Boost immunity for Swine Flu? Not until more known about Swine Flue and Cytokines

Until it's determined whether Swine Flu causes cytonkine storm, no way will I give us Elderberry or Echinacea:

Swine flu and deaths in healthy adults--cytokine storm?
@ Aetiology by Tara C. Smith - an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology

If they do find cytokine storm with Swine Flu, I'll be following the following advice for "natural cures", since the author/s sourced the studies found at PubMed and NCBI for most of the "nature cures" listed (including the DON'T TAKES, where Elderberry and Echinacea fall under):

Natural Antivirals
@ The Health Gazette - blog owners "have decades of professional experience in multiple health disciplines, including nursing, psychology and natural medicine. We were also senior academics who spent almost 15 years teaching in Australian universities. We each have several degrees including PhD."

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And if you're confused as to whether the Swine Flu is airborne or droplet (no, they are not the same), don't feel alone. Apparently they're deciding to treat Swine Flu halfway between droplet and airborne protocols (read the article; it's too complicated to rewrite without writing a book).

All Swine Flu, All the Time
@ Controversies in Hospital Infection Prevention - blog owners 1) Michael B. Edmond, MD, MPH, MPA is Professor of Internal Medicine, Epidemiology and Community Health, and 2) Daniel J. Diekema, M.D., M.S. Clinical Professor of Medicine and Pathology

Fomites cleaned; reclean after returning home

I try to regularly clean my home's fomites (frequently touched things), but until the Swine Flu 'pandemic' scare passes, I'll be doing it every time one of us returns home from public places, like shopping today, and when hubby comes home from work. Since hubby loses the hand cleanser plastic bottles I kept in the truck when I used it for work, I bought antimicrobial wipes. I really like how easy it is to clean little, twitchy things like:

• keyboard keys
• the mouse
• desk area in front of the pc
• remote control buttons
• light switches
• fan switches and pulleys

I also cleaned all doorknobs, faucets, and window-blind pulleys. I had already cleaned the truck's doorknobs and steering wheel when I finished shopping. Now if hubby washes his hands when he comes home from work, all I need to wipe will be the truck, front door knobs, and faucets of the sink he used. Comment if you think I forgot something. Hmm, I think I'll include his lunchbox, and put some wipes in a ziplock in the lunchbox too, since he shares eating quarters and bathrooms with numerous people that might be higher risk due to country of origin (I hope that was politically correct, and not too insulting).

I put the travel-pack of antimicrobial wipes in the truck, and am going to put some gloves and one N95 mask into a ziplock baggie for the truck too. I sure hope all of this turns out to be just paranoia. At least it took less time than it took to type this up 8^)

Prepping for hurricane season, and potential pandemic (panic)

This is about the time of year I do hurricane preps; I buy things we'll eat throughout the year, but shelf-stable instead of frozen. I also make sure we have enough cooking and lighting fuel, batteries, and water containers.

So after reading so many reports about a potential Swine Flu outbreak, epidemic, or pandemic, I figured I better get my yearly hurricane preps done now, otherwise the shelves will be emptied.

I bought a lot of canned meats and beans a few weeks ago. Today I bought some rechargeable batteries (AA and AAA), an LED lantern (20 bulbs) that recharges with AC or DC (we have an inverter we plug into the truck), and in-between shelf so I can store more cans without them being stacked on top of each other (why did they stop making cans stackable?)

I also bought more gloves, since hubby goes through them quickly, anti-microbial wipes in travel-pack as well as full sized so I can restock the travel pack (we already had a travel-pack, but hubby ripped the top open LOL). And I even found some N95 masks, 2 per box, for less than $3 USD/box. Hubby asked why I didn't just buy some HazMat suits; I answered that they weren't on sale LOL. I hope he'll always be able to laugh about his wife buying those, instead of having to use them like we saw from China's SAR's outbreak a few years back.

Other than the masks, everything I bought is either something we'd use during normal times (ok, not Spam, but I do have to hide the vienna sausages from him LOL), or something we'd use if hit by a hurricane. I filled up one gas tank, but the pump wanted to start over after it finished with one tank, and the car behind me had been waiting a while, so I dind't fill the other tank and gas cans like I planned. The gas card is still loaded, so we can use it for the other tank later.

Book Contest: I Can’t Believe It’s Food Storage

I probably have more than three months worth of food stored, even though about half of it is stored in the freezer. This time of year I start to stock more canned and less in the freezer because of hurricane season (even if we don't get a hurricane in Houston, I'll likely lose power at least once, even if only for a few hours).

But I'm not really sure how long my stored foods will last us. I need to learn a system to inventory what I have, so I can use food storage programs (spreadsheets or online calculators) to stock for three months, then six months, and eventually an entire year's worth of food (not in the freezer either, since that's unreliable). I'm not a good enough gardener or forager that I could feed the both of us without shopping if a long-term disaster happened (hurricane, job loss, drastic increases in food prices, ect...)

I've started storing some long-term foods as I can afford, or find, and I've slowed down for a few reasons:

• I need to store it better for long-term
• I'm not experienced with using things like whole wheat berries
• I haven't cooked with most of the long-term foods (except powdered milk)

So, I'm excited about this contest at Everyday Food Storage blog:

I Can’t Believe It’s Food Storage

• A step by step training program for using your food storage every day in your own recipes. Think of me as your food storage personal trainer.
• Over 100 kitchen tested (and very delicious) recipes, including some not yet featured on my blog!
• Family Home Evening lessons to help get your entire family involved in planning your 3-month supply and helping you in the kitchen.
• Information on the what, where, and why’s of common food storage items.
• Practical tips for getting dinner on the table, picky eaters, grocery shopping, and more!

The link above goes to the contest page. She'll choose three winners randomly from her email entries, then three more "for being the most excited and passionate about spreading the word", which we can become a Facebook fan, Twitter the contest, or blog about it, emailing these things to her.

Meanwhile, I'm going to pack up my whole wheatberries into FoodSaver bags.