I would like to bring up a concern I have before discussing nutrition. It’s a situational event which was brought up in the novel One Second After
Let’s name our survivor Jake. He lives on the outer fringe of a suburb, in a quiet neighborhood. His community is a college town which has a mayor and a city council. Jake is a concerned survivor; he has spent a lot of time and money stockpiling a serious food supply for his family. By the time the national emergency hit he had two years of food supplies stocked.
Three months into the crisis, Jake’s fears were fully justified by the total absence of food items anywhere due to the rupture of the national supply line. It was already November and planting a garden would have to wait till April or May.
A few days into the third month, Jake found a notice on his door. It was from the city council, signed by the mayor. The notice declared that there was martial law in effect and that police would soon come door to door to impound any food items and bring them to a local high school gym to create an equal distribution amongst the community that Saturday. It was further stated that hoarding food was against the law, subject to immediate arrest seeing that food was now considered a critical asset.
This made Jake angry; he prepared, why should he worry about those who didn’t? Just about when he was going to call his sons to have them start hauling his food supplies elsewhere he noticed police cars and vans arriving at both ends of his street.
Jake was about to lose two years of carefully stocked rations and was facing, at the high end, one to two months of rations after general distribution, Saturday. Jake’s dilemma is one everyone could face. Scenarios may differ of course. But what of Jake’s thinking?
Jake, logically, is right; why should he help those who did nothing to prepare? However, society, the ruling order, may think of Jake as lacking any “community solidarity”. The ruling order might view Jake’s thinking as a detriment to the “collective” against pooling resources for the common good. This could very well occur unless you live in the wilderness away from prying eyes and inquisitive minds.
I’m not an ethics expert. I wanted to, however, bring up this scenario to warn you of potential outcomes, some of which we cannot predict at this time from a total societal collapse which could eliminate supply lines. This scenario was brought up in One Second After
What could Jake do facing a well organized police force? Nothing. In Michigan, one cannot defend property with deadly force; deadly force can only be used if threatened with deadly force. Thus, through a well organized sweep, the “system” could impound your stash and take it for the good of the “collective”, especially if food becomes labeled as a “critical asset.”
Fiction? Yes. Possible? Yes again. I bring this up because I want people to think outside the box relating to food storage. Your fixed site may not be as ideal as you thought for long term storage. Officials may be under immense pressure to find ways to feed communities. Extreme measures may be applied.
Your individual rights may be suspended if it is suspected that some may have more of a critical asset than others. Officials may want to equalize the field in order to sustain survivability in the community until new ideas or methods are found. If food becomes a critical asset, your family would not matter any more; the “collective” would matter over your family. Either join the “collective” or die.
Food could become something of such high value in a survival situation that any hoarding may be considered “antisocial.” Just food (pun!) For thought (!) Jake’s most powerful weapon? A huge collection of seeds. We will discuss seeds in the nutrition series.
PART ONE: NUTRITION/PROTEIN
Food; Food is our fuel which we cannot live without beyond three weeks and nutrition is what determines the quality of the fuel we take in. We have heard the term “junk food” which identifies such foods as lacking the right kind of nutrition.
Food can be broken down into protein (animal protein and plant protein (beans, for example); Simple carbohydrates (sugars, honey); complex carbohydrates (pasta, rice, flour); fats (oils of various kinds and fats from animal and vegetable sources). High nutrition value of these categories rests with the content of vitamins, minerals and “octane” value: how much energy that food will deliver to the person. Activity levels will determine the caloric amount one would need per day to sustain life to include meeting daily vitamin and mineral requirements.
Energy requirements versus activity, These charts for men and women demonstrates the energy required for high, moderate and low activity. This site is a fun tool to play with based on the activity level one is involved with.
If you tie our activity level in relation to being at a fixed site, on the move to a different site in the woods, establishing camp at a new site and working the new established camp site for a period of time, you can imagine how our energy levels will change during each phase.
A fixed site can be broken down into different energy levels. For example, if food garden plots are being worked on from summer to fall, with canning activity and food storage in the late fall, energy expenditure will be much higher than during the winter months. In contrast, sustained activity at a camp site in the woods may be completely different based on a different life style.
Calories alone, however, do not constitute good nutrition. As we discuss nutrition, to include storage of food, you will appreciate how complex the subject is. Let us start with protein.
Protein is made up of amino acids, eight of which must be supplied from an outside source for protein synthesis. The other twelve are called conditionally essential. The eight essential amino acids are essential because they must be provided from food to build human protein. Infants and children require an additional four amino acids, histidine, cysteine, tyrosine and arginine.
Linoleic acid is an essential nutrient (one that cannot be synthesized by the body in sufficient amounts) bumping the essential nutrients to nine.
What you need to know: the body does not store amino acids. “When the body uses a protein of poor quality, it wastes many of the amino acids. What happens is that enzymes strip off the nitrogen-containing amino groups and fix them into the compound urea, and the urea is excreted by the urine.” (Understanding Normal and Clinical Nutrition, Whitney Cataldo). If you are missing an essential amino ac
id, body protein cannot be manufactured. Just because one essential amino acid is missing, all are wasted and dumped out of the body. This is why a protein has to be of high quality.
For example, the biological value of a food is very important. An egg has a BV score of 100. Fish fillet is between 75-90 BV (Cataldo). So it’s essential to have a high quality protein in the diet to minimize amino acid loss.
In this link you will find a table for the requirements of essential amino acids. The challenge, in a survival situation, either in a fixed site or otherwise, is to meet the daily amino acid requirements needed by the body. This is huge, especially if you find yourself in conditions which breaks down your body through high energy expenditure.
The goal would be to store very high quality protein sources which can last for a very long time. These two factors are very difficult to achieve. Dried soybeans and varied beans, lentils and peas have a high protein source and can be stored for a long time.
If you can’t get this site type long term storage of foods and you will get hits, like “Consumer’s Guide” by Judy Harrison Ph.D above. Dried beans can be stored 2-3 years; I suspect longer if hermetically sealed.
As you can see, I steered away from frozen meat-because electricity, to include your back up generators may become fried. Fuel to sustain your back up generators may disappear. But beans and soybeans can be grown if you have a house, a fixed site which has land that can be cultivated.
Seeds are a must in your survival package. I get my seeds through * heirloomseeds.com* and I have a huge collection already. This following site will give you the protein content of legumes. Pay attention to soybeans which have a huge percent of protein. Beans can be dried and stored. If hermetically sealed when completely dry they can be stored for a very long time.
There are many vendors of prepared survival food on the web. They offer a good service. But like any service, it will cost. Most important, the ingredients should be scrutinized relating to high value protein content versus high carbohydrate/fat content. Protein builds tissue, rebuilds the body. You can buy a huge amount of dried legumes for a very low cost. Study the link provide above relating to protein content in each.
Remember that the basic staples of American Indians were corn, beans and squash. Other protein sources came from fish and game. In some tribes like the Lakota, they moved in the Great Plains in a circle. The Lakota had their summer camp in the Black Hills area then moved onto the Plains once again to hunt buffalo. They were more nomadic than other tribes-but many others relied on corn, beans and squash as their base.
I just went to the Oriental Mart just down the street and bought a four pound bag of dried soybeans for $4.99. I walked around, and besides many types of rice (where I buy my rice supplies) they sell many different types of dried beans sealed in plastic packages. Their retail prices are very reasonable. Usually Oriental Markets provide a large variety of dried beans and rice in bulk.
Urban dwellers: many urban dwellers probably read this blog. Their challenge, renting an apartment in a large city boils down to storage space and the inability to grow things. I would strongly urge urban dwellers to think through a survival strategy. The best way is to think it through. Your input on how you would deal with the loss of a supply infrastructure will probably save your life. It’s all about planning.
Protein-kCalorie (energy) deficiencies in children presents itself as Kwashiorkor. Found in third world areas in children who, by the time they are four present a stunted growth. Back to key amino acid deficiencies in children as brought up above gives the child a bad start in life.
Adult protein deficiencies occurs in the US every day in the form of alcoholism. “Like the kwashiorkor child, the malnourished alcoholic may have a swollen belly; puffy hands, feet, and face; skin sores; and a reduced ability to withstand infection.” ( Understanding Normal and Clinical Nutrition, Whitney Cataldo) Furthermore, as alcoholism progresses, the liver loses its ability to process protein efficiently, and the alcoholic suffers malnutrition.
Alcohol does not mix in survival situations. As brought up with hydration, and now with nutrition, alcohol is a nutrition wrecker. Alcohol also clouds judgement which is critical in a survival situation. I bring alcohol up, not because I want to discourage moderate use, but because how alcohol provides empty calories while interfering with nutritional needs of the body when used in excess.
Nutrition Part Two will discuss carbohydrates and lipids. Both are very important. Part Three will discuss nutrition in a fixed site and storage. Part Four, nutrition on the run-and discussion on survival food pouches available for sale. Part Five, nutrition at your camping site after leaving your fixed site due to an emergency. Strategies relating to establishing several “eggs”, zones of operation in the forest for hunting and gathering. This will be the most challenging for the survivor.
Part Five will flow into a more fixed position, a new semi permanent position near a water source where the survivor might be able to plant during the spring/summer months.
As you can see, nutrition is quite a challenge. The ability to have a very large collection of seeds on top of a food supply will ensure an ongoing supply of food. A food supply is fixed and expendable; it’s like fuel. You use it and it’s gone.
No matter how much you have stored, it won’t be enough. That’s where your supply of seeds come in. Seeds don’t take much room; you can have a phenomenal amount in a very small space. Look at seeds as potential food. So besides your fixed food storage stash (which you could lose per my hypothetical scenario in the prologue) you should have a supply of emergency rations (like Mainstay rations) and a large supply of seeds.
The emergency rations and seeds you can take with you if you have to make that move you don’t want to make or if you lose your entire base food storage by either impounding by authorities, theft, or other disaster.
This concludes Nutrition Part One. Until next time, Ed signing off.
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