Are You CERTified?

Too often I feel that we get into a “bug out” mentality that leads us to think we’ll be fending for ourselves in all circumstances, always looking out for number one.

I disagree. While there are a select few instances in which we must reduce our focus to our own life and our immediate family, I think that the majority of scenarios will involve neighbors (ideally and hopefully) working together to get through whatever has happened.

Enter CERT. Becoming CERT trained is an important part of your personal preparedness and a necessary tool in being of use to neighbors during a TEOTWAWKI scenario. Here’s a summary of the program:

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Dinner Grouping

One of the most important factors in being able to build up a quality food storage program is to actually store the food that you will eat and find a way to rotate that stored food into your daily diet.  The problem many of us face is that while pizza is fast and convenient, and the pizza boxes stack really well, the food sure doesn’t last.  I also don’t think that if I ordered an extra meal from the local Chinese delivery place, that I could just throw it onto my food storage shelving and expect it to do any good.images1

Part of the problem is that most families, especially those of my admittedly younger age group, have grown so accustomed to having cheap, tasteful food at our fingertips that we have lost the skill of actually cooking for ourselves.  The family dinner at the table has become a thing of the past as have the requisite skills from planning meals ahead of time to storing for particular meal needs.  Fortunately, for the past couple of years my family has participated in a program with several of our neighbors that has helped combat this trend and created an excellent, yet unplanned opportunity for us all to build up our food storage supplies and skills.

How does it work?  Let’s look at the basics of our dinner group program.

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