ARK Seed Kits founder joins Mike Adams with answers about seed saving...
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Welcome, everyone, to the Health Ranger Report here on Brighteon.com and Brighteon.tv.
I'm Mike Adams, the founder of Brighteon, and I've got a really special show for you today.
A first-time guest, but a company that we've worked with for quite a long time because they provide heirloom seeds, non-GMO seeds, that are sustainable generation after generation.
They're called ArcSeedKits.com, and ARK stands for Agricultural Resource Kit.
They've been a sponsor of our show for quite some time, although they're not paying any special fee for today.
We're just inviting them on to have a conversation because the founder who joins us now is very passionate about growing food and saving seeds and teaching us all how to do that.
There's no better time to learn it now than when we see so much contamination of our food supply.
So Alex Mitchell is the founder.
Alex, thank you for joining me today.
It's great to have you on for the first time.
It's the first time we're actually getting a talk via an interview.
Yeah, good to be here.
Thanks for having me, Mike.
Well, absolutely.
Look, we love your product.
I love your product.
You sent me a sample a while back and I was really blown away by it.
Give people, if you would, just an overview.
What does Arc Seed Kits do?
And what's your philosophy?
And what do you have available for the public?
Well, Arc actually started 15 years ago in our back garden in our I've always been a gardener.
I've loved to garden.
My family's loved to garden.
But about 15 years ago, we decided to start only growing and harvesting heirloom seeds.
We realized that there was an importance to it and be able to continue to save our seeds year after year.
Around the same time, my sister had a dream, and in the dream, we were trading seeds for currency.
Oh yeah.
It was three bean seeds for the price of so much money.
So we got talking about it and thought, man, if anything ever, the future, anything does become challenging or hard in regards to food supply or currency or anything like that, that maybe we should look into only learning how to grow heirloom.
And so that's what we did little by little, just a few varieties at a time.
And now, 15 years later, we do over 70 different varieties, and anywhere from beans, squash, we do herbs, we do medicinal herbs, corn.
And we wanted to provide the best on the market.
We call it our all-in-one kit, which is the tubes that you see behind me.
And those include 65 varieties of heirloom seeds.
That's over 55,000 seeds.
All of them are heirloom.
All of them are organic.
And we put together that kit.
We wanted to have the best one on the market because it's really high in protein, calories.
It's not full of a bunch of lettuce and broccoli seeds that don't produce and provide a lot of calories for us.
So we put that together and That's a little bit about our background and who we were.
When we first started, there was three companies and now there's over 50 heirloom seed companies.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Well, let's back up for a second because I want to ask you what you saw during the COVID years because I knew, I mean, even I was like, oh, we got to plant potatoes.
We got to get more chickens.
And I have backyard chickens, and I just got 12 more hens, by the way.
I feel totally rich now.
I'm going to get another dozen eggs a day.
But did you see people like this huge interest in seeds at that time?
Because a lot more people realize, hey, we're literally going to have to grow more of our own food.
Did you see that, or what did you see?
Yeah, there was definitely an increase during COVID. Really, any time there's uncertainty...
In the news or current events, there's a huge interest, especially if there's food shortage or scarcity, which there definitely was during COVID with shipping and stores emptying out the seeds.
And people really gained a new interest and a new desire to want to learn how to grow their own food, which is great because that's our passion is to train and help people learn how to do that.
Well, that's what I'd like to bring up, too.
See, you and I have a lot in common in that area where I tell people, like, oh, we have these foods.
In fact, can you guys show the food camera over here?
I'm going to mention it.
See, we have these number 10 cans of food.
But I tell people, the best thing is to grill your own.
Right?
The number one best thing is to grill your own food.
We are the second best if you want these things.
And it's kind of like you have the same philosophy, Alex.
It's like you should save your own seeds and share your own seeds and work with your community and trade seeds and so on.
But the second best thing is for them to get their seed packs from you if they're not able to do it themselves.
Or they need a place to start also.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, exactly.
Yep.
And it's more...
It's nutrition for sure with...
And then even more than that, seeds are, you know, could, and a lot of mainstream media, you're hearing a lot of news about seeds possibly being currency again.
We personally believe that could happen in the near future, so it's a savings account.
No, I probably mentioned it a hundred times in the last year.
Like gold and silver and seeds and ammo.
It's like things that people are going to need.
But gardening, I think until the last few years, most people saw gardening as kind of a money-losing hobby.
Or if they wanted to really have the cleanest food and grow the best varieties, they did that.
But it didn't pay off versus the grocery store until...
Now we have crazy, insane food inflation.
So thanks to food inflation, gardening, I think, it's crossed that threshold to where if you're growing your own organic red peppers, for example, you're growing a fortune.
You're saving money now by gardening.
Are you seeing that too?
Yeah, for sure.
Especially when you can reproduce and save your own seeds.
So I like to show a visual because this helps a lot of people.
Yeah, please.
This is our field corn that comes, one of the varieties that we offer.
So there's about 300 seeds.
And to give a really good example of this, the one year in our garden we planted all of them.
And we harvested our own cobs and harvested the seeds off the cobs.
We bucketed all the seeds up, and from this little bag, we were able to produce five five-gallon buckets.
And so it gives kind of an idea to people to see that you can take a small amount and increase your stock really quickly.
Yeah, it's so easy to take 300 seeds and Yeah, that's a really good point.
And also, what I love about growing food, and I grow hydroponically a lot of stuff too, so that I can grow it year-round.
And it's the same every day of the year.
You know, kale and things like that.
But what I love is that you're harnessing nature, right?
So nature is providing the inputs.
The sunlight, you know, you're getting sunlight and water and carbon dioxide from the air creates photosynthesis.
The plants have their own You know, divine creation seed plan inside and they produce the plant and they build themselves.
You don't have to tell them what to do, right?
They do it themselves.
It's the blueprint.
I mean, it's a miracle in action.
It's a real-life miracle happening in front of us.
You throw this in the dirt and it creates food, you know, with some care, obviously, but it's pretty amazing when you think about it.
Yeah.
Yeah, we have, you know, the...
Seed supply, I think, has becoming, especially heirloom seed, back to talking about the difference between heirloom and hybrid.
I know you've talked about it a bit on your show, but I think it's a good point to bring up.
Again, if anybody listening has not known or doesn't know, it could be repetitive for some.
No, but go ahead.
Yeah.
Go ahead and explain why we don't want the hybrid seeds.
Yeah, like 95% of our seeds that you buy today that are easy accessible are hybrid, which does not reproduce year after year.
So that means that you can't take the seeds from a watermelon and save them and the next year try to plant them and grow a watermelon.
It will grow a plant, but it won't grow a watermelon.
So the only seeds that will reproduce and after their own kind year after year are heirloom seeds, which are now I think it's lower than 5%.
And so because of that, people are, you know, continuing the hobby, continuing to take the...
So it's a passion of ours at ARC is to help inform and to train others on how to do it.
I think some people might get overwhelmed or think, oh my gosh, there's no way I know how to do that, or I... I live in the city.
I live in an apartment.
I can't grow a garden.
Everybody can, and everybody needs to start somewhere.
So when I started 15 years ago, I didn't know where the spinach seed was.
I didn't know where the carrot seed was.
I had to get books and teach myself, learn how to do it ourselves, our family, our kids.
We've all learned how to do it, how to harvest the seeds, so they can continue to reproduce.
Otherwise, if we end up with just hybrid seeds, Here really soon, then, you know, our food supply is going to be controlled and we're not going to be able to continue it.
Yeah, yeah.
You're going to be begging FEMA for food, which is never a good scenario.
Hey, I got a question.
Just so that we can show people what you have, can you grab one of the canisters behind you or wherever you have one?
Can you show us, like, closer to the camera what it looks like?
So inside, when you open it up, it comes with...
This is a seed guide.
This actually...
I wrote this on how basically gives a description on every seed that's in here and how to harvest them, how to save your own seeds, what zone you live in, when to plant it, how deep to plant it.
And if it's not in there, you can email me and ask me questions because I'll be glad to help.
So that's in there.
And then I don't want to, I can't really necessarily dump this all out, but we have The 65 varieties, every seed that's in here is all individually packaged and labeled.
So we have all the herbs, but it fills all the way up to the bottom here.
So this is our best seller as far as what we started with.
But what's been real popular with families joining together and everything is we offer a special now where if you purchase four of them, you get the fifth one free.
And that's our Oh, yeah.
I'm on your website.
You call that the Prepper Special?
Yep, we do.
That's after you and your show last year.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Okay, cool.
So, and are you still honoring the Ranger discount code for free shipping, is it?
So, the Ranger code is 10% off.
Oh.
Yep.
That's even better.
Okay.
Ranger Code gets you 10% off.
And just so our audience knows, we don't get an affiliate fee from you, but you are a sponsor of my podcast from time to time, which is great.
But folks, yeah, it's called the Prepper Special.
Buy four, get one free.
Quarter of a million seeds, 65 varieties, good for sharing with four other families, frankly, right?
And the Ranger code works for the, it doesn't work for the prepper special because that is already a $300 savings.
Oh, okay.
I'm sorry.
Yeah, it's okay.
But the code works for other things other than the prepper special.
Yep, the other specials.
All right.
All good.
Well, I mean, the audience can tell, like, we don't prearrange the questions or anything.
Some of what you're telling me, I did not know.
But I do know, I mean, I have your product.
I've been sprouting some of your seeds.
The kale that I have in my smoothie here, right here, I always have this with me on set.
This has kale in it, and the kale is from your seeds.
And in fact, that kale...
I forgot what variety it is of kale.
Maybe blue curled.
Is that what you have in one of your kits?
I think that's what it is.
Yeah, or lacinato.
We have a couple kinds.
I think it's blue curled, but these kale plants, even in my hydroponic system, which I wish I should bring it in here one day, but no soil, okay?
No soil.
I have them growing indoors, artificial light, which barely costs anything because electricity is affordable in Texas, but...
I mean, all I do is add water and a few nutrients every once in a while, and these kale plants have been producing amazing kale leaves, I'm telling you, for four months maybe, and still going.
That's great.
The kale is just getting longer, and the trunk just keeps getting longer, and it's not bolting.
I mean, it's not doing what lettuce plants do, and oh my gosh, now there's seeds, but it's just giving me kale leaves.
I love it.
Yeah, that is great.
It's good to hear.
Yeah, it's working for me.
Okay, tell us about Storage Life.
People want to know if they buy this today and put it in the closet or wherever, how long will these seeds be viable for give or take?
I know it varies based on the seed, but roughly.
Yeah, so we have the way that we've designed the tubes because they come in a PVC tube.
And so they're airtight and they're sealed away from any water, any damage like that.
They're going to the seeds will store for 15 years or longer.
We've been growing some of these seeds longer than 15 years.
You're kidding me.
So I tell people is that the German they're going to they're going to germinate in 30 years.
It's just that the germination rate will go down.
Yeah.
They're going to stay the best as long as you store them in a cool, dark, dry place.
They do not like moisture.
I do not recommend freezer, not in the refrigerator, just somewhere that's a constant temperature, whether it's a closet or a basement, somewhere that is not too much warmer than 70 degrees.
Okay, that was my next question.
So obviously don't throw them in the attic, not in the garage.
You know, keep them like house temperature or cooler, but not frozen.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, that's amazing to me that you're saying 15 years.
And I imagine, you know, germination rate will fall off over time, but that's to be expected.
Yeah.
But there's so many seeds in there, you can't ever really use them all, it seems to me.
I mean...
Well, people ask if they can take the top off and plant some one year, and then seal it back up and plant year after year.
Okay.
Well, yeah, that makes perfect sense.
Okay, very cool.
So then tell us what else you have in terms of the seed kits, because I know you have your all-in-one seed kit.
You've got other things, like a backyard seed kit.
What are the different kind of assortments that you have?
Yeah, this is our backyard kit.
So it comes in a mylar bag.
Again, this would store the seeds just fine for 15 years.
This has 25 varieties.
It's quite a bit less than the tube as far as the amounts, but it's just a smaller pack where people who maybe just live in an apartment or want to do a small garden to start out, Or some people will buy that as a gift to give to somebody else and buy a tube themselves to keep or anything like that.
But what I like, see, rodents can get into that, right?
Mice can get into that mylar bag and they can eat those seeds where there's no way they're going to chew through the PVC. So the big tubes you have are mouse-proof, which is awesome.
Exactly, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, let me ask you this question.
I am aware that there are all kinds of crazy state laws about which seeds can be shipped across state lines.
I'm sure you've dealt with this for a long time.
How do you navigate all that?
Like, for example, I know you can't ship tobacco seeds to certain states.
At least that's my understanding, which is a shame because tobacco has all kinds of great uses other than smoking, by the way.
But what have you found in terms of state laws and seeds?
Well, actually, it's interesting because once COVID, before COVID hit, we shipped all over the world, multiple, I mean, all over South America, all over Europe, Asia.
Quite a few countries.
And ever since COVID, we've had some major issues for sure to other countries where we actually do not ship currently because the orders were not getting delivered and there was too many issues.
We have not had any issues in the States, just with what we do sell.
Our seeds are mostly vegetables, fruits, and herbs.
So it's pretty...
No red flags necessarily when it comes to that.
I don't know what the future holds with that, but for right now, there hasn't been, and we just continue to ship around the U.S., Hawaii.
That doesn't seem to be an issue.
Yeah.
Well, that's good to hear.
Yeah.
Okay, next question.
So since I'm a prepper and I teach a lot of preparedness, I'm asking on behalf of my prepper listeners, have you ever thought about having a seed kit that focuses on growing fibers?
Because preppers want to be able to have plants that they can turn into rope, frankly, or cotton or other kinds of fibers that can be used in a total collapse type of situation.
Is that something you've ever considered?
We have had a few customers ask, and there has definitely been an interest, especially on top of that, including more grains.
Yeah.
Yeah, we haven't.
I would consider it, though.
I mean, there's definitely enough of an interest, especially with listeners from your show or other avenues that we've reached out to.
I think there's definitely a need and an interest, so it's something that we would think about.
Well, that's awesome to hear.
And let me just throw another idea your way, not to add another homework item or anything.
But here's a suggestion.
What about a seed kit that's designed to grow plants that farm animals eat?
So seeds that grow plants that chickens eat or that goats eat or that cattle eat.
And the whole kit is focused on that because, for example, I have backyard chickens and I'm always thinking, well, gosh, what if there's a supply chain collapse and I can't get the organic chicken feed?
What exactly am I going to feed these chickens?
And there's a lot of great things that you can grow that they will just self-harvest off of, like mulberry trees and all kinds of different grains and things.
But that's just a little suggestion to think about.
Yeah, that...
That is something we have, like, we've been more serious about, too.
And one of the things, actually, in the booklet, the seed guide booklet that I wrote, I do share in there about how chickens alone, they can survive just on turnip greens.
And we actually offer a very large amount of turnip greens in the seed kit for that point that you're making.
Huh.
Also, back to the corn, you know, and being able to learn how to grow and save yourself, just to go back to that example, to encourage people that it doesn't take a lot to be able to learn how to do it and then do it yourself, you know, to actually produce the food that you need for your animals.
So, we do some of that.
We could be more specific on a kit.
Yeah.
But what we do offer in there is a lot more high protein and calories than you'll find.
I did want to make a note too with other seed companies.
We have had many, many issues probably in the last three or four years of customers reaching out to us who have ordered from different seed companies and their seeds have not germinated or they've not grown.
And they want to know if they can rely on our seeds, that they're going to be viable and that they're high quality.
And unfortunately, like I said at the beginning, when we started, there was only three seed companies and now there's over 50.
And a lot of the seeds are actually for real being shipped in from China and other countries and packaged together.
And they're selling these $35 seed kits on Amazon.
So I would highly encourage everybody not to fall into that trap.
Oh, yeah.
You're going to think you're going to be able to rely on those seeds to grow your food and they won't grow.
Yeah, really, really important point there because a lot of people are buying the seeds and then just sitting on them and not even really trying to germinate many of them because they figure, well, not in the emergency yet.
Although I would encourage everybody, start early because there's a learning curve on producing food.
That's for sure.
And it's a lot of work.
But your seed kits...
You know, if they weren't germinating, we would have already been getting flooded with complaints and we're not.
We hear positive things about your company.
In fact, I wanted to ask you, you must talk to a lot of my listeners in particular when they call you.
And I always hear from vendors like you that our listeners are so well informed and they ask the best questions.
And they're just totally informed about what's happening in the world.
What are some of the conversations that you've had, without naming any names, but what are some of the conversations you've had with some of our listeners, if you don't mind me asking?
No.
Yeah.
Well, first of all, they just love your show.
And most of the comments are they listen to you every day.
And they're so glad that they heard about us on your show and that they...
Stand by what you recommend and so therefore they're reaching out to us and so they have so I mean thank you for that because then they're say if Mike recommends anything you know then we know that he searched it out he studied it out and he know he's going to stand behind it and so we've had a lot of really good feedback that way.
I would say at least from I don't know probably Three or four dozen people, maybe more, closer to 100 people.
There's a huge desire.
They keep asking, will you ever go on the show and do a course or a class or more teaching?
We want to understand more and we want to learn more.
We know some about gardening, but we want to learn more.
And so there's a lot of those comments from customers as well.
That's really interesting because let me just open the door and extend an offer to you on this.
We are about to launch a new streaming channel as part of Bright Town TV. I haven't even mentioned this publicly yet.
But it's an educational channel, and it's going to run 24-7 looping educational programs, documentaries, and some how-to stuff.
If you ever want to offer a program for that, which you could just pre-record, you could just send us the files, and we'll schedule it for a weekend, let's say.
And it'll just loop Saturday and Sunday, like maybe you have a three-hour thing.
We'd be happy to run that for you.
Great.
Yeah, that would be awesome.
I think your listeners are really wanting that, and there's an interest there, so I think that they would really benefit from that.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Please give that some consideration.
Not that you don't have a million other things to do, I'm sure, because of all the demand right now.
But should you put something like that together, we'd love to run that for you.
And we're reaching out to a lot of other people as well.
We want to have a place to go where it's just learning and how-to and hands-on.
And some of it's going to be gardening and some of it's going to be prepping and some of it's going to be...
I don't know, like hands-on how to repair things.
You know, practical skills, basically.
Yeah, that's a really good idea.
Yeah.
And, you know, why not?
We have the platform.
Might as well use it, you know, to uplift people in every way possible.
Okay, so let me just recap what we have here.
And correct me if I mess this up, but if people go to arcseedkits.com and you've got a variety of products there, The Prepper Special is buy four, get one free, and that's five of those big PVC tubes, right?
And that's a quarter of a million seeds, 65 varieties, good for five families, but there's no discount code on top of the discount that's already offered there.
But for other products, they can use the code Ranger and they can get 10% off.
Am I getting that right?
That's correct.
Okay, good, good.
I didn't already forget that.
Okay, and then the one other thing I would mention, if you'll send us one more tube, and it can be empty, or you can put, like, last year's seeds in it or whatever, I can have it in the studio, and then when I'm talking about seeds, I can show it to folks here in studio.
Okay, perfect.
Yeah, we'll do that.
Okay, that'd be awesome because I'd like to show people kind of the size and shape and what it is as well.
The one I have, the last one you sent me, it may not be able to be cleaned back up because it's been all covered with dirt and everything, messing with my hydroponics.
It's probably not presentable at this point, you know, but that's reality.
So anything else you'd like to add before we wrap this up?
I think the only thing I can think of is a question for you, Mike.
You do cover it in your shows a lot, and I think we're on the same page with it, but just hearing from you where you think we're at as far as the importance of seeds in regards to currency and trading.
Well, time and time again, and even with the guests that I have on, like Michael Yan, we see the weaponization of food scarcity globally.
And so there's a stranglehold on the food supply and the fertilizer supply.
So food's going to become more and more scarce, which means that more and more people will be forced onto things like food stamps.
And we saw in Brazil...
Something totally crazy that's freaking people out, which is that you don't get welfare, i.e.
food stamps, unless you agree to take all the vaccine injections that the government requires.
So you can kind of see where this is going.
It's like, oh, you want to eat?
Line up and do what we tell you, whatever that happens to be, good or bad, crazy or not, you know, do what we tell you to do.
So I think that seeds, number one, growing your own food is an act of not just courage, but almost an act of rebellion against an enslavement system.
Growing your own food, I think, is one of the greatest acts of rebellion and self-reliance that you can pursue.
As far as currency...
I do believe we're going to have a financial reset type of event, and when that happens, we don't know the timing, but when it happens, there's no question in my mind, seeds will be a form of currency for a while.
It could be months, it could be years, but then eventually there'll be some other...
You know, money type of system that comes back, I believe.
It might be different states having their own currencies or it might be a new silver-backed or gold-backed currency.
Who knows?
But when that happens, probably fewer people trading with seeds at that time.
But for some period of time, during the transition, during the collapse, yes, I think seeds will be currency.
Does that answer your question?
Yeah.
I knew where you stood.
I think it's good to reiterate it and to make it the importance of it for the listeners and not just currency, but for trading too.
So I think that's good.
Thank you for sharing.
Yeah, absolutely.
And the fact that you're talking about 15 years of shelf life, that's really amazing.
I forgot, on the labels on your product, do you have a year?
Like what year this was made or packed?
All of our seeds that are packed, it's everything from...
I'm sorry.
So we don't put a year to date on the packs of the seeds, but they are all from that year.
Okay.
So if you're purchasing in 2023, those are from the harvest of 2022.
Okay.
So then someone, when they get your canister, they can just write in a big marker, 2023.
Okay.
I mean, I tend to do that with my food cans and things.
Like, I'll just mark what year it was, and then you have a record.
And so you know that's good for up to 15 more years, and that's really important to know.
And it's like money in the bank, really, if you think about it.
Yeah.
Yeah, a savings account in a tube.
Yeah, savings account in a tube.
And right now people are trying to get out of dollars, a lot of people, and they're wondering what to go into, right?
So gold and silver, land, you know, diesel fuel that people are storing, which is also smart, lots of things, but seeds make a lot of sense.
Because food, obviously you can't live without it.
The other thing, by the way, you'll find this interesting, Alex, the other thing that you can stockpile is compost.
So compost is also kind of like money in the bank, I think.
And so if people can start making compost now, even if they're not planting seeds, they can start composting all the kitchen scraps and everything, and they can end up with all this amazing compost so that when the day comes that they need to plant, They've got, you know, basically, you know, food potential soil ready to go.
I mean, I think that's a really smart thing to get working on.
Yeah, definitely.
Highly recommend on compost.
You know, like you had said, any type of alternative nutrients that you can get besides fertilizer, which obviously I would, it's compost, it would be the number one.
So that's a really easy thing that you can be doing every day just from the scraps that you're After your meals in your house.
So I would highly recommend that.
You know, making sure that you're forward thinking on water source and water supply.
Yes.
To grow.
And so, I mean, we can go into a whole other realm talking about that.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, we'll save that for another episode because we're going to wrap up here for today.
But this has been a fascinating discussion.
I think you and I could do a lot of shows about growing food and seeds and what's important and what works because we didn't even ask you about your tips and strategies, what tools you recommend for gardening and things like that.
But I think people are going to be stocking up on gardening tools as well.
And you've got to get good ones because there's a lot of crap out there that just breaks.
Exactly.
As we all know.
Okay.
Well, thank you so much, Alex.
I appreciate you joining me today, especially kind of a last-minute invite.
We appreciate you joining me.
And again, the website, folks, is arcseedkits.com.
Check it out.
They are a sponsor of my podcast, and we appreciate their sponsorship.
And use discount code Ranger for 10% off everything except...
The already discounted Prepper special.
So thank you so much, Alex.
It's been great speaking with you today.
Yeah, you too.
Thank you.
All right, take care then.
And for those of you watching, thank you for tuning in.
I hope you enjoyed this.
I hope you learned something.
Of course, I'm Mike Adams of Brighttown.com, and the spring is here in Texas.
And I've got to get out there this weekend and start doing some more planting or preparation for planting of my own, by the way.
This is the year I really want to grow more food.
Let's see if it happens.
I've got more chickens.
That's a start.
But I need to grow corn now.
So we'll see if it happens.
But thank you for tuning in.
Feel free to repost this content if you'd like on your own channels.
And we'll have more interviews coming up for you here almost every day at brighteon.com.
My channel is HR Report.
Thank you all for tuning in.
God bless you.
Get ready.
It's going to be an interesting year for sure.
Take care.
A global reset is coming.
And that's why I've recorded a new nine-hour audiobook.
It's called The Global Reset Survival Guide.
You can download it for free by subscribing to the naturalnews.com email newsletter, which is also free.
I'll describe how the monetary system fails.
I also cover emergency medicine and first aid and what to buy to help you avoid infections.