Are Prepping Supplies Still Useful Update Do They Work Worn Out Expired Degraded hi
it's AlaskaGranny Alaska Prepper do you ever ask yourself will my prepping supplies still
work useful expired we know that things expire they wear out they degrade
so it's important that you go through your prepping supplies and you check them over
and if prepping supplies need to be updated replaced that you do that i was thinking
about some of the prepper items in my prepping stockpile that might be questionable and i want
to make sure that they work and that they're useful that they're still good so i thought
i would go over a few of those prepping supplies items that i've been updating inspecting and see
if maybe it's something that you want to inspect in your prepping emergency survival supplies also
we all have lots of flashlights do you have extra batteries we know that the batteries die and some
flashlights are very useful like this flashlight because it has a usb charging port so what can
you do to make sure that rechargeable flashlight is still going to be good charge it occasionally
just like you would your other prepping supply items you can even get a little solar panel you
can get an external battery pack there are all types of gadgets and gizmos that can help you
keep your emergency survival prepping gear ready to go if you don't have a stockpile of batteries
make sure that you get them and choose batteries that are useful to you i have almost everything
is double a aA and triple a AAA so i have lots and lots of those batteries a strategy that i've been
using is to store my batteries in a plastic ammo box or can i know that ammo box pretty airtight
i know that ammo box waterproof and i know that ammo box sturdy it holds a lot of weight it has
a nice handle and i can set it easily away on my shelf and it's organized make sure that you label
ammo box batteries so that nobody thinks they're heading to the gun range with an extra box of ammo
maybe you have emergency camping stoves or lanterns do you have the fuel that goes with those
do you have a Buddy Mr. Heater propane heater maybe you need some propane fuel canisters to
go with Mr Heater always be checking your stockpile make sure that you have plenty
of fuel canisters butane propane and be on the lookout for propane butane are getting harder and
harder to find and if butane propane canisters are going to be a type of fuel that you rely on you
need to make sure that you have plenty of backups do you plan to use candles or lanterns make sure
that you have plenty of lighters on hand also make sure you have matches I like long utility lighters
some of them you can check in the utility lighter window that they still have fuel in them make sure
that lighters do they're useless without fuel and the fuel can evaporate or disappear or be gone you
want to be checking on lighters occasionally to make sure that they're still useful most
matches won't continue to work if you allow them to get wet so make sure you store matches in some
kind of a waterproof container and then check them occasionally to make sure that nothing has
penetrated into matches that could have damaged them have a stockpile of everyday lighters
one of the tricks that i do to help lighters last longer is to put a piece of tape over the end
also if you want to know how much fuel is still in your lighter you can hold lighter in front of a
bright light or even a flashlight and you can see how much fuel is in your lighter check your tape
i've had tape turn into a big solid wad ball and i couldn't get it off at all it wasn't even useful
and yes i had it for quite a few years but many of us do have lots of prepping supplies we've been
prepping for years so check over your tape because you don't want to find out when you need it
that you can't get tape off the roll and it isn't useful anymore so check over all of your tapes and
make sure they're still in good satisfactory condition glue is the same thing i like to buy
the little individual packs of super glue because i find once you open them it's like you can never
get super glue to work right again but I've also discovered that the little tubes super glue can
completely dry up just sitting in the shelf and so you want to make sure that your glue is still
okay i recently had to replace just the regular elmer's type glue because when i picked one up
and i squeezed it the bottle disintegrated it had been around so long the bottle became brittle and
it just crunched and cracked and i had to replace glue think about the products you use for health
and hygiene things like sunscreen actually don't last very long and that's one of the problems i've
stocked up on lots of sunscreen because i always think i'm going to use more in the summer and
then the next year sometimes you open sunscreen it doesn't smell right sunscreen separated it's
runny and then it needs to be thrown away but you wouldn't know that if you just let it sit on the
shelf and you didn't check it and inspect it so go over the first aid liquids and ointments and
creams because some of them the tubes will begin to get greasy first aid ointments creams don't
last forever now i know that people like to say medicines do last forever but not necessarily
because the containers that they're in can degrade and then you don't have a useful first aid product
so it's better to not just expect medicines to last forever but to inspect them and then
replace them if you need to look over your pills and medications maybe you've been using a lot
of OTC remedies medications because it's been stressful and you've had a lot of headaches and
so you've been using your pain reliever you need to make sure you have a nice supply of backup
all kinds of the different kinds of pain fever reducers OTC medicines that you use
make sure that they're all reasonably up to date and yes things do last longer but not always
it's so annoying when you go to your cupboard and find out that the things you've been storing
aren't good when you wanted them but it does happen and so you need to keep
checking on your prepping supplies medications gear rotating them replacing them
bleach is another item that degrades over time and then it doesn't have the full potential
to do the things that you want of sanitizing or using it to clean purify drinking water so you
want to just open bleach up and sniff it does it still smell like bleach if not you need to start
thinking about replacing it and you want to make sure that you get plain ordinary unscented bleach
don't get bleach with scent don't get splashless bleach those are not the same you want just plain
old ordinary bleach make it a point to learn how much bleach you would use to purify water
write it down store it with your bleach make sure you have an eye dropper so that you can
use it into your containers if you need to solar lights are so handy you can charge them up in
the daytime bring them in your house i like to store solar lights even with my portable toilet
in with the extra hygiene supplies so that if i have to get out the portable toilet and use it
i have a fresh new solar light that i can activate with those if you have to sneak out and use your
port-a-potty in the dark when you're camping or bugging out don't you want to be able to find it
so having a little light can be extra handy i also store solar lights with the tabs still in place
because once you pull the tab you activated solar light it immediately will work if you pull the tab
ahead of time then the solar light battery will run down and then solar light needs to be charged
again before you can use it so if your first use was at night you could have a problem if you can't
activate your solar light you would have to wait till the next day for it to get charged
if you have lots of solar lights get something like a crate or a laundry basket you can stick
the solar lights all in put them out in the sunlight and charge them all up at once then
you can bring all the solar lights back in and you have all the different kinds of lights to use in
your home if there's no power think about your food it's probably the prepping supply we have
the most of we have big prepper pantries and many people have big gigantic stockpiles and so that's
wonderful to have those things but food also can degrade it can expire it can be no longer
useful and good to eat so you want to be keeping track of your prepper pantry food stockpile if you
have food like crackers cereal you need to make sure you store them into an airtight container
and know that things like crackers and cookies they're not going to last very long past the
expiration date if at all you want to store them airtight not in the cardboard container because
they're going to get stale they could get wet and ruined and you could also have an infestation
from pantry bugs so you want to store food in an airtight container but keep track of food because
once they're stale nobody wants to eat them check your Bug Out Bag if you have Bug Out food like
Hormel Compleats that are little ready to go meals MRE that they're supposed to go in the microwave
but they're already cooked and if you can't put them in the microwave you can still eat them
but these aren't going to last past the expiration date i find that the quality will go down i don't
want to eat questionable food so keep track of how many of MRE packaged meals you have and try to
rotate through Hormel Compleats pouch meals so that you have fresh emergency meals if you
put Hormel Compleats pouch meals MRE like this in your Bug Out Bag make sure that you make a note to
replace that food you don't want to forget about the food in your Bug Out Bag because you're too
busy worrying about the food in your pantry and find that these are expired in a real emergency
you need to be able to have food that you can count on look over your canned foods dust it
off occasionally look and make sure that what the date is and try to rotate stored food within
a reasonable amount of time after that date most canned foods can last past that date but
not always you want to make sure canned food nothing is bulging nothing is leaking nothing
looks peculiar and if you should open canned food and it spurts you need to throw it away
anything canned food that looks off throw it away when in doubt throw it out because it there's no
reason you should get sick over a few dollars worth of food some of the food borne illnesses
inside closed containers like botulism they might be rare but they're fatal look at your spices do
you have backup spices if you ever open your spice and it doesn't smell as strong as it used to does
that mean it's no good no it means you just need to add a little more the spices lose some of their
potency but they can still last a long time i like to buy the small spice containers because they're
airtight if you get a great big spice container and you use it use it use it there's just a
little bit spice in it it has all that air in the container which is helping to degrade your spices
so for me this is the size spices that i like because then i have a fresh jar spices more
regularly than waiting to use up a big jumbo jar if you repackage some of your foods into canning
jars you might want to take a good look make sure everything food still looks okay and you don't see
anything that is degrading or looks creepy in the jar of food you also want to press on
your lid make sure that they're still sealed up if you used a food saver or an oxygen absorber
i like to repackage foods into jars like this i do Kraft macaroni and cheese Rice-a-Roni Pasta Roni
Bear Creek Soup Knorr sides i repackage them into clean jars with tight fitting lids so that they're
air-tight as possible they're not degrading just in a cardboard box nothing can chew on food and
then they're not going to be infested with pantry bugs but still they're not going to last forever
packaged foods have many ingredients and so you can get a few years past the date on them but not
forever so like this one this one i need to rotate food because it's getting a few years past and i
don't want it to be wasted and so you need to be keeping track of where you put food things and
what the dates are on food and then make sure that you're rotating food and replacing food
you also want to check your deep food storage the foods that can last the longest
maybe you put them into a jar maybe you store them in a mylar bag maybe you put them in a bucket you
want to check them over occasionally because the jars can crack the lids can come loose the mylar
bags can get a hole in them the buckets can even be chewed on i even had squirrels chew through the
five gallon buckets out at Granny Camp which is my Alaska off-grid cabin anything can happen you want
to keep using your food rotating it replacing it and adding to it if you feel like you need
to have more only you know how much food that you would want so that you feel like you have enough
and remember all of your stored food you still are going to have probably food that you can still get
at the store and you probably have food in your refrigerator in your freezer you can add to these
meals plus we have the ability to grow a little bit of food even if it's only in your windowsill
if you have a patio a garden that is wonderful and so there are options to how to continue to add to
your food that this isn't going to be the only food you're not going to wake up tomorrow
and there isn't any more food in the world likely we'll be able to get food nearly
forever it may not be the amounts it may not be the products and it may not be the prices
that we want so store up what you can but don't think of just gloom and doom the future doesn't
have to be gloom and doom we need to think positively count our blessings and look forward
with we'll be able to do the best we can and we will find ways to stretch this out and make the
best of all of our situations so go through your supplies see that they're all still useful nothing
is expired degraded or just not useful anymore look over you're prepping supplies if you bought
some stuff long ago and you don't really think that it's something you want to hang on to anymore
it's perfectly fine to replace it with something better that would be more useful to you don't hang
on to things simply because you bought it hang on to things because you know that it's useful
and it deserves a spot in your home if you enjoyed my video i hope you'll share
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