Reference library
Plants, Food & Water
9 guides, every one legally redistributable and traceable to its source.
ATP 3-50.21 Survival
The current (Sept 2018) official Army survival doctrine — successor to FM 21-76/FM 3-05.70. Covers water, food, fire, shelter, signaling, and survival medicine. The flagship item for a survival-manual library. Also the strongest free source on food procurement — plants, fishing, trapping and snares — and on water sourcing and treatment, which is why it is shelved under Plants, Food & Water as well.
US Army (Army Publishing Directorate) · Not stated on APD page; typical ATP is 5-15 MB
CDC MMWR mushroom-poisoning reports
Authoritative, citable basis for the 'why to be conservative' chapter: cooking does not destroy amatoxins, lookalikes fool experienced foragers, ID apps are unreliable, death cap causes most fatal poisonings. Also https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010a1.htm for national statistics.
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention · <1 MB each
CDC Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) emergency water guidance + fact sheets
Consumer-grade guidance on the 1 gal/person/day rule, container sanitizing, storage rotation, boiling/disinfecting/filtering decision tree — complements the EPA card and is bilingual.
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention · a few MB
FDA Bad Bug Book, 2nd edition
Chapters on mushroom toxins (amatoxins etc.), pyrrolizidine alkaloids, cyanogenic glycosides, phytohaemagglutinin (raw kidney beans), solanine, shellfish toxins — the toxicology backbone for 'why to be conservative' messaging, each chapter with a plain-language consumer box.
US Food and Drug Administration, CFSAN · ~3-6 MB
Field Guide to Common Macrofungi in Eastern Forests and Their Ecosystem Functions
The rare PUBLIC-DOMAIN mushroom guide with quality color photos (incl. deadly Amanita and Galerina species). Deliberately ecology-focused rather than an edibility guide — which fits the safety-first stance: show what grows, never promise edibility.
USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station · ~5-10 MB
Food and Water in an Emergency
Compact all-in-one booklet: food shelf lives, cooking without power, safe indoor water sources (water heater, pipes), unsafe sources, and the three treatment methods — a good single-download starter doc.
FEMA with the American Red Cross · <2 MB
Studies of American Fungi: Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc.
Classic illustrated mushroom monograph with period photographs — atmospheric library content and historical plates, free to bundle.
Project Gutenberg (orig. Andrus & Church, 1900) · ~10-30 MB with images
Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World / Notes on Edible Plants
Encyclopedic coverage of ~3,000 edible species worldwide (uses, history, parts eaten) — deep 'library shelf' content that differentiates a paid product, at zero licensing cost.
New York Agricultural Experiment Station (1919; public-domain scan on Internet Archive) · ~30-60 MB scan
USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning
THE authoritative, safety-tested home canning reference (pressure vs water-bath, altitude adjustments, hundreds of tested recipes for fruits, tomatoes, vegetables, meats, pickles, jams). Exactly the offline reference preppers want, and as a numbered USDA bulletin it is public domain.
USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (with UGA/NCHFP) · ~15-40 MB total