SHTF Uses for Lemon Juice

The more you know, the less you need. This particular adage is of great importance to the prepper as it can keep you from turning your home or bug-out bag into an environment worthy of the show Hoarders. If you know how to squeeze the maximum usefulness out of everything around you, you’ll have boosted your survival ability. So why not learn a few prepper uses for lemons?

If you live in Florida, citrus is everywhere. Also, if you live in Florida, you know that when hurricanes hit, they hit everywhere. If you find yourself in an austere environment where you have to make do with what is around you, but your home and your preps were swept away by floodwaters and wind, are there things you can do with the humble lemon to help to improve your situation?

I would argue that the answer is yes.

Lemon Juice Can Be Used to Keep Bugs at Bay

Let’s say that you’re now temporarily living in a tent as you bug out from some type of disaster that has hit Orlando. One of the problems that are plaguing your retreat area is the bugs, though. Ants are everywhere, and you’re having a tough time keeping them out of your food. You already don’t have a lot of food with you, to begin with, and you’re tired of routinely opening up a box of crackers to discover it’s been invaded by thousands of little sugar ants.

This is where lemon juice can come into play.

Ants hate the smell of lemons. You’ll create a potent deterrent (though, admittedly, peppermint works better) by putting lemon juice around the border of where you want to keep the ants away. This method also works against fleas and spiders.

Lemon Juice Can Be Used to Remove Fish Odors

If you find yourself in a survival situation where you routinely have to fish for food, you must also clean those fish. The problem is that fish are smelly creatures, and once rot begins to set in, the smell can be atrocious. Not only is this unpleasant, but it can attract animals as well.

Nocturnal animals playing havoc with your campsite after you go to bed can be a whole other problem. So, we want to avoid this problem from ever happening in the first place.

If you have pots, pans, or cutting boards that you need to get that smell off of, lemon juice can help. Squirt some onto the surface of whatever you need to de-smell-er-ize and scrub. That should help to make the scent disappear entirely.

Lemon Juice Can Be Used to Help Get Rust Off Your Knives

One of the most critical tools of survival that you have is your knife. As such, you must keep it in good working condition should you find yourself in an austere environment. Once rust begins to form on your blade, it’s vital that you remove it as quickly as possible so that it doesn’t continue to spread and weaken the integrity of the metal.

Once more, lemon juice can help to accomplish this. Squirt some on the rust and safely scrub it off with a stiff brush. The rust should go with it.

Lemon Juice Can be Used to Make Invisible Ink

This probably isn’t the ideal method for communicating a message to somebody when privacy is an absolute must, but it’s a fun method to know about nonetheless. You can actually use lemon juice to make “invisible ink.”

All you have to do is dip a fine paintbrush into lemon juice and then use it to write your letter on a piece of paper. The paper may show some sign of having had contact with water, but other than that, you won’t see any visible lettering.

The person you give the letter to then needs to hold the paper over a heat source. This heat will cause the lemon juice to turn dark brown while the rest of the document remains white.

Lemon Juice Can Help to Get Blood Off of Your Clothes

If you’re living in the middle of nowhere at your survival retreat, you have limited resources at your disposal. One of the things that you aren’t going to have a lot of are articles of clothing. Because survival situations are inherently dangerous, there’s a good chance you could end up with blood on your clothing.

Whether it’s from an accident peeling potatoes, a simple bloody nose, or something more tragic, you’re not going to want to spend the remainder of your time at your survival retreat wearing a blood-splattered shirt. It doesn’t do good things for morale, and there’s probably something to be said for hygiene here as well.

But if you have access to lemon juice, you can use it to help to remove the blood stains from your clothing. Just squirt the dirty area, let it sit for a bit, and then rinse and scrub everything down with water. That should help to reduce significantly the amount of blood that is on your clothes.

It’s a MacGyver’s World

You just have to know how to use the things around you to their fullest potential. And lemon juice is one of the things that can be used for many uses in a survival situation. But are there other uses of lemons that we didn’t outline above you think could be of benefit to the prepper? Tell us below.

Additional Resources:

• Best Foods to Stockpile for an Emergency Food Supply
• 7 Best Solar Generators for Off-Grid Living
• SHTF Plan: 4 Step Guide to Survive Any Disaster
• Herbal Skills Intensive Course – Grid Down Herbal Remedies