Customer Reviews

Making the Best of Basics: Family Preparedness Handbook

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

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.

This book is helpful in many ways, but DO NOT use his numbers for the amount of food to store per person, unless you are feeding a professional football player in training. He mixed up the USDA recommmended amounts for the average family of 2.3 people, and used that figure for one person.. WE actually figured it out, and you would have to eat something like 10,000 calories per day to eat those amounts. Look at it carefully. How many people use 10 gallons of oil per person per year?

This book is easy to read, practical and extremely interesting. It is comprehensive and well-designed. I picked it up and immediately skipped to the chapter about food dehydration at home. I learned things that I was able to put in practice right then.

The Supply Check lists seem almost overwhelming but at least there is plan which makes sense. Most certainly, it will take a lot of effort to put our family Preparedness Plan in place and that is a daunting task. The author offers useful advice and helpful suggestions to help guide us through our decisions.

This book is packed with useful information for anyone concerned with personal and family preparedness. If you are concerned about the possibility of some social disruption next year due to the millennium bug or would just like to be better informed and prepared for any type of natural disaster, this book will be a reference tool you won't want to be without.

I'm glad I purchased the book at AMAZON -- the ordering was easy and the shipment arrived in perfect condition within 3 days. I had seen the book selling for $30 at a local long term food storage distributorship.

This book has some useful information but it doesn't fit the bill as an emergency book because much of it includes things like recipes which you cook in an 350 degree oven - which you may not have in a true emergency. Also, there are a lot of charts that look good but really don't help that much. 9 pages on the use of honey seems a bit much too. Resource section lists lots of resources but closer examination shows that many aren't geared to individuals or only carry one item for emergency use.

Few know more about food preparation and storage than the Mormons. Their reputation for being ready for any emergency or natural disaster is well known - up to 2 years food supply for each family. I bought the 10th edition and was amazed at the resources including an exhaustive preparedness resource index. These are methods are grandparents and the pioneers knew well but today's generation is unfamiliar with. It is nice to see this heritage passed along. Thanks for an excellent resource. I would also like to recommend The Survivor's Guide to The Year 2000. It is to financial and investments what this book is to food preparation: all the essentials for the LDS family and everyone else who feels that "peace of mind follows preparedness." There is security in knowing you are ready for anything. I heartily recommned both resouces to all. Thanks again.

I am researching information on preparedness and storage. My main focus started with foods. In this day in age I feel some of the best insurance we can all have is food, fuel, water/water filtration and enough cash to carry us through at least 6 months of hard times in the event we lost our jobs or any other type of natural or manmade disaster.

I purchased more than 40 of the most recommended books on food storage, survival and preparedness. This book would replace all but three of those books. (I have purchased over 200 on preparedness subjects)

This book covers everything imaginable and targets everyone including those who don't have much money to begin with to those who have more than enough. Start with this book first. If you feel you want more information that covers urban survival, survival medicine, growing your own food, security and protection etc... send me an email request for the subjects you are most interested in and I will gladly forward you a list of the best of everything I have found this far after more than two years of intense research on the subject.

It doesn't make any sense for me to write my own book on the subject since there is so much information already out there... So I decided to just help all of you take advantage of my experimenting so you don't have to invest in all the books and products that I have already invested in, used and researched. Save your money and send me an email at gaspdesign@earthlink.net and write; "Help me get ready" in the subject line. Tell me what you want more information on (food storage, gardening, preparedness supplies, emergency power, first aid, etc) and I will guide you to the best books and products including some that are sold here that can be downloaded for free online. No charge. I just think we all need to stick together and help each other out through all the difficult times. I won't be selling anything and I won't be giving your information away or selling it. I wish I would have had someone help me save by offering the same help to me.

Again... this book is the best all around complete guide if you only buy one book.

In a time where we have become too dependent on others to take care of us, it is refreshing to know there are books like this that can restore or preserve a heritage of skills / knowledge for our posterity. Thinking of and sowing into the lives of others following behind us is a blessing and responsibility, many no longer cherish. This book is for those who do.

This is the only book you will need to become enlightened on "country living"! You will discover how much fun sprouting your own seeds can be, how to rotate and label storage, how to make sourdough, and many other things that have been lost with super-market living. What a great book! If you want to have a year of stored food, and don't know where to start, you will really have a handle on it once you read this book!

Okay, Y2K came and went and civilization is still here. (Why? *Preparedness.* If we hadn't spent those billions of dollars getting ready, it would have been bad. Real bad.) But earthquakes, floods, economic dislocation, and other bad things are still real, still very much with us, and could happen at any time. As this book says, "It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it!"

This book is a real help in getting your own personal preparedness program going. Maybe you'd like a year's worth of food in storage. Or maybe you'd just like to be a little more comfortable this winter when a snowstorm knocks out the power and keeps you away from the grocery store for three days. Those extremes, and anywhere in between, are addressed in this book.

Some people say this books uses "scare tactics." Well, the world is a scary place. We've managed, at least in the industrialized nations, to take a lot of the scary out of it - but remember those petrol strikes in the UK last year? Another few days and the stores would have been empty. It can happen anywhere, any time. What's the harm in being ready for it? Then when it doesn't happen, you've just got some extra resources. But when it does - and eventually it will - you'll be very glad you read this book.

I bought this book because I am interested in long-term food storage, and most of it is about food, but it is not necessarily about food storage. There are a lot of recipes in here. Why I don't know. The thing that puzzled me was if you are reading the book to prepare for some emergency, how is it helpful to have all kinds of recipes for things where specific cooking temperatures are required, like bake at 350F for 30 minutes? I could see putting in recipes if they were for things you could throw together on a camp stove. But from what I could see, these were regular recipes. If I had known how many there were, I would not have bought this book.

A good part of the book is composed of urls to sites that could easily be found on Google. They are for shopping for your Y2K supplies. I kind of wonder how much of survivalism is really just shopping, only for guys. The book contains glossy color ads for companies that were obviously selling a lot of freeze-dried meals to people scared about Y2K in 1997. It is weird to look at them.

Some of the recommendations seem kind of foolish, like getting a Coleman lantern or socking away lots of batteries when you can get crank lamps and such. Others were I thought good, like to stock up on charcoal and get a hibachi.

Generally a mixed bag, more mixed than I would have preferred.