New Buttons!!

You may notice the new buttons on my page. I use these websites and thought I'd share them with others. So what are they about? These are websites to help you with your home and family preparedness -- I'm getting the jump on September, which is National Preparedness month.

"Prepared for what?" you may ask. Well, that depends on where you are and what's happening there. It could be for getting through hurricane season, a tornado or other weather-related disaster. For others, it could be that their industry is being hit hard by the recession and they want to be prepared in the event of losing a paycheck or two. For me, it's living in a relatively remote area, and having the potential to lose power at any time for an unknown length of time.

So what is the "Food Storage Analyzer" all about? It's like the old saying "If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there." If you don't know what makes for balanced, healthy food provisions, who knows whether you can stay healthy if you need them! By using the food storage analyzer, even for your regular groceries in your pantry, you can feel confident that what you store will provide a good balanced diet with the essential nutrients, like calcium, vitamins A and C, and iron -- along with a good balance of carbs, fiber, fat and protein.

It is really easy to use, the templates walk you through how many calories each person in your household needs, then to categories of food items. You can select common pantry items or add you own. The calculator provides you with nutritional information AND how long your clan can live on what you have stored. If you register, you can save the info and return to it. I'm very private with my personal information (which you might guess if you read my profile!!), and the registration asks for a bare minimum -- essentially enough to allow you to recover your user ID and password if you forget.

When I first used it, I discovered that I did not have much vitamin A in my pantry, and was very low on fats and oils. I added a couple cans of olive oil and carrots. Now I know that we can count on the basics. If the highway between here and the interstate is closed for weather or emergency I have all we need to get us through.

It is incredibly easy to use, and you can add your own pantry items with the info on the food labels. Give it a try! Get a head start on September!!