Customer Reviews

Emergency Food Storage & Survival Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Keep Your Family Safe in a Crisis

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If you're like I was, you're looking through the various disaster preparedness books wondering which one is best. I have worked my way through many of the most popular books and offer a shared review of all of them here. I hope this comparison helps you make a decision. I should also point out that I researched nearly every disaster book out there and recently published the Handbook to Practical Disaster Preparedness for the Family. If interested, search Amazon for the title. Onward with the reviews!

Book 1: Crisis Preparedness by Jack A. Spigarelli
Like many of the disaster preparedness books, this one begins by answering the question, "Why bother being prepared?" It also outlines a framework for being prepared that includes accumulating supplies, getting mentally and physically prepared, and having your finances in order. One thing I particularly liked was the emphasis on the importance of knowledge. It wasn't just about what items you need, but also what skills and knowledge you should develop. But this book is mostly about food preparation for a major disaster, with emphasis on having a year's food storage, milling your own grain, growing sprouts, home canning, dehydrating, freeze-drying, etc. There are detailed tables showing the calories of various foods including their protein, fat, and carbs. The final third of the book offers advice on other topics, including weapons, hand tools, clothing, energy, medical, sanitation, transportation, communications, and home preparation. The book concludes with a list of recommended books and a brief listing of companies that sell disaster preparation items. Overall, this is a very good preparedness book. I probably should have given it 5 stars, but I thought it went a bit overboard on the food plan. That said, it is the most comprehensive of the preparedness books.

Book 2: Preparedness Now! By Aton Edwards
This is another thorough disaster preparedness book, one that focuses more on emergency situations (fire, chemical attack, etc.). It is organized into brief chapters (some only a few pages) on a variety of important topics, including: water, food, shelter, sanitation, communication, transportation, and protection. It is also filled with many packing lists detailing what you should get in preparation. It introduces the e-kit (a very lightweight kit to keep with you) and grab-n-go bag with more extensive items. Final chapters of the book discuss various possible disasters, including earthquakes, tsunami, infectious diseases, chemical and bio warfare, crime, fire, and extreme weather. Some of the commentary is a bit questionable, but the technical content is good. Note the deficiency with this book is that it does not offer any detail on food storage.

Book 3: Disaster Preparedness for Dummies
First of all, this isn't a book. It's a DVD video. I wasn't paying attention when I bought it, and was a bit surprised when it arrived. I generally like the Dummies series. They are well researched and serve as a good summary. This DVD offers a lengthy video discussing many disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes, tornados, etc.), briefly outlining how you might prepare for them. It also has an overview of how you should react in case of a terrorist attack (nuclear, chemical, and biological). But the advice is all very general, and is more like what you'd expect to hear from your local weather station. For example, the video repeatedly advises you to "stay calm" and "evaucate in an orderly fashion." The videos are high quality, but don't expect detailed outdoor survival tips or food storage suggestions. Everything presented is relevant and useful, but it feels more like a FEMA public service announcement.

Book 4: Emergency Food Storage and Survival Handbook by Peggy Layton
This book is broken into six main sections. The first section offers decent but very incomplete summaries on preparing for short-term emergencies. The second section discusses how to store and purify water. The third part talks about the logistics of setting up a food-storage program, and has some suggestions on how to store food. The fourth section details what types of foods you should store. The fifth section has blank inventory planning pages. And finally the last section has some recipes. About half of the 285 page book is either blank planning pages or simple recipes. The first half of the book is pretty good stuff, but I found this book to be incomplete. It does however offer some good advice on food storage.

Book 5: Organize for Disaster by Judith Kolberg
This book goes an entirely different direction than the other preparedness books. Emphasis is on understanding the federal resources (i.e. FEMA, Red Cross, etc.) available, creating a personal intelligence network, organizing essential documents, maintaining insurance coverage, listing a home inventory, preparing your house for disaster, basic first aid, and having a good family communication plan. There is also a good list of necessary items to have on hand that would suit many common disaster. I recommend this book for its common-sense look at disaster preparedness. However, it is not the only book you would need, because it doesn't detail food storage, water purification, heating, etc.. That said, it covers some topics that the other books overlook.

Book 6: Making the Best of Basics, Family Preparedness Handbook by James Talmage Stevens
This book is almost completely about in-home food storage and preparation. There is little discussion outside that (except for basic water issues). Many chapters discuss food in significant detail, to include things like grains, recipes, preparing sourdough breads/biscuits, dairy products, honey, sprouting, drying of fruits/vegetables. At the end of this book is a huge compendium of preparedness resources, telling where things can be purchased in every US state.

Book 7: No Such Thing as Doomsday, by Philip L. Hoag, revised in 2001
This book offers well-researched insights into disaster preparedness. Topics include water, food, heating/cooking, light, power, communications, medical, sanitation, and security. Those subjects are well done. However, much of the book reads like a bit of doomsday prediction, with many pages devoted to scaring the heck out of the reader... focusing on missile attacks, chemical dangers, nuclear war, radiation, decontamination, communist threat, etc. For me personally, I would have like to see more pages devoted to likely threats (e.g. hurricanes, floods, earthquake, blackout, fire, etc.). Also note that Amazon may not carry the latest version (updated in 2001), so you may want to buy directly from the author.

Book 8: When All Hell Breaks Loose, by Cody Lundin
This book falls somewhere between doomsday survivalism and practical disaster preparedness. It is a high quality publication, filled with illustrations and a color insert. My prediction is that you will either love this book or hate it. It does cover many of the basic topics (food, shelter, water, sanitation, light, first aid, self-defense, communications, and transportation). But the material is presented in such a way that it is very chaotic and difficult to read. There are distracting quotes and cartoons, as well as advice that is targeted more towards the end of civilization scenario. For example, he discusses how to wipe your bottom with a stick or other foreign object, how to cook up a rat, how to compost your poop, etc. It's all very interesting, but not particularly useful for say preparing for a harsh winter storm.

Overall, if you can only purchase three books, I would recommend Book 5, Book 6, and either Book 1, 2, 7 or 8. With those three, you should have a balanced look at common sense organizing, food storage, and emergency items to have on hand. If you can buy only one book, I recommend Book 1.

Written by Arthur Bradley, author of "Handbook to Practical Disaster Preparedness for the Family" - just coming available on Amazon (July 2010).

Please be kind enough to indicate if reviews are helpful.

Just like the title says the book is full of hints to store food for a crisis. There are a number of excellent hints such as storing food that you would normally eat and turning over your stored food through your regular eating habits. The book also mentions having emergency clothing, food and water packed and ready to go because when a crisis occurs there will likely be no time to pack up supplies. You want something you can just grab on the way out the door. Hurricane Katrina is a good example. Having emergency supplies in your car is another excellent idea. Time and again we read about families being stranded without adequate clothing, food and water. Finally, one of the best ideas is to always have a ready store of hundreds of dollars in cash on hand.

I always liked this book, but a question has arisen about the completeness of the protein in dried milk. Seems that in the process of dehydrating the milk, the protein is largely deactivated. So, it would be a mistake to stock up heavily on the four items mentioned but is better to use more of a variety of foods. Another question is about food allergies arising from a daily heavy consumption of wheat. This is one of the most common food allergies but most people eat more of a variety and allergies to one item don't tend to build up, but with that heavy consumption of one food on a daily basis they could. Another thing to consider is cooking times when fuel might be in short supply or nonexistent. Shortage of food is likely to go hand in hand with fuel shortages. It is better to store many food items that don't have to be well cooked or very thorougly processed. I suggest people buy this book for the valuable information in it but very carefully think about the drawbacks and drastically alter this plan for themselves. The author does list other items to store and suggests best length of storage....read this section carefully. Learn about basics of good nutrition and walk through a grocery store for ideas of what foods might be stored. You can get your storage items in other places than the grocery store, but it will give you some ideas at least.

This book is good for the basics of food storage and emergency preparedness. Much of the information coincides with information from the LDS chuch and includes instructions on preparing Long Term Food Storage, First Aid Kits, 72-Hour Kits, and food rotation. Good book for those just starting out in their emergency preparations!

Don't bother spending money on this book. I was able to read most of it in 2 hours because there was little of substance there. Common sense and searching the internet will provide you with most of the information found in this book. I was hoping for more specific information on food storage including recommended amounts of basics per person. Instead the author provides blank pages for you to record what your family eats for a week and then tells you to calculate out the ingredients for a year. She also stresses that you put away in storage the typical foods your family eats so they will not get bored with the basics. Now I might have this wrong as I have never had to do this, but wouldn't you and your family switch to an "eat to live" type of mentality if faced with such a severe crisis? My family is not accustomed to eating canned meats and vegetables, powdered milk, eggs and butter but I think we would have to accept it if that is all that would be available to us. I simply got tired of her telling the same things over and over again.
I was also looking for for ideas on how and where to store all of the supplies suggested. We live in a large house but unless I am willing to put the shelves pictured in the book in my living room, it offered little help. There were plenty of check lists provided and some recipes. But in glancing over the recipes, I noticed one for sweetened condensed milk that didn't specify quantity of sugar when the directions clearly indicated it was to be used.
I just do not think this book gave me much new information as a resource tool.

I recently read Emergency Food Storage & Survival, to say I was a bit disappointed would be a understatement. Ms. Layton devotes 1/2 the book to empty menus and shopping lists. Listed in every recipe is the use of a expensive brand of #10 canned food that is unrealistic to 99% of the population. This book can actually hurt you. You might look at it as a survival guide only to find that it is impractical and give up preparing. This book also touches on subjects that should be looked at in depth.
If you want a comparison look at Cody Lundin's books. They are practical applications of daily life that anyone can do with out breaking the bank or ording any special food.
You are basically buy 50% of a book because thats all the info that is there. The rest of the book is empty lists.
If you want to survive look at:
98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive by Cody Lundin and Russ Miller
When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need To Survive When Disaster Strikes by Cody Lundin, Russell Miller, and Christopher Marchetti
these books will keep you alive!!!!
REMEMBER WHEN DISASTER STRIKES THE TIME TO LEARN AND PREPARE IS OVER!

This is exactly the book I was looking for. It gave me ideas I hadn't even thought of in terms of items needed for food storage & survival.

I appreciated the chart about calculating how much ingredients for bread making, so you can plan how much to stock up.

I also liked that she stresses not to get stuff if your family doesn't like it. It should really help to save money in stocking up.

This is a good book, and it will help you make a plan to stock up!

I've read this, and continue to use it as a reference. While it has a breadth of information useful for planning, what I really missed is a very detailed list of shelf-life for various foods. There are generalized numbers for general food categories, but I'd like much more. If you are truly planning for an emergency, you'll need more than just this book.

This book seems to have a good foundation to start a home survival program but in my opinion is lacking on some very important details. The author suggests you store up to 1 year supply of certain dehydrated products that you should incorporate into your daily eating habits and rotate your stock. The idea is good but the problem lies in the overall health of consuming these products on a regular basis. If you like eating healthy you may find yourself disappointed with the ingredients in many of the products that will store long term. For example, powdered eggs seem to have an anti-caking agent that has aluminum in it which is linked to alzhemiers. Numerous products out there have Food Dyes and Colors (FD&C's) which have been shown in some studies to cause ADD and ADHD in children. As the author does point out and cautions, other products such as certain Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP) flavors contain Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)which can cause headaches in some people. There is a fine line between being prepared for a survival situation at your home and subjecting yourself to not so healthy choices to accomplish this. If you eat healthy or are making your way there I suggest you do not adopt all of the author's suggestions and you will have more than enough work for yourself trying to think of other products to use for long-term storage. Try to purchase organic canned soups and as much organic products that you can replace the not so healthy stuff with. I see nothing wrong with storing some of these "unhealthy" products for an emergency but as a word of advice do not consume these types of processed foods on a regular basis. Perhaps the author is looking for people to hire her for consultation and to purchase the products she sells. On a positive note, if you know next to nothing about food storage and survival the book has some useful ideas, blank charts and commercial resources to help you organize and design your survival plan.

Anyone can buy a case of MRE's an say they are prepared for an emergency. What happens when those MRE's expire?

This book provides plan to make preparedness an easily managed day-to-day activity. It is extremely applicable to a wide range of readers. Everyone from the hard-core survivalist concerned about communist or alien invasion to the factory worker concerned about the security of their job could learn something from this book.

I fall into the middle between these two extremes.

The most valuable part of this book is the development of an at-home "supermarket". The essence of this plan is to buy what you use regularly in higher quantities, and begin a first-in first-out rotation of the products you buy. When times get lean start to use up the supplies that you have stockpiled. It sounds simple in theory, but this book really helps define the nitty-gritty of the practice of such a storage plan.

There are other sections of this book regarding long term storage of grains and legumes that was less important to me, but some readers may find valuable. Also, a list of recipes using the staples stored is presented and some lists of non-food items that would help in a disaster situation are presented.

The main takeaway from this book is the implementation of a rotation system to buy what is commonly used and methods for long-term storage of foodstuffs. This book is highly recommended.