[0:00] It's thunderstorm season here in East
[0:02] Tennessee, and we live in a neighborhood
[0:04] with tall trees, so it's only a matter
[0:07] of time until one of them falls on the
[0:09] power lines again. How do you feed
[0:12] yourself when the power goes out? What
[0:14] about all the stuff in the fridge? How
[0:16] long is this stuff going to last without
[0:18] power? Well, let's start there. The food
[0:21] safety guidelines that you will get from
[0:23] any government generally tell you the
[0:25] same basic ballpark figure, which is
[0:27] food in the fridge lasts about 4 hours.
[0:30] Now, that's the government safety
[0:32] talking. And so, it's probably a pretty
[0:34] conservative figure, but nonetheless one
[0:36] that we should all keep in mind. The
[0:38] freezer, on the other hand, is actually
[0:40] a lot more forgiving. Even according to
[0:42] the officials, uh, a half full freezer
[0:44] could last 24 hours. If it's chock full
[0:47] of stuff, like my basement freezer here,
[0:50] this is just a whole lot more mass for
[0:52] the same amount of ambient heat to warm
[0:55] up. So, the stuff in here can last for
[0:57] up to 48 hours. This is assuming that
[1:00] you aren't opening and closing the door
[1:02] constantly. Every time you open the
[1:04] door, the denser cold air sinks and
[1:06] spills out the bottom of the opening.
[1:09] This creates a vacuum inside the box,
[1:11] allowing warm air to push in. Opening
[1:13] the door a few times to get what you
[1:15] need is like no big deal. Most of the
[1:18] cold inside the fridge is effectively
[1:20] stored inside the mass of the food
[1:23] itself and the walls, etc. So, even if
[1:26] you fill this box with warm air, the
[1:28] ambient temperature in here is going to
[1:30] drop again as soon as we close the door.
[1:32] But definitely minimize door action.
[1:35] Open it once, take out everything you
[1:37] think you might need in the next like
[1:39] hour or so, and then close it. Why is
[1:42] the freezer different? Do the laws of
[1:44] thermodynamics work differently in here?
[1:46] No, of course not. It's just starting
[1:48] off way colder than the stuff in the
[1:50] fridge. Plus, it doesn't really like
[1:53] last 24 to 48 hours. It just remains
[1:56] safe after 24 to 48 hours. The quality
[2:00] is going to suffer. Like the
[2:01] construction crew that we have working
[2:03] down here right now accidentally
[2:04] unplugged this freezer the other day and
[2:06] it was off for almost a whole day before
[2:08] I noticed. Look at these nuggets. Look
[2:11] at the freezer burn on them. I mean,
[2:13] they're still safe to eat, but they're
[2:14] not going to taste as good. Most of
[2:16] today's frozen food is flash frozen at
[2:19] the factory. They get it incredibly cold
[2:22] incredibly fast, and that results in
[2:24] tiny, tiny little ice crystals. When we
[2:27] freeze or refreeze food at home with our
[2:29] home technology, it doesn't go as fast
[2:32] and the result is big ice crystals that
[2:35] puncture the cell walls of vegetables
[2:37] and meat. Like look at all this meat
[2:40] that I've got frozen in here. This stuff
[2:42] partially thawed and then refroz. Which
[2:45] means that if I were to just like grill
[2:47] it up, it would come out super dry cuz
[2:50] it would lose a lot of juice and the
[2:51] texture might be kind of gummy. I mean,
[2:54] if you use it in a stew or something,
[2:56] then you're going to be fine because
[2:58] it's a wet dish where things are
[2:59] supposed to fall apart. And that's why
[3:01] I'm saving this stuff. I'm going to use
[3:02] this in like sundae sauce. And that's
[3:04] what I think you should probably do if
[3:06] you lose power for a day or two. Don't
[3:09] expect your meat and veg to be anywhere
[3:11] near as good once it refreezes. It's
[3:13] going to fall apart. So, make a big old
[3:16] stew or something where the food is
[3:17] supposed to fall apart. As for the stuff
[3:19] in the fridge, the the soda and the beer
[3:22] and all of that, that's going to come
[3:23] back just fine. It's shelf stable. You
[3:25] don't even need to refrigerate it. But
[3:27] like the leftovers and the milk, yeah,
[3:31] that stuff you probably are going to
[3:32] need to throw out after you've had an
[3:34] extended power outage of more than 4
[3:36] hours. So, if the power goes out,
[3:38] consider having yourself a little feast
[3:40] of your most spoilable food over candle
[3:43] light. It'll be fun. And remember that
[3:45] your most effective food storage device
[3:47] is uh your own body. Once calories go in
[3:50] here, it can actually be pretty hard to
[3:52] get them back out again. Don't I know
[3:54] it. Of course, you may need to cook your
[3:56] most spoilable food before you can eat
[3:58] it. And if you have an electric stove,
[4:01] that could be a problem if the power's
[4:02] out. So, you might consider the sponsor
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[4:07] 3600 Plus, the standard essential home
[4:11] power solution. This thing holds enough
[4:13] power to get a family of three to six
[4:15] people through a pretty extended power
[4:17] outage. For example, you could plug the
[4:19] fridge into the utility hookup right
[4:21] there and you could run it for up to 2
[4:23] weeks. You can just plug it into the
[4:24] wall to charge it in advance. But if the
[4:26] power is out for a long time or you're
[4:28] off the grid, you can buy these super
[4:30] portable solar panels and charge it up
[4:32] with about 4 hours of sunshine or 2 and
[4:35] 1/2 hours with a gas generator. Plug in
[4:37] your phone right there while you wait.
[4:39] Plug in the stove to cook, or you could
[4:41] plug in a little hot plate. In a
[4:43] snowstorm, I can use it to power my
[4:44] greenhouse, keep the heater and all the
[4:46] pumps working for my plants and my
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[5:01] when power may be cheaper. It comes with
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[5:10] 5% of its juice every year. Great gift
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[5:15] description to learn more. Thank you,
[5:17] Jackie. Anyway, if you have a gas stove,
[5:19] you're going to have a much easier time
[5:21] in a power outage. Gas lines are just a
[5:24] much harder target than power lines
[5:26] because a gas leak is a much bigger deal
[5:29] than a power outage. The gas lines are
[5:32] generally all buried and they're pretty
[5:34] tough. But modern gas stoves generally
[5:37] have electric igniters that might not
[5:39] work when the power is out. Here, let me
[5:41] unplug this to simulate. You might turn
[5:44] the knob and nothing happens even though
[5:46] you can smell the gas coming out. That's
[5:48] bad. This is a reason to keep one of
[5:50] these uh fire sticks around just to
[5:52] light it up and then turn the gas on and
[5:54] it ignites just fine. My grandma used a
[5:56] match. And just remember that if your
[5:58] power is out, that means your
[5:59] ventilation system is out. So, don't
[6:01] cook with a gas stove unless you've got
[6:04] big old windows that you can open. But
[6:06] this is one reason I always keep a
[6:08] charcoal grill around along with some
[6:09] charcoal to grill on. All you need for
[6:12] this is just some chunk of the out of
[6:14] doors and you can cook your food on it.
[6:16] Uh if your water isn't safe to drink,
[6:18] you can boil it on here. And even if I
[6:20] didn't have the grill, I could just cook
[6:21] with my charcoal chimney starter right
[6:24] here. These things are great not only
[6:25] for lighting charcoal generally, but
[6:27] also just as a cooking device. You can
[6:29] just start it going and then when it
[6:32] gets hot, you just take a grate and you
[6:34] can cook directly on top of the starter.
[6:36] Or you can take some hot charcoal, put
[6:38] it into like a metal bowl or something,
[6:39] put the grate on top of the bowl. All
[6:41] kinds of things you can do with
[6:42] charcoal. Now, if I've got you feeling
[6:44] like you can survive the apocalypse, uh,
[6:46] no you can't. These are all just
[6:48] techniques for coping with momentary
[6:50] disruptions to the systems that make all
[6:53] of our modern lives possible. By
[6:55] suburban standards, I live on a pretty
[6:57] big piece of property. It's a full acre.
[6:59] If I wanted to grow all of the food that
[7:01] I would need to feed my family of four,
[7:03] I would probably need about five times
[7:05] this much land. And I'm lucky that I
[7:07] live on dirt and not on rock or sand as
[7:10] so many other humans do. And obviously,
[7:12] I would need to cut down every single
[7:14] tree and then bust up all of this turf.
[7:16] And then I would need inputs. I would
[7:19] need seed. I would need fertilizer. I
[7:21] would need a lot more equipment than I
[7:22] have. And even then, think about the
[7:25] lives that our ancestors lived. People
[7:28] who had ancestral subsistence farming
[7:30] knowledge that you and I have lost. Even
[7:33] with all that knowledge, they still
[7:35] starve to death all the time in horrible
[7:38] famines when there was just uh one
[7:40] summer of bad weather or when uh one
[7:43] warlord came through and took your
[7:45] harvest to feed his men. Most of us on
[7:47] this planet are only alive right now
[7:49] thanks to a delicate web of
[7:51] interdependence or let's call it
[7:53] sharing. We're only able to survive
[7:55] because we have this global network of
[7:58] sharing. Prepping is not an excuse to
[8:01] opt out of the difficult social,
[8:03] economic, and political work of keeping
[8:06] all of these delicate systems up and
[8:08] running. Your bunker may be nice, but
[8:11] believe me, bro, you don't want to ever
[8:13] have to use it. By all means, stockpile
[8:15] the canned goods and the bottled water.
[8:18] Prepare for the worst, but let's work
[8:20] real hard to avoid the worst. Okay?