Author: Daisy Luther

The Organic Prepper

In the most mind-boggling conflict of interest you may have seen in quite a while, the International Food Information Council (IFIC) has put out a “fact” sheet on the “benefits” of processed foods for the members of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

First, here’s a little background on the cast of characters in this little propaganda drama.   Continue reading “Monsanto, McDs, Coke and Friends Mis-Educate Registered Dieticians About the “Benefits” of Processed Food”

The Organic Prepper

Food storage calculators recommend 300 pounds of grains per person for a one year supply. For a family of four, that is a whopping 1200 pounds of food that you should store if you are trying to build a one year pantry!

That sounds like a really daunting number until you remember that it is divided over many different items.  To name a few:   Continue reading “The Pantry Primer: Stockpiling Grains”

The Organic Prepper

The leaves are beginning to turn, the air is crisp, and the current harvest is root vegetables.  This week the focus is on carrots, crisp and sweet, straight from the rich earth.  I just scored a 25 pound box of fresh carrots and spent part of a day preserving them  – if you don’t have them growing in your own back yard, you can find a local farm or market HERE and get a great deal at this time of year!   Continue reading “This Week’s Harvest: Carrots”

The Organic Prepper

We should all be thankful that we have feminists out there whose sole purpose in life is to empower other woman.

Take novelist Terry McMillan, for example.

Oh, wait.   Continue reading “Feminist Terry McMillan Empowers Women by Telling Those Who Disagree with Her to “bake more cookies””

The Organic Prepper

It looks like the days of trading half of your peanut butter and jelly sandwich for half of your best friend’s ham sandwich may soon be over if the federal government has anything to do with it.

A Richmond, Virginia mother received the following note, telling her not to pack a lunch for her pre-school age child.   Continue reading “Brown Bag Ban: Fed Gov Tells Preschool Parents No Lunch From Home Without a Doctor’s Note”

The Organic Prepper

It’s apple season!  This is without a doubt one of my favorite times of the year. I love it when the house is fragrant with apples and cinnamon.  A visit to a you-pick orchard or farm stand is a great way to spend a fall afternoon if you don’t happen to have an apple tree in your backyard.  (You can find a local orchard or market HERE.)

Apple trivia: Apples are a member of the rose family. They have been cultivated throughout Europe since the Stone Age.  Many refer to the forbidden fruit in Garden of Eden in the Bible as an apple, and the fruit has figured into legends and folklore for centuries.  Some examples are: the fall of Troy, the marriage of Atlanta, Celtic mythology, the story of William Tell, and the story of Johnny Appleseed.  There are 7500 recognized varieties of apples and the average American consumes 45 pounds of apples per year.   Continue reading “This Week’s Harvest: Apples”

The Organic Prepper

To be efficient, every pantry requires certain basics that allow for scratch cooking.  A good pantry should have everything you need to whip together a pie, a loaf of bread, or a batch of biscuits with no trip to the store required.

Many of these basics can be purchased in large quantities. One of my favorite destinations for pantry basics is Amazon, where I purchase yeast, aluminum-free baking soda, and other building blocks of a scratch pantry. I have also acquired 50 pound bags of organic sugar at Bulk Barn for a reduced price.   Continue reading “The Pantry Primer: Stockpiling the Basics for Scratch Cooking”

The Organic Prepper

Do you get the feeling that we are right on the verge of chaos?  With the government shutdown, the congressional budget deadline of the 17th, the EBT system under threat, and assorted “drills” that, if history proves to be any guide, could be a loose cover for an upcoming false flag, we could be looking at civil unrest in a matter of days.

These are all situations that we, as individuals, have little control over.   Continue reading “Lock and Load: Are You Prepared for Civil Unrest?”

The Organic Prepper

A major challenge when living from your stockpiled foods is getting enough fruits and vegetables.  Without produce, your family can be at risk for nutritional deficiency diseases like scurvy and their immune systems will be compromised.  A minimum of 5 servings per day is recommended, but during the long winter, how can you meet that goal with the contents of your pantry?

Supplying your family with produce that will provide the necessary nutrients that their bodies need to thrive is a twofold process.  Not only should you preserve the summer’s bounty for the winter ahead, but you should also come up with ways to add fresh greens outside of the growing season.   Continue reading “The Pantry Primer: Stocking Your Supply of Fruits and Vegetables”

The Organic Prepper

When people think of the average EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer) card user, they envision a career welfare recipient who has 12 kids by 11 different prison-residing fathers.  Because of this notion, when the story broke this weekend about the EBT system failure, many of the responses were quite cold, callous, and even downright spiteful.

Of course, the rioting through Wal-Marts across the nation certainly didn’t help.  Within hours the shelves were razed. The abandoned shopping carts of melting food and the carefully selected hungry spokespeople on the mainstream news just served to reinforce the conception that those who were left to go without groceries deserved to miss a few meals.   Continue reading “The “Average” EBT User May Not Be Who You’d Expect”

The Organic Prepper

Abandoned carts full of food were a frequent sight in grocery stores Saturday morning, as the EBT food assistance debit system stopped working without warning.

According to a Xerox spokesperson, a routine system check by the vendor resulted in system failure, leaving assistance recipients across the country with no way to buy food.   Continue reading “72 Hour Warning: Grocery Stores Across the Country Turn Away Hungry Shoppers as EBT System Crashes”

The Organic Prepper

How about instead of paying for Obamacare, we just spend that extra money on living well and healthfully?  With the amount of money that families will be spending, they could make some amazing healthy lifestyle choices that would reduce their need for healthcare in many instances.  It all boils down to two options: For the cost invovled, would you rather pay for health care, by preventing disease with good choices, or death care, by treating disease with toxic chemicals and invasive medical interventions?   Continue reading “Health Care vs. Death Care: 20 Ways to Stay Well (for Less Money than Obamacare)”

The Organic Prepper

Monsanto and Sygenta have won the prestigious World Food Prize.

Apparently, tampering with the genetic make-up of food and turning something that used to be healthy into poison, tainting the soil, air and water with chemical drift from pesticides like Roundup, killing the bee population of entire continents, and driving small farmers out of business through gratuitous lawsuits and unethical practices, pays big public relations dividends.  The World Food Prize is said to be the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for agriculture.   Continue reading “Winner! World Food Prize Awarded For Breakthroughs In Mass Population Poisoning”

The Organic Prepper

I will not comply with Obamacare.

There. I said it.

I am unequivocally not going to be complying with Obamacare.

I also won’t be purchasing health insurance at 4 times the regular price, nor will I participate in the government-funded “exchange” for “affordable” healthcare.   Continue reading “Bring It On: I Will Not Comply with Obamacare”

The Organic Prepper

As people who spend a lot of time focusing on preparedness, we can learn a lot about our future by watching as the economies and civilizations of other Western countries crumble.

Today’s lesson is that when times get tough, the government can and will persecute those who have planned ahead.   Continue reading “Could Prepping Become Illegal Here Too? Venezuelan Govt to Detain “Hoarders””

The Organic Prepper

I can’t really mourn too much that the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency are unable to continue wreaking regulatory havoc on the little guys due to the government shutdown.  In fact, I think a celebration just might be in order.  This could be a good chance for folks to see how unnecessary the intervention of  the government is in running the minute details of our everyday lives.   Continue reading “FDA and EPA are Victims of the Government Shutdown – Is This Supposed to be a Bad Thing?”

The Organic Prepper

The sanctity of medical privacy and doctor-patient privilege is a thing of the past with Obamacare.

The insurance exchange database hasn’t even gone live yet, and there has been a security breach that left the personal information of 2400 people exposed.

An employee of Minnesota’s Obamacare exchange, MNsure, sent an unencrypted file to the wrong person and left 2,400 people’s private information at the mercy of a nearby insurance agent.   Continue reading “Hello Obamacare, Goodbye Privacy: First Data Leak Reported and the System Isn’t Even Live Yet”

The Organic Prepper

When you think of that little dream homestead in the woods, what does it include?  Probably a well and septic system, a little stream bubbling nearby, a chicken coop, a sunroom for winter growing, and a cozy fire to curl up next to.

When my daughter and I spent a year living in a cabin in the Northwoods of Canada, our woodstove was our lifeline. It was the only source of heat in a place that reached -42 degrees.  It was the only way we could cook when our power went out during snow and ice storms (as it did frequently).  It was the cozy center of our home, and we survived for an entire frigid winter for less than$800. After that experience I vowed never to live in a home without a woodstove.   Continue reading “The EPA Takes an Ax to Self-Sufficiency: Most Woodburning Stoves Will Soon Be Illegal”