Survival Blog had a short well written piece on why we should prep for all things in life. Food: The Ultimate Weapon. Loose Lips will Sink Preppers. Food has always been used as the ultimate weapon. The destruction of the buffalo removed the Indian "threat" from the great plains. Every cowboy movie has the local Fort in it. The army was always there and the people could go there if needed. The Indians had no forts. Two things prevented that, cannon that could destroy the walls and the fact that the army could replace their food stocks and the Indians couldn't. As far back as history goes, in most places there has been some sort of fortifications. And for as long as the forts were there, the main weapon in defeating them has been starvation. He quotes Matt Bracken, You will run out of food before you run out of bullets. The fact is that you must on the "average" consume some amount of calories to live, may be as low as 1200 if totally at rest in a warm room to 5,000 if working hard in extreme cold. Until you are able to either receive food from others or become self sufficient in your food supply, it is a consumable that can not be replaced. We all read the 3 rule, air, shelter, water, but in reality in the long run the lack of food will kill you just as dead. Then in the end he touches on one of prepping most worry some facts, it is only your food if you can keep it. While we all fear the government grabbing it, how do you handle your children, their spouses, and grand children arriving a week after TSHTF with nothing. Now they arrive with their in laws and their families and your 2 years food for 4 now has to feed 20 and you have less than a 6 month supply. Then 3 months into the crisis both the starving neighbors and the government at some level realize you still have food and insist on sharing it. Think about it, security works only with 100 % no leaks, bragging, kids talking, some one in family not going along with prep mind set, paper trail of buying preps, a lot of other things, will bring you to the attention of someone and that person will have no reason to ignore that information when they are starving. At some point it would be well to have "iron rations" cached that only a couple of people know about as a last fall back position. Totally off subject, but a discussion of the German Iron rations in WW2 when the German army supply lines were unable to provide fresh food, think Africa, Stalingrad, etc, and were forced back on canned rations and dried food. While it may have not been tasty, it allowed them to fight on. You all know my excessive reliance on Spam, tuna, canned chicken, Dak hams, chili without beans, etc, it used to be possible to buy and rotate long term storage meats at your grocery quite cheaply, and I always have. I happen to like rice with beans and canned chili, it was cheap, filling and I like the taste. Add beans, rice, pasta, dried veggies, oils, etc, and you can survive Tinned Meat in the German Army Iron Ration / der Erste Zug
Got some thoughts on this, but just stopped in before heading back to cut up the last hind leg of beef hanging in my cooler. Will post more later.
I’ll close with a note on the humorous side: The cable guy came out to chase down a break in our Internet cable recently. And before he stepped into the large room where I keep my foodstuffs I warned him that I was a Prepper, and he asked” “Like the ones on television? I stated: “Sort of…” His jaw dropped when he saw the floor-to-ceiling foodstuffs and he went silent. Before he left he turned and said: “I sure hope you are wrong.” To that, I replied: “I too hope I’m wrong.” I wish and pray for those trying to prep, I want nothing more than to be wrong. But something tells me that I am not. I read it this morning also >>> came away with this paragraph shaking my head - if he was all truth - not exactly a smart move in many many ways !!!!!!
Yep, like hanging out a sign saying free food!! Free Yep TnAndy has it right, the idea is to survive, not prolong the period before death due to what ever.
Whew.....done. Still got couple lugs of hamburger to grind and 60-70lbs of dog food trimmings to can up (canned 50 quarts so far, plus they have eaten real good in the last couple weeks) and clean the room good, but the cutting up is done. As for food: Always been a question I've posed to people that put up food, especially those with less than a growing season put up..."What is your plan when it runs out ? You think if a grocery store hasn't been open in 3-6-12 months, that it will suddenly come back to life just as your storage runs out ?" All you're doing is delaying the inevitable starvation unless you are producing food. If you can't go a year, bare minimum, you're up a creek without a paddle if times ever really get tough.
