, and a few thousand .30s for the coaxial machinegun. We also
stripped the tools and any serviceable equipment. It was hot, tiring work and we were all
beat by the end of the day.

Not long after we had finished, we were called to a briefing. The Captain had just
got off the “horn” with Division Intelligence. He had more good news. It seems the
Division Recon teams had spotted two divisions of NVA and they were moving towards
our area of responsibility. Intelligence had surmised the scenario, that the NVA intended
to sweep into our compound, overrun us, and capture the artillery in our perimeter and
use it to shell Da Nang. This had to be the wildest Intel briefing I’d ever heard, but they
were all being deadly serious.

Our instructions were bizarre. We were to get the only tank in the area at the
time, you guessed it, the one we had just spent the day unloading, fueled, rearmed and
running. We were to hold the perimeter as long as possible, but at the first sign that the
berm was being breached, we were to turn our main gun on the artillery emplacement,
inside of our own wire, and blow it away. Accomplishing this, we were to throw a
thermite grenade into the breach of our main gun, close the breach and fuse the gun into a
molten lump. After all of that we had no choice but to abandon the vehicle. We would
then be on foot and our own. Real fun news to start the evening with.

We once more worked our asses off. We got reloaded, jumpered around the
electrical shorts below the turret floor, and even got the Xenon searchlight working. We
were a few hours into the night by this time. We decided to take the tank around to the
main gate to check out the search light and try to do a minimal sight check. We called in
on the radio net, received permission and pulled into the road at the main gate. I was
gunning and traversing along a tree line about a thousand meters out. The TC flipped the
switch on the searchlight, with the system on infrared I saw something moving and yelled
out on the intercom “I think I’ve got something here!” I’d briefly seen four figures
moving over a sand dune. We called the Company C. O. to check that there were no
friendly patrols operating in that area. He came back on the radio, in seconds, saying
“There is no one anywhere around that area, fire, right now! I’ll clear permission with
Division later!”

The loader threw an HE round in the tube, and lined up two more to follow it.
The TC turned the switch on the white light and I let it rip. Three rounds later there was
not much sand dune left. We talked to the C. O. and he said they were arranging a patrol
for early morning to check it out, but as far as he was concerned, we had “Four confirmed
kills, ‘cause they’re probably blown to pieces!”

The perimeter stayed at 100% alert the rest of the night, but the two divisions of
NVA never showed up. Either the intelligence out of Division was bullshit, or our little
show made them shy off. I didn’t know which was the reason and I damn sure didn’t
care. I’m just glad we didn’t have to play out the Captain’s earlier plans. I didn’t much

care for the idea of the four of us, out on our own, crawling in the dirt in the midst of an
NVA attack. Armed only with four .45s and 50 some rounds of ball pistol ammunition. I
could live very well, thank you, without the thought of that scenario, let alone it’s reality!

Video of the Week: Economy and Prepper Strategy plus general ranting

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The Award Winning LifeStraw Personal Water Filter

LAVIGNE-DAY OF THE AUTO-90

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LAVIGNE-DAY OF THE AUTO-90

by D.

Although I’ve since learned from my cousin that there are now automatic big inch
guns, in 1967 there weren’t, particularly not on a tank. The new ones are on board ship.

There was an event that became a minor tank legend in our company after we
participated in some unnamed sweep. On which for a few brief minutes there was an
automatic 90mm tank.

Being a tank gunner has mixed blessings. More often than not, because you can’t
see anything much, you have very little idea of just what the hell is going on. Which is
probably just as well, saving wear and tear on your nerves. The only way you can tell
what’s happening outside is through the gun sites, or listening to the three channels of
confusing radio traffic, or whatever the TC might tell you. The gunner’s seat is a
frustrating world sometime, but your one consolation is that when it finally happens,
you’re in the number one position to deal out the retribution from a 90mm main gun or
the coaxial machine gun.

This particular sweep I was gunning, my usual slot, LaVigne (often called
Frenchy) was loading and Sgt. Mac was the tank commander, I don’t remember who was
doing our driving.

We were taking a lot of fire off and on with the grunts, they were getting chewed
up and we were running in very close to the tree lines to provide support and evacuate the
wounded and then running back a few hundred yards to the LZs. All this shuttling, and
the close in work was making me jumpy. Mac would say come right or come left and I’d
bang the hydraulics so hard I’d almost pitch him out of the turret with the speed of the
traversing. “Come right” or whatever usually precedes a firing command, which implies
that we are taking fire. There were a lot of RPGs whizzing around out there and I didn’t
want to take one. Mac got tired of hanging on for his life and told me to “Calm down,
take it slow”. So I pulled myself together and cooled out.

We had run back into the tree line to pull out more wounded Marines when Mac
said “Come right”, in what sounded a normal tone, so I started to SLOWLY traverse
right, then heard a second “Come right”, in the same tone and then a third time louder,
followed by “We’re taking fire, COME RIGHT”. At this I whipped it over into some
smoke trails that came out of the bush at us, and started popping off the main gun.
Normally this fire reload has all sorts of commands to it, but then, there was just one.
LaVigne yelling “UP!”, every time the breach block closed on the round he had just
loaded. As soon as I heard “UP”, I squeezed the triggers, and immediately heard another
“UP” and squeezed again. This went on for about five blistering rounds until Mac
hollered “Cease fire!” Whoever had been out there they would have to sift through a
strainer, half the tree line was gone. We were blowing off “Canister”, which is like a
giant shotgun shell, three and a half inches across and ten to twelve inches high, filled
with 250, .45 caliber steel slugs. Until we got back in, I really didn’t have much idea as

to what had happened. We got down from the armor plate and LaVigne took a look at
the track on the gunner’s side. There were a half dozen holes through it and the road
wheels from the RPGS that had been fired at us, none had hit the hull. That rocket
gunner must have been close and very nervous to have missed.

Re-hashing the story with the other crews that were out that day. When we
started firing, they were popping off so fast it sounded like auto fire and the other crews
looked to see us bang off five rounds in as many seconds or less. “The Auto 90”. Seems
LaVigne was pushing in the rounds and as soon as the block went up, he’d yell “UP” and
snap his arm back as the gun recoiled into the space his head and arm had been, while

picking up another round with his other arm. I doubt if there were many other
loader/gunner combinations that worked as well as we had that day, and I hadn’t known
what the hell was even going on.

LaVigne and I worked together many more times after that until he was on the
bad end of an ambush one day that took out two Lts., that were TCing, one of them was
on LaVigne’s tank. He was gunning and when the TC got it, the body and the gore fell
on top of him sitting below. The crew said it was too much for him to take and he
freaked out, so they med-evaced him, I don’t know what really happened, but I never saw
him again.

MSO featured in new website………

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ModernSurvivalOnline participated in a questionnaire over at Proper Survival. 20 fellow bloggers provided their favorite preparedness tips.

Check it out following the link below:

http://www.propersurvival.com/preparedness/20-tips/

Commentary – Thoughts on the shotgun as a “one gun” arsenal

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A common thread with lots of comments at forums all over the net is “If you could only have one gun….what would it be?” I try to stay away from discussions like that because they tend to end up with bickering and displays of juvenile antics.

The truth is most of us do not have to have only one gun – so the discussions are somewhat fruitless. However – for those on a budget, reality sets in and a “one gun arsenal” may be all that can be afforded. So – for them – the discussion of a one gun arsenal is very important.

Everyone has different needs and situations they may find themselves in. So – what one may choose as a one gun arsenal may not work so well for someone else. A popular concept is the good ole shotgun as a “go to” gun.

Not a bad choice in my opinion.

Mossberg 500

The shotgun is a good consideration for numerous reasons:

several quality models available at relatively inexpensive prices
generally very reliable and durable
lots of accessories to modify the shotgun to fit your own needs
diverse selection of ammunition to meet varying needs
single models can change barrels to meet varying needs
ammunition availability at publication time excellent
firearms can be modified to meet the needs of many missions

Shotgun shells can be purchased with different loads from small bird shot to powerful slugs and can reach distances from point blank to over 100 yards. The shotgun is truly one of the most versatile firearms out there. With a single gun small game can be taken close up, a home can be defended at varying distances (depending on loads used), and a deer can be dropped at 100 yards.

Remington 870 Tactical Express

I have a Remington 870 Tactical Express. Great shotgun and purchased for well under $400. I am now looking at getting a semi-auto shotgun added to my system.

If you are on a budget – a good shotgun is an excellent choice.

Rourke

Need some magazines?

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If you are looking for magazines for your AR, AK, or Mini-14 – as well as several others – there seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel. Over the past few weeks I have seen magazines becoming more and more available and at better prices.