Recipes for long term food preparation can also be useful, in fact I'll share a personal favorite, one so simple that you can involve your children in it if you have them, that of the Hardtack. Now what is Hardtack. Put simply, it is flour mixed with water and salt to create... I don't know how to describe it, a biscuit that could survive a fairly high caliber bullet? It's hard stuff. Edible on it's own if you want to chew for a while but I'd always suggest soaking it a little in a simple soup or even cup of water. It's been around for centuries, used to be used for naval expeditions and so forth, from my understanding it's still popular in some areas such as Poland and apparently Canada. So, the recipe.
- 2 cups of flour - 1.5 cup of water give or take, may need to add adjust - 2 teaspoons of salt
Pour the flour in the bowl and add in the water, no need to be precise as this is idiot proof. Add in the salt then just mix it up. You want a decent consistency, add water or flour as you need it, you want it not too sticky and a tad soft. Flour the counter once it's mixed and roll it out, you want it around the thickness of a pencil. Take a knife and cut it into squares or use a pizza cutter. Once you've done that take a cocktail stick or something you can poke with and put holes through it, you want to make sure they go through the other side of the dough, a skewer of some sort will work. Once done put them on a baking tray face down and double check the holes are running through each biscuit, you want to get the air out of them and these are important for that. Once your sure the holes are good put them in the oven at 375c/175f until a nice golden colour, about 30 minutes usually does it. Once done store in a fairly air tight container and you have some handy high density, high calorie biscuits to keep you going for a good while. Their not tasty. Their not pretty. But they work and that's what counts.
Medical is where you want to look next. In Europe a number of our medicines are made within EU borders which marginally negates risks to medical supplies however the US from my understanding imports a number of medicines from China. I do not have details on this however from my understanding there has been a US government statement informing they are expecting shortages of a number of prescription medicines with one in particular being almost guaranteed to run out. True to form of course, the public has not been informed which medicine this is however. My, such bountiful information and preparation on their part. Now what I would suggest, where ever you are in Europe or her colonies, is to ensure you do your best to acquire a spare months worth of any vital medicines you require. More if possible but a month should be possible for most. If you are truly a paranoid prepper you can also consider looking at getting antibiotics. Now, in a number of countries these are available from the doctor only however there are some loopholes such as online services which offer doctor referrals for those traveling abroad to preemptively get antibiotics to take with them on their travels to some wonderful disease infest South America, African or Middle Eastern pit. They usually charge for this service but there are a few who are fairly reliable. Do a little research if you insist on going down this road however, do not go blindly. There are other avenues to getting antibiotics such as buying fish antibiotics but honestly these would only be useful in very specific circumstances.
