Be prepared

I've watched plenty of "prepper" videos on Youtube. I enjoy most of them because they've taught me many things that I would not have learned otherwise. For example, I learned how to tie up a tripod so that I can make a makeshift "tipi" or a cooking stand.

On that note, it's important to think about food supply when an emergency event happens. What kind of food will keep for a long time and is easy to prepare with minimal ingredients?

My "favorite" emergency food supply right now is the hominy grits. The corn kernels are cheap and they will keep for a long time when stored properly. I can grind up the corn in my manual grinder (so no need for electricity) and I can prepare a filling meal that requires only a couple of ingredients, minimum. Take, for example, part of tonight's dinner. We're having fried and breaded catfish nuggets with french fries, along with a side of hominy grits. These grits will only take up to 20 minutes to cook and I only need the grits and water. One cup of uncooked grits in my case makes about 3-4 cups of cooked grits. My grits are kind of bland without sugar or anything, but again, in an emergency situation, these grits will work wonderfully.

Another thought to consider is how you are going to cook your food. If you don't have solar panels (we don't), you'll need alternative energy for when your electricity or natural gas (or both!) goes out. In this case, we'll need firewood or charcoal. Without wood, we won't have any other way to cook other than to buy a bunch of propane bottles for our Coleman camping stove (or a propane tank for our larger outdoor stove).

We already have a few rechargeable batteries, but we'll need to buy more and they should be charged and ready. Headlamps or flashlights are a must, but candles will work, too, for some time.

Clean drinking water is also a necessity and is one of the first priorities in prepping. Those with private water wells will be lucky in that they will not need to depend on public water or in purchasing bottled water. But, they will need to make sure that their wells are kept uncontaminated. These thoughts might sound too outrageous, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared - even just a little prepared is better than nothing.

However, I have found so far that one of the best ways to prepare for any emergency event is to start thinking about these necessities right now. Life could be great, and normal, today - but tomorrow, it might be drastically different. Changing your mindset is maybe one of the most difficult challenges you'll face, but to open your mind right now could be life-changing for you later. You don't even have to be very gung-ho about prepping to be successful about it. Just be prepared.