Hey Ryan here,

Thanks for visiting and reading my blog. You have come to the right place for a detailed review of “Sold Out After Crisis”, a guide book that is written by Damian Campbell.

I have gone over all of the material and I will give you an unbiased and honest review of Damian Campbell’s guide. That way you can decide for yourself if this is something that you may need in case of an emergency. What I will go over are the essential details you need to know before grabbing a copy of the guide for yourself.

This is a review site- Visit Damian Campbell’s “Sold Out After Crisis” official video website

First off, what is “Sold Out After Crisis”?

In a nutshell this book is an informative survival guide on the 37 essential foods. It also goes into some detail on what to do and what NOT to do in case of a disaster like a food shortage, especially if you need to buy after crisis at your local grocery store. Damian Campbell’s guide helps you to prepare for the worst possible scenario, so that you don’t wind up panicking or scratching your head wondering what to do.

How does it work?

The guide goes over important steps to be ready:

1. Taking steps to prepare ahead of time
2. The importance of stocking and knowing the shelf life of your food
3. Non-food items needed in a crisis
4. 37 essential foods you will need in a crisis
5. What you don’t need
6. Everything needed to bake your own food in a crisis

The negatives?

Just like every e-book or product, nothing is perfect, but I honestly enjoyed this guide.

• Damian Campbell plays on your fears and almost scares you into buying his “survive-anything guide”
• The guide is a little short but has most of the essentials you need to know for surviving a natural disaster.
• It comes in CD form but you can also buy the digital guide.
• Damian Campbell’s introductory video is over 10 minutes long, so you just need some patience.

The positives?

• What is included: 37 vital food items guide (which also includes how to create a survival pack), water purification quick-start guide, survival garden plans, off-grid survival backup power.
• Damian Campbell offers a 60 day money back guaruntee.
• For the average person this guide will put a healthy dose of fear into you. But the good thing is you will read and learn about the necessity of having a plan and being prepared, in case there is no food availability after emergency.
• This guide teaches you about the survivalist mindset of what to bring in case of a short-term evacuation: including things you’ll need such as important paper documents, a survival pack, important electronic files, etc.
• Damian Campbell provides plenty of examples to go along with every category so you will have a good idea of what to have with you in case of a food shortage or an evacuation.
• This guide applies to nearly everyone. After reading through the guide you, will take away a lot of valuable information that will help you in the future. Imagine going into an emergency without helpful tips like these.

What is my overall opinion?

“Sold Out After Crisis” in my opinion is a fantastic guide to have. The book may be kind of short but it has no fluff or filler and plenty of important information you need to know. I really believe Damian Campbell’s “survive-anything guide” is an eye-opener and I learned several key things to survive any disaster, especially what the 37 essential foods are. I’m going to make a survival pack after I’m done writing this.

If you like my review please share it =)

This short video is meant to introduce readers to an educational and important self-help guide like “Sold Out After Crisis”. Because I believe in being prepared in case of a natural disaster. I want to make sure readers are at least aware of the need to stock food survival supply’s.

I will continue to bring good reviews of quality self-help guides like “Sold Out After Crisis”.

A battlefield is a metaphor for love. That is the way our society has tended to create analogies for our inner struggles. If love can be made into war, then what can an encounter with true horrors tell us? In a natural disaster, emergencies create the most unique situations that many Americans would have never experienced before. How can we possibly hope to cope in such astonishing situations? My response is to prime the mind. I can empower myself by realizing I do have the capability to respond to all situations, to stay strong, and to support my family.

Even when the store shelves are empty and there is a sold out crisis, you must remain nimble in your mind. I call this state being alert and aware. In such general panic, one must realize that you have to utilize your fear effectively. You have to transform fear into fuel for long term survival. You don’t want to be a herd creature in this regards and panic along with the crowd. See for animals, herds are a mechanism that help them cope with natural selection. As soon as danger appears the herd averts the impending predators, so the whole herd runs away. However, in the confusion the weakest of the herd tend to be left behind, and that suffices as the lion’s meal. Now humans have a function greater than that of herd animals, and we can choose to react with dignity and respect.

Damian Campbell in his book Sold Out After Crisis urges all Americans to learn the basics of survival techniques. It is a call to self-power and helps us to feel secure for all situations. Because as a whole we have enjoyed peace for so long, many of us don’t even have basic training in first aid or self-defense. If you compare a nation like Israel or South Korea, where the threat of invasion looms all the time, you get the gist of what national preparedness could do for the common person.

Help yourself and your community with emergency preparedness

Citizens can provide a good response to disasters and being prepared. Of course, even here the in the United States, many people have these skills. They are first responders, nurses, doctors, and Red Cross volunteers. These people made a decision that they would care for themselves and their community by getting the skills that would help their community survive. In towns where natural disasters strike often, you find more of these people. For example, in the Midwest many towns prepare for spring floods by sandbagging and setting up emergency shelters. Because these towns experience flooding all the time, the citizens might be more prepared and have more training. Probably many people in town know how to fill a sandbag, and how to respond to flooding scenarios. Thus collectively, they have chosen to achieve a state of mental readiness and alertness. They choose not to be caught off guard, and have a sufficient community response.

On the other hand, survivalists who want to prepare for all sorts of “unlikely” scenarios may currently be marginalized. People may look at them funny for stockpiling all sorts of supplies. But when the community gets in trouble, perhaps they will also be the unlikely source of nuture and protection. Thus, wouldn’t it be better if everyone in the neighborhood was at least slightly prepared and had some supplies?

I am thinking of World War II scenarios in Britain. At night everyone quickly realized that turning off the lights and closing the curtains was the best way to prevent being bombed during a Luftwaffe Bombing Raid. It was collective, swift, and frankly, if you didn’t understand why you needed to do so, then you were a danger to everyone in your neighborhood. This is just one scenario where a community response was highly effective. I believe it also holds lessons for preparedness even now during peacetime. If everyone just cared about their neighbor like this, they would realize it is also a form of caring for themselves.

Nevertheless, it is so easy to pick up a book to learn the basics. It can help refresh your boy scout memories and take survival training more seriously. Again, it is the thought of being prepared which helps to offset fear in the event of a real scenario. Now that you know how easy it can be to empower yourself for disaster preparedness, you should act.

Neighborhood action plan

In Damian Campbell’s writing, he advocates for the formation of long term planning with others for disaster response. The advantage is that you already have a group of people that ideally, you would be able to trust and rely on in an emergency situation. Perhaps you have planned out how you can all effectively respond together. Perhaps as a group you decided that everyone needed to stock up on certain supplies.

If you don’t have something like this right now, perhaps you want to have a neighborhood action plan. Many neighborhoods in the US have something like a crime prevention plan, where neighbors all act in good Samaritan for each other. If there is suspicious activity, they choose to alert each other or the police instead of turning a blind eye. Believe it or not, in the past there were places where if crime occurred, people in the surrounding area just turned a blind eye, because they were afraid of the local gang, etc.

However, with solidarity in the neighborhood, there is a deterrence effect on crime. In theory, this solidarity would stand even during times of crisis, and neighbors would choose to help one another survive instead of running away. Of course, in an emergency you might consider issues like your family’s safety before your neighbors, but you should realize that it takes more than one man to defend an area. You are not a soldier of fortune, but rather you work in teams to help one another. That is why you should consider disaster preparedness together with others when possible.

In the chaos of life after disaster, in order to survive and consider the possibilities of thriving, you must be solid in your mind. You must master the game of psychology because this is the critical junction between weathering out the storm or caving in and giving up to the wolves. It helps to realize that many people in this world already do daunting tasks every day. This is just another day in their ordinary world, so the real question is, why do they have psychological toughness and how do they manage to pull it off? I will try and probe the human mind as objectively as I can. (Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional and this is not to be taken as medical advice. This is hence for entertainment value only and any concern should be checked with professionals).

A daunting and psychologically demanding job may range from being in law enforcement to being in the military. It may also include high-pressure jobs such as government prosecutors or CEOs. In effect, a high pressure job is when someone feels they have something to lose. So what does that mean? If you are handing out high-risk warrants or are a firefighter entering a burning building, you fear injury and, perhaps, even death. You also fear the possibility that the extraction is not clean, and your hostages or wounded will not be rescued. Can you ensure that everyone will survive? Thus, in that case, other people’s deaths would be yours to blame. Therein, guilt is also another shadowy monster hiding behind fear and uncertainty. Evidently, fear itself is the root of many other potential complications, including the likes of negative emotions such as guilt, distrust, paranoia, and, of course, simple failure.

After any high risk event, sometimes the participants may feel that they failed. In the real world, it is often impossible to satisfy everyone involved. Someone is let down, and even then some remote failure can be drawn from success. Failure, in any degree, can lead to strong feelings of remorse, disenchantment and depression. Furthermore, there can be a buildup of fear. Thus, fear feeds itself in a self-perpetuating and harmful cycle. Do you know what fear can do to your life? It can lead to paralysis, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Fear, then, is like a fire – it grows and builds, feeding off anything weak in its eyes, from wood to furniture to living animals and people. Like a raging forest fire, fear is destructive and infiltrative.

What is the solution to handling fear? It is by remembering your mission. Ask firefighters why they continue to enter burning buildings. Those who are psychologically ready will not fear the prospects of getting hurt but instead look forward to the positive effects of their actions. That includes not only remembering your mission but, moreover, mastering fear requires you to remember to remember your mission. In the heat of the moment – someone has a gun pointed at you, the building is collapsing around you, or there is food shortages and a sold out crisis ensues – it is often very, very difficult to suddenly remember – “ah yes, this is my mission and it will keep me calm.” No, rather, that sort of mentality itself needs to be trained and enforced. This is called mastering you own fear. Overcoming psychological fear requires you to work at it. It is not at a passive process. Indeed, forgetting ones’ own mission is quite passive – oops, I forgot. However, remembering one’s mission – that requires you to think and keep it close to your heart. That is a very active process.

Psychological toughness is not like having a big wall to hide behind. Rather, I consider it like water. If water flows around a structure, how can the fires of life, work, or survival situations pass through it? Indeed, the key here is versatility. Water, the substance of life, is very versatile and flexible. It can feed into the most raging hurricanes, fuel the most tortuous twisters, flood the most intricate of valleys and ecosystems, and, yet at the same time, water feeds all living beings’ thirst. Water is needed for plants to survive. We, as human beings, need water to survive. Thus, water, in its versatility, can be as strong, fearful, docile, or nurturing as it wants. In short, water can overcome any obstacle because it knows how to adapt. Building a big wall will only serve you in running away from the real issue; at best, it only delays the inevitable and may even inadvertently lead you towards the very fear the wall was built to suppress. Do not hide from your fears behind walls. Remember your mission and move forward like water to meet and master your psychological fear.

Case study of losing your edge:

Psychology can be demonstrated through stories. Consider how this story relates a tale of survival.

One of my favorite movies is when Tom Cruise plays a pilot in the Navy, flying an F-14 Tomcat. (For legal purposes I will refrain from mentioning the name of the movie). He is the toughest, slyest, and meanest pilot in the sky. Some of his co-wingmen even consider him reckless. Of course, he has never gotten hurt. But when he does, he loses “his edge.” What does it mean to lose your edge? He has always depended on his wingman to help him, someone who is always there beside him. In fact, this dependence certainly becomes his downfall. Is this to say that distrust is beneficial? No. Of course, every situation is circumstantial. In this pilot’s case, his recklessness gave in to his weakness – overdependence on another wingman who may not always be there for him. Whether or not his recklessness came from a fear of losing his image as a tough and wild “black horse” pilot or from an unconscious fear of facing a deeper and more painful burden, he unwittingly became reckless. Had he kept his mission in mind and chosen to actively face his own fears, he may have found the courage and time to learn that what he had relied on his wingman for. In this case, it was the necessity of self-dependence in something as dangerous and life-threatening as flying an F-14 in the Navy.

One more case in point of losing your edge:

In this case, consider how this story relates to mastering your fear and overcoming difficult dilemmas.

A special ops field agent has to take down particular targets. However, during the span of the mission, she has become entangled with various persons and, at this point, the mission has become compromised with personal aspects. There are now lives at stake and the agent’s personal conflictions and relations can directly influence the overall mission. She has so much fear: losing loved ones, failing the mission, losing her job from honorable discharge, and, of course, the many lives that may be at stake. Surely, some lives will be lost, but the question over whether those lives will be of the innocent or the evil will be answered by the agent’s decisions. At that point, so much fear – fear of deaths, failure, loss of reputation, or loss of friends and loved ones – can easily overwhelm and further cloud the agent’s judgment. At that time, the agent has to remember her mission. What is most important to her – the lives of who she is protecting, her job, or something else? She has to make these hard decisions.

There are high stakes in our lives. The consequences can be huge and momentous. No matter the situation, keep yourself grounded in your own mission. Only then can you overcome fear and its hideous cousins of guilt, shame, failure. Of utmost importance is remembering to move with the versatility and clarity of thought of water.

When we think of the end of society and what we’d do, we, for the most part, have similar ideas. People usually think of things like taking advantage of the emergency supplies they’ve stockpiled (if they’ve actually done any stock piling!). Some people go a little further and say they’d freely steal food from broken down stores left open- with no law guiding society anymore; this makes sense to a degree. Some people go even further and say they’d start to hunt and fish as a way to procure food. But is this all there is to survival when all bets are off and you truly have to fend for yourself? The answer is no, these ideas are good but not even close to enough. There are many fundamental things to think about and consider. One of those things has to do with the very basics of survival in terms of material goods. What do you really need, and how do you ensure you have a steady supply of those things? This is one of the most important aspects that you need to know, in the event you survive an apocalyptic event and find yourself completely on your own.

The first class of material goods you’re going to need to know how to find- food. Our idea of food and nourishment has been built upon a life that practically throws food at us for no work at all, so knowing how to work for food and knowing what it’s like to struggle to eat is so completely foreign to us, I fear many, or most people, will find this part of surviving an insurmountable task and would probably succumb to hunger. But you don’t have to. Remembering a few small key points will set you far ahead of most people when you approach the idea of food when the world ends.

• The food you eat will no longer be about taste necessarily, but nourishment first and foremost.
• The food you eat will take a lot of work to get.
• You won’t be able to eat recreationally- only to survive and nourish your body.
• You’ll have to eat things you never thought you would before.

Another thing people forget is, there won’t always be food found. When you do find food or prepare food, it’s essential that you know how to collect and to store excess food for times when finding food is scarce- times like winter time, or droughts, or times when you can’t get out and find food due to sickness or injury.

With these basics out of the way, knowing where to find and how to get food can be a complicated process- but anyone can get what they need with minimal skill. Of course, with more skills and techniques you will be able to take advantage of a more diverse diet with potentially more security in accessing food in general, but you should be able to feed yourself without a lot of skill at first.

Directly after a disaster, it would pay to spend some time looting for the right kinds of food. Canned food can, in theory, last indefinitely. It’s a good idea to stock up on canned foods that pack a lot of energy into a small amount of space- like beans and meats first. There are huge amounts of canned meats- from the obvious tuna fish, to chicken, pork, and various seafood varieties. Even if you don’t particularly enjoy these foods now, they’ll come in handy in lean times. Beans are versatile, Healthy, and full of energy and should be one of the first canned foods you loot. After you’ve stockpiled a good amount of these two foods, move onto canned vegetables, paying special attention to vegetables packed with salt (it may seem counter intuitive, but in times like this you’re going to need to ingest salt and you won’t be able to find salt easily believe it or not) and high in vitamin content. This means avoiding corn if you can, and opting for canned veggies such as peas, carrots, onions, green beans, okra, spinach, asparagus, and especially mushrooms. Canned pumpkin, sweet potato, and regular potatoes, as well as yams are also important. Grab as much as you can.

After you’ve looted and stockpiled on canned foods, it’s time to start grabbing whole grain foods, like bags of rice, dry beans, flour, and oats. Salt, sugar should be next, as well as oils- avoid butter and other oils with ingredients that can go rancid. Bottled oils like vegetable oil, and Crisco are your best bets. Tubbed lard lasts as well, and should be grabbed.

Things to not worry about when looting for food- meats, fresh vegetables (unless you’re going to eat them right away), fancy spices, prepared bread items, packaged processed foods that will rot easily, and things like candy, ice cream, and other luxuries. When we’re talking about immediate survival, these items aren’t necessary and will take up precious time and energy. However, items that are luxurious like these can be used as trading currency later, so if you’re set up well on the necessities, these kinds of items may prove helpful.

The second class of important things to grab are things that many people would forget at first, but are almost as important as, or just as important as food. These items include medicines (antibiotics), bandages, basic cleaning and disinfecting chemicals like bleach and lyme (which can be used to make soap), ointments, lighters and matches, cooking utensils, fuels (gasoline, propane etc.), pens, paper, soaps, fishing gear (nets, poles, artificial bait), a firearm or two, knives, batteries, a radio, etc. All of these things you can find at a grocery store where you looted your basic food items.

These things should all be stockpiled after you’ve secured shelter first and foremost. Properly setting you up for survival will leave you room to begin living off of the land and learning the intricacies of living without modern conveniences. One of the very best things you can do to prepare right now however, is finding a good book or two on the matter. Whatever you choose, keeping your mind on straight and paying attention to the very basics will greatly increase your chances of living well when society is falling apart.

I think a lot of people like to think they’d know what to do if the world went to hell tomorrow. But, be honest with yourself- do you really know what it would take to live, at least slightly comfortably, without the convenient comforts that we take for granted today? Think about it- what would you do without a grocery store, fast food, or pizza delivery for that matter? If you had no one preparing your food for you, how would you do it, and do you know how to find the food you need? We rely so much on a food supply that is quite easy to disrupt, and then we would probably starve.

Thus, it’s a little more complicated than you may think and takes some specialized knowledge, but with some basics to expand on, you’ll be more than ready if the civilized world as we know it ends. You’ll be prepared and equipped with emergency survival food, while others won’t, which will give you the survival edge if the situation ever presented itself. You could also read more about modern survivalist experts like Damian Campbell.

If you think about it, grocery stores and fast food chains are actually a fairly recent convenience. Before these things, people would rely on their own know-how when it came to procuring food. In fact, in some small, very poor, independent backwoods communities (think Appalachians) people still forage for wild food, hunt and process their own game, and completely rely on the land they live on to sustain them. However, these are a dying breed of people, and their ways are almost all but forgotten. In order to really understand the work that goes into preparing food from absolute scratch (or even finding it!) you could live with them for a while, or you could start practicing now. Damian Campbell would recommend you put into practice his teachings as well.

Tools of the trade

You may want to make sure you always have some basic survival tools and basic supplies handy, and you should know how to use them. A good, foldable hunting knife is a great start. A hatchet is also a good idea. A machete is a good tool if you happen to live in an area that sports heavy vegetation. A gun may be useful, but in terms of basic survival they’re not really necessary with the right skill sets (like knowing how to build traps, use a slingshot or spear, etc.) Know how to tie knots and have rope handy. Know how to make simple shelters and familiarize yourself with how to build larger, sturdier shelters for permanence if needed. For reference, some of these tools and others like a ham radio are listed in Damian Campbell’s survival manuals.

There are several basic foraging tips you should know. For wild crops, there are several high yield, easy to identify, and highly nutritious wild foods that you should use as your basis of foraging in the event of an emergency. One of these foods is cattails. American Indians relied on cattails for a good portion of their diets, and it’s unfortunate that American settlers didn’t adopt this food source and cultivate it when they came to America. Every part of the cat tail is edible and very tasty. The best edible parts of the cattail are in the stalk itself. To harvest, simply either cut an entire stalk at the ground and remove the outer leaves revealing a lighter colored fleshy heart, or you can also pull away the outer leaves of the stalk while it’s still attached to the ground, and pull up and hard on the heart flesh, popping it out of the ground without cutting it. Cattails also have fleshy rhizomes that are edible and can be stored for a long time. You can pull these up out of the ground by grabbing one in the muck and pulling up hard. You can extract the starch in the rhizome by mashing it in a liquid, then allowing the starch to settle down, pouring off the water, and squeezing out the water of the white starch. This is a labor intensive process however, but the result is a mash of high-energy food that’s easy to eat. Another very common food that’s easy to find through a good portion of the country are American persimmons. Persimmons are a very sweet, large, fleshy orange fruit that fully ripens in the fall, and is usually ready to be harvested after the leaves of the persimmon tree have fallen off and the fruit just begins to look past its peak. If you eat them any sooner, you’ll be punished with an astringent feeling in your mouth that’s not unlike dentist’s cotton (not pleasant). You will need to learn from local experts what grows in your region and temperate zone.

Meat may also be prepared for long-term storage by drying it, or dehydrating it into jerky. People used to butcher their catches or animals, salt them heavily, and hang them out to dry in the hot sun. Salting the meat preserved it and kept bacteria and other microorganisms from breaking it down, and the hot sun pulled out the water, effectively petrifying the meat so that it could be stored for later consumption. You can do this with just about any kind of meat, including fish.

You can also smoke meat to preserve it. Smoking is done in a small hut or smoker. The meat is hung or set in the smoker and a small amount of coals and or wood is placed in the bottom of the smoker. The meat is then immersed in smoke for days on end, drying it out and infusing the flesh with the smoke, making the meat last a long time after it’s removed. Smoking can also enhance the flavor of the meat if done right.

What to do now

Even though you don’t have a survivalist teaching you side by side, you have information sources like in this article and you can read more from experts like Damian Campbell. You should practice some of these time-honored techniques for preserving food, game, and drying your foraged foods.

For now, you can create an emergency food supply list and stock up one non-perishable emergency survival food to get you through temporarily in the event of an emergency. Gallons of water, canned foods, dried and freeze-dried foods all make a good start. Stockpile sugar, flour, salt, Lyme, matches, and a book or two on how to identify wild edibles, make traps, and how to build shelters. Familiarize yourself with basic sewing skills. All of these things will add up to a more prepared you, in the unfortunate event of an emergency.

Damian Campbell has a lot more tips for surviving and packing emergency food supply lists. This material is great training for you to survive many scenarios, including long-term “end-of-civilization” emergencies. If you follow the materials and training in his manuals, and put together the emergency kits he recommends, you will have to forage less when disaster strikes. With an emergency kit already assembled, you could be more mobile and perhaps you could flee the disaster area better. That is why it pays to be prepared, and Damian Campbell has a lot to offer.

All people who care for loved ones should learn to outlast the storms in an emergency and survivalist situation, especially if you are stuck in the city. For example, when the power goes out for just a couple hours, you merely feel the pinch of a minor discomfort from your modern day amenities. Yet, when hours turn into days of rolling blackouts through town, like in California just awhile back, you realize just how thin the boundary is between today and a hundred years ago. Now take a major national emergency, and see how much chaos could ensue. That is why those with the correct skills will outlive their neighbors who rely on the GPS. Here we will touch on the field methods for survival in a hostile urban situation.

When you are stuck in the city or a suburb and there is no water, food, or electricity, what is the difference between that urban situation and a wilderness situation? The answer is they are actually very similar. Perhaps you have a short stock of food that remains. You will also have to deal with predators, but of a different kind– mobs, criminals, and murderers. It may be harder to live off the land. How will you be safe from scavengers, intruders and protect your loved ones? The answer is the training that you can do today. It’s just like when the military does mock war games- the reason is to be ready at a moment’s notice, and not to be asleep on the watchtower. However, you don’t have to have military training to live through Urban and Emergency Survival Food situations. You just need a book or a guide, and some practice. For instance, Damian Campbell has many tips that you can put into practice and implement right away. You should also do mock runs of these techniques, in order to truly master the methods that may save you later.

Securing Your Safety in Urban Riots

As relevant as ever for our times, 2011 was a year filled with riots in many nations all across the globe. These riots give survivalists a small sample of what could be to come when food, water, and shelter become sparse in a national emergency. From our TV screens, we could sense the panic and hysteria of those cities in riot. In Cairo, the Egyptians swarmed into the town squares, threatening the safety of everyone living in the vicinity. In Russia, organized mass riots occurred everywhere as people felt threatened by political instability. Even here in the United States, we had the Occupy Wall Street movement. Riots of modern times are controlled and quarantined by police, but when violence breaks loose you will be able to see video clips of mob violence on YouTube. In an urban emergency, security is a pleasure that is not taken for granted.

You can try to learn some self-defense skills if you ever have to do close quarters fighting. Thus, you can protect yourself against burglars, and muggings, which are bound to increase as police and social order go away.  Some people would like to stock guns or learn self-defense to keep themselves safe from rioters. Sadly, most self-defense will only work for defending against 1-10 people at most, not entire mobs. If you have ever seen police clashing with protesters, you know that a couple guns against hundreds and thousands in a mob are no match. That is why the best strategy is to literally hide and make yourself nondescript. You may make it seem like your shelter is uninhabited or better yet; you camouflage your shelter so people don’t even know where you live. As impractical as this may sound at first, this is where cellars and backyard bomb shelters may come in handy. If you live in a nondescript apartment building, perhaps it may be safe to stay there, as long as looters don’t target your building complex. The most important catch is that looters don’t steal your emergency survival food supply. If you have young children, don’t let them play outside, because that will signal that vulnerable people live in the vicinity and hungry rioters may begin looting. At night, you may want to keep the lights off, so no one can tell that you are still living there. Don’t go out at night- pretend like you’re in a dangerous neighborhood of LA, and the last thing you need is the attention of local criminals. You will want to make your shelter like a small, but hidden fortress. In Damian Campbell’s materials, he actually tells you to get out of the city as a preferred option. However, when you cannot, he also includes other tips on city survival as well. Below are some tips about food and water rations.

Stocking food and provisions

If you cannot evacuate from the city when a crippling disaster strikes, hopefully you have stored up provisions that will help you avoid going outside. People will rush to the supermarkets, and supplies will run out in a matter of hours. Potable water will be scarce as well.

What provisions will you need? A complete list can be found from a survival expert named Damian Campbell, but for starters, you can build your emergency survival food situation with canned goods, and plenty of water. You will also need a method for cooking these foods, such as lots of matches (unless you like canned carrots cold). However, it may be a challenge to cook these foods while remaining hidden. If the disaster happens during wintertime and you need to hide, cooking will release steam, which may give away your position. The solution may be to cook in an enclosed area, and have a ventilation shaft that leads away from your shelter.  You should also have vitamins stocked up; since chances are your diet will still be malnourished.

Emergency survival food should also account for a basic supply of water, or a method to replenish your water supply once you run out. If you go camping, perhaps you have a basic water filter left over. However, the carbon filters that you use for tap water now will not be sufficient, and you will want to boil any water you drink. In fact, in my opinion water is more important than food, since you will usually need water in order to even cook your foods.  If you want to read Damian’s opinion on what is important, you can also check out his books.

Damian Campbell helps you to practically learn some survival techniques, as well as important things like packing short term and longer term emergency field supplies. One of the key benefits of this program is the emergency food supply list. If you read through his materials, you will already be more prepared than most people in your neighborhood. You will be able to survive even as the “urban jungle” and all of its predators close in around you. He teaches you to stay calm, assess, and always have a backup plan, as well as the essential items you need to survive urban disaster scenarios.

Even though many people in America are living snugly inside their suburban home, when disaster strikes, there will be a lack of many things. This includes food shortages, where normal people are left like hungry schoolchildren to fend for ourselves. However, as funny as it sounds, we can avoid excessive hunger in all this by undergoing training for survivalist techniques.  This solution trains us to live off the land anywhere, much so like the Native Americans.

Thus, even when earthquakes strike, you should still know how to gather emergency food supplies from the land, forage, and have supplies to evacuate if necessary. Here are some tips to help you begin training, and it could be as simple as merely planting the correct things in your garden. We touch on foraging and techniques for collecting water, such as collecting rainwater and dew off of the land.

Earthquake scenario

Assume that there is an emergency in your state, such as earthquakes and mudslides and no help can get in. There is no rescue helicopter in sight because this was “the big one” and the earthquake devastated a 5 state area. Help may not come for weeks and depending on where you are and what condition your shelter is in, you will need to act fast. Gather your family, devise a plan, and set rules for safety. Count your food supplies and budget it to last for at least two weeks. All humans need food, shelter, water, and safety, no matter where you are. In an earthquake, animals sense something is wrong and flee with all their might, but humans are left behind. However, even though we cannot sense earthquakes coming, we can better prepare for the aftermath. This includes having an emergency food supply list, supplies stashed away in an accessible area, and previous disaster planning to help facilitate the quick evacuation or restoration to normalcy. Ensuring safety is one of the major steps you need to take for an earthquake scenario. You will need to avoid broken things, glass, debris, or even ruptured gas lines. Even if you have emergency supplies buried under the debris of your house, do not enter to retrieve it unless you know the area is secure and no gas leaks are apparent.

Emergency Survival food is meant to last for only a short time, and depending on what you have packed away, it may last for a couple days to a couple weeks or even longer. Survivalists recommend at least a two week supply of food and drink. In an emergency, you will need to learn to live off the land and collect water. One method to collect safe potable water is to use a tarp to collect condensation from the air. It will collect condensation in the air as you stretch a piece of plastic over a hole in the ground, and the setup is exposed to sunlight. Water from the ground and air will condense on it, and if you put something to catch the water underneath, you will have some safe water to drink. Another easier way is if you have a water filter in your supply kit. You can use it to filter water, but make sure to boil first because many filters aren’t rated for biological contaminants. For more information on collecting water, Damian Campbell, a survival expert, also has other methods for collecting potable water in his survival manuals. His tips are not only about surviving disasters, but you can also apply some of his techniques for emergencies, such as during camping trips, hiking etc.

How to Forage

You should also learn to forage. For example, did you know that dandelions are an edible flower? Dandelions have grown in popularity because of their excellent edible qualities, and their hardiness. Not only are the young green leaves delicious raw or cooked, but they’re easily cultivated and found everywhere. Harvest dandelion greens before they flower, or after first flower, but dandelion greens will become more bitter as they grow. For people who’ve been so conditioned to not appreciate bitterness, they can be a real shock to the palette. However, to know what to forage for, you should learn tips for foraging in the right areas. Suburban lawns are treated with lots of chemicals, so you may need to think twice before plucking them up there.  Don’t forage near highways or other polluted areas, since the plants will not be safe to eat.

You’re going to need to know what wild foods around you are edible and worthwhile to seek out and harvest. If you’re going to be foraging for emergency survival food, it’s best to spend the least amount of energy finding the most food, in an ideal situation. For now, it may be worthwhile to look up more information on foraging, because every environment is different. Or consider contacting a local foraging expert and asking them how to forage properly. But, for convenience’s sake, there are some basic foraging crops and skills you should know.

Along with the limitless amounts of food you can find in the wild, you’re going to need to know how to store your found emergency survival food, especially for survivalists that live in northern climates when winter time makes for difficult foraging. One way to preserve plant foods is to can them. Canning is the process of sealing foods in a glass jar with high amounts of heat in a boiling water bath, that in essence stops the food you seal from decaying (in a sterile environment). This is a great way to save harvests over a season. Canning needs to be done in a very clean area, because you can get very, very sick from bacteria that populate in canned foods. Depending on the kind of jars and foods you’re canning, it’s a good idea to learn the specifics before you try canning them. A good way to start is to try making your own pickles. There are plenty of recipes on the internet you can try, and canning supplies are easily found in most grocery stores these days, especially in the fall season. You can try just about anything, especially fleshy vegetables and fruits. Berries are easy to find, and you can turn what may be a very sour and not very palatable berry into a delicious jam with enough sugar, canning it for later use. Crabapples are excellent fruit that are great as preserves or as a jam. Currants, gooseberries, mulberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, cranberries- almost any kind can taste wonderful canned with enough sugar.

Damien Campbell approaches your emergency food supply list from the perspective of storing. He teaches you what to have on hand to endure through shorter term and longer term emergencies. As a bonus to survivalists, he does have a series of tutorials on generating water, and other special tutorials on electrical energy collection.  Once you have an idea, you can start stocking up on what to have on hand and serve better your family, neighbors and friends.

When I talk to people about what they’d do in the event of a major emergency-  what they think life would be like for everyone, most of them say something to  the effect of, “I’d help in any way I could!” or “I’m not worried about it,  there’s always the soup kitchen” or “live off of my survival food list.” Two  sets of responses usually surface. One set includes the people who think they’d  have enough of their own lives taken care of so that they had the resources to  help others, and the other people who simply can’t imagine life without the  basic conveniences that we take for granted. Honestly, as you read this, can you  picture yourself without your smartphone? On the top of your head you’d say  “Sure!” but honestly, could you really? But here’s the truth- I love my friends  and my family, but I know most of them would spend their first week after a  disaster of catastrophic proportions looking for a cell phone signal, or a way  to charge their phone. The utter denial of what life would really and truly be  like is so engrained in us, it’s no wonder conspiracy theorists not like Damian  Campbell believe that hand-held devices and other minor luxuries are nothing  more than the higher power’s way of controlling us. The need and denial of  anything outside of these things is so powerful, it’s impossible for many of us  to imagine life without these things.

You’ve probably read in other posts on this same subject that you need to  create a plan in order to provide for yourself properly in the event of an  emergency. The truth is it takes far more than a plan and emergency food  supplies. You need to know how to enter the right frame of mind to survive. You  need to know that you’ll have your head on straight, your priorities in order,  and the will to survive with nothing- more than just making a survival food  list.

I mentioned hurricane Katrina in a previous post about examples of natural  disasters handled terribly wrong. There were several tragic things about the  aftermath of that event. 1) Why the rest of the country took so long to help was  a disgrace and 2) it happened in an area where, well, let’s just say there  happened to be a large amount of wrongdoing in the first place and 3) the very  group of people who had been trained and outfitted to help in the event of a  disaster already in place did the wrong thing over and over again (for example,  taking away people’s firearms). Yes, this situation was tragic, but it’s the  perfect setting for what things would be like in the event of a major, gigantic  event that destroyed life as we knew it.

What would be likely to happen is exactly what happened in Katrina. Once it  sunk in that there would be no immediate disaster relief from the outside,  people began taking the law into their own hands. They began to loot other’s  belongings from the piles of broken homes and steal from businesses and their  neighbors. They began to hurt other people to get basic supplies like fresh  drinking water and emergency food supplies, says Damian Campbell. They hurt and  even killed other people for shelter. And even in extreme lawlessness, there  were instances where unprotected women were raped, people were murdered, and  general mayhem ensued.

Reality is you need to be ready to protect yourself and do things you’d never  do normally to survive and protect your loved ones. The best way to do this is  to come to terms with the fact that you will need some form of protection (like  a firearm) and you’ll need to know how to use it properly, safely, and  effectively. The second reality is you may need to be able to make a split  second decision and do something you may not do normally. Many times, thinking  twice and not doing what needs to be done may cost you dearly down the line, or  even right away. The person you are today may not be able to kill even a mouse,  but the person you’ll have to be in a disaster will need to be able to kill much  more than a mouse without blinking an eye, or quite frankly, you won’t survive  for very long. We’ve all seen sensational television dramas like “Walking Dead”,  but even they have sad, grains of truth to them. In order to survive, in order  to keep the majority of the group safe, sometimes things need to be done. This  could mean hunting and killing game. This could mean ending the life of someone  threatening you, your loved ones, or your hard-earned supplies such as emergency  survival food.

You’re going to need to put some things (along with your survival food list)  you take for granted now in the forefront of your living needs in an emergency.  Simple things like candy, games, and vices like cigarettes or marijuana,  alcohol, processed foods said Damian Campbell- these things are so important to  us right now, but in an emergency, all of these things can take a back seat.  Whole, nourishing foods that store well and knowing how to cure and prepare  foods and emergency food supplies is extremely important instead like emergency  survival food. Medicines, such as antibiotics or life-sustaining meds if you  need them, like insulin for diabetics, are also extremely important and  valuable. Basic chemicals that are used as bases for curing, cleaning, and  disinfecting (such as salt, sugar, lime, wax, oil, iodine, rubbing alcohol,  etc.) are essential if you can get them. Ways and supplies to fix and mend items  and clothing, like basic tools, sewing supplies are important. Basic tools to  cook with like a frying pan, a pot, cups, and utensils are essential. A hatchet,  good knives, an ax- all non-powered yet extremely useful tools will go a long  way in creating and keeping up proper shelter, getting food, and protecting  yourself. Once you’ve established yourself comfortably with the basics, the  pleasures in life can be sought after and used yourself, or better yet used as  trading currency in a society where there will be no more value in paper money.  Just think of, if you’re familiar at all, with what a pack of cigarettes can get  you as an inmate in prison, for example- far more worthwhile than emergency  survival food.

Your entire mindset has to change if you’re going to survive in  post-apocalyptic society. You’re going to have to think in ways and do things  you never thought you could in the event lawlessness reins and you’re truly on  your own. And, if history has ever taught us anything, this very reality is  possible and even likely. It won’t take much to plunge the world back into the  dark ages. Will you be mentally prepared?

The last few weeks have seen a markedly drastic increase in tornadic activity here in the US. In fact, we may have seen the largest outbreak of tornadoes this early in the season in all of history. And this pattern isn’t isolated. We’ve been experiencing record breaking occurrences of natural disasters more often in the last decade- from tornadoes to hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, cold… almost every variable you can think of, we’ve had it and we’ve had it in droves. No one’s quite sure why this is happening (global warming is everyone’s best guess), but what we do know is people’s lives are being changed. People are dying. And even more alarming is, not a lot of people know what to do in the event that a catastrophic event happens to them. What if you suddenly lost your home due to a major hurricane? What if your entire city was blown off of the map by a gigantic f4 tornado? Could you provide for yourself or your family, let alone survive if suddenly you lost everything including your emergency food supplies? What would you do if this happened to you? Does it simply end with creating a survival food list for example? The answer is no.

Of course, depending on the kind of natural disaster, you could be effected randomly in an isolated case such as a tornado that jumps the ground only wreaking havoc every hundred yards or so (seen in cases where in the path of destruction some homes have been left completely untouched by the tornado, while others in the same path had been completely obliterated). Maybe you lost part of your home to a natural sinkhole, while everyone else around you continued life as normal. Maybe, in a freak of nature a sudden wind gust blows down that old tree in your property right on top of your home, destroying it. Stranger things have happened of course, and in the grand scheme of things, these are fairly common occurrences in terms of natural disaster scenarios. In these cases, the solution to surviving these disasters is fairly simple- seek the help of friends and family or advice from Damian Campbell, maybe even your neighbors and let insurance take care of the rest like emergency survival food. These are not the end of the world disasters- however upsetting and expensive they may be.

Considering real, frightening, end-of-the-seeming world scenarios, I think of hurricane Katrina several years ago. The weeks that followed hurricane Katrina, the local residents of New Orleans were literally cut off from the rest of the world. Not only were their homes destroyed- they had nowhere to procure food, no emergency survival food, no makeshift shelters that were safe, no clean water, no way to escape. Looting, ransacking, basic disregard to human rights, disease- it was rampant. For weeks the residents who had their lives completely destroyed by hurricane Katrina had to figure out how to survive in a world that they were completely unfamiliar with- and to be perfectly honest, many of them failed miserably. More people died after the hurricane than during it.

Again, another example of catastrophic disaster that didn’t turn out well for the people affected- the horrific earthquake in Haiti. Not only did this earthquake’s epicenter target Haiti’s most populated area (Port au-Prince), but it happened in a part of the world that is fundamentally very poor. The infrastructure was never designed to handle such a strong earthquake. The buildings weren’t built to withstand the forces put upon them during that time of disaster. There was never a concrete and executable plan made by the government in the event of a horrific disaster like this one to serve the people after they became homeless and in great need. What resulted was one of the worst, and still is, human disasters in history. Years later, Haiti is still coping with this event, and it seems as if they may never fully recover from this event.

The truth is, many of us don’t live in an area that couldn’t somewhat handle itself in times of need. For example, Japan and its residents have recovered reasonably well after earthquakes and a massive tsunami killed thousands. If a natural disaster hit many places like in Japan, you could create a plan that included helping your neighbors, or relying on others if you happened to be in desperate need. But if you found yourself in a situation like Haiti’s aftermath, or after hurricane Katrina, do you know what you would do? How would you prepare? How would you protect yourself and your family? How would you provide for your most basic of needs such as emergency food supplies and emergency survival food, when everything around you is completely destroyed?

There are many steps to preparation and readiness in times of great disaster. A lot of what you think you may need to consider, you may have never realized. This becomes even more important if you have others to care for or provide for. What you know now in terms of how to make a shelter, how to get your food, how to get clean, safe drinking water, how to create a sanitary environment for you to live in, how to conduct yourself when around others in the same survival mode- there are many things you have to be ready for and know how to endure, like making a survival food list. Knowing what to do without your home, your appliances, your car, your grocery store, emergency food supplies, your cell phone; do you know, right now as you read this, what to do without these things? Can you fathom yourself without them?

It’s one thing to survive in the event of a disaster. It’s another thing to survive and thrive sold out after crisis, moving onto your new phase in life without having to worry about your next meal, whether or not you’ll have shelter for the evening, whether or not you can protect yourself in the event of intruders with malintent. A lot of what you need to know will probably surprise you such as what to include in your survival food list. If you don’t die in the natural disaster of a century, you must know how to survive and thrive.

As we continue to crowd this planet more and more, governments become less  and less prepared to be able to save its citizens in times of crisis. If you  look at the Japanese Tsunami in 2011, one of the most advanced nations on Earth  was completely devastated. Their society and natural disaster preparation is  much more robust than that of the United States. In fact, this is because Japan  is an island nation sitting near a ring of underwater volcanoes. It is safe to  say they knew a major earthquake would happen at some point in the future, but  obviously not that it would happen in earlier 2011.

When the Tsunami hit, an entire prefecture’s disaster handling capabilities  were wiped out. A prefecture’s resources are somewhat equivalent to an entire US  State. National Guard and firemen from the farthest reaches of the country had  to be mobilized, and the Japanese National economy was devastated. Stocks  dropped and entire life’s worth of savings were depleted. In the capital, Tokyo,  food for survival was even in short supply as people started hoarding supplies.  People were so freaked out by the damage to the nuclear facility that they even  left the country. Tokyo, one of the most developed metropolitan areas of Japan,  was 250 miles from the site of the earthquake. If they were having food  shortages in Tokyo, imagine the conditions of people in other parts of the  country and those closer to the earthquake center.

People immediately went to the nearest government sanctioned shelter, where  thousands of others had gathered. Of course, entire road systems were wiped out,  so it took days to get emergency food supplies to the areas. Now, it is  impossible to say what would have happened if there was a different model of  preparation. For instance, in the United States, we don’t have Tsunami  floodgates, and we don’t have the advanced warning systems of Japan. Did you  know people got a text message on their phone moments before the tsunami hit?  Even though those by the shoreline knew that it was coming, there was nothing  they could do. For those further inland, if they had an escape plan, they might  have put it into action.

Adequate planning

In certain cases, it is impossible to survive the first wave or direct hit  from Mother Nature. However, for most others, there is still hope and a window  of opportunity. Hope increases when you have a strategy. Like a nuclear bomb  going off, there is often a circular radius from the epicenter in which disaster  and crisis will spill out. If you can get out, having a planned evacuation and  execution will assist you. According to Damian Campbell, a survival expert,  stocking up on certain essential items will help you with food survival. One way  to look at it is humans need food, shelter, and water for survival. This is true  for both long-term and short-term. If you’re good with one of these three items,  your chances in the long-term just went up 33%. If you have a plan, you can find  shelter and water.

Many tips for getting away safely are taught by Damian Campbell, such as  avoiding areas where people are crowding together, since often these are mobs.  If you had the training available to you from Damian Campbell, you would be more  prepared, as well as able to respond to events differently.

In some cases, if you have adequate emergency supplies, and are well-armed,  you might consider bartering with others. If you planned ahead of time, you may  even have other people who will help you and work together with you.

Futurism redefined

It seems that the future for this world and its people may be different from  what we imagine. Those with knowledge are those who will thrive. This applies to  all circumstances that the world can throw at us. When it comes to physically  surviving and thriving, you better make friends with people who have survival  training. These people will be the leaders in whatever community they end up in,  since others will realize their invaluable knowledge. Another way to put it is,  do you want to be important enough when the inevitable crisis hits that those  you love will get well fed? Then learn the survival skills that will help others  survive, as well as your family and yourself.

The answer is actually just a little preparation, which goes a long way.  Emergency food supplies in your car, for instance, can be a good way to be  prepared. It does not go overboard, yet you have a safety net. If you had the  survival knowledge, you could stock up on the necessary items.