A Survival Tips and Techniques Blog | UrbanWoodsman.com

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Discover all the skills needed for survival in the wild. Finding Food and Water shows you where to look, what to avoid and how to stay alive in all kinds of extreme environments… More >>

Finding Food and Water

Copyright (c) 2007 Ethought Australia

Thinking of traveling to a country where the water supply is not safe to drink. You have two options, buy bottled water, or get your own water treatment / filtering equipment. There are various different ways to provide yourself with constant clean water. So there is no excuse for not being prepared.

Water is essential to our survival and health, and not having a clean water supply could prove fatal in the worst cases. As humans we need a clean source of water at all times. Without this simple requirement our bodies cannot function correctly. The problems associated with clean water are not new. It is estimated that over 2 million children die a year from lack of safe drinking water. There are a large number of countries in the world that do not have a drinkable public water system. Why take the chance, if you are planning on going somewhere with unsafe drinking water. Sure, you can buy bottled water, but everyone has heard the stories of bottled water being filled up with local contaminated water, why take the chance? Amoebic dysentery is an infection of the intestine caused by an amoeba called Entamoeba Histolytica, which among other things, can cause severe diarrhoea and even be fatal in the worst cases. Ameobic dysentery is a parasite that is found in contaminated food and drink, especially water. With a good water filter you would be protected from dysentery in the water you drink. Even if you buy bottled water it is always a good idea to filter it if you don’t trust where you purchased it from.

There are quite a few different brands of water filter available and they come in all shapes and sizes. The question every consumer asks is which water filter offers me the best value? This question is probably best answered depending on what your usage for the water filter will be. Are you planning to go out into the wilderness for extended periods of time? How much will you need to use your water filter, every day, once a week? These are all things you need to think about when buying a water filter. The main factors that will help you decide on what filter is best for you are factors like, weight, durability, lifespan, reputation and reliability. There are a whole range of products on the market which range from the cheaper water bottle style with an inbuilt filter to the industrial never-die portable units with replaceable ceramic filters.

If you are planning to go into areas where clean water is not going to be available, it is essential to buy a top of the range filter, in which case you are probably looking at spending around US$250. The difference between the top end filter and the medium range filter is basically materials and durability. The lower end water filters tend to have plastic mechanisms and levers. Filters made out of plastic are ok, if you are not going to be in life threatening situations if it brakes. For complete peace of mind it is really hard to go past a well built metal water filter that you know is not going to break the first time you accidentally step on it, or the hundredth time for that matter.

Just wanted to share a couple water storage options that I’m incorporating into my preparations plan.

How I do my water storage and clean my canteen/water bottle.

Visit www.apathways.com -Outside Magazine editor Joe Spring who joined Tony on a Knife-Only Survival Course. There are 11 more videos for viewing at Outside Online which accompany Tony’s monthly column on survival.

In this video the Okieprepper discusses in depth how to purify bulk water supplies for long term storage using Stock Chlorine. Many people use bleach to purify water for the short term, but bleach begins to degrade in 6 to 8 months making it a poor choice for long term water stores. This is a cheap and simple process that you will want to add to your preparedness skill-set.

Even if the media says we’re coming out of the recession and even if real jobs are created without being faked with government numbers, it’s just a temporary glitch on an otherwise nasty downtrend. Use that glitch to put away money, pay down debt, and aquire the assets that you’ll need when things get bad. The hillbilly housewife ( www.hillbillyhousewife.com ) is a great source for ideas on how to live more frugally. I also highly recommend the survival podcast. One of my subscribers recomended it to me but I can’t remember who it was. Might have been julzbo. Anyway i’m addicted now. The podcast gives great advice on how to move yourself into a prepper lifestyle without panicking or killing yourself with extreme overspending. I keep 30 or 40 episodes in my cell phone and listen to them over my headset during lunch at work and while commuting. His motto is “live a better life if times get tough, or even if they don’t”. www.thesurvivalpodcast.com

Hypothermia is a real issue when we find ourselves in a winter survival situation, also dehydration is a major implication. It is a thin line between eating snow to rehydrate yourself and becoming hypothermic from ingesting the snow

Home page – www.survivalistboards.com Link to this video – http Feel free to join the survivalist forums and discuss the video there. This is a wilderness survival quiz. Post whether this water is safe to drink or not. wilderness survival safe drinking water woods forest trees

THE #1 KILLER IN THE WORLD IS BAD WATER, through dysentery. EPA directions for using CALCIUM HYPOCHLORITE; www.epa.gov Want to know what is in your tap water?: www.ewg.org