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.
One the best day, the cops are like-minded, and won’t be interested in screwing with the people with thew wits to have prepared to not be part of the problem afterwards.
On their worst day, they’re just another gang of armed thugs to deal with.
99:1 after the first two or three in any area get stacked up trying to get to someone’s food stash, enthusiasm for further food raids will wane drastically, and they’ll f**k right back off to taking care of themselves, and leaving ordinary folks alone.
The police in this country have little experience living everyday of their lives outside the Green Zone in Indian Country (they like to think so, but when it’s happened, they hide and scream like scared little girls – cf. Dorner), and when you could get popped just for being That Guy 24/7, including eating a burger, taking out the trash, or sitting on the can, and your family and kids are in the mix because all’s fair in love and war, the “job” no one is paying them to do anymore gets a lot less attractive. Especially when pensions and paychecks have gone right out the window, forever.
The really smart ones will be the first to shoot looters, and that will include any civil so-called “government” that thinks it has the right to confiscate private belongings and supplies, under any pretext.
That will be a survival move, to avoid the eventual execution by bullet to the head, or rope poisoning.
Robin Hood was a sparklingly clear cautionary tale about confiscatory taxation. Except that 21st century peasants aren’t likely to be as accommodating to so-called “official” thievery after the fact as King Richard was.
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.
Speaking of freeze-dried Mountain house, just ordered a case of breakfast skillet at 60% off from Midwayusa of all places!
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1027556347?pid=560729
Thanks Jimbo, I picked up a case. That what I love about CZ and his followers, we have good ideas and share them!
But guns and ammo, in the current status, are more fun, My better half refers to them as “toys”.
That being said, your philosophy regarding food and other preparations make a lot more sense,
Radios can also be a lot of fun,
Some of the websites take themselves too seriously, that is why I welcome new posts on yours, Practicality mixed with a sense of humor.
Someday Ill convert all this to a podcast and then the laughs will really ensue.
Looking forward to that! Don’t forget the video!
You know how in some jurisdictions local police can go to a judge and ask for a no-knock warrant? I understand that such warrants may save blue lives when going against criminals and the folks on the inside are assumed to be well gunned up. However, when the crap truly hits the fan, any cops who come through my door without MY permission will be treated as intruders. There were incidents during Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans (2005) that really opened my eyes concerning the police.
Ruby Ridge and Branch Davidians weren’t enough of a clue? Big city and small town cops since the Sixties did not earn such reputations? Maybe watch “Standing Tall”,Billy Jack movies or “First Blood”.
Yeah, before Sav-A-Lot died it was a good place to score cases of green veggies and beans. Wally world has beef, pork, chicken salmon and tuna as well as the more esoteric things like sardines, oysters, etc. I make use of the Knoor sauces as a base, mixing in meat and such to “spice” them. I’ve used them that were 3 years past “best by” dates and they were fine.
And sweet suffering Shiva, when you stock food, double down on spices (which keep nearly forever), and condiments, and do yourself a yuuuuuge favor:
Learn how to make your favorite condiments and sauces from scratch, sourcing original ingredients.
Your post-apocalyptic tongue will thank me with every meal you eat.
Amen Brother!
Due to loss of employment, emergency moving for family and other events, I’ve had the opportunity to live off my food storage four times. In those instances, we found the spices didn’t go as far as we thought. Whatever you have planned in the flavoring department, triple it.
And don’t forget the value of long term flavoring like hot sauce, where the vinegar will preserve it for a very long time. Or barbecue sauce, where the sugar serves a similar role.
Vacuum packing dried herbs is about the only way to extend the usefulness of most spices. Buy and grow the spices you use
Following. The subject matter of food and it’s related kit equipment and supports are as important as muh guns and ammo stuff as anything else in your storage pods. Being able to “disconnect” from the whole .civilian infrastructures and systems and having independence from interacting with plebes and normies during spicy or crunch times is what will actually help you to survive. Being fed well enough is good, but limiting or cutting off any interactions with other humans during such times is what will matter in the big picture by limiting risks and exposures out there. Those same folks that “drive” to corner coffee huts in flip flops, and are fed by stangers at those convenience slop outlets will be your new adversaries in spicy times. Avoiding crowds is sound tactical advice too. I recommend having a mobile pantry or Chuck wagon set up as well for any evacuations or decamping from your A.O. for any reasons. Should you have to “go innawoods” and hole up somewhere you can set up camp and be comfy enough as a refugee somewhere else for a period of time if necessary. Mobility is flexibility in tactics Planning doctrine. Planning accordingly helps to stay frosty.
Regardless of how the economy is going (good – bad – non existent) some processes will happen the same regardless of living conditions. Consuming nutrients to continue on is always present. Eating rat-on-a-stick with a side of lawn clippings while poking about the charred debris doesn’t sound as fun as it should be.
May I recommend the rat burger
My wife is going through things and announced that some of our canned meat was 15 years old. This helped explain all the Costco canned chicken on the counter. Apparently, older stuff is being retired and replacements are at hand.
And when you think you have enough water, double it (at least).
CZ, you wrote, “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.”
How true. Doing so will likely simply add more psychic pain to the situation.
About storing items like Mountain House products, if a person has the means to store massive amounts of such products, good for him. He’s doing quite well.
For others, storing basic staples and augmenting “normal” food in cans and jars is the better choice. In my view, better to have a year (or two) of soup, pasta, and canned vegetables than to be starving two months after a massive supply chain interruption caused by (fill in the blank).
I already have that years-worth of ‘regular’ food on hand. The freeze-drieds are nice for if I need portabilty rather than palatability. Smart move is to have both.