Do We Really Need To Envy The Yanks?

[Brambles]

Well, yes and no. So many times I have heard on UK prepper forums, including this one, the old Chestnut, but the Americans have everything for prepping, and it’s so cheap! Why can’t we get it over here? I’ll tell you why, Great Britain has lost the mindset of being ready, and because of that, the demand is not sufficiently high enough for companies to supply what we want.
So, the best we can hope for is to ready ourselves however we can, and stop blardy complaining! I worked out recently, that if you took the cost of an average months dehydrated food from USA you would have enough for one of those swanky dehydrators we all drool over. Now I include myself in this, but how many of you have said you want one, but can’t afford/justify the expenditure. Well, look at this for a moment. If you were to buy one, and use it to produce all the dehydrated fruit, veg, pulses and cheese (yep I’ve done it!) you have EXACTLY what the Americans have. For those of you into long term food storage, as long as you follow some basic rules, you can produce and pack your own long term preps. I’m talking years here, folks, not just months. All it takes a little effort on your part. Basically, what I’m saying is instead of bemoaning our lack of off the shelf long term food storage, put some effort in and do something about it yourself. I have and now have a good stock of dehydrated food, and that’s using a basic little Westfalia dehydrator! I don’t use long term storage methods anymore, preferring to rotate, which proves that I do eat what I store.
Here are a couple of links that might get you thinking.
For information on DIYstorage method and storage life of home dried foods. This is a reputable company and the advice is sound.
https://www.usaemergencysupply.com/info ... torage.htm
To make your own complete meals. (Not sure on the storage life if packed for long term storage)
http://www.hungryhammockhanger.com/
This guy is great; he inspired me to have a go at dehydrating cooked food. The dehydrator I have is not up to drying meals, but will happily do individual ingredients which are then ready to mix to make meals. For a lot of things you just need to approach things from a different perspective.
So, now you have it, I’ve given you the info, it’s up to you to go and do it. I hope you all get ideas from this, and at least give some things a go.

[itsybitsy]

Brambles, I was just thinking this very same thing yesterday. I know some of our American cousins are a bit 'out there' but they are the prepping MASTERS. I'm jealous!

[Hamradioop]

Sorry but the Americans in general are less prepared than the average Chav. What you see on the forums and U tube is often a total fantasy concocted by the Walter Mitty's in Disney Land. Yes there are all sorts of toys available over there, which are not readily available in the UK, but you have the whole of the EU to source from and only have to pay postage. From the States the shipping is astronomical plus HMRC will want you to pay import duty on plus a handling fee. The trouble in this country is we have all forgotten the skills of our parents. A simple example is hedge laying, how often do you seen a tractor with some sort of flail tearing up a hedge, rather than the old way of a couple of Farm workers laying the hedge properly making a stock proof boundary and clearing the ditches at the same time. When I were a Lad on T' farm that was part of the working cycle along with everything else.
Stop daydreaming about the Yanks and learn the skills needed.

END RANT.

[unsure]

the only thing i envy are the large open spaces and the right to bare arms [second amendment] . we`ll not go into gun control in this thread if thats ok .

[Plymtom]

Methinks my Excalibur needs using for more than Jerky and Aubergnes, I'll have to put it on a meter though because energy costs are going to have to be considered, dehydrating cooked food isn't something I'd thought of to be honest but once all the tinned food I can sensibly (weightwise) store is in place I may well do some dehydrated stuff

You can't envy America just generally, much of it is like here- urban and would take almost as much bugging out of as it does here if not more, fair enough there's more space to bug out in, add to that of course they do get the weather and siesmic events that warrant prepping like we just don't comprehend. I've thought about it in these terms, if I won the lottery would I want to move there? and I cannot always say I do, I ask myself where in the USA, we don't like too much heat, we hate bugs, snakeses and spiders, and what's the point of moving form somewhere where TS may HTF to somehwere where it frequently does? so out of hurricane region, tornado alley, and not too close to Earthquakes and Volcanoes are us so there we are on the fence of envy.

[Brambles]

Sorry but the Americans in general are less prepared than the average Chav. What you see on the forums and U tube is often a total fantasy concocted by the Walter Mitty's in Disney Land. Yes there are all sorts of toys available over there, which are not readily available in the UK, but you have the whole of the EU to source from and only have to pay postage. From the States the shipping is astronomical plus HMRC will want you to pay import duty on plus a handling fee. The trouble in this country is we have all forgotten the skills of our parents. A simple example is hedge laying, how often do you seen a tractor with some sort of flail tearing up a hedge, rather than the old way of a couple of Farm workers laying the hedge properly making a stock proof boundary and clearing the ditches at the same time. When I were a Lad on T' farm that was part of the working cycle along with everything else.
Stop daydreaming about the Yanks and learn the skills needed.

END RANT.

Isn't this in a way saying the same as my post?
I'm sure there has to be people who have come up with other ideas to circumvent our lack of 'prepper' commodities. I was hoping to either get people thinking about it or sharing what they have done.

[nickdutch]

Again I think it depends what you are preparing for and how you do it. After having seen the USA prepping TV shows and channels on youtube, it seems more that these people are gearing up for a civil war rather than preparing for power cuts, unemployment, food shortages, rising bills and the like.

It is true that the American continent suffers more in the way of hazardous weather conditions such as tornadoes, hurricanes and the like, so the mentality to prepare for a disaster is stronger, but how will an AK47 really help if you have a tidal wave or a power cut. It won't. Its just there to kill people. Why would you want to kill people? Because either there is a war or because you are afraid.
What are you afraid of? People going nuts, like in a warzone. So what "disaster" are they preparing for? War.

But do they have enough beans and lentils in store to feed themselves and can they create a stove from a few tin cans and cook for four people that way? Not necessarily.

I would like to finish off my point of view with a joke if I may:

The difference between the USA and a pint of milk = after a few centurie, the milk would have developed a culture