Flesh-Eating Screwworm Reaches Texas Humans — Abbott Signs Statewide Disaster Declaration

I keep three types of salt in my prep supplies: iodized table salt for cooking, kosher salt for brining, and a 25-pound bag of canning and pickling salt tucked in the corner of my pantry. That bag cost about $20 and it'll outlast everything else I stock. Salt doesn't expire. It doesn't need rotation. And once you start learning what it can actually do — preserve meat, ferment vegetables, replace electrolytes, irrigate wounds — you realize it's one of the most underestimated items on any prep list.

Here's what I've got this Sunday.

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Salt — The Most Important Prep Supply You're Undervaluing

Before refrigeration, salt was civilization. Armies moved with it. Empires taxed it. Trade routes were built around it. The word "salary" comes from the Latin salarium — the payment Roman soldiers received to buy salt. That context matters when you're stocking a pantry.

What salt actually does in a prep context:

Food preservation. Salt pulls moisture out of food and creates an environment hostile to bacteria. That's why cured meats, brined vegetables, and salted fish have shelf lives measured in months or longer. Fermented vegetables use salt to create lactic acid bacteria that preserve food indefinitely — no refrigeration required.

Electrolyte replacement. During extended physical activity or heat exposure, you lose sodium through sweat. Hyponatremia — low blood sodium — is a real danger in survival situations. A simple oral rehydration solution is water, salt, and sugar. Salt is what makes it work.

Wound irrigation. A saline solution — 9 grams of salt per liter of clean water — is the field standard for cleaning wounds. It's isotonic, meaning it doesn't pull fluid from tissue the way pure water does. Water and salt is a meaningful medical resource when nothing else is available.

The right salt for the job:

Canning and pickling salt is pure sodium chloride — no iodine, no anti-caking agents. This is what you want for food preservation. Iodine can interfere with lacto-fermentation cultures and cause discoloration in cured meats. Kosher salt also works well. Iodized table salt is fine for cooking but less reliable for preservation work.

How much to store: 2 to 3 pounds per person per year minimum for cooking. For dry-curing meat, plan roughly 1 pound of salt per pound of meat. If you're serious about preservation, buy in 25-pound units. A 25-pound bag of Morton Canning & Pickling Salt runs about $20 and stores indefinitely in a sealed container. That's one of the best prep purchases you can make.

Buy a 4-pound container of Morton Canning & Pickling Salt this week.

It costs about $4 at any grocery store or online. Keep it separate from your cooking salt so it doesn't get used up. That's your preservation reserve — the salt you reach for when you're curing meat, fermenting vegetables, or making brine. It stores indefinitely, so there's no downside to buying it now.

Hit reply and let me know what you're planning to do with it first. I read everything.

Portable Generators Are Behind 40% of All Consumer Product CO Deaths in the U.S.

The CPSC tracks this every year, and the number holds: around 100 Americans die from carbon monoxide poisoning caused by portable generators annually, representing 40 percent of all CO deaths tied to consumer products. Generators produce more CO than a modern car, and the instinct to run one in a garage, carport, or even near an open window kills people during every major outage. Keep any generator at least 20 feet from doors, windows, and vents, with exhaust pointing away from the house.

Source: CPSC, CDC

Mark Kurlansky spent years researching a single commodity for Salt: A World History. His finding: no substance has been more central to human survival and civilization. Armies were paid in it. Wars were fought over it. Gandhi's first act of civil disobedience was making salt illegally at the sea to defy British taxes. If you want to understand why a $4 bag belongs at the center of any prep supply, this book gives you the full picture in 484 pages. Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky — about $16 on Amazon →

Texas Declares Statewide Screwworm Disaster. Eight Cases Confirmed. Travis County Signs Friday.

Governor Greg Abbott expanded Texas’ New World screwworm disaster declaration on June 5, covering all 254 counties — not a contained outbreak, a statewide emergency. Eight cases have now been confirmed in animals across South Texas, the U.S.-Mexico border has been closed to live cattle imports since July 2025, and USDA quarantine zones restrict animal movement statewide. Abbott authorized all available state resources and fast-tracked a $750 million sterile fly production facility at Moore Air Base near Edinburg, set to produce up to 100 million sterile flies per week when it opens in 2027.

On Friday morning, Travis County Judge Andy Brown signed a preemptive disaster declaration — no confirmed cases in the Austin area yet, but the response infrastructure needs to be in place before they arrive. Austin Wildlife Rescue halted intake of certain animals the same day. The screwworm fly lays eggs in the open wounds of living, warm-blooded animals, and larvae burrow deeper if left untreated. Time from infestation to serious damage can be measured in days. Anyone with livestock, outdoor pets, or frequent contact with wild animals in Texas should know the signs: increased agitation in animals, visible larvae in wounds, unusual odor from any wound site, and rapid unexplained deterioration.

Source: TPR, Texas Tribune, Gov. Texas

Morton Canning & Pickling Salt, 4 lb

I've been using this for lacto-fermented vegetables — sauerkraut, quick-brined cucumbers, fermented jalapeños. Pure NaCl, no iodine, no additives. At about $4 for 4 pounds, it's the cheapest meaningful prep you can make. Once you start fermenting vegetables with it, you understand how people kept food safe for centuries without refrigeration. Morton Canning & Pickling Salt on Amazon →

For bulk storage: a 25-pound bag runs about $20 and stores indefinitely in a sealed container. That's the right unit if you're planning to cure meat or ferment at any scale.

Overrated: Iodized table salt for preservation work. It functions in a pinch, but iodine can inhibit lacto-fermentation cultures and cause discoloration in cured meats. For anything beyond cooking, use pure canning salt.

Underrated: Dry-brining vegetables before dehydrating them. Salt pulls moisture out faster and more evenly than dehydrating alone, and the result has better texture and longer shelf life. A simple technique most people skip.

National Center for Home Food Preservation — The definitive resource on canning, curing, and fermentation safety. Free guides on salt-curing meat are available on the site.

Cultures for Health — Fermentation resources, starter cultures, and step-by-step guides for lacto-fermentation.

Ball Blue Book of Preserving — The standard reference for home canning and pickling, with safety-tested recipes.

Weston A. Price Foundation: Lacto-Fermentation — Background on traditional salt fermentation and the science behind why it works.

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky — If you want to understand salt's role in human civilization, start here.

Next issue: fermentation basics — how to preserve food with nothing but salt, water, and a jar, and why the technique that kept people fed for centuries still works today.

PS: That $20 bag has been in the corner of my pantry for three years. I've restocked protein bars, rotated canned goods, and cycled through water twice. The salt hasn't moved once. It won't need to.

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