Having just finished Astyk's [Making Home], I had high hopes for this book. This did not live up to my expectations. It seems to be a collection of writings (could these be copies of her blog entries?) which would have been greatly improved by editing to removed repetition. Of course, that would make it much shorter.
I like her basic premise, that we need to be prepared to provide for our food and water needs, as food security is not a given any longer, whether due to disruption of basic services during recent climatic events despite the efforts of FEMA and Red Cross or due to oil shortages disrupting transportation systems.
She does have some good ideas that I hadn't thought of, and for people with less experience she may be very enlightening. But she does not give details on how to accomplish most of the storage/preservation methods, instead referring the reader to specific books.
I like her topics "The Welcome Pantry", which encourages sharing, "The Theory of Anyway", which she admits she got from another blogger, "What does 3 months of food look like?" and reviving the concept of chatelaine.
She includes a few recipes, which I view as a way to get people thinking about meals they could fix with a limited supply of food rather than a being a book you would actually use for recipes. She has tried to suggest foods to store which would be available to just about anyone and provide high energy and protein.
She frequently reminds us to store water, which most people won't think about when they consider food security. It makes sense, given that water supply is interrupted during hurricanes, floods, and blackouts. One suggestion, to store water containers in the garage is not smart--your water will freeze & burst the container if you live in upstate NY (as she does) or quite a bit of the US. If we assume that her intended audience is city dwellers, she can be forgiven for not putting more emphasis on harvesting rainwater or dew. Yet I think that including some information from wilderness survival resources would be more fruitful than her repeated suggestions to refill our water storage containers regularly & add chlorine to ensure a good supply. While many suggestions are followed with outside resources for more information, she just brushes off solar water distillation with "solar distiller plans are out there" which tells me she hasn't tried this & can't make any recommendations.
Besides the tiring repetition, I also take issue with her frequent suggestion to dry orange zest/peels for flavorings. First, this is not going to make much of a difference in a family's food supply. Second, she never mentions that only organic oranges should be used--see http://www.cropwatch.org/pesticidesdbase.htm for a reminder of how many poisons can be found on citrus peels. ( )

At first I thought this was going to be another book about how to can, and it turned out not to be, and for that I am glad. Independence Days is a book that, instead of telling you how to can or giving you tons of recipes, outlines why you should preserve food, how you can do it, and gives other tips for emergency preparedness.

Astyk argues that it's not about preparing for the end days or the rapture (unless that's what you're worried about, in which case go for it). Stocking up on food, water, emergency supplies and the like is important for all types of occasions: long-term power outages (I still remember that ice storm in NY in '87 that left my family out of power for at least a week), job layoffs, medical emergencies, natural disasters, and the like. Moreover, the self sufficiency can be a morale booster as well as money saver. There's practically no downside (other than the time it takes).

Astyk brings out the bigger picture, which is community awareness and preparedness, and I like that she doesn't confine food storage to an individual's actions. We, ideally, should look out for everyone in our communities. She gives some bigger-picture ideas of what a self-sufficient community would look like: community kitchens for canning, water pumps at the local park, food banks, and co-ops.

I like this book because it really made me think that if I save money for emergencies, why wouldn't I also want to save food (which I can eat, unlike money)? I've already been interested in gardening and preserving the fruits of my labor, and now I'm even more interested in making it happen. Astyk is realistic and understands that we all have to start small and make mistakes, so hopefully this is something that I can continue to learn and build on, and I think others would do well to learn to store food in bulk, preserve fruits, etc. ( )