Chemicals are added to food to preserve, flavor, thicken, or otherwise alter it in some desirable way. Used this way, the chemicals are called ‘food additives’. In other contexts the same chemicals may be considered industrial chemicals or pesticides.
For example, sulfites were banned by FDA in 1986 for use on fruits and vegetables that are eaten raw, but are still allowed as a preservative in cooked and processed foods, and they occur naturally in wines and beers. They are also approved by EPA as pesticides, to prevent fungus and preserve grape crops. When eaten in foods, they induce allergy-like reactions in many people (FDA estimates that 1 in 100 people are sensitive to sulfites in food). When FDA approved their use as a food additive in the 1970s, sulfites were deemed to be Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) and exempted from FDA premarket approval requirements.
In 1974, the FDA allowed asbestos-contaminated salt produced by one company, United Salt in Houston, to be sold as table salt, as GRAS. FDA had even received comments from the trade group Salt Institute that it had looked at this type of salt – called diaphragm salt – and seen asbestos fibers by optical microscopy. Only in response to public outrage did FDA do a proper analysis of the salt at outside labs, using the more powerful electron microscopy, whereupon tens of millions of asbestos fibers per gram was found and FDA revoked its approval.
The black box of FDA food regulations came under the spot light when technical experts at The Pew Charitable Trusts started working to answer these questions and others about how chemicals in our food are regulated.
Today, Pew released a report in the scientific journal Reproductive Toxicology reporting that less than 38% of over 8,000 FDA-regulated additives (including those added directly to food intentionally, and food contact materials that may contaminate foods) have a published feeding study. (Feeding studies comprise the basic toxicology test – the first test a scientist would do to evaluate the safety of a chemical additive.) For the direct additives (added intentionally to the food) only 21.6% (out of almost 4,000) have the feeding studies necessary to estimate a safe level of exposure, and only 6.7% have reproductive or developmental toxicity data in FDA’s database.
It appears FDA and companies were often making safety decisions by comparing one chemical to another rather than doing an actual toxicology study. They were building a house of cards based on assumptions and unsupported extrapolations instead of direct scientific evidence.
How did our food regulations go so terribly wrong? The Pew team has a few insights:
Once a chemical use is cleared to be added to the food supply, it is seldom re-assessed for ongoing safety. So, the manufacturer has no incentive to support additional toxicity testing. And the FDA doesn’t have the authority to require testing if it has questions about a chemical.
GRAS determinations are permitted to be made by the chemical manufacturer, not FDA (unless the additive affects food color). If the additive is self-determined to be GRAS by the company, then it can choose whether or not to alert the FDA about the new food additive. In other words, even reporting GRAS additives to FDA is voluntary. Had the company selling the asbestos-contaminated table salt opted not to notify FDA, it may have stayed on the market.
In fact, the Pew team believes that about one thousand food additives are in the food supply without FDA’s knowledge. An example is the 2010 debacle with caffeine-alcohol drinks marketed for young people without informing the FDA. The manufacturer had considered the additives to be GRAS, until alcoholic poisonings and blackouts resulted in public outrage and Congressional scrutiny.
A 2010 report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), providing Congressional oversight, called the whole messed-up GRAS process into question when it learned that engineered nanomaterials were being deemed GRAS food additives. GAO concluded that, “FDA does not know to what extent, or even whether, companies track evolving scientific information about their GRAS substances. FDA’s approach to regulating nanotechnology allows engineered nanomaterials to enter the food supply as GRAS substances without FDA’s knowledge.” It is disturbing that nanomaterials are deemed to be GRAS food additives, when the legal definition of GRAS is that there is, “a reasonably certainty in the minds of competent scientists that the substance is not harmful under the intended conditions of use”, and there is no scientific consensus on how to even test the toxicity or safety of nanomaterials.
Last week, the Pew team published a report in The Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine showing that “financial conflicts of interest are ubiquitous” in the process leading to determining that a chemical is GRAS. Considering the lack of toxicity data for thousands of chemicals (many of which are designated as GRAS) allowed in food, one wonders 1) who made the decision that they were safe and 2) whether their judgment was influenced by the manufacturer.
A commentary by Dr. Marion Nestle highlights the obvious conflicts of interest as one of the biggest problems with chemical food additive regulations (or lack thereof). She emphasizes the fact that Pew reported that all – that’s 100% – of the members of the expert panels that review food additives to make GRAS determinations have financial relationships with companies that manufacture the food additives being reviewed. Follow the money! (An editorial today in the prestigious journal Nature discusses the Pew study and highlights the problems of financial conflicts)
I’ve extensively documented the problem of chemical manufacturers testing the safety of their own products. It isn’t rocket science to think that a bias and a financial conflict may lead to a misrepresentation of the potential toxicity of a chemical. But, when those chemicals are intentionally added to the food supply, well, things just got a lot more serious!
This past spring, NRDC officially requested a copy of the FDA database of food additives that includes both the names of the chemicals and the basis for the FDA’s approving them for use in food. FDA failed to respond, so we had to file a lawsuit against FDA for this public information. What is FDA hiding from the public? Thanks to the Pew team, the public is starting to learn about failures in the food additives regulatory process.
Underwater Avalanche! Melting Ice Caps Could Trigger Tsunamis
Charles Q. Choi, OurAmazingPlanet Contributor | August 16, 2013
Example of a submarine landslide complex along the southern New England continental margin, about 100 miles (161 kilometers) south of Cape Cod, Mass. The 3D perspective includes the seafloor seismic imaging. The image highlights the relationships between the seafloor structure along the continental slope, such as shallow faults (black lines), and underwater landslides. Data used to construct this image were collected by the USGS and NOAA.
Credit: Daniel Brothers
If melting ice caps trigger rapid sea level rise, the strain that the edges of continents could experience might set off underwater landslides, new research suggests.
Submarine landslides happen on every continental margin, the underwater parts of continental plates bordering oceanic plates. These underwater avalanches, which can happen when underwater slopes get hit by earthquakes or otherwise have too much weight loaded onto them, can generate dangerous tsunamis.
A staggering half of all the Earth moved by submarine landslides over the past 125,000 years apparently happened between 8,000 and 15,000 years ago. “This time period coincides with the period of most rapid sea level rise following the end of the last ice age,” said study co-author Daniel Brothers, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Coastal and Marine Science Center in Woods Hole, Mass.
Since these prehistoric disasters coincided with changes in climate, previous research suggested natural global warming might have been their cause, but what exactly the link might be was unclear. To learn more, Brothers and his colleagues generated 3D computer models of the effects of 395 feet (120 meters) of sea level rise on the continental margins off North Carolina and Brazil’s Amazon coast
The rapid sea level rise that happened between 8,000 and 15,000 years ago was due to melting ice caps, which were originally hundreds to thousands of feet high. These glaciers placed weight on the planet’s rocky surface, building stress on faults in the Earth for millennia. The later thinning and retreat of these glaciers raised sea levels by about 395 feet, increasing the amount of pressure these critically stressed faults experienced across their entire length by an amount similar to that of the average human bite. This would be enough pressure to set off the faults, triggering underwater landslides, the models showed.
The scientists added that such underwater landslides could have helped release vast quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas, from the seabed. This could have, in turn, driven profound changes in the oceans and the atmosphere, such as the warming of the climate.
Brothers and his colleagues Karen Luttrell and Jason Chaytor detailed their findings online July 22 in the journal Geology.
Kelvin-Helmoltz Clouds: Rolling Waves in the Sky (PHOTOS)
By: Chris Dolce
Published: August 15, 2013
Kelvin-Helmholtz breaking wave cloud over Laramie, Wyo. (NOAA/Brooks Martner)
Though it looks like someone painted the sky with breaking ocean waves in the collection of photos above, there’s a very good atmospheric explanation for what is really happening.
The rolling, wave-like cloud formations are called Kelvin-Helmoltz clouds. Sometimes they are also called billows. They are named for scientists Lord Kelvin and Hermann von Helmholtz, who discovered the process by which they form.
Severe Weather Expert Dr. Greg Forbes of The Weather Channel says, “They are the atmospheric equivalent of those great breaking waves that you sometimes see on the ocean.”
These breaking atmospheric waves occur in an environment with a large amount of vertical wind shear and stable air. Wind shear is a change in the speed and direction of winds as you go higher in the atmosphere.
In this case, winds at the top of the cloud layer are moving faster than the base of that same layer. This causes the top to crash downwards in a curling manner after it hits the stable layer above.
The rolling motion created by this type of wind shear also causes turbulence for aircraft.
However, the rolling clouds motions are often masked by a large amount of cloud cover. Other times, there are no clouds around to illustrate the wave pattern.
This is a day for closure. Closure can happen in many different areas and many different ways. You will know it when you encounter it. There can be some emotions attached to these things, so keep the tissues handy. The nice thing about endings is that they are merely entryways into new beginnings, and you have been wanting to make some changes. You just were not sure how to do it. You also needed the push to get started in that direction. The day’s energies can give you that impetus to move forward into different areas. There is a bit of the Trickster about also, so you can find yourself encountering some surprises along the way.
Dissolving Illusions is a powerful new book written by Roman Bystrianyk and Suzanne Humphries, MD
There’s a new book out. It’s called Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History. The biggest illusion is quite simple and is the basis for the entire book and what the book ultimately proves. Before I continue, answer this true-or-false question:
Throughout history, vaccines have been responsible for the increase in life expectancy, and drastically reduced the death toll from infectious diseases.
If you said false, you are correct. Vaccines were not responsible for the increase in life expectancy or the major drop in mortality from infectious diseases.
Another question.
True or false: Clean water, nutrition, hygiene, and sanitation were responsible for the eradication of all of many infectious diseases.
This is true, which Dissolving Illusions clearly shows. This single fact makes the following question easy to answer.
True or false: The vaccine program in this country is based on a false premise.
Absolutely true. Really think about this. Diseases like cholera and typhoid all but vanished before the introduction of any vaccine. Therefore, vaccines could not have been responsible for the eradication of these diseases.
But wait. I was told my whole life that vaccines are absolutely necessary to protect us from awful diseases. How can it not be true?
It’s Basic History 101
In the 1800s and 1900s, many people in the United States lived in poverty and filth. In small, overcrowded, dark houses with rats, roaches, mosquitoes, and other vermin. Streets were filled with sewage and garbage and dead animals—often as much as two to three feet deep in places like New York City. Food and drinking water were diseased.
People were malnourished. They didn’t have clean running water and flush toilets. When they became sick, they ended up in hospitals that were also dirty and unsanitary, lacking in basic hygiene such as handwashing and instrument sterilization and isolating the sick.
Many worked long hours in dirty, unsafe conditions, without fresh air, exercise, and rest. Even children labored to the point of illness and sometimes death. Epidemics were rampant, with millions dying from diseases like typhoid fever, cholera, dysentery, diphtheria, pertussis, scarlet fever, measles, yellow fever, tuberculosis, puerperal fever, and smallpox. Mortality was high, and life expectancy was low.
This is the forgotten history. This is what was responsible for the spread of disease. This is the truth.
Then came the Sanitation Revolution. Everything changed. Sewage and waste was properly disposed of. Clean drinking water was mandated. Food was inspected and handled properly so it was no longer contaminated. Milk was pasteurized. Labor laws were passed to protect workers. Basic hygiene was implemented. In many countries, life became cleaner, safer, and better.
Another piece of the forgotten history is the lost remedies. Vitamins, cinnamon, garlic, echinacea, jicama, fresh juice, apple cider vinegar, cod liver oil, silver, and other natural supplements were used to treat infectious diseases. And guess what? They worked very well.
The result? By 1940, deaths from measles, scarlet fever, pertussis, and diphtheria were practically a thing of the past. Deaths from scarlet fever—a bigger killer—were almost unheard of by the early 1900s, even before antibiotics were used to treat it. Tuberculosis, pneumonia, flu … same thing. When they surfaced, they were much milder. Mortality was rare. That’s a fact.
And this is important. This happened during a time when there was an almost zero vaccination rate.
How Can Such a Fundamental Truth be Forgotten (Or Ignored)?
As far back as the 1700s, although vaccines were being pushed, numerous medical journals questioned their safety and effectiveness. They cited the statistics. The mortality rates. The fact that they could be contaminated and often led to more disease than they prevented.
As Dissolving Illusions explores, questioning vaccines was not without consequences. Doctors who spoke out were ignored and sometimes threatened. Parents who refused to obey vaccination laws were prosecuted, fined, and even imprisoned. Eventually, there were protests. And eventually, the laws began to change.
“Unfortunately, the flawed belief that vaccines and other medical advances were responsible for this amazing decline has dictated how infectious diseases are treated today. Instead of an emphasis on hygiene, nutrition, and appropriate vitamin supplementation, immune system support, and natural remedies, the emphasis is always on costly antibiotics, vaccinations, and other medical procedures.” (pp. 220–221)
Here’s another fact. People who have healthy immune systems—because of basic necessities like sanitation, hygiene, clean water, and nutrition—are able to fight diseases. Vaccines do not cause immunity to disease and, in fact, harm the immune system. What makes you immune to a disease? The disease.
Fear is a powerful motivator. The thought of a child coming down with a “dreaded disease” is scary. Consider the story of polio that the book covers at length. The pictures of children in iron lungs—that frightening reminder of the crippling effects of the disease.
But what is missing, what we aren’t told, is that people who were crippled and paralyzed often suffered from something else, such as DDT or arsenic poisoning or even syphilis. We also aren’t told that polio was never eradicated with a vaccine.
The irony is that the very existence of a vaccine makes the fear greater. If there is a vaccine to prevent the disease, the disease must be pretty scary.
And those who promote vaccines cover all the bases.
“When vaccine programs don’t live up to their promises, the blame is always placed on the unvaccinated, or a new angle is drawn to the tune of ‘five vaccines per child may not be enough.’ By sleight of hand—changing the diagnosis of old-time polio to AFP [acute flaccid paralysis]—any ongoing paralysis will be covered while the dimes continue to roll in.” (p. 289)
Conclusion
Even if you believe vaccines are safe, Dissolving Illusions should make it crystal clear that they are not necessary. If they are not necessary, why do our children receive more than four dozen by the time they go to school?
There are only so many possible explanations. I suppose some doctors still believe in them. After all, they’ve been indoctrinated since they first set foot in medical school. Big Pharma is a powerful—not to mention rich—force. And I guess it’s possible that the FDA, CDC, and other agencies believe the “studies” they see quoted. After all, the statistics are skewed to say whatever the authors want them to say. It’s also possible that some doctors don’t believe in vaccines and don’t vaccinate their own children but keep quiet.
How many times have you heard your doctor say, “Vaccines prevent horrible diseases and sometimes death?” I know that, until my grandson Jake regressed into autism from rabies vaccines, I believed wholeheartedly in vaccines. I believed everything I read about all those horrible, deadly diseases and dutifully took my daughters for their vaccines when they were little. I couldn’t wait to get my flu shot every fall. I accepted it all without question. I never had a reason to question it. Until my family suffered the indescribable agony of watching Jake disappear into a black hole.
Don’t let your child developing autism or suffering any injury after a vaccine be your reason to question the safety of the vaccine program. Do it now. Read Dissolving Illusions. If you don’t do anything else, look at the graphs. (You can see these on the web site, www.dissolvingillusions.com.) Consider the history. The science. Not someone’s opinion, but the facts. This book is the result of 20 years of research. It presents the truth.
Remember this: There is no evidence to support the theory that vaccines are necessary, and “safety” studies are absent or flawed. Doctors have pushed vaccines since the 1700s, but they have yet to study vaccinated versus unvaccinated children. If they are so sure their vaccines are effective and necessary and safe, why haven’t they done this study to put parents’ minds to rest? The answer is simple. They don’t need to do the study. They already know the truth. They don’t want us to know it.
Draw your own conclusions. And be willing to accept the fact that what you’ve been told all your life and believed without question just might not be true. Your child’s health and life depends on it. He depends on you to make informed, healthy, safe decisions. He can’t do it himself.
– See more at: http://vactruth.com/2013/08/02/dissolving-illusions/#sthash.0lbmSl0L.dpuf
Fukushima now in state of emergency, leaking 300 tons of radioactive water into the ocean daily
(NaturalNews) Japan’s nuclear watchdog has now declared the leak of radioactive water from Fukushima a “state of emergency.” Each day, 300 tons of radioactive water seeps into the ocean, and it’s now clear that TEPCO has engage in a two-and-a-half-year cover-up of immense magnitude.
“I believe it’s been leaking into the ocean from the start of the crisis two-and-a-half years ago,” disclosed a 12-year TEPCO veteran named Suzuki-san (SOURCE)
“There are still reactor buildings we haven’t gotten into yet,” said another worker named Fujimoto-san. “So there’s always the possibility of another explosion…”
TEPCO workers sprayed with wildly radioactive water while waiting for a bus
Just how out of control is the situation at Fukushima? It’s so out of control that TEPCO recently had to admit 10 of its workers were somehow — yeah, see if you can figure this out — sprayed with highly radioactive water while waiting for a bus.
“The workers’ exposure above the neck was found to be as much as 10 becquerels per square centimeter,” reports Bloomberg.com
How exactly did highly radioactive water manage to find its way to a bus stop in the first place? TEPCO isn’t sure. It’s confusing with all those radiation alarms going off all the time. In order to concentrate, the company has found it’s easier to just disable all the alarms and pretend nothing’s wrong.
The TEPCO cover-up
To fully grasp the extent of the TEPCO denial, realize that only recently did the company finally admit that radioactive groundwater has been leaking into the ocean. This follows years of stark denials from the company, whose executes have exhibited a remarkable ability to deny reality even when their own workers are dying in droves from cancer.
It’s no exaggeration to say that TEPCO’s downplaying of the full extent of the Fukushima disaster has put tens of millions of lives at risk — people who should have been warned about radiation but were denied that information due to the TEPCO cover-up.
“At this current time in July of 2013, Fukushima is 80 to 100x more expansive and more intense — letting out about 100x more of the radiation of Chernobyl,” reports Dr. Simon Atkins Phoenix Rising Radio on a BlogTalkRadio interview.
“The problem with Fukushima is that it’s not only continuing for 865 days… I mean, let’s wrap our minds around that for a second — it has been leaking out radiation in increasing volumes for 865 days.”
Japan is a society that shuns whistleblowers
Why has TEPCO been able to cover up the truth about Fukushima for so long? Because Japan is a society of mass conformity. The idea of keeping your head down and not “rocking the boat” is deeply embedded in Japanese culture.
Japan is not a nation of “rugged individualism” but of conformist acquiescence.
As a result, whistleblowers are shunned, and there is immense peer pressure to defend the status quo… even when it’s a terrible lie. This culture of conformity at all costs is precisely what allows companies like TEPCO to continue operating extremely dangerous nuclear power plants with virtually no accountability.
While Japan has entire museums dedicated to the horrifying history of two Japanese cities being bombed by the United States at the end of World War II, when Japan’s own power company is involved in a radiological disaster of similar magnitude, the entire incident gets swept under the rug. Radiation? What radiation? If the government says there’s no radiation, then there’s no radiation! After all, it’s invisible!
Why the U.S. government plays along with the cover-up
The U.S. government, of course, plays along with the charade because its own top weapons manufacturer — General Electric — designed and built the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in the first place. And the design decisions made by GE, such as storing spent fuel rods in large pools high above the ground, now look not just incompetent but downright idiotic. It turns out there was never any long-term plan to dispose of the spent fuel rods. The idea was to just let them build up over time until someone else inherited the problem.
So while Japan and the USA play this game of “let’s all pretend nothing happened,” citizens of both countries continue to be exposed to a relentless wave of deadly radiation that now dwarfs the total radiation release of Chernobyl (which the U.S. media played up in a huge way because the disaster made the Russians look incompetent).
The only reason TEPCO is finally getting around to admitting the truth in all this is because you can’t rig all the Geiger counters forever. Radiation follows the laws of physics and atomic decay, not the whims of lying politicians and bureaucrats. As a result, the real story eventually comes out as we’re starting to see right now.
The Fukushima disaster is likely to get far worse, if you can believe that
The upshot is that the Fukushima disaster is not only far worse than you’ve been told; it’s very likely going to be worse than you could ever imagine. The radiation leak isn’t plugged, in other words, and another explosion — which many experts believe might be imminent — would release thousands of times more nuclear material into the open environment.
Ultimately, the entire Northern hemisphere has been placed at risk by a bunch of corporate bureaucrats who thought building a nuclear facility in the path of a sure-to-happen tidal wave was a fantastic idea. Instead of acknowledging the problem and working to fix it like a responsible person would, our world’s top politicians and ass-coverers have decided it is in their best short-term interests to play along with the TEPCO fairy tale which ridiculously pretends that radioactive leaks can be controlled by wishful thinking.
Remember: Governments can lie about the national debt, health care costs, inflation and unemployment, but they cannot lie about radiation for very long. Sooner or later the physics of it all simply cannot be denied.
People often ask where my ideas and where my knowledge comes from. When that happens, I chuckle a bit to myself because, just like the person asking, my knowledge comes from a variety of sources: first hand experience, books, online forums and of course, Backdoor Survival readers. So you see, it is not that I am more clever than everyone else but rather that I have taken my passion for preparedness and made it an active part of my life.
That leads me to the topic for today’s article.
Following my own article on Five Minute Prepping Projects, I asked readers to submit their own tips – namely something that we all can do to prep that takes 10 minutes or less. There were some really good suggestions and so I thought I would share some of them here so that everyone can learn from them.
Ten-Minute Prepping Tips from Backdoor Survival Readers
1. There are many times when trouble strikes and we have to deal with only what we have on our person and in our pockets. A BOB* is a luxury that might not be with us when the unexpected comes along, so I like to make sure I have a minimum of things on me before I leave the house even for a trip to the grocery.
Here’s what I carry, you’ll have to adjust for your own needs: 1) A small pocket knife, 2) A multi-tool, 3) A cigarette lighter, 4) A dozen Kleenex, 5) Chapstick, 6) A one quart Ziploc bag, 7) A black sharpie, 8) A small bottle of hand sanitizer, 9) Wallet with emergency cash and id cards, and 10) Keys, with small flashlight on keychain.
I can carry all of that in jeans or short pockets no problem, and its amazing how handy I find each of those items to be in day to day activities. In an emergency they could really make a difference.
2. The most important thing to have in a survival situation is water. The ten-minute thing I did was to buy extensions for the gutter down spout. At the time I put them in, I had a back yard above ground pool. Kids all gone now, pool gone, but I now have 10 55-gallon barrels.
3. Check your supplies and rotate them out as the expiration date comes due. Stock the foods you like, because if you don’t like a certain food, you won’t eat it.
4. I like to can water after using my canning jars in the winter. I then have good water if the electricity goes down and also if there is a drought in the summer, I will have water for canning.
5. My 10 minute prepping tip is to save all of your dryer lint in a zip food bag. Squeeze it down, roll it up and place it in your bug out kit.
6. My very first prepping project was getting a plastic tote box ready for myself for the vehicle. I went by the list in the book “Survival Mom” so it is packed full with a little extra than a BOB. Then my very next priority was another box fixed up for my mother who is 86 years old. She still drives and either she or someone else will be able to help with this very good vehicle emergency box. Survival is a daily challenge in northern Wisconsin.
7. The every-three-month 10-minute prep activity I do religiously is rotate my prescription meds. I have two weeks in my purse, 3 days in my 72 hour kit, 3 days in my car kit, and 3 days in my comprehensive medical kit. If it takes you longer than ten minutes to do this, you need to practice knowing where all these items are stashed!
8. The 10 min DIY water distillery: Using two, one liter clear soda bottles. Put 1/4 inch holes in both caps, insert 1/4 inch clear tubing thru each cap and down into each bottle (about 5-7 feet of tubing). Secure each cap onto bottles. Fill one 3/4 with water you want to distill, bring tubing about 1/2 inch from top. place in sunlight. Bring the tubing to the bottom of other bottle and place it in shade.
As the sun heats up the water and the water goes into a gas, expanding and going into the bottle in shade, it cools down and turns back into water, filling the bottle in shade, with clear drinkable water. This can also be used to remove salt from saltwater. Place a black band of tape around the input bottle, making sure not to mix them up.
9. Rinse out used soda bottles and fill with water. Save them for when the water is turned off or long term storage.
10. Dip cotton balls in petroleum jelly and put in a baggie or small plastic container (recycle old pill bottles) for your bug out bag. These make great fire starters and they burn long and hot.
11. My 10 minute tip: pack a small ‘emergency’ kit for your purse/pocket that you carry every day. Items to include *could* be a small flashlight (some LED ones are very tiny & bright), a few bandages, a BIC-type lighter, pocket knife, safety pins, pencil/pen, small notebook/Post-It notepad, paperclip, a paracord ‘survival’ bracelet, printable pamphlet of survival ‘tips’ (several available on the internet). Visit your local Red Cross for preparedness tips for your area. Often they have TONS of FREE information specific to your location to help families prepare BEFORE a problem arises.
12. Take quick check of your food supply, once a storm catches you by surprise, it’s too late, and it only takes a few minutes to make a quick list of the basic canned goods that you need to replace, better safe than sorry!
13. We all probably think that our BOB has what we need in it, and maybe it does. Take a quick look in it and see if there is some place to add a little easy redundancy, remembering that three is one and one is none. I took a Ziploc bag and put in it: a small candle, a pill vial with Vaseline in it, another pill vial stuffed with dryer lint, a disposable lighter and a magnifying glass. Easy to do and now I have several ways to start a fire in addition to the matches and the fire steel already in the bag without adding even a pound to the weight of the bag. I know there are a lot of other easy additions that can increase redundancy in all of our bags.
14. Never be without toilet paper. Put 4 rolls in 2 gallon Ziplocs and put 1 bag in each car, one in the garage, one under each sink in the house. That way, regardless of what disaster occurs – TP will be there.
15. Take ten minutes a day or even a week and learn how to use the things you have been accumulating for emergencies. This month I have been using the solar oven and rocket stove. Much easier to use the fifth time than the first.
16. Buy a large bottle of 5 to 10-percent iodine solution and transfer into those small, handy travel spray containers. Put one in each first aid kit in each bug-out bag. Besides being a disinfectant and medical treatment of cuts, a few drops per liter will purify water as well as keep thyroid function humming along in the absence of iodized salt.
17. Not a total of 10 minutes, but a great prep tip I have is to buy extra lumber, fasteners, nails, whenever you have a DIY project, and save the extra in your new “Mini-Lumberyard”!
18. Arrange to have a prepping partner call you randomly during the week and give you a surprise emergency drill of some kind. You have ten minutes to begin responding. Next week, return the favor.
19. Carry a small bottle of iodine and a small bottle of bleach with you in your bug out bag in the event you have to drink questionable water in your travels. Just add a bit to your canteen, shake it and let it be for a while and you are good to go. They have iodine pills but, take it from me being ex military; they taste bad but with this method it will do the job better and the water will not taste that bad.
20. Weigh your BOB. Put it on and carry it around the house. How long can you go without stopping? If it is too heavy which it is likely to be, here are a couple of things that you might consider doing: 1..Pack a half dozen of those freebie cloth satchels with handles in with the BOB. This way depending on how many people may be with you when you actually need to pack the BOB you can distribute the weight among everyone.
21. Make a list of the most important items to take with you if you are alone and safety pin that to the top of the BOB. In a real emergency you will not have time to think it through and you are likely to be too stressed to make the right choices. If alone, you must keep the weight down to a poundage that you can carry for long term.
22. I think my favorite quick prep is making a waterproof match container out of a mason jar. Glue a piece of sandpaper to the lid, fill the jar with stick matches, add a candle, tighten down the ring and there you have it. I’m sure the same could be done with a plastic jar if you’re worried about breakage but I like the decorative little mason jars spread around the house. I took the time to waterproof my matches but I don’t believe that’s necessary.
23. I take 10 minutes on Mondays to do a quick check of my food storage to make sure I add needed items to the grocery list. This keeps things pretty up-to-date for me.
24. Keep a running inventory of ammunition so you keep a good assortment on hand and track what you use. A little extra can be good for barter.
25. Most of us have items that use batteries. Flashlights, radios, etc. I have a laminated list of the items that I keep in my prep, with a section just for things that need to be rotated. Quarterly, I grab the rotation list and swap out old batteries for new. The batteries I take out of my prep kit are usually still good, so I put them into use in normal, everyday equipment. It takes almost no time, and makes sure I have good batteries everywhere I need them, not just my prep kit.
26. Every time I go to the grocery store, I add an extra $10 of items for my food storage.
27. Make a small fishing kit, cheap and easy. Take a small tin (preferably a round candy mint tin). Add fishing line, hooks, sinkers, small artificial bait and a couple of snubbers. (A snubber is a piece of surgical tubing with fishing line going down the center and clasps on each end to tie your fishing line to. You can pick this up at most any store that sells fishing gear).
If you need to use your fishing kit and do not have a breakdown or telescoping fishing pole you will probably be using a branch. A branch will not have the same flexibility as a fishing pole. Tie your fishing line to the end of your flexible branch (the length of line will be determined by your situation). Tie the other end to your snubber. On the other end of your snubber tie your leader (about 18″ to 24″ of fishing line) then tie on your hook. Add your sinker to the fishing line on the pole / branch side of the snubber about 12″ from the snubber. Add bait and you are set.
I have added the snubbers to my kit, because it acts like a shock absorber when you have a fish on the line. This has helped me to land the fish and not break off the hook or line due to not having the flexibility of a proper fishing pole.
28. I’ve been through two hurricanes here on the Gulf coast in recent years. Water, all you can reasonably store, is a must, along with some way to purify it if need be. I’ve carried a pocket knife for more years than I can remember, and in recent years I’ve started carrying a multi-tool. I always have a roll of toilet paper inside a zip-lock bag under the back seat of my truck. I also save dryer lint to use as tinder.
29. Gather up a few cans of veggies, fruits, and meats along with a jar of peanut butter. Store in your vehicle (under seat, in trunk) Throw in a “good” manual can opener or something strong enough to cut the lid in emergency. Can be eaten without heating or cooking.
30. Freeze and store milk in its container. I have been doing it for years with two pint semi-skimmed milk ones, full fat (cream) is not so good as the fat separates when defrosted. These have been handy already in extended power cuts as the freezer keeps cold, as does the fridge if you put a frozen one on the top shelf. It takes about twelve hours to defrost at 60F and the frozen milk lasts indefinitely in my experience, although I still rotate.
31. Get a caravan size chemical toilet and some Elsan Blue or Eco Green fluid as well for when there’s no sanitation or main water to flush the loo. This is one essential that is often overlooked.
32. You can fix up a go-bag a few moments at time by leaving it open in a place you will see it (I myself am an out-of-sight-out-of-mind person), say a corner of the kitchen, and dropping in the things you want to have at the ready. On laundry day, drop in clean socks and undies. On grocery day, buy a few easy to eat nibbles (that you like) – tuna in a pouch, nuts, dry fruit, plus a bottle of water and drop them in the bag. Make a list of other things you need to think about: first aid kit, flashlight, etc. As you go to the hardware store, purchase these things, drop them in the bag when you get home. This is your basic backpack which you can modify according to your needs (weather, for instance).
33. Place a pair of shoes, socks, work gloves, a whistle, and a light stick or flashlight with batteries under your bed for use during or after an emergency. Add to this a mobile phone to call for assistance, spare house and car keys in case you have to get out of the house from an upstairs window and need to get back inside to put out small fires safely with extinguishers you have placed at door exits. I also have a spare set of old clothes, shoes and a blanket packed in a suitcase in the caravan in the garden along with an emergency supply of bottled water and food in pull tab tins. A dry shed or outhouse would suffice for this no doubt.
34. Unless your home is 100% all electric, get a carbon monoxide alarm if you don’t already have one. And even then it’s not a bad idea as in an emergency you may want to use a propane device, and it’ll hopefully keep you from dying from the CO.
35. Stock up on calcium chloride ice melt. Get a 50# bag and fill the empty milk jugs with it. Keep one jug in each car.
36. Hurricane matches. Get a bunch. They aren’t cheap, but they’re the best.
37.GMRS/FRS radio. Regular CBs can become clogged with radio traffic. A good brand can also provide encryption so you can have private discussion with family. Depending on the make and model, it may come with frequencies that require a license. In emergencies I doubt the FCC will chase you down. And in regular times, I doubt they will chase you down if you’re not being obnoxious.
38. In addition to a flash drive, open a free “cloud” service account, many of which will give you 5-10 gigabytes of storage. An alternative to that would be to open up a new e-mail account, on Yahoo/Gmail/etc, and e-mail the documents to yourself. Unsure of what to make for a new username for an e-mail account? Take your first name + “documents” (i.e. “BillDocuments”), and use your last name as the password.
This way, if your house (and flash drive) are lost in a tornado/earthquake/fire/etc, you can still access those documents from, say, a public library computer.
39. Another tip along with freezing jugs with water to place in the freezer, is to fill a 2 liter bottle about 1/3 full. Freeze it upright, then lay it on its side. If you come home from vacation, and the water is frozen at the bottom (sideways) in the bottle then the power was off long enough that the food may have spoiled.
The Final Word
I have always maintained that Backdoor Survival readers are the most creative and resourceful folks on the internet when it comes to basic, common sense preparedness. No fear mongering types here – just ordinary folks doing their best to take care of themselves, their families and their comfort and safety, no matter what happens down the road.
I tip my hat to you.
Enjoy your next adventure through common sense and thoughtful preparation!
Gaye
[*] For the uninitiated, BOB refers to a Bug Out Bag, a portable kit containing the items you would need to survive for the first 72 hours after evacuating an emergency.
You already know how fear can paralyze you personally and professionally, rob you of your joy, and keep you from going after your dreams. But did you know it can also make you sick? Whenever your mind feels fear, it triggers the “fight-or-flight” stress response in your body, which disables your body’s natural self-repair mechanisms and makes you more susceptible to illness. But never fear (no pun intended). Here are a few tips for living a healthier, happier life by overcoming fear.
Understand that fear is primal.
It originates from the lizard brain of your amygdala and exists as an adaptive mechanism meant to save your life. But in modern society, fear is a warning signal gone haywire. Most of what you fear – losing a loved one, money, or a relationship, for example – isn’t actually threatening your life, though it may be threatening your sense of security. You may not be able to ditch the emotion of fear, but you can make the choice not to let it run the show anymore.
Assess your fears to determine whether they’re helpful or harmful
If you’re afraid of crashing on the rocks when you consider jumping off a cliff, your fear is probably valid. But if you’re afraid to write the book you dream of writing because you’re afraid of failure, fear is only getting the way. Sometimes fear shows up as a valuable intuition, but often, it’s just an agent of self-sabotage. Learning to tell the difference can make all the difference.
Recognize that fear often masquerades as protection
Consider how many times you make decisions because of the “just in case.” Remember that “just in case” is fear masquerading as self-preservation. But it’s still fear, and it’s still harmful to your health.
Consciously dissociate from fear
Once you realize that fear often hurts you more than it protects you, and once you realize that fear is a primal emotion originating from your lizard brain, it’s easier to notice your fear from a distance, rather than letting it have its way with you and dictate your decisions. Try giving your fear a name. (I call mine “The Gremlin” and Martha Beck calls it her “Inner Lizard.”) Visualize it as a beast separate from you. Then pat it on the head and reassure it that you’ve assessed the situation, all is well, and there’s no need to be frightened.
Identify the voice of your faith
Then invite your faith to beat the crap out of your fear. Once you can identify the voice of your fear, see if you can tap into the voice of your faith. (I call it your “Inner Pilot Light” , that always radiant, perpetually sparkly, totally authentic voice that’s always inside of you.)
Trust that, no matter what happens, you can handle it
Susan Jeffers, author of Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway, says that beneath all our other fears lies one root fear – “I can’t handle it.” But deep down, you know you can. Trust that deep knowing.
Ask for guidance
If you can’t identify who should win – your Gremlin or your Inner Pilot Light, seek Divine guidance. Ask for Signs from the Universe and learn to interpret the answers.
Surround yourself with courageous people
When you surround yourself with fearful people, they can’t help projecting their fears onto you, and you can get dragged down into the muck unwittingly. But when brave people who take risks surround you, you’ll feel inspired to be more brave yourself.
When you tap into your faith and find your courage, you’re likely to still feel fear, but you’ll no longer be ruled by it. When you tap into your faith and learn to overcome your fears, your brain halts the stress response and triggers the relaxation response. When the relaxation response is activated, the body can once again heal itself.
Are You Ready To Be Brave?
What fear is holding you back? What courageous action can you take today to show your fear to the door?
Why are we attracted to specific colors and what do they mean spiritually?
Visible Light Frequencies
According to David Icke, we are only capable of seeing a limited range of colors and we are unable to see the frequency range beyond visible light. Icke believes that certain races of extraterrestrial beings called Reptilians operate on a different frequency outside visible light and manipulate our current reality through Illuminati families.
Colors Beyond The Veil
Through Near Death Experiences, we have heard numerous times about people who temporarily passed on to the other side and upon their return, have stated that they saw various indescribable colors that we are unable to see within our current light frequency.
Photoreceptor Cells
Many people believe that dogs can only see in black and white, but the truth is, they can see limited colors as they only have approximately 20% of the cone photoreceptor cells that humans have. Photoreceptor cells are the part of the eye that controls our perception of color.
Chakras
Our bodies have seven energy receptors of life force and prana called chakras. Each chakra vibrates and responds to a different color. The word, chakra, is Sanskrit and means “wheel” or “turning, but in yogic context, chakra means ‘vortex’ or ‘whirlpool’.
In her book, True Balance, by Sonia Choquette, she mentions how to use the color green if you are sad or depressed. A non-spiritual description of this color is often associated with envy (as in green with envy) but Choquette advises to go outside in nature and observe all of the ‘green’ around you because through nature and the predominance of the color green, it will lift your spirits.
“When the heart center is balanced, we actually establish energetic resonance with others, entering into a common vibration. We’ve all had these spontaneous heart-based connections, such as when we encounter someone we instantly like or feel as though we’ve known in the past. The Universe is a hologram aware of all of its parts at all times, and when we move into our heart chakra, we shift into this holographic vibration. This allows the Universe to fill any void that we may be experiencing in our life, giving us exactly what we need, brining us our heart’s desire.”
Your lower three chakras govern your physical drives and urges in this 3rd dimensional reality while the upper four chakras are more spiritual
in nature. In order to clearly access the upper four chakras, one needs to work on his or her lower three chakras through ‘chakra clearing’.
I have several Himalayan Salt Lamps which exude an orangish-yellow color and help to keep my lower chakras in balance while eliminating negative ions within a specific range of my lamps. My daughter has a slight case of asthma which is immediately eradicated when she’s near her Himalayan salt lamp. When lit, the color of the Himalayan Salt Lamp strongly resonates with your sacral and solar plexus chakras.
Honoring The Elements
Many indigenous cultures not only honor all aspects of life, but directions as well. Each direction of north, south, east and west have a corresponding element and color:
Candle Colors and Wicca
Colors play a strong role for those who are of the Wicca faith:
Brown – Used for: Animals, comfort, security, home, centering, hesitation, neutrality, uncertainty, invoking the earth for benefit. Deity of brown candles- Gaia, Dagda, Danu.
Indigo – Used for: Deep relaxation, restful sleep, to invoke the righteous spirit in you when doing good work. Deity of indigo candles – Brigid.
Gold – Used for: Wealth, generosity, prosperity, sun magic. Deity of gold candles – Lugh, Pwyll, Balor.
Silver – Used for: Intuition, dreams, cancellation, neutrality, stalemate.
Dark Blue – Used for: Impulsiveness, depression, changeability, to create confusion (use with white candles or you can create confusion in self). Deity of white candles – Dwynn.
Greenish Yellow – Used for: Sickness, cowardice, anger, jealousy, discord
Blue Back – Used for: Wounded pride, broken bones, angelic protection. Deity of blue black candles – Diantach
Dark Purple – Used for: Calling the power of ancient ones, sigils/runes, government. Deity of dark purple candles – Magog.
Red – Used for: Health, strength, physical energy, sexual love, passion, courage, protection, vitality, creativity.
Light Red – Used for: Deep affection of a non-sexual nature. Deity of light red candles – Brittannia.
Pink – Used for: Love, romance, honor, morality, friendship, compassion, relaxation, binding magic, young females. Deity of pink candles – Aeval, Epona.
Orange – Used for: General attraction, energy, assertiveness, endurance, encouragement, adaptability, stimulation, to seal a spell. Deity of orange candles – Gubba.
Blue – Used for: Protection. Deity of blue candles – Angus.
Green – Used for: Prosperity, employment, fertility, honey, healing, growth, nuturing love, finance, luck, agriculture, invoking the Goddess of regeneration. Deity of green candles – Bomba.
Mint green – Used for: Financial gains, used with gold or silver. Deity of mint green candles – Pridderi
Light green – Used for: To improve the weather. Deity of light green candles – Tyrannis.
Light blue – Used for: Healing, peace, psychicism, patience, happiness, inner peace, friendship, tranquility, understanding, protection of home, young men, protection of new buildings. Deity of light blue candles – Hertha.
Purple – Used for: Power, healing severe disease, spirituality, meditation, religion, inner power, tension, ambition, business progress. source
Crystals and Gemstones
Certain colored gemstones and crystals have specific properties and benefits, many of which align to either your chakras or to similar descriptive benfits as the candle colors:
While some people may be able to pass a lie detector test, your aura will never lie. According to wiki, the aura is “a field of subtle, luminous radiation surrounding a person”.
The colors of your aura reflect the same colors as your chakras. For example, if your aura is red, orange or yellow, it shows that there are some physical, mental or sexual areas in your life that need addressing. Once your lower root chakras are balanced, you’ll begin seeing an aura that will be green, blue, indigo or violet, which correspond to the heart, throat, 3rd eye and crown chakra. While many people will have differing opinions on the ideal aura color, it is this writer’s opinion that green shows the most balance. Please keep in mind that there are no “bad” aura colors as each color has a lesson to teach us about ourselves.
The colors you use in every day life, whether they are in the clothes you’re wearing right now, the color of your car or even the color you painted your walls, can tell a lot about you.
Tropical wave 92L crossed over Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula overnight, and the center of the disturbance is now located in the Gulf of Mexico along the west coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. Satellite loops show that 92L has a well-developed surface circulation, but there are no heavy thunderstorms near the center. A moderate-sized region of heavy thunderstorms does lie to the northeast and east of the center, over Cancun, Cozumel, and southwards to Belize. An upper-level low pressure system over the Gulf of Mexico is pumping dry air into 92L, slowing development. Wind shear is a moderate 10 – 20 knots over the the wave, which should allow slow development today. The hurricane hunter flight scheduled for today has been cancelled.
Figure 1. Latest satellite image of Invest 92L over the Gulf of Mexico.
Forecast for 92L
The 12Z Friday SHIPS model forecast predicts that 92L will remain in an area of low to moderate wind shear through Saturday, and ocean temperatures will be a favorable 29 – 30°C. The topography of the Southern Gulf of Mexico’s Bay of Campeche can aid in getting a storm spinning more readily, as well. Given these favorable conditions for intensification, 92L should be able to become a tropical depression by Saturday, and a tropical storm by Sunday. A trough of low pressure over the northern Gulf of Mexico will dip down by Sunday over the Central Gulf of Mexico, increasing the wind shear to a high 20 – 30 knots just to the north of 92L. This trough may also be able to pull the storm northwestwards to a landfall in Texas on Monday or Tuesday, as the 00Z Friday runs of UKMET and NAVGEM model predict. If 92L does follow this more northwesterly path, intensification into a strong tropical storm would be difficult, due to the high wind shear. An alternate scenario is presented by our two top-performing models, the European and GFS. They predict that 92L will take a nearly due west track, resulting in a landfall south of Tampico, Mexico on Monday. The storm would have more of an opportunity to strengthen in this scenario, since wind shear would be lower. Either scenario is reasonable, and residents of the Mexican and Texas Gulf Coast should anticipate the possibility of a tropical storm hitting the coast as early as Sunday night. Regardless of 92L’s track, a flow of moist tropical air along the storm’s eastern flank will form an atmospheric river of moisture that will bring a wide swath of 4+ inches of rain to the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle over the next few days. In their 8 am EDT Wednesday Tropical Weather Outlook, NHC gave 92L a 50% of developing by Sunday, and a 60% chance of developing by Wednesday. I put these odds higher, at 70% and 80%, respectively.
Figure 2. MODIS satellite image of Tropical Depression Erin taken at 10:30 am EDT Friday August 16, 2013. At the time, Erin had maximum sustained winds of 35 mph. Image credit: NASA.
Tropical Storm Erin Tropical Storm Erin is over the far Eastern Atlantic off the coast of Africa, and continues west-northwest at 15 mph. Erin is small and weak and has lost nearly all of its heavy thunderstorms, as seen on satellite loops. This is probably due, in part, to the fact the storm is over waters of 25.5 – 26°C, which is a marginal temperature for tropical cyclones. Erin is also having trouble with dry air from the Saharan Air Layer (SAL), and the storm’s west-northwest motion is beginning to cut Erin off from a moist source of air to its south–the semi-permanent band of tropical thunderstorms called the ITCZ (Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone.) The latest 00Z runs of the major global computer models, except for the GFS, call for Erin to dissipate by early next week. Given Erin’s struggles today, I expect the storm will be dead by Sunday.
, she mentions how to use the color green if you are sad or depressed. A non-spiritual 
description of this color is often associated with envy (as in green with envy) but Choquette advises to go outside in nature and observe all of the ‘green’ around you because through nature and the predominance of the color green, it will lift your spirits.
which exude an orangish-yellow color and help to keep my lower chakras in balance while eliminating negative ions within a specific range of my lamps. My daughter has a slight case of asthma which is immediately eradicated when she’s near her Himalayan salt lamp. When lit, the color of the Himalayan Salt Lamp strongly resonates with your sacral and solar plexus chakras.
