Foraging with Friends

Yesterday was really fun. Ra, Sharek and their daughter Morgan came to the valley for a visit. Ra is into foraging, Sharek teaches primitive living skills, and Morgan is fully involved in 4H and FAA. Great people! Ra and I have been emailing about various plants so when we got together to visit, naturally enough we womenfolk headed out to the woods and fields to do some gathering. Ra and Morgan introduced me to lots of new plants--or rather, I'd seen those plants around but hadn't figured out what they were yet. I loved it! It is a great way to learn new plants and what they're good for. We found lots of yellow dock--lots of new young yellow dock, apparently seeded from older plants from the springtime. We found burdock, lady's thumb, woods sorrel, nettles, dandelions, some baby pumpkins in the garden, mint, rose hips and probably lots I'm forgetting here.

If you ever get a chance to go foraging with a friend, do it. You will learn to ID new plants, and get ideas for how to eat the plants and what else you can do with them. Ra and I and Morgan are relatively new to this--but even so, we gathered bags and bags of wild plants for food and medicine.

BTW, the young dock leaves can be eaten as greens this time of year, as well as early spring--cook them lightly by adding a little water and steaming them for five to seven minutes. They're a tad sour, tart and lemony. They'd probably be terrific fermented, something I'm going to try with the batch we found yesterday. My man doesn't like them--finds them too bitter. But I like 'em--I love it that they are free, wild, and nutritious. He can eat spinach, I'll chomp down the wild greens anyday.
Handmaiden

What's Happening?

First of all, a brief apology for not having posted in quite a while. It's a beautiful fall here in southern Indiana and I've been outside in the glory of it all, foraging and harvesting. Gathering plants, berries, roots, etc. takes time, but one is definitely rewarded richly for the effort. And it is harvest time in the fall.






This is the best time of year to gather roots--dandelion, burdock, yellow dock root, and any of the other roots available. This time of year, the plants are getting ready for winter and they send their energies to their roots. So I've been getting roots. Went to the words with a friend to gather some yellow root (goldenseal). It is still lush here, though I understand the plant is becoming endangered due to over-gathering. Mostly for money--this herb is hard to cultivate and domesticate, so a lot of goldenseal is wild-harvested. Both my friend and I gathered enough for our personal use--his wife was ill and needed some goldenseal to boost her immune system, and I wanted enough to make an extract for our use this winter. That's a picture of the plant to the left. I cleaned the roots, then cut them up and put them in a jar and poured vodka over them. I'll leave the extract alone for 6 weeks, shaking it now and then. That will be our immune-booster this winter.


I've also been digging dandelion root, burdock root and yellow (curly, sour) dock roots. The yellow dock root will become an extract. The dandelion and burdock roots will either become extracts or dried and saved for teas this winter. I've discovered I really like dandelion root tea, and it is wonderful for a sluggish liver and a host of other winter blah sorts of minor malaises.


These will become our medicines this winter, along with the elderberry extract and syrup, the garlic syrup, and whatever else I can forage, find, cook up. A friend of ours had been feeling sickly, so I told him he'd better get well or I'll be sending him homebrew concoctions whose taste alone will scare him well. :)


There's lots more to write about, but this will have to do for today. I'll be back with more, though. Promise.

HM

Liquid Vitamin C: Dandelion Greens and Pine Needle Tea

(Dandelion pix from www.foragingpictures.com, a companion site to Wildman Steve Brill's foraging page.)

Urf. I've been feeling pretty lousy the past couple of days. No energy, an excess of mucus in my system (most of it in my nose), tired, achy feeling, like a bad allergy time or starting a cold.

Yesterday I ate a bunch of garlic--good antibiotic properties and kicks the immune system into line. Since I was peeling garlic cloves anyway, and had a good store of garlic and had just seen a recipe for garlic syrup in a book called Healing Teas: How to Prepare and Use Teas to Maximize Your Health by Marie Nadine Antol, I decided to make garlic syrup. Here's the recipe from the book

****

Garlic Syrup

Garlic does "brew" into a quite marvelous syrup. The effectiveness of this natural medicine is so powerful, that it simply had to be included here in some form. Accordingly, here's a very old recipe for Garlic Syrup.

1 pound peeled and crushed garlic cloves [I used a half pound plus a few other heads]

apple cider vinegar

pure water

1 cup glycerine (available at pharmacies)

1 cup honey

1. Put the peeled and crushed garlic cloves in a wide-mouthed 2 quart jar [I used my 1 qt jar]

Add equal parts apple cider vinegar and pure water until the jar is 3/4 full. Cap the jar loosely and let the mixture stand in a warm place for 4 days. Shake the jar several times a day.

2. Add the glycerine. Shake to blend. Allow the mixture to stand in a warm place for 1 more day, shaking several times.

3. Strain the mixture through cheesecloth or muslin, squeezing to remove all the exhausted bits of garlic. Return the mixture to the jar. Add the honey and stir until thoroughly mixed. Store the garlic syrup in a cool, dry place.

Great-grandmother's directions:

For coughs, colds, sore throats, bronchial congestion, high or low blood pressure, heart weakness or nervous disorders, take 1 tablespoon of the syrup 3 times a day before meals.

****

It'll be ready in a few days. Can't wait to try this!

Since I have a tough time taking pills, I wanted to boost my immune system further by taking echinacea and goldenseal and Vitamin C with rose hips. But I keep gagging on the the Vitamin C tabs. So I went out and gathered dandelion leaves and pine needles. The power guys had been by yesterday cutting off tree limbs to keep the power lines clear, and there were many white pine boughs just lying there for me to use. The dandelion grows all over the place on the lawns by our pond, which are not sprayed with anything. I boiled water, added the dandelion leaves and pine needles, adding a handful of lemon balm for flavor, and let it steep for half and hour.

I expected my tea to be quite bitter, as dandelion leaves are bitter until the first fall frost, or so I had read, but it isn't bitter at all! It tastes good--piney and rich.

Both dandelion leaves and pine needles are rich in Vitamin C. Dandelion greens also have Vitamin A, Potassium, Phosphorus, calcium, thiamin, riboflavin and niacin. Check out their nutritional portrait here. Liquid vitamin C tea!

So if the SHTF, and you can't buy your vitamins, remember where those vitamins came from in the first place: green plants. Gather up a bunch of vitamin C rich plants and brew yourself a quart or two of tea. In my opinion, it is far better to get your vitamins and minerals from a plant source than from a pill anyway--you get the benefit of the synergy of the whole plant thataway.

Making your own medicines doesn't have to be hard or complex. Just go out for a walk and make friends with your common weeds.

Hopefully, this cold/bug/whatever will leave me in a day or so. I can't abide feeling sick.

Onwards, the only direction there is,

Handmaiden

Eating Weeds: How to Keep from Starving

From How to Live on Nothing by Joan Ranson Shortney

I got my copy of this nifty book from a used book seller working with Amazon. I think I paid .08 cents for the book and 4 bucks for shipping. It’s more than worth it! Full of tips and great ideas on living on less, lots less! The copyright is 1968, so a few things are dated, and I wouldn’t use the addresses as sources printed in the book--they’re probably way out of date by now. The first chapter is called “How to Keep from Starving,” and what’s below is excerpted from that. The text is from the book; the links I've supplied, mostly from Wildman Steve Brill's foraging pages and Prodigal Gardens, but other neat foraging pages as well. There’s many webpages for further study if you’re interested in wild edibles, and you should be if you want to eat well!

As the world crashes around us, know that there are foods we can eat for free. Winter will be the hard time, with not that many plants available--but there are always pine needles for vitamin C tea, chickweed can still be found even under the snow, and so on. But for winter you’ll need to store food. That’s what fall is for, so now is the time to be foraging and preparing these wild foods to have them for winter’s cold. Spring brings in a wonderful richness of awakening plant life, packed with all the vitamins and minerals we’ll need then.

(P. 18-22)
How to Eat the Weeds

Below is a list of additional vitamin- and mineral-rich wildings that are free for your picking. Varying only with the region you live in, you can help yourself to a handful from anyone’s garden. People will be glad to get rid of these weeds. Be sure you know what you’re picking. Most plants are safe to eat, but there are a few poisonous plants that resemble edible plants and there are poisonous parts to even old edible familiars, as, for instance, the leaves of rhubarb. You can get books in your library to help you identify the weeds. Don’t rely on the unsupported opinion of a gardener. One’s man’s meat is another man’s poison in this field. I have not included plants that need lengthy treatment to be edible, such as the jack-in-the-pulpit root, which the Indians dried for months before cooking and grinding to flour. It is poisonous when eaten raw. Nor have I included like skunk cabbage, which literally stink and need many vitamin-wasting changes of water to be pleasant. If you wish to eat it on a camping trip, Professor Oliver Perry Medsger in Edible Wild Plants (Macmillan, 1943) will tell you about its preparation. If you find several to your taste in the following list (and sometimes one must cultivate a taste for wildings), by all means explore the field further and broaden your menus. There are many more edible plants that the few I cite. First cook even those I suggest as salad plants. Digestions vary, and even among cultivated vegetables there are plants that some people can eat only cooked and other people can eat only raw. There are also vegetables--both wild and cultivated--which must always be cooked, as in the raw state there are indigestible or toxic ingredients.

GREEN AMARANTH or Pigweed is a weedy relative of red-plumed cockscomb except that pigweed’s plume is green. Eat leaves in spring as salad, later cooked as potherb.

BURDOCK has mature leaves that look like rhubarb’s except that they have a dull finish. (As children, we made baskets of its stickers topped with purple fuzzy flowers.) Burdock is cultivated in Japan for its edible roots. Stems and roots and young flowers stalks can be peeled and steamed. Peeled young stems can be eaten raw in salads. (NB: Use only first year roots, as the second year roots get very woody.)

CRESS, as potherbs or salad greens, including bitter cress, scurvy grass, and the well-known, tremendously vitamin-rich water cress, which should always be eaten raw. (NB: last spring we ate lots of winter cress or creasy greens. Slightly bitter but delicious!)

CHICORY. We’ve told you of the root use of this versatile plant. The basal leaves can be used as salad greens or potherbs. The blanched, second-growth leaves from the root are sold as endive.

CHICKWEED. Use leaves raw for salads or briefly steamed. (See Prodigal Gardens section for more information.)

CATTAIL. Both narrow and broad-leafed varieties are edible. These perennial swamp herbs have ten-foot blunt brown spikes. For spring salad, cut young stems 10 to 12 inches from root and peel off outer skin. Or cook roots, as did the pioneers, or use the starchy root as a meal, ground and dried. It can be added as a root vegetable to stew or boiled with other greens.

CARAWAY. You know the seeds and may have grown the plant in your herb garden. Caraway also grows wild. Young roots, shoots, and tender leaves in late spring can be used to flavor salads. Or use root boiled as vegetable, leaves in spring.

DAYFLOWER. A pretty weed, having three-petaled small blue flowers. Steam leaves in a little water as potherb.

EVENING PRIMROSE. Yellow nocturnally blooming flowers. This plant is cultivated in England for its edible roots, which can be used in stews and soups. In Germany cultivated under the name rampion. Leaves used as a potherb.

GREAT WILLOW HERB OR FIREWEED. Has magenta flowers, long willow-like leaves. Young shoots boiled as asparagus, leaves and young stems as potherbs.

JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE. This plant, with leathery leaves and a yellow flower like a sunflower, yields and edible root with tubers that can be boiled or baked like potatoes.

LAMBQUARTERS. This well-known weed was a favorite of the Indians. Can be eaten raw in salads or later cooked as a green. (We especially love it lightly steamed. It turns an attractive dark green. Mild and delicious, more nutritious than spinach.)

LETTUCE. Both the wild (horseweed) and the prickly are edible. Steam leaves briefly or add to soup.

MALLOW. There are many edible varieties, including cheeses (whose seed pods resemble their name and are edible), high mallow, and whorled or curled mallow. Use leaves and stems as potherbs and young shoots in early spring for salads. Hollyhock is a member of the mallow family and its leaves can be cooked and eaten.

MARSH MARIGOLD, called cowslip. Has heart-shaped leaves and glossy yellow flowers resembling buttercups. Potherbs only, not safe to eat raw. Steam leaves and serve with butter or cream sauce.

MILKWEED. When shoots of common milkweed are a few inches high they can be steamed. Discard first water to remove bitter milky juice. Serve like asparagus. Buds and flowers used by Indians for thickening and flavoring stews and soups. (The link here is to Sam Thayer’s interesting article on milkweed. You can eat lots of different parts of the milkweed, as well as make cordage, and use the milkweed fluff as insulation. Very useful plant.)

MUSTARD. This includes a big family. In addition to wild mustard, there are shepard’s purse, peppergrass, penny cress, and horseradish. Use early leaves for salads or cooked as potherbs. Horseradish root, grated and mixed with vinegar, is a meat accompaniment.

PLANTAIN. I once saw a child picking this most common weed in a city lot. Thinking she was starved for greenery, I was sorry that she had to stoop to plantain for her bouquet. Now, knowing more, I think she may have been told by her mother to collect the dinner vegetable. Steam the leaves briefly or until tender. In China this weed is popular as spring greens.

PURSLANE or Wild Portulaca. Here’s another weed that can be found for sale in Eurpoe and Mexico but that is too often ignored here. This succlent little plant has light-yellow flowers that open briefly on sunny days. Vitamin-rich, the leaves can be used raw in salads or cooked with the fleshy stems as a vegetable or in soup.

SASSAFRAS. This is a tree. Used dried leaves crushed as in Creole cookery for thickening and flavoring soups, fresh young leaves in soups, dried bark of root for a fragrant tea.

SORREL. Mountain or alpine, sheep and wood sorrel may all be used in salads or as potherbs.

THISTLE. Cook tops of Russian and sow thistles when very young; cook roots of elk and Indian thistles. The stinging or great nettle is also edible. Steam the young tops or use them in soups.

End of book excerpt. Well, that's enough food for thought and belly for today. I sincerely hope this information helps you and yours stay alive in tough times.

Handmaiden

Lambquarters, Plantain and other miscelleanny

"There’s been an almost complete loss of cultural information from generation to generation in a lot of poverty communities. A lot of strategies of their parents and grandparents, the younger generation simply isn’t aware of. Just one example is lamb’s quarters. It grows pretty prolifically in every poor neighborhood on the street and very few people pick them and eat them. And they’re very tasty — I call them Oklahoma spinach. They’re very tasty and a good source of vitamin C and other things that you get in green vegetables, but people just don’t recognize that as food, they think of it as a weed, and so they don’t take advantage of the fact that they can get it for free, basically, just by picking it."

This is a quote from Bob Waldrop, a food activist in Oklahoma City. He works with the Catholic Workers to help feed, house, clothe people. Hen and Harvest has a very interesting interview with him on how food prices and availability are affecting poor people.

Lambsquarters is currently doing its seed thing. As I mentioned in a previous blog, you can harvest the seed, and this week I plan to do just that. The plant produces a large amount of seed--the trick is to use a paper bag to collect the seed, then separate seed and chaff at home by rolling the seed heads gently in your hands. The seed can be cooked into a breakfast cereal or ground into meal and added to other flour. The seeds are highly nutritious and said to be quite tasty. The picture above is what lambquarters looks like about now--check out that seed head!

As Waldrop noted, lambsquarter is prolific and nearly everywhere. But people do not recognize it as food. And they should, and I hope they will, for steamed lambsquarter is absolutely delicious. I've always been a spinach fan, and lambsquarters is better than spinach! It taste is mild, but add some butter and seasoning or pepper sauce or vinegar and you'll have one of the best greens I've ever eaten.

OK, enough preaching about the glories of this plant. If y'all don't want to eat weeds, it leaves more for me and mine!

When we were visiting our Amish friends this Saturday, their youngest son, about a year and a half, grabbed a hornet and found out the hard way why people should not grab hornets. His little hand started swelling right up and he was screaming with the pain. I immediately went out in the barnyard for plantain and picked a bunch of leaves. While Lydia held Chris, Emma, the eldest girl, got some vinegar and wiped his hand with it. I chewed up the plantain and started putting it on his hand. A light cloth was tied around the sting, and gradually Chris settled down. This all took place in about 10 mintues. After then plantain poultice had been on Chris's hand for about 15 minutes, the sting, the pain, and most of the swelling was gone.

When a hornet stung Michael earlier this year, I didn't think of the plantain quickly enough, and his foot stung like hell and swelled up--it stayed swollen for about two weeks! Plantain is a wonder herb for stings, rashes, bug bites, small wounds. Look around you--if you have enough, use some to make an oil or salve for the winter. You'll be glad you did.

Hmmmm. I just read in Just Weeds by Pamela Jones that the Indians gathered plantain leaves for use in the winter, greased them, and wrapped them in bundles. Then, when a leaf was wanted, it was pulled from the bundled and either put on the wound, or wiped off and used in a tea.



An infusion of plantain leaves was used in England as a treatment for ameobic and bacillary dysentery. Take 3 - 4 ounces of the root and leaves, bring to a boil in a pint of water, boil for 5 minutes, then take off heat and allow it to infuse for 10 more minutes. Drink as much of this tea as often as desired. Given that water will have to be carefully filtered in our near future, and no doubt mistakes will be made and dysentery will occur due to bad water or food, knowing about plantain for this common but devastating problem is a real benefit.


My hair has had a difficult summer with lots of hot sun in the garden, and general neglience. Yesterday I decided to condition it. I used the raw shea butter I mentioned earlier. Got my hair wet, and applied the butter directly to my hair, working it into the roots and out to the ends. I was afraid it wouldn't wash out when I was done, but it did, and I couldn't be happier with the conditioning job it did. My hair is soft and shiny and looking good today. I'm glad I found another use for the raw shea butter. The more multi-uses I can find for something, the better.

Another tip, but for ladies only: The best facial mask I've ever used is cream and baking cocoa. Both are very rich in butterfats, and your skin will drink them up. I used this yesterday as I hadn't done any "girl stuff" for ages. I used an egg yolk, heavy cream, and the cocoa. Mix together in a little bowl, then apply to clean skin for about a half-hour. It is great for the skin--the next day it feels as smooth as a baby's bottom, which is saying something for my sun-browned, cranky old skin.

Spicebush: Tasty Tea, Helpful for Colds, Fever

Lindera Benzoin, the Common Spicebush

(Note: Picture to the left copied from the Wikipedia page on Spicebush)

This lovely bush grows throughout the eastern US, from north to south, except for the most northern states. It likes streams, creeks, shaded woods and good soil. The leaves are glossy and green, elliptical with a pointy, stalked end. The leaves, twigs, bark and berries all smell of spice, a sort of lemony-spicy fragrance. The berries taste a bit like allspice, and were used by pioneers as a substitute for the spice.

We have a bunch of these bushes growing back in the marshy woods on a road leading to a small pond. They grow right by the roadside, and it was easy to see the bright berries. I immediately started harvesting berries, twigs and a bagful of the leaves.

The berries I froze: washed the berries, put them on a cookie sheet and put that in the freezer overnight. When I want to use some for a spice or for a tea, I can just take out however much I'll need. The berries have a hard seed in them--you can either chop the berries and remove the seed, or chop the seed up with the berries. When added to recipes, the berries make a nice additional flavor, like a less-strong allspice.

The twigs can be dried and saved for use in tea, or used in an extract. I'll probably use the twigs and some of the leaves and make an extract in case of fever or colds this winter. The rest of the twigs and leaves I'll save for tea. Apparently the leaves lose their flavor when dried, according to Wildman Steve Brill, so these will get used for tea as long as they're still flavorful.

Another common name for spicebush is feverbush. The twigs, leaves and bark when decocted (simmered for 15-30 minutes) make a tea that increases perspiration. If you're feeling sick, sweating is a good way to rid your body of toxins. When I feel ill, I will resort to hot baths (while drinking cold water) or hot diaphoretic teas and usually I'll feel better by the next day. While you can't "sweat out" a fever, anything that helps your body rid itself of toxins is very helpful.

The following is a quote from an article from Grit magazine. The magazine has many interesting articles--so check it out if you're a homesteader or like the rural life. This article by Cindy Murphy is an excellent example of Grit's usual fare.

"During the Civil War, spicebush tea often substituted for coffee when rations ran short. Dried leaves were often used for this purpose, but young branches were also steeped to make a tonic. This spicy beverage had medicinal qualities as well. It was used to reduce fever, to relieve colds and dysentery, and to destroy intestinal parasites. Lindera benzoin is considered a warming herb that improves circulation and increases perspiration rate."

Many critters like the spicebush, from swallowtail butterflies to birds and squirrels, but deer don't care for it. If you are interested in edible landscaping and have room for some spicebushes, you now are aware of some of its uses for humans.

Spicebush is not an edible, but if you find some in the wild, you'll have something very important when you are only eating stored foods such as beans, rice, wheat: a flavorful homegrown spice. Most spices such as cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice etc. come from the far east and may or may not be available come SHTF. So keep it in mind, and take a look around you to see if you have spicebushes in your area.

Raw, Unrefined Shea Butter

Awhile back I was reading one of our favorite magazines, The Backwoodsman, The Magazine for the twenty-first century frontiersman. This is a DYI magazine, lots of articles are written by the readers. There's always an article on woodlore, some simple recipe (once a recipe for Grandaddy's gunpowder), how-to articles on lots of very useful items--anyway, a great magazine. In the July/August 2007 issue was an article on raw shea butter which said that the raw shea butter still had its medicinal and curative properties, unlike refined shea butter. I was intriqued, and wrote to the source given for purchasing the stuff. I bought a pound of this raw nut butter and I've been really pleased with it ever since.

This stuff is great for dry skin, for hands that have been working in a garden all day. It will take away the sting and itch of bug bites (almost as good as plantain salve), it is a good conditioner for hair as well. It can be used for diaper rash, scars, stretch marks, sunburn, small wounds, athletes' foot, treatments of the symptoms of psoriasis and eczema, and so on.

The raw butter is a sort of clay color, taupe or brownish yellowish tan. It smells a bit nutty, and it's texture is like a salve. It is solid, but will liquify on contact with your skin. If the shea butter you have is white or smells floral, then it is refined shea butter and not the natural product.

I really like the stuff. I have used refined shea butter, but I've been reading that cosmetics and fragrances are an area that the FDA doesn't watch carefully if at all. Not that I trust the FDA, but while cosmetics are regulated, fragrances are not--and that means any damn chemical, carcinogenic or otherwise, can be used to create those lovely smells. In an attempt to avoid all that crap--human bodies are NOT made to absorb all these nasty chemicals and we are better off without them--I wanted to try the raw butter.

Here's some good information from an article on raw vs. refined shea butter:

More commonly found in retail outlets, refined shea butter goes through an entirely different production cycle than its natural counterpart. In an effort to speed up the extraction process, increase profits and alter the smell and texture of shea butter, most manufacturers have adopted a refining method which destroys much of the natural integrity of the shea nut. In this process, the seed oil is extracted from the kernels using a highly flammable, gasoline-like chemical known as Hexane, which usually remains in the product in trace amounts.

Side effects from exposure to hexane include dizziness, drowsiness, headache, nausea, weakness, unconsciousness, and abdominal pain. Production by-products containing trace amounts of hexane are commonly sold as animal feed, and excessive amounts of hexane are thought to cause anemia in livestock – transferring to the meat consumers’ purchase. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Hexane compounds are carcinogens and are classed as a hazardous substance. Hexane also poses a serious environmental threat – implicated as a polluter and producer of harmful ozone build-up and air pollution when vented into the atmosphere during the flash-off (burning) cycle of manufacturing.

The side effects and environmental concerns surrounding the use of hexane are serious problems of refined shea butter production, yet other aspects of this refining process are equally as damaging to consumers. To remove the characteristic nutty smell of shea, the extracted oil is exposed to 450 degree heat and sodium hydroxide and carbonate chemicals are added. To change the texture and appearance of the product, it moves through an acid-treated filter and is bleached. Known carcinogens (BHT & BHA) are added to refined shea butter to enhance the shelf-life of the finished product.

“Refining shea butter removes natural essential fatty acids, valuable proteins and important minerals, leaving consumers with a questionable, ineffective and potentially dangerous product. In no way similar to refined shea butter, raw shea butter is significantly richer in vitamins, phyto-nutrients and UV absorbing factors. Raw shea is more difficult to find [than refined shea butter], but is well worth the effort,” states Killey.

(Hmmmm. That's probably more quote than is allowed under fair use...)

I purchased my raw butter from Body by Shea. These folks have an email, but no webpage. Contact them at rrakestraw@woh.rr.com. Alternatively, you can google raw shea butter and find lots of other places to buy it. I bought a pound of the unrefined butter for $12--and that's a lot of wonderful skin cream for not a lot of money!

A neighbor of ours, Fred, has had a persistent problem with a rash on his forehead. Just couldn't get rid of it. He had tried purslane cream, hydrogen peroxide, other skin creams, ointments, etc. I gave him some of the raw shea butter and it cleared the rash up right away.

OK, I grant you skin cream is not your most important prep item. But I guarantee that women will want to have something like this, no matter if the world is falling apart. Wall Street crashes and zombies are rampaging.... It will probably be an excellent barter item as well. Raw shea butter has the added goodness of its medicinal/curative properties, and can be helpful in a host of situations. You might want to check it out.

BTW, I won't do many posts like this--commercial stuff to purchase. But this is a good product and kind of hard to find, and I thought readers might be interested in knowing about it.
Handmaiden