Emergency Preparedness and More:

A Manual on Food Storage and Survival

Howard Godfrey

What happens when someone fairly new to preparedness reads Howard Godfrey’s book, Emergency Preparedness & More?  They get excited about preparedness, that’s what!

I asked my father-in-law to review Godfrey’s book.  Emergency Preparedness & More is packed with information and life has been crazy for me.  It hasn’t been fair to Godfrey and I wanted to get his review out to PW’s readers.  Now, my father-in-law isn’t new to the outdoors, camping and hunting.  In fact, he has/had (not sure now) the record for the biggest mule deer taken with a bow and arrow in New Mexico.  But every time I talked with him about the book, he was excited and mentioned that there was a lot of great information in the book that he wanted to copy.  I let him keep the book.  Here is his review.

Emergency Preparedness & More is well thought out.  The only issue I have with the book, is not printing, in the Reference section, the wild food plants in various ecosystems of the continent.

Chapters: 1 & 2 were thought provoking in giving auspices of how to start getting prepared for a catastrophic event.

Chapters: 3,4,5,6 & 7 explain, in plain English, the importance of finding, collecting and purifying drinkable water. This aspect of survival is imperative since water borne illness kills more people per year than food poisoning. Food is important for caloric intake for stressful situations. On average, the normal diet should be up to 2500 calories per day. In survival mode, one needs over 4000 to maintain optimum health. Godfrey also covers the amount of food needed per day, per person, based on 2000 calories a day for a month. This can be extrapolated for a much longer period of time from his table. His food storage chapter was great for understanding that oxygen can destroy large amounts of stored food products. He goes through canning, drying, freeze drying &, dehydration techniques. Godfrey also covers very easy recipes for survival cooking, giving many ideas that can be changed up for variety.

Chapters: 8, 9, & 10 cover cooking, heating, lighting, and fuel. There are improvised ovens that one can use, including using sunlight, which is described and detailed in chapter 15. Godfrey covers heat for cold conditions, which can also work to cook and purify water in survival situations. Fuel storage techniques for gas, diesel, & the importance of propane for the above listed tasks are also covered.

Chapters: 11 & 12 cover medical needs, basic first aid and the importance of sanitary ways of handling waste and food disposal. Godfrey covers avoiding bacterial and viral illnesses that occur in unsanitary conditions associated with survival situations. He also covers personal hygiene when in survival mode.

Chapter: 13 covers 72 hour needs for short term events like hurricanes, tornadoes, & floods.

Chapters 14 & 15 are about survival skills in a removed environment from the normal. Trapping, fishing, and hunting for protein are skills that are discussed. I enjoyed the trapping techniques covered for taking small game and the needs for catching fish. As discussed before, the ability to make solar ovens is shown in detail in chapter 15.

Chapters: 16, 17, 18, & 19 go through numerous scenarios: weapons of mass destruction, communications, precious metals trade, and the authors own thoughts on being prepared for any anomaly.

Emergency Preparedness and More covered every aspect of any unusual situation and I consider it a must have for any library. It is well written and full of good ideas under very stressful situations.

Again, I would like to thank my father-in-law for reviewing this book and Howard Godfrey for providing this resource to the preparedness community.  Remember, books, especially survival and preparedness books, might one day be invaluable.  Emergency Preparedness and More and be purchased in paperback or Kindle at Amazon – Click Here.  To connect with Howard Godfrey, please visit his website – http://www.preparednessadvice.com/ or “Like” his Facebook Page.