Re-organizing my stuff, especially the long-term food, has me musing about the classic have vs. have-not conflict that we will see when the wheels fly off society…and that, to some degree, we are seeing now.
The apocalypse is going to come in several different flavors…civil war/disturbance, economic depression, huge natural disaster, pandemic, stray nukes…and it will, no doubt, at some point require that you be ready to maintain the safety and security of your loved ones and your home. But you know what happens far more often than the need to point a gun at someone? The need to eat.
I’m an old-school survivalist – being armed is right up there at the top of the list of things to be ready for. But I also have dang near thirtyfive years of being that old school survivalist behind me. In all that time, I have needed to eat far more times than I’ve needed to point a gun at someone. Not saying it wont happen…simply saying that, statistically, youll be more likely to be patting yourself on the back over your food stash than your gun and ammo stash.
In addition to keeping you from, y’know, dying, food has an excellent moral and motivational (Motivatory? Motivary?) effect – as the graphic on the MRE entree says: food is a force multiplier. Well-fed people are going to perform better than starving people. And starving people are desperate people who do desperate things..and doing desperate things is a great way to become someone who doesn’t need food at all…forever. So dont be a starving person who takes crazy risks out of desperation, and don’t be around starving people who are unpredictable and dangerous.
Having that resource of food also makes you a target. Truly desperate people…people who are cold, who are hungry, who are hopeless, who are watching their loved ones miss meals…are dangerous and unpredictable. Don’t be one of them and don’t let them know you’re there.
Right now we live in a world where people will literally kill you because they want your sneakers, think you cut them off in traffic, or simply want your cellphone. And thats in a world with 911, electricity, cops, and a somewhat-functioning society. Now imagine what it’ll be like when the only mechanism to keep the foot on the brake pedal of social chaos is whatever you’ve got in your holster or slung over your shoulder.
In a situation like that the person who can sit at home, safe and secure, and not have to venture out into the chaos looking for food and supplies has a tremendous advantage. Exponentially so if he’s there with his equally well-fed and well-armed family and friends.
It used to be that people first getting into preparedness/survivalism started off with a wild binge of gun and ammo buying, and everything that came after was done with far less rigor and enthusiasm. I have encountered quite a few people who had guns and ammo aplenty but put virtually no thought into food. A bunch of 2-liter pop bottles filled with rice and beans is better than starving…I guess. But you really should aspire for better than that.
And for the love of Crom, stock up on ‘regular’ food….the canned fruits, the jarred sauces and soups, the bags of pasta and rice, etc, etc. Expensive freeze drieds are awesome but when I suffer a small-scale EOTWAWKI like a job loss or 48-hour power failure, I’m going to be really reluctant to break into the $30 can of Mountain House Chicken and Rice and more likely to grab a $2 jar of spaghetti sauce and a $3 bag of pasta off the shelf.
Guns and radios and fuel and all the other sexy stuff is important, no doubt, but water and food are always going to get more use and demand than pretty much anything else you can store. It’s absolutely worth thinking about what youre stocking up on, how much of it you’re putting away, and how youre going to use it. Certainly thats where my mind is these days.
Imagine that! Someone talking sense and cents in the same brief. Amazing! I fully concur with you observations. Food and water are vitally important to life and limb. The fact that you covered the possibility of food fatigue (rice and beans in pop bottles) is something all people should take note of. Too often we plan with a one dimensional thought process. The attitude that this “will do” in most situations is narrow minded and shows a lack of experience. On one military tour I was on we were on hard rations for four months. Our Canadian rations are very good but they are still only ration packs. Everyone was losing weight and apatite. I had my family mail me a care package with all kinds of little goodies from canned peaches to pasta sauces, beef jerky, other preserved meats and dried fruits. Once a week after I got the package I did up a meal for my section. I sure picked up morale. So, from that experience I learned the value of diversity (yes I did use that hated word) in my food prep. Thanks for bringing the up, I’m sure you opened some eyes. TTFN Phil
Those who will kill you for a pair of sneakers aren’t ‘people.’ They are a semi-sentient subspecies, not my ‘fellow man.’ And while I’ve bought plenty of food, and I know ‘best by’ doesn’t mean ‘trash it by,’ we just don’t normally eat much canned food. Last night was steak, baked potato, fresh asparagus and mushrooms – followed by mixed fresh fruit. I have asparagus and mushrooms and fruit bought in glass jars, but they don’t taste as good and are meant for when we can’t get fresh. I have meat vacuum packed and frozen, and even some of the Freeze Dry Wholesalers’ steak for a genuine emergency. But the canned chicken and veggies are just going to sit until we cannot get anything fresh.
“And starving people are desperate people who do desperate things..”
This.
Question CZ, unless your sheriff and his/her deputies are preppers, won’t they run out of food to feed their families? What about your county supervisors/commissioners? What happens when the “leaders” realize they have no food to feed their kids? Will they tell the SWAT team to protect the people with food? Or, will they “for the good of all” go door to door and round up all the food and people and take them to the county fairgrounds? That way they can feed everyone and as the pigs in Animal Farm say, some are more equal than others…
I do not have a solution to this problem. I know for a fact that the armed police will not let their families starve. I know the powers that be will use any pretext to gather up the resources in the community. Any thoughts you have on this would be appreciated.
What about them? Even if the local cops are starving, they’re outnumbered, outgunned, and outmaneuvered. They can certainly proclaim some sort of ‘anti hoarding’ edict, but no one is going to want to be the first person through a doorway to enforce it. Additionally, if things reach that point, Id be surprised if a good chunk of the department hasn’t had a case of blue flu and decided to stay home and guard the family. Also, I know a lot of cops in this town and a comfortable amount of them are of the same mind as you and I. In a less…independent minded….environment like NY or CA, that whole ‘confiscate for the greater good’ thing might fly but Id hate to be the first cop who tries rolling up to someones house and demanding the food someone was planning to use to feed their kids. “One Second After” has a chapter about the local townie government mulling over such a thing and its probably fairly realistic.
Water, Water and more Water. If you can have a well drilled. Make sure it has and old fashion nonelectric had pump. I had one drill and install for about 2K a few years back.