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A Guide to Beginner Beekeeping

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How to Be a Honey Bee Guardian

As you know by now, Frank and I and our two little budding farmers just moved into our dream farm! We are just beginning to get acquainted with all the things waiting for us—comfrey, potatoes, asparagus, black raspberries, blueberries, and tons of fresh herbs—just to mention a few. But one of the farm perks we are most excited about are our five established honeybee hives. We have already tasted the sweet honey, and we know many of the flowers and vegetables in the gardens are so succulent and good because our honey bees have been busy pollinating them all spring. We are so excited to jump into this world of beginner beekeeping and hope to learn more in the months and years ahead. 

In this blog post I want to introduce you to the wonderful world of beekeeping. We are newbies at it, but our former owners have given us wonderful instructions for the care of honeybees, and we are doing our research to learn even more. Now you get to benefit from what we know, which I am sure will increase more and more as we begin the joyful task of being honey bee guardians. Let’s take a look at:

  1. Why are so many honey bee colonies disappearing?
  2. How do honey bees provide benefits to our farms and homes?
  3. What is life like in the bee colony?
  4. What makes a good beehive home?
  5. What do beekeepers need to have?
  6. What can you do to help protect America’s honeybees?

1. Why are so many honey bee colonies disappearing?

Honey bees have been domesticated by humans for thousands of years. A bee is the only creature besides us who manufactures food for humans. Every third bite of food that you eat has been pollinated by a bee. Natural diseases can cause populations of bees to die off, but most bee colonies were able to bounce back from adversity—until the winter/spring of 2006/2007. In that season, the die-off of domesticated bees was so bad bee researchers coined a new phrase: Colony Collapse Disorder. The normal loss of colonies was about 10 percent, but that year it was over 30 percent. Some beekeepers lost more than 80 percent of their bees.

Since then, in the US bees have been dying off at alarming rates, and beekeepers are continuing to report staggering annual losses. WHY? WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE BEES?

A new class of systemic, neurotoxic pesticides—neonicotinoids–was introduced in the 1990s, and quickly became in use pervasively, being used to treat food crop seeds, as well as in lawn care and flea products. These products persist for years in the soil, and permeate the plants to which they are applied, causing pollen and nectar gluttation droplets, which are deadly toxins to bees. Thousands of beehives have been killed off by colony collapse, while government regulators in America steadfastly fail to take action and create a policy that will be meaningful for bees and beekeepers.  

2. How do honey bees provide benefits to our farms and homes?

There are a lot of good reasons to have a few hives of honey bees around.  For garden and orchard crops, honey bees provide the necessary pollination so there’s something to harvest at the end of the season.  For a source of a natural sweetener—honey—there’s no rival, and if the other natural products of the hive—pollen or propolis—appeal to you, then a few hives are certainly useful.  Plus, there’s the added benefit of having all the light you want from fragrant and clean-burning beeswax candles.  Sweetness and light in the same package.

Remember that bees pollinate every third bite of food that you eat. Some of the specific plants and vegetables that require bee pollination include:

  • Apples
  • Almonds
  • Watermelon
  • Pumpkin
  • Squash
  • Cucumbers
  • Avocados
  • Mangos
  • Blueberries
  • Raspberries
  • Blackberries
  • Cranberries

Plants and food that benefit from bees include:

  • Tomatoes
  • Strawberries
  • Peppers
  • Eggplants
  • Soybeans
  • Lima beans (and other dry beans)
  • Sunflower seeds
  • Sesame seeds

3. What is life like in the bee colony?

The Bee Colony

Whether hidden in a hollow tree or kept in a beekeeper’s wooden hive, every colony of honeybees functions in the same way. A bee colony is made up of three types of bees: workers, drones, and a queen.

Worker Bees

Most of the bees in a hive are workers, sterile females that can number in the tens of thousands. Young worker bees are called house bees. They build and maintain the hive, feed the young, make honey and wax, and tend to the queen. Older workers fly from the hive to gather nectar and pollen for food and for use in making honey and wax.

As a worker bee buzzes from flower to flower, she gathers nectar and stores it in a specialized stomach called a honey sac. She also picks up pollen in her fine hairs and combs it into pollen baskets in her back legs. Heavily laden, she finds the shortest path home, making a “bee line” for the hive.

Interesting enough, female worker bees are the only honey bee that can sting you. 

Drones

There are hundreds of drones in a colony. They are males that develop from unfertilized eggs, and their only job is to mate with the queen. During the mating ritual, the queen flies high into the air, nearly 30 feet above the hive. Up to ten or more drones mate with the queen and then die. The queen returns with enough fertilization to lay eggs for years to come.

The Queen Bee

There is only one queen in a hive, and she can lay up to 2,000 eggs a day and may lay a million eggs in her lifetime. When a new queen is born, the old queen leaves the hive with about half of her workers to form a new colony.

When flowers are in bloom, bees work nonstop from sunrise to sunset, gathering pollen and nectar and pollinating flowers in the process. To be as busy as a bee is to be busy indeed.

4. What makes a good beehive home?

If you are thinking of starting beekeeping, the first thing you need to do is to decide where the bees are going to live. Where will the hives sit? If you live in tropical, or nearly so, locations, a bit of afternoon shade can be advantageous for both you and the bees.  But if you are further north, no shade at all is the best place to be.  Having the colony facing south or south east is ideal.

Getting started, like many new ventures, has a learning curve to be dealt with.  The most important part of that curve is assuming responsibility for the well being of a living being under your care… not unlike family pets, chickens, cattle or other friendly or productive animals.  A beehive may appear as only a box full of bugs, but a honey bee colony has a personality and lifestyle all its own, and as its keeper you must learn its ways and wiles so you do the best you can to protect it from the dangers of the bee world.  

Plan on how your bees will sit where you want them to sit.  Up off the ground is good, to keep the bottom off damp ground and to keep skunks, toads, ants and other nasties at bay.  Too, a beehive that sits up 18 inches or so off the ground (the recommended height) is easier to work because you won’t be putting heavy boxes full of honey all the way down and having to lift them all the way back up when you’re done.

5. What do beekeepers need to have?

Here are some very general recommendations.  A honey bee colony requires two deep brood boxes for the bees to live in, store some honey and pollen in, and raise their young.  A deep brood box (also called a hive-body) is one that holds eight or ten frames of comb and are 9-5/8” tall (or so… exact standards in beekeeping equipment are a bit fuzzy).  This can weigh as much as 90 pounds or so when full of bees, honey and pollen.  

Your beehive also needs additional boxes, called honey-supers (super = above), that are stacked above the brood boxes for the bees to store honey in.  These honey-supers can be the same size as a hive-body or, to confuse things, there are two sizes of smaller boxes—one is called a shallow honey-super because it is only 5 -11/16” tall.  This will weigh about 30 pounds or so when full of honey.  The other is a medium honey-super because it is 6-5/8” tall, and weighs about 50 or so pounds when full.  Which box to use will depend to some degree on your ability to heft.

A bee hive needs a floor, called a bottom board, that has a large, screened area so debris falls completely out of the boxes rather than accumulate inside.  The bee hive should also have an inner cover that sits directly on top of the top box (think of this like the ceiling in your house), and an outer cover that goes over the inner cover (much like the outside roof).  Together, these two covers keep the internal environment somewhat controlled and the elements out. 

You’ll need feeders... yes, you sometimes need to feed your bees. So what do bees eat?  Sugar syrup… a mix of half sugar and half water, fed in a container that the bees can get to inside, or sometimes outside the hive.  There are a variety of feeder styles available and each has advantages and disadvantages.  Find them in the catalogs you get from the advertisers in the journals you read, on the web (see references at the end) or from local suppliers you find out about at club meetings.  And don’t hesitate to ask other beekeepers what they use… and why they use what they do.

You will also need beekeeping attire—protective gear to wear when working bees.  A good veil to keep bees out of your hair, and a light-colored, light weight protective suit to keep your clothes clean when in the hives is a good start.  And beekeeping gloves.  Having bees walk on your hands the first few times in a hive can be very distracting, so use beekeeping gloves until you are comfortable with this aspect of the craft.

Along with the attire you get, you must have a smoker.  When you puff a little bit of smoke across the top of an open colony the bees inside retreat down to rapidly consume honey and they stay out of your way as you do your work.  Any communication between them inside is disrupted because the smoke masks all the chemical signals going on and they can’t talk…  the confusion goes on for several minutes while you work.  Then, when it begins to clear, they stop eating honey and start again to the top, a bit more smoke gives you a few more minutes to work undisturbed.  You have maybe 15 minutes though before all this smoke simply overloads the system and they quit eating and start checking out the problem.  That’s when it’s time to move to the next colony. 

6. What can you do to help protect America’s honeybees?

Gardeners who plant the right flowers and provide welcoming habitats can do their part in restoring the waning bee population.  We can nurture bees that will travel, pollinating fruit, vegetable and flowers around us, helping commercial growers to regain bees.  “Every single gardener can make a difference, even if you just plant one more container of flowers than you have previously, you can help!”, says the National Garden Bureau.

Small Steps

It doesn’t take much effort to help bees increase their population.  Here’s how to make a difference:

  • Plant flowers with open petals and upright stamens for easy access by our pollen-loving friends. Cosmos, zinnias and purple coneflowers are good examples.
  • Choose flowers that are heavy pollen producers like salvia, penstemon and goldenrod.  And pick colors that attract bees like blue salvia, yellow nasturtium, marigolds and sunflowers.
  • Herbs, oregano, mints, sage, lemon balm, rosemary, lavenders, thyme, cilantro and basil in particular, provide food for bees as well as humans.  So add them to your garden.   It’s simple to keep a potted herb garden on your back porch, close to the kitchen for cooking.  Bees will quickly discover it.  Pots keep invasives like mint in bounds, and they can be brought indoors for the winter to use.
  • Make sure your garden blooms from very early spring (crocus and early daffodils) to late fall asters to provide pollen as long as possible.
  • Limit or eliminate pesticides, which kill bees, and use compost instead of synthetic fertilizers that leave behind toxic chemicals.
Bees at hive entrance.
Bees at hive entrance.

Sources:

  1. https://earthjustice.org/features/the-case-of-the-vanishing-honey-bee?gclid=CjwKEAjwtYSsBRCDx6rM1v_uqmsSJAAZgf2qKVGPIYrPW3Lu2j8kEgYBvqMMeGsDSE-W9c9w0OM0IhoCYXzw_wcB#
  2. https://www.panna.org/issues/publication/bee-change-tips-tools-protecting-honey-bees
  3. https://www.almanac.com/content/honeybees-garden-busy-can-bee
  4. https://homestead.org/KimFlottum/BeginningBeekeeping/Bees.htm?gclid=Cj0KEQjwkv-rBRDwoMLav-2l9KIBEiQAUTkDU6oTNtv5_aKKAFY9n0xWQsiKhNdyrI1CEp_twv9SzMIaAqOG8P8HAQ
  5. https://www.almanac.com/blog/gardening-blog/bee-buzz-blue-berries

 

8 Strategic Steps for Staying Out of Debt

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If you have been following The Paleo Mama for a while you have probably read my blog post about how we paid off more than $27,000 of debt in just 6 months! It’s been one of my most-followed posts, and I know it’s because so many people feel buried in a pit of debt and just don’t know how to get out of the debt. We have now paid off more than $50,000 worth of debt and are proud to say that we are DEBT-FREE! 

We started the journey to financial freedom nearly 2 years ago, and we have realized that staying out of debt is just as important as getting out of debt. We believe that everyone can do this, but it takes real effort, and not everyone will be able to use the same principles as everyone else. We have different lifestyles, different sources of income, different family needs, and different dreams and goals for our lives.

However, in this blog post I want to give you 8 strategic steps for staying out of debt that we think will work for just about everyone. 

1. Make an honest assessment of your spending and develop a budget that supports your family on the income you have available.

A lot of people dread the idea of living on a budget that tells them when and how to spend every penny they make. But that’s not really what a budget does. A budget is your fastest way to take control of your money, get out of debt, and begin moving toward your goals and dreams for your future.

When we became debt-free and were ready to create a realistic budget for our debt-free life, we followed Dave Ramsey’s principles in his book The Total Money Makeover.  He has a great “Guide to Budgeting” Tool available online that you can use to set up your budget. There are others available, but this is the one that works best for us.

2. Use the “envelope” system for your weekly cash needs.

envelope

Every week we put the budgeted amount we have for weekly needs in envelopes—one envelope for each need. There is an envelope for my personal needs, my husband’s personal needs, groceries, entertainment, and dining out. When the money runs out…it’s out.

3. Carefully plan your grocery spending and meal planning for each week.

As you know, we are an 80 percent “Paleo Family.” It is important to me to provide my family with whole foods that are nutritious, as natural as possible, and free of preservatives and other junk. I’ve developed some secrets to saving money while eating Paleo. Some of these include: 

  1. Doing an online meal plan service where they send me recipes each week and a grocery list! 
  2. Raising our own meat chickens and egg-laying chickens. Before we raised chickens, I bought only whole chickens. I use every part—even the bones, which makes delicious, healthy broth.
  3. We buy our beef in bulk, purchasing 1/4th-half of a grassfed cow at a time.
  4. I shop local and in season, using coupons wherever possible.
  5. We grow as many of our own fruits and veggies as possible, and if we don’t have them in our garden, we pick our own produce. 
  6. I save money in other areas of our life so that I have money to splurge on healthy food.

4. Find economical ways to meet your family’s wardrobe and home decorating desires.

Frank and I are very frugal with our money, and we both come from homes who felt the same. My mother dragged my sister and me with her nearly every Saturday as she made the garage sale circuit. Most of our play clothes, toys, and home decorating items came from garage sales. No, they weren’t old hand-me-downs—many of them were originally high-priced items that had barely been used. 

Even today, when it is much more possible for us to shop at first-rate stores, I buy much of what we purchase USED from consignment shops, outlets, local thrift stores, and online websites.

5.  Learn to make many of your personal care products and your home cleaning products. 

I make as many home products as possible. This is such an important money-saving step, and will free up your budget money for some of those saving and dreaming goals you need to have. Some of the products I make myself include: 

6. Establish a regular method for having an emergency fund and savings plan

Frank and I are not only concerned with having enough money to meet our needs today—we are so determined that we will have a plan for emergencies big and small, and savings for important things like paying off our house, investing for our kid’s college expenses, and preparing for our own retirement. 

We have learned that we will only save money when it becomes an emotional priority. It doesn’t matter what you make—you can save money! We were motivated to start saving by studying Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. Here is one online lesson to whet your appetite for saving.

7.Find an additional source of income that is home-based and potentially income-producing.

Think about finding a creative way to bring more income into your life. When I first considered this, I began blogging, not sure how profitable it would be, but wanting to do it not only to earn income, but because I was passionate about the things I wanted to blog about. This is something you may want to try also.

When I was introduced to essential oils I became just as passionate about their value to my life, and their potential for providing me with more income. It’s important for you know that it is their health-giving potential that fuels my passion to this day. They have indeed provided me with income far beyond what I anticipated, but it only comes with determination, passion, and hard work! Working with this company has helped retire my husband from his job and come home and join the business. If you are ready to take on a new potentially financially rewarding venture, I can help you get started.

8. Get rid of your credit cards.

Credit card usage has become a way of life in America. Debt is the most aggressively market product in the history of the world. We are not suggesting that you get rid of every single credit card you have, but we are advising you to get rid of most of them and set boundaries on the 1-3 that you hang on to. That includes:

  • Only buy on credit when you have the cash to pay for it.
  • Pay off your credit card debt in full each month
  • Consider only using a credit card for recurring payments like utility bills, cell phones, and other similar expenses.

By doing that, you will not get imprisoned in credit card debt and the high interest rates that steal your money.

I want to close this blog with Dave Ramsey’s “7 Characteristics of Debt-Free people.” This describes who Frank and I want to be, and I hope you will want to have these characteristics also.

  1. They are wise.
  2. They are patient.
  3. They are confident.
  4. They are goal-driven.
  5. They are responsible.
  6. They are not materialistic.
  7. They are willing to make sacrifices

Turmeric — Nature’s Powerhouse Spice

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 turmeric powder in white dish on wooden background

Eating natural, organic, non-processed foods is one of the best ways to ensure that we are doing all we can to get and keep our bodies healthy. But as we all know, a good meal is more than a piece of meat, a baked sweet potato, and a salad of organic romaine lettuce, cucumber and tomato. There’s something we can do that will greatly improve the taste of our food while it provides our bodies with healthy, powerful quantities of antioxidants and nutrients to support our body’s systems. What is it? It’s the amazing herbs and spices that we can use that are very low in calories but dense in vitamins and minerals; like turmeric! 

I want to talk about one of these powerhouse spices in this blog post. It’s turmeric, often called the “Queen of Spices,” a member of the ginger family and a main ingredient in curry. Turmeric has been used as a healthy spice for thousands of years. As far back as AD 1280, Marco Polo discovered it while he was in China, saying: “There is also a vegetable which has all the properties of true saffron, as well as the smell and the color, and yet it is not really saffron.”¹

One of main ingredients in turmeric is curcumin, which gives turmeric its yellow color. 

There are so many good benefits to this powerhouse spice that we cannot cover them all in this short post. But I would like to answer these three questions:

  1. What kind of turmeric should I purchase?
  2. How should I use turmeric?
  3. What are 7 benefits I can get from turmeric.

What kind of turmeric should I purchase?

You can find turmeric in the spice aisle of your local grocery store, but you cannot guarantee the quality you may find. It’s very difficult to verify the purity and potency of grocery store spices. You should search for a high-quality, 100 percent organic-based turmeric supplement. Male sure your herbal supplement comes from a certified organic producer committed to quality processes. 

Use this checklist to find the best:

  • Contains only 100 percent certified organic ingredients
  • Comes in supplement form
  • Avoids fillers, additives, and other ingredients

Be careful to research thoroughly to find the best turmeric. There are two forms of turmeric you will want. As a supplement you take daily to reduce inflammation in your heart, joints, liver, and for cellular health, I recommend this one in liquid capsule formulation. 

How should I use turmeric?

 There are many uses for turmeric, including those I mentioned earlier. Let’s talk about just a few specific things I would recommend you try.

  1. It can be used in lotions, rubs and salves to sooth skin and reduce inflammation. It often can be found in preparations for eczema or psoriasis. If you are experiencing skin breakouts or dry, scaly skin I would recommend that you add 1 teaspoon of powdered turmeric spice to my Whipped Sleepytime Rub. You should get relief from some of the skin problems within a few days. 
  2. Whenever you feel a cold coming on, or are experiencing the symptoms of flu and bronchitis, get your crock pot out and make some of my Soothing Elixir for Colds and Flu. Be sure to add about 1 tablespoon of turmeric powder to the recipe.
  3. When you or one of your family members is having a hard time sleeping through the night, or is suffering from an illness that keeps you awake at night, try a cup of soothing Turmeric Tea. This is one of the most helpful uses for this powerhouse spice. You can find a great recipe for this healthy tea here.
  4. Did you know that research has proven that chocolate is good not only for the soul, but for your mind and body as well? Dark chocolate, along with turmeric, are great inflammation fighters, and help to reduce the inflammatory processes underlying chronic, degenerative diseases. Try adding a  half teaspoon of turmeric powder to this delicious Two-Minute Mug Brownie. The spicy, warm flavor of the turmeric will blend well with the smooth texture of the brownie and provide you with some great healthy benefits.
  5. Turmeric is a wonderful spice to add to soups and stews, and will give them a rich, warm flavor and a beautiful color. The next time you make Homemade Bone Broth, add a couple teaspoons of Turmeric.

What are 7 benefits I can get from turmeric?

 There are many benefits to this “Queen of Spices” Turmeric, so do your own research to discover the specific ways this spice could bring better health to your family’s needs. I want to list 7 benefits that I think are worth considering as motivation to add this spice to your own recipes and homemade products. 

  1. The powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant qualities of turmeric can help to build a wall of defense against colds, viruses, and other seasonal illnesses. Most studies indicate that to get the most benefits from turmeric, you need a dosage of at least 1 gram per day. Use this excellent extra strength product I recommended earlier.
  2. The curcumin in turmeric has been suggested as a better option for people dealing with blood clotting issues than several of the OTC products available.
  3. To support your liver as it works to  unload the toxins that are built up over time, which cause weight gain, fatigue, headaches, irritability, anxiety, constipation, heartburn, PMS, infertility and insomnia, I recommend this three-week liver-cleansing program, which includes the addition of organic turmeric. 
  4. Turmeric has proven to be very beneficial to people who are suffering from the painful joints and inflammation of arthritis. A study published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine in 2009 compared the active ingredient in turmeric, curcumin, with ibuprofen for pain relief in 107 people with knee osteoarthritis. The curcumin eased pain and improved function about as well as the ibuprofen.³ To increase absorption and get the therapeutic dose necessary for maximum benefit, add 1 tablespoon of turmeric powder to a quart of boiling water, boil for 10 minutes and drink the turmeric water within six hours. 
  5.  Cancer is one of the most thoroughly researched studies related to curcumin and its ability to reverse disease. Studies have shown that curcumin has anticancer effects and is able to kill cancer cells and prevent more from growing. The American Cancer Society has stated: “Laboratory studies have also shown that curcumin interferes with cancer development, growth, and spread. Recently, curcumin has received a great deal of focus because of it’s ability to reduce tumor size and kill cancer cells.”²
  6. There may be no better natural treatment for lowering blood sugar and reversing insulin resistance than adding 500 to 2,000 mg of tumeric to your diet daily. In addition to correcting the causes of diabetes, curcumin has also been proven to help reverse many of the issues related to insulin resistance and hyperglycemia. 
  7. Studies have shown curcumin to be equally as effective as other medications in the treatment of high cholesterol. You can add turmeric spice to curries, use it to flavor lentil soups, spice up sautéed onions and/or cauliflower or add it to homemade salad dressing and dips. Try this delicious Turmeric Cinnamon Roasted Cauliflower.

This powerhouse “Queen of Spices”—Turmeric—is one of nature’s healthiest foods. It can be used to treat a wide variety of conditions. Do your research and begin adding turmeric to your daily diet.  

Resources

Top 40 Household Items for Your Emergency Storage

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40 Household Items

In my first post about the need to think about how you would feed your family for a year if some major disaster or emergency eliminated all other sources of food for your family, I mentioned that you also needed to include household supplies, medicine, personal care items and food preparation tools. Today, I want to talk about these non-food items, these top 40 household items for your emergency storage.

We will consider non-food items in three important categories: household, medicine & personal care, and kitchen items. 

This is the 3rd post in a series I’ve done on how to get your family prepared for emergencies. The first post was 5 things to consider when stockpiling food for your family. And the 2nd post was a weekly plan on how to use $10 a week to build a years worth of paleo groceries. 

Category 1: Household Products

No matter how much food you have stored up for an emergency, it will still be an emergency situation if you do not have things like bottled water, soaps, matches, and toilet paper.

When you are developing your emergency food storage plans, be sure to include essential household products on your master list. There are many economical ways for you to accumulate these. Discount stores, close-out opportunities, dollar stores, and neighborhood garage sales are all possibilities. Just be sure you are adding these to your storage accumulation. 

There are several online lists of household products to store that you can find. I have reviewed several of these, and will give you a list of 10 important items you will need for sure. Be sure to do your own research to discover other things you will want to have on hand. Two good online lists you can review are HERE and HERE. 

Top 10 Household Products to Have: 

  1. Bottled water (we keep a travel Berkey for this purpose) 
  2. Toilet paper and paper towels (or tons of washcloths for cloth toilet paper) 
  3. Lamp oil and candles
  4. Large boxes of kitchen matches or Bic lighters
  5. Body, Dish and Laundry soap 
  6. Assorted plastic bags (food storage, garbage bags)
  7. Bleach or peroxide (I use white vinegar in place of bleach) 
  8. Household cleaners 
  9. Lighter fluid or charcoal
  10. Mop, cleaning rags, brushes, towels, etc.

Category 2: Medicine and Personal Care Products

Let me first talk about storing medicines. Begin by listing all of the necessary medicines each family member must have available. I am not talking about prescriptions, because it may be next to impossible to have a one-year supply of prescription medicines. But there are other topical medicines, OTC products and things like bandages, sterile pads, and tapes that you may need.

THIS is a wonderful list of items that you should store in a first-aid kit. I recommend that you use that as the start of your own list of medicines to store. This creative mom uses a fishing tackle box to hold her first aid supplies.  It is particularly exciting to me to see that right there in the midst of her other supplies are her favorite essential oils. As you know, I love my essential oils, and would highly recommend that you consider their benefits in your emergency storage plan also. Essential oils have been used by thousands throughout hundreds of years, and can be used for many health-related needs and their shelf live can surpass 10 years if stored properly! 

Top 10 Essential Oils to Have:

  1. Lavender—Useful for soothing baths, diffusing for a good night’s sleep, applying to cuts and scrapes, and even for minor aches and pains.
  2. “Protective” blend—This is the powerhouse oil to keep your immune system strong. 
  3. Frankincense – the most precious of essential oils in the ancient world. It’s a powerful addition to your medicine cabinet.
  4. Melaleuca “Tea Tree” oil- first aid for the skin
  5. “Soothing“Blend – a blend of wintergreen, camphor, peppermint, blue tansy, blue chamomile, helichrysum, and osmanthus which aids in muscle and joint support 
  6. Peppermint – relieve minor head tension and use in toothpaste recipe and for pest control
  7. Lemon – natural cleanser 
  8. “Respiratory” Blend – helps support your respiratory system and open and clear airways. 
  9. Oregano – natural immune support 
  10. “Digestive” Blend – helps provide digestive relief 

You can purchase all these oils in a wholesale starter kit at a discount price! 

Many of the personal care products you may need use the SAME ingredients. So I recommend you have these items on hand so that you can make the products you need in an emergency situation. 

Top 10 Personal Care Ingredients to Have: 

  1. Coconut Oil – to wash your face with and to use as a base for deodorant, salves, and soap
  2. Bentonite Clay – to make toothpaste, tooth powder, deodorant and baby powder
  3. Shea or Cacao Butter – to make lotions, rubs, and salves
  4. Beeswax – to help lotions and salves hold form and to use to make candles and soap
  5. Essential Oils – to be used in nearly EVERY personal care recipe and home cleaning recipe. 
  6. Baking Soda – to make deodorant, laundry soap, and to even wash your hair with
  7. Apple Cider Vinegar – to use as a hair conditioner and to promote many other health benefits. 
  8. Olive and Almond Oil – to use as a facial serum or moisturizer and used to make salves

Don’t forget to keep razors, aspirin, tylenol, and personal make-up products on hand if you think you will need them. 

Category 3: Top 10 Essential Kitchen Items

The final category of products to be sure you include in your storage plans would be essential kitchen items you will use. It won’t do you any good to have cans of food if you do not have a can opener, and the frozen meat in your freezer will stay useless without the pans to prepare it in.

Here are some of the kitchen items I consider indispensable to me when I’m thinking about my emergency food storage.

  1. Can opener
  2. Cast iron/stainless steel cookware
  3. Roasting pans
  4. Cooking utensils
  5. Measuring cups and spoons
  6. Kitchen knives
  7. Dishes or Paper products for serving food
  8. Silverware or plasticware
  9. Kitchen tools like mixers, blenders, graters (Be sure you have some non-electric ones in case of widespread power outages.)
  10. Quantities of plastic bags, foils, wax papers, or plastic wrap.

You can find more information in these kitchen items online HERE. 

Now you are ready!

If you will incorporate some of the information I’ve given you in these three blogs on an Emergency Food Storage plan, and begin your own stockpiling, you will be ready for whatever comes our way. It would be our hope that it never becomes necessary to have only our cache of food and supplies to live on, but as with many other things in life today, it’s better to be safe than sorry. 

Best sure to check out the rest of the blog posts in this series: 

  1. Could You Feed Your Family for a Year? 
  2. One Year of Emergency Paleo Food Storage on $10 Week

 Resources

  • https://www.granny-miller.com/use-this-tool-to-help-plan-a-years-worth-of-food-supplies/
  • https://www.granny-miller.com/a-years-worth-of-food-supplies/
  • https://thesurvivalmom.com/38-must-have-kitchen-items-for-any-survivalist/

Top 40 Household Items for Your Emergency Storage

Emergency Paleo Food Storage on $10 a Week

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Emergency Paleo Food Storage

In a recent blog post we introduced you to the concept of stockpiling enough food to feed your family for a full year. We are beginning to do this ourselves, and we recommend it to you. We don’t want you to have a “Mother Hubbard Experience” of not having enough food in your cupboard so we want to take a further step to help you actually be able to do this without busting your budget. If you can budget just $10 per week to accumulate your stockpile, we will show you how to have the full year of  emergency paleo food storage by spending just $10 a week for 52 weeks.

How do I set up my budget for this?

This way of stockpiling food is the “low and slow” method. It takes time, 52 weeks, but it also only requires a low financial burden. If you are on a tight budget, this is the perfect plan for you. Remember that this plan begins by developing a master plan. You will need to:

  • Determine what you eat
  • Determine how much you need
  • Determine what you will use your $10 for each week.

It is our plan to grow and provide as much of our own food needs as possible. We will not need to purchase as many items at the grocer, but will be preserving and storing the bounty from our own harvested fruits and veggies, and the livestock and poultry from our own farm animals. If you also plan to grow as much of your own produce as possible, you may want to begin your 52-week accumulation by using the first 4 weeks, or $40, to stock up or save your seeds for the next planting year. It would be ideal to begin this process in the spring with the start-up of your planting year. 

I recommend that you use an envelope system for your weekly $10 and saving for your emergency paleo food storage. Make an envelope and label it, “Food Storage”. Each week you will purchase $10 worth of food items for your food storage and ONLY use the $10 you have in that envelope. If you have money left over from last week, move it over and use it for future food storage purchases. What the weekly envelope achieves for you is an easy way for you to roll over any spare change each week into the next week’s envelope. Don’t use credit cards for this process; interest rates are self-defeating and just create a bigger problem. To budget for this new process, you may need only to forego one restaurant meal a month or decide to rent a video to watch at home rather than paying full admission for your family at the theater. 

It will be very important for you to watch for seasonal sales, holiday sales, special offers at local co-ops or farms, and other money-saving opportunities.

How do I ensure that I am getting the specific foods we will need to continue our Paleo or gluten-free lifestyle.

I know that the majority of those who follow my blogs have very specialized eating styles, most of whom follow a Paleo lifestyle. Not all the information you can research on this subject takes into account the specialized Paleo needs. That’s why we want to help you do that with information we will share in this blog. 

As you develop your list, be sure to list the approved foods you are willing to use. For example, you will need a grain-free substitute for the flour grains that may be listed in an online proposed master list. Determine what you are willing to use: almond and coconut flours, flaxseed and quinoa, dairy substitutions like almond or coconut milk, cheese substitutes like nutritional yeast, and ghee as a storage ready butter substitute. 

Be sure that your emergency paleo food storage is weighted toward wonderful fruits and veggies that can keep well in a root cellar, and plan in advance the kinds of grain-free, dairy-free (unless you are primal) and protein-dense meals you can make from your storage foods. Stockpile your recipes also, including delicious soups and stews along with your favorite menu items.

What specific foods should I purchase each week to have a one-year supply in 52 weeks?

It will take you some time to thoughtfully plan out how you will accumulate the foods for your one-year storage plan. There are many proposed lists that  you can review, but ultimately your master list will be specific to your family’s needs, favorite foods, and what foods you will grow or produce yourself as opposed to those you need to purchase. 

There is a wonderful list available that is specific to the Paleo diet, and we recommend that you begin with that list. You will purchase the listed item for each week. For example, on week one, when you do your grocery shopping, you will purchase one refill pouch of Real Salt. The second week you will purchase 3-4 cans ($10 worth) of full-fat coconut milk. You can use the suggested purchases in that list to plan your own purchases, taking into account your family preferences, local and seasonal sales in your area, and relationships you may have already developed with co-ops, produce stands, or local farmers.

Your list will also need to be adapted to the preparation and preservation you can accomplish for your own home-grown fruits and vegetables, or home-raised livestock and poultry.

If you are not quite Paleo, but you eat real, whole food, then I recommend you take a look at this list. 

Hints from Experienced Food Storage “Addicts”

You can learn from those who have been doing this for some time. They have gone through the trial and error periods and have developed time-tested ways to be successful at storing food for a year. Here are just a few snippets of the advice they can provide to the novice stockpiler.

  1. “In the beginning when I started to plan for a year’s worth of household needs, I had absolutely no idea about how many…pounds of hamburger or coffee were used in my home in any given year. The way that I was able to determine that information was with a wall calendar diary and pen. Every time I’d open a package of chicken…or jar of peanut butter I’d note it on the calendar. I was determined and faithful about recording all food, supplies and ordinary household sundries. By the end of the first year I had a pretty good idea of what I was and wasn’t using and how much of each item I was consuming.” – Granny Miller
  2. “When living off food storage adequate vitamin and mineral consumption can be a problem.  Fresh sprouts pack an enormous punch relative to their size.  In a long term emergency situation, they may be the only fresh food you can get your hands on.  You don’t need a fancy sprouter, a simple canning jar with nylons, or cheesecloth in place of the lid will work beautifully.” – Eating Food Storage
  3. “Take the amount of food you would need to purchase to feed your family for a day and multiply that by 7. That is how much food you would need for a one-week supply. Once you have a week’s supply, you can gradually expand it to a month, and eventually three months.” – LDS
  4. “Every June I start anew the annual cycle of putting aside a year’s worth of food and supplies. The goal is to have all the food and supplies I need in my pantry, cupboards, closets and cellar by Halloween. My practical food storage education first began in the mid 1980’s when I attempted to store a winter’s worth of food and household sundries. I live in the snow belt on a rural back road and in those days it was not at all unusual for us to be literally snowed in and house bound for a week at a time; a few times every winter. My winter pantry proved to be such a wonderful convenience, and time and money saver, that by 1990 I extended my pantry and household stores to last 1 year. I took a lesson from my husband’s Appalachian grandmother and coincided the beginning of my food storage efforts with each year’s new gardening and growing season. For my household, the food year begins with planting the garden in spring and ends with the final harvest in the fall.” – Granny Miller
  5. “There are actually 2 types of food storage. When I finally realized that I need to have 2 plans it was like a light bulb went on. First, a shorter term emergency food supply. Short term emergency food supply is what will be used on a continuing basis. I consider my 3 – 12 month supply of food to be short term food storage. This food is used on a regular basis and is rotated and restocked regularly. A longer term emergency food supply. Figure out how much food you need to collect for your long term food storage. These foods will be the types of items that can be the basics of survival food.” – Simply Canning

Resources

  • https://www.intentionallydomestic.com/real-food-storage-on-10-a-week-paleo-diet-edition/
  • https://www.intentionallydomestic.com/build-your-food-storage-on-10-a-week-general-real-food/
  • https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-start-a-food-storage-on-138765
  • https://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/hagan59.html
  • https://www.grainfreeliving.com/list-of-grain-and-grain-free-foods/
  • https://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2013/07/29/eating-grain-free-resources-and-recipes-all-in-one-place/

Emergency Paleo Food Storage on 10 a Week

Could You Feed Your Family for a Year?

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There are many people today who are talking about the importance of storing enough food to feed your family for a year. TV talk show host Glenn Beck has said that he feels “it is critical for Americans to be ready for whatever life might throw their way. He and fellow Fox News host Sean Hannity are promoting a program from which you can purchase kits containing survival food for yourself or your entire family—however it will cost you thousands of dollars.

Nearly everyone we know is not prepared to pay that kind of money to stockpile food for an emergency, even one lasting as long as 12 months. But we have begun to feel the urgency of having such a plan, and are starting to take “baby steps” toward the goal of just such a stockpile of food for our family. In this post we want to share with you some of the things we have discovered that will help us to reach that goal eventually. We are much more interested in economical ways that promote the possibility of developing the ability to grow, harvest, and prepare for storage many of the foods we would need. And we are discovering great recommendations for how to economically purchase those we cannot produce ourselves.  In this blog post, we want to share five factors about stockpiling food that may be important for you to consider also.

5 Factors About Stockpiling Food That is Important for You to Consider

1. Why consider preparing a one-year supply of emergency food?

The current world situation is, at best, unstable and scary! All it would take for our grocery stores to have empty shelves is a shortage of fuel, economic collapse, wide-spread electronic power failure, civil unrest or devastating natural disasters. In addition to these big considerations, maybe you haven’t noticed how expensive a trip to the grocery store is becoming. 

It is our desire to begin growing most of our own food, and preserving and storing it in our root cellar or other storage areas. Living without our weekly or monthly trips to the grocery stores sounds wonderful, but it is important to remember that being in charge of our own pantry is time-consuming and needs to be carefully organized. For example, I love making goat cheese for my family, but it takes a whole lot more time to do that than a quick trip to pick up cheese from the grocer.

2. How much food will it take to feed my family for a year?

Our family will need to figure out exactly how much food we need to store to feed two adults and two children (and a myriad of farm animals) for a year. No two households will have the same food preferences, living arrangements, or dietary needs or restrictions. If we really are anticipating some kind of emergency that could end all grocery purchases for a year, then we need to be including the household supplies, medicine, personal care, and food preparation tools I’ll need to be using. This post will not address those additional supplies, but you should do your own research to discover what these are. Be sure that you are cataloging your favorite recipes along with your master list of foods.

A simple but effective way of figuring out your family’s food needs is to carefully compile a list of all food (including spices, sauces, or other recipe items) your family eats in one week. Then you can multiply that by 12 to make your list for three months, and again my 4 to arrive at a total for a year. 

There are some food storage calculators available online to help you figure out the exact quantities you need to be considering of some food items. Here’s one that is great, but keep in mind this is a basic one that is NOT made of real food, but instead, highly processed. 

On your master list, you will need to include food items in the following categories:

  • Meat (protein sources)
  • Vegetables and fruits from your own home-grown garden
  • Additional fresh or frozen food from the grocery store
  • Dairy (or your Paleo dairy substitutions like cans of coconut milk)
  • Condiments, sauces and jellies
  • Pantry mainstays (vinegars, oils, Almond butter, spices, etc.)
  • Probable non-Paleo items such as beans or lentils, nuts and seeds (because let’s face it, in a crisis, eating beans and lentils is OKAY)
  • Baking supplies and natural sweeteners. Honey can last up to 10 years if stored properly
  • Water and other drinks supply

CLICK HERE to go to my follow up post and see how to spend $10 to build up your emergency paleo food storage. 

3. How much will it cost, what storage space will I need, and what kind of containers do I need to store my food?

There are examples online of several people who recommend starting your food storage plan with just $10 per week. Others have written about their one-year storage food, which cost in the neighborhood of just $300. Considering the fact that many of us spend an average of $100 for just one-week’s supply of food, $300 for an entire year is mind-boggling. You can begin with the simple step of picking up a few extra items each time you head to the store.

If you are allowing yourself about $10 a week to accumulate your non-homegrown food items, you will want to decide in advance what extra items you’ll pick up. Be sure you are watching for sales (such as seasonal sales and holiday sales), and researching opportunities through co-ops, farm stands, and local farmers. Don’t forget to date each item before adding it to your storage. 

You will want to get creative with where you keep your food storage. The ideal space would be a root cellar , but we’ve heard of people who keep things stored under a bed, in an extra closet, or in an unused room in the basement. The key is to keep all foods in a space that is clean, dry, and low in humidity.

There are many food grade storage containers that can be used for long-term food storage. These include:

Each of these type containers are good for most dry foods. Remember that you must store dry foods without any moisture. Think about the BPA-free plastic bottles that you can recycle for food storage. Use only plastics that contained food. Also consider getting recycled empty plastic buckets from your local grocer or bakery store. Most bakeries have 3-gallon buckets, which will be much easier to move around than the 5-gallon buckets. Be sure that your buckets have a tightly fitting cover. There are also many glass jars that make great storage containers, including the canning jars you will be using. Don’t forget the number 10 can, which can keep foods fresh and rodent and bug proof for several years. To assure that your storage containers are airtight and pest free, you can use mylar bags, foil pouches, and oxygen absorbers.

4. How do I preserve my home-grown harvested food to keep for at least one year?

Another important step for you to take is to learn how to preserve your home-grown food supplies by canning, freezing, freeze-drying, or safely storing in your designated root cellar or food storage location.

Canning and preserving can go a long way towards filling up your master list of foods to store for one year. It will also ensure that you are using your home-grown bounty in the most economical way. As I mentioned earlier, you should have first carefully planned for what you wanted to grow in your garden, and how much food it will take to feel your family for a year. Now figure out the approximate number of pounds of food you will harvest, and calculate how many pounds of each fruit or vegetable per quart jar. (Two links that can help you with this are HERE and HERE.)

There are several different methods you can use to preserve your garden bounty for storage.  There are also many, many websites that can help you learn the methods of preserving your food. I’m listing some of these below with one link you can use to begin learning how to use each one.

Your master list should also include the type and quantity of livestock or poultry you need to have to add to your food storage. If you raise your own livestock or poultry, determine how much butchering you will need to do. (If you do not raise your own livestock and poultry, research your options for purchasing this economically from local co-ops, butchers, or local farmers.)

Much of your livestock and poultry can be frozen and stored in a freezer. But there are other ways to preserve meat that you could use also. Some of these are:

  • Canning
  • Curing
  • Smoking
  • Dehydrating
  • Biltong (marinating meat in a vinegar solution and then rubbing it with a spice mix)

5. Most importantly, how can I be sure I’m storing food that will support my grain-free, dairy-free, preservative-free natural, Paleo lifestyle?

One of the first things to consider is to begin your food storage efforts at the start of your gardening an growing season, and to end at the time of your last garden harvest. You need to be sure you are growing the foods that fit your Paleo or gluten-free lifestyle, and that are the actual foods your family will enjoy. 

In a food storage plan for a year, it may be difficult to store only foods that are 100 percent Paleo or Gaps approved. I know for our family we are already only about 80 percent Paleo, and I would consider storing some non-Paleo items like grain-free seeds, Quinoa, and other grain-free things like sprouted amaranth, buckwheat or millet. I would also be willing to store beans and lentils as a protein source. 

 Other grain-free supplies could include: 

Our family purchases most of our food in bulk and we are gradually building our one-year stockpile by purchasing items we need from Azure Standard. Check to see if Azure delivers to your area! 

Make a decision to start now

This has been a longer blog post, but one we hope has whet your appetite for researching and preparing to gather and store some food supplies that will be available to you for a protracted period of time if necessary. If Old Mother Hubbard had done her research and prepared a food storage plan for her family, she would not have had a cupboard so bare there was not even a bone for her dog. 

 Remember these two cardinal rules for successful food storage:

  1. Store what you eat and eat what you store.
  2. Rotate, rotate, ROTATE!

By developing your master plan, and being willing to make a moderate investment of time and effort, you will have a successful food storage program for eating in good times or bad.

Be sure to check out the follow-up post to this on how you can store a year’s worth of food for your family on only $10 a week! 

Resources:

  • https://billyandanuttama.wordpress.com/2010/12/07/how-to-have-a-years-worth-of-food-stored-what-to-store-and-why-you-should-do-it/
  • https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-start-a-food-storage-on-138765
  • https://lds.about.com/library/bl/faq/blcalculator.htm
  • https://pubs.ext.vt.edu/426/426-331/426-331_pdf.pdf
  • https://www.oldfashionedfamilies.com/how-much-canning-do-you-need-for-a-full-year/
  • https://www.granny-miller.com/use-this-tool-to-help-plan-a-years-worth-of-food-supplies/
  • https://modernsurvivalblog.com/survival-skills/old-methods-of-meat-preservation/
  • https://www.rodalenews.com/grain-free-shopping-list
  • https://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/hagan59.html

Could You Feed Your Family For a Year The Paleo Mama