 "Review" | 2009-10-18 |
| - Reviewed By User: A212C03CW0QSYY |
| I am very happy with my purchase. The seller has been a very helpful person. He offered a free consultation for Basic Preparedness. |
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| "Making the Best of Basics is a must have for your library." | 2009-05-20 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1OMA0NLWXJHKB |
Making the Best of Basics: Family Preparedness Handbook
I bought this book many years ago and have found it to be a very useful resource for home food storage. It is loaded with recipes that can be used in everyday meals. These recipes are geared around using your food storage so it can be rotated. Although these recipes discuss using an oven to do the cooking, easy alternatives include Dutch ovens and box ovens. More information on those will be located on my site.
Suffice it to say, about 10 charcoal bricks on a Dutch oven or in a box oven (box wrapped in foil) will give you about 350 degrees for cooking. Using these things will make the recipes work well in any condition where you can maintain the temperature.
The real magic of this book is the charts, conversion tables, and research that were put into it. One of the charts helps you to calculate your "Family Factor" so you know exactly how much food storage your family needs. No other book or food storage calculator does this. They just lump you in with some general number. James Stevens was years ahead of everyone when he created this.
Not sure where to get your emergency preparedness and food storage supplies? He takes care of that too. There are thousands of dealers listed by state and zip code. All you have to do is look up your state and zip code and voila. Although printed in 1997/98, many of the links and phone numbers to business are still good, but there are many that aren't due to attrition.
Over 750,000 copies of this book were sold. I look forward to his 11th ed. I highly recommend it for your library. Or, add it to your cookbooks. It is a must for anyone who prepares for emergencies or has food storage.
Jim
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 "An Excellent Preparedness Resource" | 2009-04-23 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1GLQIE94GQ4UL |
This book is excellent in that it gives you a great starting point in preparedness. If you're concerned about the economy, terrorism, disasters, etc., and you want to be ready for anything life throws you, this book will provide you with a blueprint to follow, and Stevens lists what you need chapter by chapter in the order of importance: Water, then wheat, then powdered foods such as milk and eggs.
The amounts he lists are a bit overwhelming and more than we actually needed, but the information he provides - such as storage techniques and the many ways you can use wheat - can't be beat.
I have to admit, I'm not crazy about the recipes he lists. I much prefer my own, but if you've never cooked with whole wheat before, they are a great starting point. Try some of his recipes and then branch off, making variations that suit your own particular tastes.
I also like his advice: Use it or lose it. In other words, if you buy a lot of food and then never eat it, you're throwing good money away. Instead, store what you use, rotate it, use it and replace it.
Overall, the advice is excellent, and I highly recommend this book. |
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| "Making The Best Of Basics" | 2009-04-20 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2TOXTGO42EIF6 |
"This is a great book for the hard core survivalist, or in aiding average persons, to survive in an emergancy. Nuclear, Biological, Chemical, or even Terrorist attacks or Invasion. Clear and easy to read instructions from water purification, shelter construction, weapons; even gathering food.
Check it out!" |
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 "Recipes for Y2K?" | 2008-05-06 |
| - Reviewed By admin1914 |
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. |
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| "Best Overall" | 2007-08-31 |
| - Reviewed By 7krzkds |
| This book puts it all together very nicely. It helps you organize and understand everything from emergency preparedness to long term stoage. If you had to pick one resource to rely in such matters, this would be it. |
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