Are you ready… to kill and prepare your own food?
This article was written by Daniel Barker and originally posted at Natural News.com.
Editor’s Comment: Generally, preppers are getting ready for the worst outcome because they understand how fragile the system is, and how rapidly things will come undone. Most Americans have only 3 days of food (or less) in their pantries. If any number of crises hit this nation, and disrupted the food supply, the grocery store shelves would be empty in a matter of hours, and everyone left empty-handed would starve, or become absolutely and completely dependent upon the government from their spot in the local FEMA camps.
But that’s largely because people – transformed by modern technology – have become so completely disconnected from the food that keeps them alive that they don’t even know where it comes from, let alone how to make it. The How to Make Everything channel on YouTube shows how completely ridiculous it would be too make your own modest meal if you started from scratch. It took him 6 months to raise, grow and process everything for a chicken sandwich that might cost $2 or $3 dollars at the fast food joint around the corner. Of course, the homemade one would be more nutritious and sourced from clean food, but that’s not the point.
If you aren’t already raising your own food, and haven’t developed the skills to do so, then you likely have no idea how hard it is to do – especially in a crisis where your life depends upon it. As Daisy Luther recently discussed, if your prepping & survival plan includes homesteading, then you should have started yesterday or five years ago (but it’s not too late, though you’d better have some storable food to fall back on). It would be well worth it to become truly self-sufficient, or have a reliable network of local producers to trade with, but is much more involved than the peaceful and serene dream of getting back to the land would suggest.
Why most people will die in a food collapse: It takes six months just to make a chicken sandwich
by Daniel Barker
A humorous video posted recently on YouTube is not only good for laughs, but also serves to illustrate the fact that self-reliant living is not as easy as some people might imagine.
In the video, which has already amassed over two million views, a guy named Taylor Lewin successfully makes a chicken sandwich from scratch — but it takes him six months and ends up costing around $1500 to produce.
Lewin has produced a series of videos showing how he takes ordinary items that we take for granted and attempts to make them from scratch. In the caption of the chicken sandwich video, he writes:
“I spent 6 months and $1500 to completely make a sandwich from scratch. Including growing my own vegetables, making my own salt from ocean water, milking a cow to make cheese, grinding my own flour from wheat, collecting my own honey and killing a chicken myself.”
The four-minute video is an edited version of a longer series that follows Lewin through the entire process, and although his efforts are indeed amusing to watch, the series also proves to be quite interesting and enlightening on several levels.
The “How to Make a Sandwich” series is made up of 11 chapters. In each of the videos, Lewin focuses on one aspect of the process — from making bread, cheese and honey, to raising and killing a chicken.
In the various chapters detailing the steps toward making his chicken sandwich from scratch, the viewer has a chance to learn something about each process as Lewin learns the skills for himself.
As he begins his journey, Lewin, like most Americans, has virtually no clue as to how to grow or prepare the ingredients he needs to make something we all typically consume on a near-daily basis.
As simple as a sandwich may look, a lot of work and expertise is involved in making one, and as Lewin points out in the first chapter, titled “Vegetables,” modern-day Americans have become almost completely uninvolved in the process of making the necessary ingredients.
To learn more about Lewin’s series of videos, you may subscribe to his YouTube channel, “How to Make Everything,” or visit his website, MakeEverything.tv.
Video raises deeper issues, implications
As amusing and informative as Lewin’s videos are, there are deeper issues raised for those who have the inclination to contemplate such things.
For instance, if there were suddenly an economic collapse, or if the power grid were to fail due to a solar storm or EMP, how many of us would be able to survive — even if we had the resources at hand to do so?
The truth is, very few of us have either the resources or the knowledge required to survive more than a few weeks, at the most.
And although more and more people are making the effort to become self-reliant or at least stockpiling emergency supplies, the vast majority of Americans have done little or nothing at all to prepare themselves for an unpredictable, possibly cataclysmic event that many experts predict might happen in the near future.
I may sound like a broken record at times when I urge people to begin preparing for the unknown, but I hope that through sharing articles and content such as Lewin’s video series, at least some will begin to recognize the need to join the growing prepper movement.
It’s not so difficult or expensive to begin taking steps toward self-reliance, and much of the process is beneficial in both the short and the long-term — even if there proves to be no disaster, after all.
In fact, the path towards self-sufficiency is its own reward. For instance, learning how to grow your own food (which is really not so difficult, especially with a system such as the Food Rising Mini-Farm Grow Boxes) provides healthier and tastier meals while helping you save money on grocery bills.
And, of course, when the worst happens, the efforts you’ve made now might just prove to be the key to you and your family’s survival in the long run.
Sources:
why wait? , eat a banker
Many will be eating chickens belonging to those who have them now. BTW, saw the editor of this site on the Jim Bakker show this week.
Off Topic:
New Whistleblower Is Behind Latest Revelations About U.S. Drone Program — Jeremy Scahill says the source believes the public has a right to know how the U.S. government decides to assassinate people.
ht tp://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-intercept-source-another-snowden_561f9cc6e4b0c5a1ce621c97?ref=yfp
link
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-intercept-source-another-snowden_561f9cc6e4b0c5a1ce621c97?ref=yfp
Cute piece, but a bit melodramatic for me.
In the event of a crisis, or total collapse, the “division of labor” will still remain.
In a worst case scenario, if you have distilled spirits (for example), you can barter for the chicken, the bun and all the toppings!
A $1,500.00 chicken sandwich…? I don’t think so!!
Yeah, for me, I’d be trying to pool the labor and resources of all involved, to come up with the makings for sandwiches for all of us, plus some extras to divide up for later.
I didn’t watch more than the first video, but I would guess getting the salt directly was the most expensive thing. Otherwise the animal portions would be most expensive – growing your own cucumbers, wheat, tomatoes, lettuce, etc. is easy and cheap (didn’t say wasn’t work, just that it’s fairly simple.) And yes, you have distilled spirits for as long as you stocked them, but after that? Takes a _load of any plant to ferment and distill large amounts of alcohol. Yes, stock up on 151 etc, but if no one else nearby has the food you would trade for alcohol, you are SOL.
On the cost – let’s say you start from scratch, before the SHTF and expecting no help from anyone else. You’ve got animal costs: cow, food, medicine, barn (with heat and cooling), access to a bull, chicken, medicine, food, coop, heat to the coop, cooling. Wheat seed, tomato seed, cucumber seed, fresh prepared soil (compost, raw dirt, fertilizer), tools to work the ground, grinder, etc. Stocked salt. I can see start-up cost of $1500. But if you did it all expecting MANY sandwiches, the price would drop enormously per sandwich (volume.) Let’s say it costs an additional $1000 for taking care and growing of enough materials for 30 sandwiches in all – that’s closer to $83 a sandwich. Add another 30 chicken sandwiches and possible cost of $300, that’s $46 per sandwich, still way beyond a normal price, but nothing the rich wouldn’t pay for a specialty sandwich (maybe Kobe beef or something similar.)
I have never had to heat or cool my coop or the shed that we built for our horses and bull.
Robin….be careful of the diseases the bankksters carry. Really nasty but is kosher.
Stolz, if the bankster is one of the tribe, burn the damn thing!
RS.
You can’t because they taste like SHIT!
Sgt.
Hot sauce…lots of hot sauce.
yes i agree, and i am a veteran of 1975 in Korea, and white
Ya know, I come here now and then… Not for helpful information, mostly for the entertainment value… I have to admit.
Question… What happens after your preps run out? Or how about your little hole in the wall “compound” gets overrun by the same undesirables your prepping for?
I mean, If your so god damn adamant about prepping, why not use all that energy to prevent some of what you are prepping for?!?!?!
So lemme see if I get this right…. You guys prep cause the world is a shit hole… I get it…. Really I do… So after the shit hole goes boom boom, you sit back and wait for the dust to settle and then you go back to livin in your perfect little world??? Is that the plan??? If that’s not correct and you tell me after the boom we’ll all band together and fix shit…. WHY NOT DO IT BEFORE? WHY WAIT TILL AFTER?
Mannnnnn… No better or worse than any other plan I suppose… Only it’ll be 10 TIMES FUKIN WORSE after the party is over… DON’T CHA THINK?!?! How long you figure America will take to “recover”… 6 months??? 1 year??? 5 years??? 10 Years??? You got preps for 10 years??? Don’t think so… On top of that, the majority of your resources will more than likely be exhausted in short order… You’ll probably be malnourished, injured, or worse just a few months in.
So “we” prep to fight another day????? Bullshit… That’s not even funny, that’s sick. You prep to support YOURSELF… In saying that and reading some of these post’s I’m to believe that we’ll all band together after the scurge and sing “Kum ba yah” round the camp fire and reminisce???
You people are doing nothing but hiding… Hiding from the truth you can’t and won’t acknowledge. Instead of taking “one for the team” like all the great Americans before you, you hide… In your hole, in your head, in the belief than everyone else is to blame.
Prepping isn’t the answer… Hell it ain’t even a bandaid… It’s fear…
Good luck with your “preps”… In the end, that’s probably all you’ll have in the end to keep you company while you slowly go insane…
We will have you in our sights…. Put your head back in the sand and enjoy the worms…
hidng from truth? No, that’s what sheeple do and we’re not sheeple.
Orion;You’re entitled to your opinion and thank you for being civil. You raise some valid points. In fact how do people band together after some sort of cataclysmic event when the don’t know where the others live or what there names are. I would like to see an accounting of all of the regulars on this site and exactly what there preparations are and what their ability to grow food is. Hopefully I would be pleasantly surprised.
“Prepping isn’t the answer”
Well then Orion, why don’t you enlighten everyone with the benefit of your wisdom. Please tell us, in detail, what is the answer.
You are actually on the right track here. The problem is that “why not use some of that energy to prevent what you’re prepping for?” shouldn’t be thought of as a rhetorical question. Many of us here have realized why it can’t be saved and spend our energy affecting the things we can still control.
Many of us pity you. Some of us have even been you. Maybe you’re close to awakening though, at least you are reading here.
Take the red pill.
Orion:
Orion is a magnificent constellation. The beauty of the stars is no less beautiful if you learn about how to use the dippers and the North Star to locate yourself should you become separated from the group when outdoors in the woods. All the people coming to this blog do not agree about politics, religion, or how best to tell time. What we share is an interest in self reliance, and a desire to be responsible. We like current events because an awareness of what is happening in the world around us is essential for survival. We share various farming, and food preservation and other tips but from time to time just converse about how dissatisfied we are with our political representatives. Most of us learn and, if nothing else, will help to form our voting decisions should we decide to vote at all. Most here support the Second Amendment, want to see the Constitution in action. Wish the Federal Reserve would evaporate. Don’t think Isreal should dictate American’s lives. See problems that may or may not be resolved with or without our input. What would you like us to do? Some of us are too old to do much of anything, myself included. So with what little energy I have, I use my finger to express my feelings. If You have the energy to go out into the world and make it a better place please feel free to do so.
“Instead of taking “one for the team””
If I have to “take one for the team”, if I’ve gathered my team right, they’ll carry me until I can get back on my feet. We’ll take what comes together, or die separately. There aren’t many people I would take the hit for, but they would be the same ones who would take a hit for me.
We don’t need to fight the entire world — all we need to do is survive what affects US. That’s a much smaller, more manageable scenario.
Of course you don’t understand that, because your obvious jealousy and/or contempt gets in your way. Your attitude is what will probably get you killed, so good luck with THAT…you’ll need all the luck you can get.
Actually, Orion is close to the truth. I think the regulars here would like to believe they’re going to ” band together” and rebuild the country but deep down they know it’s a joke and the joke is on them. Seriously, read the article about the rich people and their underground bunkers, you would think that from the talking here that any hillbilly with a shotgun and can of Raid will get inside and wipe them all out, while ” their” BOL is all but impregnable. The only thing I believe what I’ve read here is people will hole up inside their homes or retreats and shoot anyone that gets close to them.
Now how the Hell are you going to ” band together” when you’re so scared you’ll shoot anyone who even comes close to you. And yeah, even if you have 5 years worth of dried food eventually it’s going to run out, and then what? You’re not a group of twenty somethings, you’re a group of sixty somethings, you’re not going to last much longer than the rest of humanity, much less overcome your fears and weakness that old age brings on to ” rebuild” anything. The truth is you’re not being honest with yourselves, yeah, instinct for self preservation is strong in people but the older you get the worse off you are. both physically and mentally, and the ability to overcome obstacles get weaker and weaker, even in the advanced society you live in now, where the drugs you take and the medical procedures you get are keeping you alive longer than ever in human history. so all you are doing is living in fantasy land, the big ” reset” which all of you are claiming you really ” want” is actually something you dread more than anything, but don’t have the courage to admit to it. So good luck with your preps and banding together, because you’re in for a real surprise when it actually does happen. Ok, bring on your spittle flying venomous comments all you like, but it won’t change a damn thing.
There are many that call themselves preppers that are big on bullets, but low on actual survival skills and supplies.
There are too many that don’t even have enough blankets to get through a winters night with no power. But they have ten thousand rounds of ammo!
You know, someone from shtfplan drove about 400+ miles (one way) to bring me an ALICE pack and some fishing/assorted gear, even bought me a new pole.
Another has made sure I have an address/directions and phone number, in case it gets too hot here and I need a BOL. These people went out of their way for me, and I will not believe they’d turn their backs on me if I asked them for help.
Also, if any of them showed up on my doorstep, day or night, I’d make a place for them as well, without question, and with a hot meal and safe place to sleep. Even I have something of value to offer.
I too am cynical about mankind in general and I often wonder if {we} collectively deserve to continue as a species, but there are exceptions. THERE ARE good, solid people left. There really are. I have a few in my corner, and I’m in theirs.
I’m hoping the worst doesn’t happen, but if it does, I know good people will band together. THAT TOO, is human nature and instinct.
And I wouldn’t worry too much or put too much stock into internet bluster. What we would LIKE to do and what we CAN do are often very different, but I think pretty much everybody here is set firmly in reality, no matter how the campfire talk trails off into the night.
The rest of the world can go to hell.
Every hole in the ground bunker is a potential coffin. There will be some people who relied on their money and their ‘friends’ too much and will die because of it. There will be ‘lone wolves’ who make it through the beginning, but die later, either by mistake or being worn down. There will be in-placers who pay for their separation from their neighbors. And there will be some ready to join with others, WHEN the dust settles and they can tell, mostly, who is who.
Sixty-somethings. Not all. And I have children that will carry SOME of the load if things go sideways. I’ve got materials, knowledge and a willingness to let modern life go that some of them don’t. So there’s a possible synergy, that we have discussed, and they’ve agreed that the price of materials to feed/clothe/defend themselves is respectful obedience. To follow the persons who saw things coming and prepared.
And just as we won’t change your opinion that all is lost, you won’t change ours that there is hope. I personally have faith that the engine is on redline and it’s just a matter of time before the connecting rod bolts let go fully and the pistons punch through the heads. Better to have a motorscooter ready at the house than to bet all my money and time on the car that’s about to come apart.
Best of luck and God Bless.
Many Preppers are simply doing what most folks did during the Great Depression. My family owned land, stored about 3 years worth of food, gardened (huge), canned, smoked meat, raised a cow, pigs, chickens, rabbits, mended clothing, knitted, and did odd jobs for others, even when they had jobs already. The stories of people starving, moving around after losing homes and standing in breadlines or stealing from others to live, were the people who didn’t plan. So, maybe you should read a little history and then you won’t be the fool sitting on the couch waiting for the government to help you to the food-lines and fema shelter.
wow, I didn’t know how stupid some people were until I read your comments lady. With an attitude like yours, maybe you’ll find out first hand what an angry mob looks like who WON’T be sitting on the couch waiting for the government and coming for YOU. Bet you’ll be shitting your undies and not so smug then, you are the kind that I would enjoy being part of the group that visits you when that day arrives.
Wow Billy. How rude and ignorant. justjane has historical evidence (from libraries and family as reference) that people who decided to take their fates into their hands BEFORE the storm hit hard, did better than those who didn’t. MY family has such stories passed down, that those who tried, fared better than those that didn’t. Those who have experience with low technology and the results of it will be highly useful to others if the SHTF. Sure the direct need to eat ‘now’ will be a huge influence, but if people know you can do for them, they either kill the gold-egg laying goose or carry it on a litter.
And as to groups, you don’t think some haven’t thought about AOE defenses? First, second, third and so on tiers? Low tech weapons & defensive measures are easily found online, of course making them is hard work but not everyone is gonna sit in their murder-holes and plink each ‘attacker.’ The same stupid hordes you think will over-run preppers also will run in terror when they see $*&loads of ‘friends’ lying in parts or skewered with arrows sticking through them. Later watching people they know dying from infection due to stupid attacks on those who are prepared will either enrage them (making them more likely to fall for more traps) or cause them to rethink the plans.
Yeah right, keep telling yourself that a few hillbillies with a few guns and booby traps will actually drive off or defeat a large group of armed, angry people who don’t care what it takes to get at you. You WAY overestimate how tough both you are and your ” BOL” are going to be when it comes down to nut cutting time. Sure, it ALL sounds so tough and comfortable here in cyberspace doesn’t it? You’ll be singing a different tune when you actually have people shooting at you, or shooting tear gas inside your cozy little hidey hole. I laugh my ass off at how you hillrods think you’re going to get to the rich people in their bunkers with little more than a gun and 2 brain cells to rub together, but YOU’RE all going to be safe and secure with a place that isn’t even 1 per cent as well defended as they have. Yes, children never enjoy facing reality, do they?
Now, regarding jane, let me say that not everybody is born into land with a farm and raised on one either. Her smug attitude towards people who aren’t in the same lucky position as her DESERVE to have whatever happen to them by making such stupid comments in the first place. Like Marie Antoinette, her attitude is let them eat cake, well, we ALL know what happened to old Marie because of a stupid remark now don’t we.
If the majority of American people didn’t shun the truth when they are exposed to it, I feel we all could defeat the banksters. But the amount of awake Americans is pale in comparison to those that are asleep, and I feel the government would just twist the story if we did take action, and the sheeple would just crawl back into bed
cops…. the other white meat
RS
Good luck with that one.
Sht.
Sorry Dale
Shoulda said Pig instead
RS
Yes I agree there are some pigs out there.
Take care and watch your “6”
Sgt.
ht tp://ericpetersautos.com/2015/10/12/warrants-we-dont-need-no-stinkin-warrants/
would you enforce? or get fired? because you do know thats your only option, right?
The problem is not quantity of food. Everybody here on this website will have food, either in stockpiles of self sustaining farming.
The problem is snacks. Where will we get our Cheetos and Doritos. Our Oreo cookies and soda pop.
I don’t want to just survive, i want to keep my current life style.
Check out ‘Snackies’ from Thrive Life. These are non-gmo freeze dried snacks. They currently have 15 different snack pouches. The coconut bites and Fuji apples are my favorites. Check it out here – http://www.kshop.thrivelife.com/all-products/thrive-foods/snackies.html
Looks good, thanks
If I’ve got some freshly cut rhubarb and a handful of sugar, I’ve got a snack.
some really really good snacks are no bake energy bites. dozens of recipes on the net. If you stockpile oats, honey, pb, choc chips, dried fruit, etc you can make them. a very versatile recipe on gimmesomeoven.com you really need a way to chill them if they’re not all eaten soon. so no good if no electric.
Pork Rinds
^+1, and a moonpie with a grape Ne-hi swoda.
with a Moonpie and Nehi grape swoda
Moonpie and grape nehi soda? Sounds like ‘Radar’ from M*A*S*H.
LOL.
Flash fried maggots
season to taste
survivalist popcorn, mmmmmm.
feed the need….BA.
Never ate maggots, but it’s really all in the mind when it comes to eating anything. Same with grass hoppers, etc. How do you prepare maggots? Surely they need to be cleaned and also “cleaned out” before fixing them………
I have seen buckets full of maggots on an elephant carcass but I am not sure how you would purge them without losing the whole maggot. They feed on putrid, necrotic, flesh. Not much left to eat once the maggots are done with you. The maggots go on to turn into flies. Interesting question, who eats maggots? Are they part of a food cycle in nature? I am sure the putrified flesh and pus would be loaded with deadly bacterial species.
I have eaten maggot-like worms that would come to populate starchy foods such as is made from the highly toxic core of the fern palm. Mealy worms are edible as well. I have eaten bee and hornet larvae and a certain bamboo larvae but nothing that has grown from rotten flesh. Bee larvae was eaten without cooking them. Sweet!
Louisiana Eagle surviving in the jungles of SEA
Maggots pure protein, feed your chickens in hard or good times.
Take a five gal bucket cut the bottom out, put some holes at the top on the sides, put rabbit wire halfway down inside, build a skirt around the bottom about two foot long preferably Vinyl so its about 4″ off the ground so they will bump the skirt and nock the maggots down. Now put meat, road kill inside, put the lid on and free feed, my chickens loves maggots, works with fish also.
Also once shtf no more freerange, in the coop they go unless you are taking one out to eat. It is the only way to keep them safe, their to important at that point to lose any.
Yup, cheetos, doritos, and my favorite, cheesecake factory cheesecake!
You can make your own snack foods. I’ve already posted a link to making your own Goldfish.
JS – yeah, me too, and no matter how prepped I am, at some sooner than later point, I will have a Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream withdrawal.
No doubt John. The comfort food will be sorely missed.
Canadian mist…
That’s so not hard to make. . . and is on my list lol.
after one month rice and soy sauce will be your favorite snack
Chocolate my wife would kill me if she didn’t get her fix of chocolate.
Tons of peanuts, lightly salted. M8M keep forever if cool
Most of us won’t be trying to make chicken sandwiches when the shtf. His dollar amount will also be irrelevant. Most of us will be out killing what is available and throwing it over a fire. We won’t need chicken sandwiches when zombies are after us. A lot of people also don’t give credit to human nature when it comes to adapting to their environment.
But he is right. Forget chicken, The issue is most people have no idea what anything requires to make. Even simple things like a nail have hundreds of little things that go into making them and thousands of people. Very few people have ever made even a loaf of bread, but they think they know what to do. They have no idea how much Tech and how many people it takes to make an aspirin.
I have rabbits and potatoes in my little track house. That is my food after the preps run out. I have 2 males and 4 female rabbits and in a year I can have a couple hundred if my lawn holds out.
Bland yes, But ill eat well and have rabbits and pelts to trade for better stuff. I have the same rabbits I grew up with 40 years ago but newer generations and a little new genetic material from time to time and they have fed me and my family during 3 bad times in out economic history so I am sure they will do it again.
Remember that you’ll still need a source for fat. You can have all the lean rabbit meat in the world, and die from starvation. All because you had no fat in your diet.
Bankers don’t count.
Old wives tale. Wild rabbit has little fat. Rabbit meat in general has little fat. However most meat rabbits such as the Californian are very fatty. The fat is stored next to the skin. Not in the meat. There is almost as much fat as there is meat. So if you raise your own rabbits you have plenty of fat.
Thats pretty cool,
We have potatoes that volunteer all over our farm, they just keep getting more and more, nice little egg shaped white fleshed potatoes, excellent roasted with onions.
Finally got chickens (dark cornish) so hopefully out of 30 hens and 10 roosters ill get some more chickens or eggs,,,,,
Find a good soirce of fats too, with out it rabbit will kill you
I ain’t got nothing to worry about. Got me plenty of canned food and goldfish crackers, well, gotta go now, lots of doorknobs to shake ya know…..
Just another troll.
The only reason that the supermarket is stocked and chicken sandwiches are available at McDs is because of what is known as energy slaves.
HYDROCARBONS
The discovery of these allowed the Industrial Economy to take off. The production of hydrocarbon based fertilizers and diesel tractors allowed for people to move off the farm and do other jobs…jobs that produce nothing, for the most part.
The only important jobs are raising food and livestock. Without that you’re dead.
When the credit freezes up and the supply chains break, you will die if you cannot grow your own food. No one gets paid. Would you work for free? Nothing will be delivered. The ships and trucks will stop. The corporate farms will stop as soon as the diesel and fertilizer runs out.
The world runs on hydrocarbons. When the oil stops flowing the world stops functioning.
I’m sitting here eating out of a pint jar of home canned and raised chicken with a date of 2009 on it.
Get crackin’
HAHA, JRS , I,m eatin pickled beets from 09.
Must be we rotate on the same schedule .
I still have some canned venison from 09 as well , might be supper tonite.
HaHa HH, I’m drinking out of a quart jar ‘Clear and OJ’.
I,ve been out done here for sure , damn.
But i could cook some up if needed.
Thats survival of the happiest !
Time to catch up! Lol
I will probably run out of food in 6 to 12 months, after which you had better have trained those chickens to be quiet, hidden those gardens well, or have better guns than me and thousands like me.
But actually – I do own some gold, so my ‘actual’ hope would be to get to another country within the first few weeks – well before too much excrement hits the fan.
You sound like one of the reasons to build up a tolerance for Iocaine powder. And thousands like you = more food for the pigs once you step onto my land. I don’t have to have better guns, just better defenses.
It might make the grocery bills cheaper and the food taste better, but with 5500 sq ft of garden, my wife still goes grocery shopping every week. That is for a family of two. I don’t know the number, but it must take atleast 30,000 – 40,000 sq ft of garden, year round to support two people. Even aquaponics is going to take a bigger operation than most people can afford or have space for.
Everybody needs to stock up on beans, rice, and a slew of other non perisables, learn how to garden and forage, and their is still a good chance of not having a full belly, all of the time.
Life was hard in the old days and it is fixing to get a lot harder than it ever was. On top of figuring out your food situation, you will have shelter and protection to constantly worry about. NO MAN IS AN ISLAND. We will all need help, and the ones that say they can do it by themselves, on their own, will die of sleep deprivation in a couple of weeks.
Don’t get lacksidaisy. Keep prepping and take advantage of every sale, every opportunity. Jump on every chance. If you are not buying, you should be reading and learning. If you already know it all, learn it again.
Good luck and keep prepping.
fishandmud:
You’re not far off. We raise two gardens of nearly 1/4ac each, so about 40,000sqft, plus a couple of small greenhouses of about 1,000sqft total. Per sqft, the greenhouses are more productive, as we intensively plant, and do multiple plantings per year.
THAT is just for veggies. About 4 more acres for a couple cows, several pigs and chickens, plus two ponds with catfish.
We raise about 80% of our food, and it’s a lot of work, and still requires a fair amount of outside support. I store YEARS worth of diesel for small tractor and garden tiller….because I DO know how much I depend on them.
I’m fortunate to be going to a BOL owned by a relative and other relatives nearby who all grew up on farms and have already been homesteading for 20 years. They all have their own gardens, they can and use other methods for food preservation, have livestock, etc. They grew up in the self-sufficient lifestyle before the word prepper was ever invented. They all learned how to hunt, fish, forage, etc. at the earliest possible ages. They all knew how to handle .22 rifles and pistols when they were 5 and were hunting deer at age 10. Started handling shotguns at age 13. I’m not ashamed to admit any one of them could outshoot me so once I’ve bugged out I’m taking a ‘refresher course’ from them. Normally, outsiders aren’t welcome in Appalachia, but in my case they made an exception because I’m family and already have some familiarity with life there from frequent visits over the years. They grow most of their own food and still have years worth of stored food, not to mention what’s in the deep freezers. Braveheart will be just fine once he gets there.
Why do idiots always refer to themselves in the third person?
Why do trolls still come around here with nothing valuable to offer?
Freezers and bullets (along with guns, unless you have bayonets fixed to them) will be gone and obsolete shortly after shtf. The other skills are your only options for real, long-term survival. The Appalachians aren’t mean or hostile, they’re just living in the real world that they’ve never left– where you take care of yourself and don’t expect anyone else to take care of you (because the one’s whom you think will take care of you will be the ones from whom you need to be taken care).
TnAndy : We are lucky in the fact we are in the South and Garden year round, but it still is not enough.
I am going to build a gasifier for my tiller, someday. Their is always something going on. You know how it is. The biggest problem with your tractor and my tiller is they make noise. It is probably not going to matter though, you will not be able to tend crops for the first three to six months anyways.
I also have 55 fruit and nut trees. They are young but starting to really put out the fruit.
Good luck.
i once saw a little train someone made to ride around with a few carts behind it at a fairground. it was powered by a 5 hp engine. he made a muffler out of a coffee can with internal perforated pipes, etc. this thing was nearly silent. all you could hear were slight puffs of air. no noise..
Fishandmud:
I’d agree about laying low for 3-6mo…maybe even a year. We store enough that we could go several years without fresh, but I’d sure miss it. The two small greenhouses would keep us in greens/etc, and we hand work them anyway. If things truly turn fug-ugly, a lot of surviving is gonna just depend on luck-of-the-draw I think. I’ve done what I can.
Oh, on wood gasifers…..a buddy of mine is a retire machinist, and we plan to put one together this coming spring. I’ve got an old gasoline engine Farmall Cub I want to try to mount one on and run with it.
TnAndy : Funny you say old farmall, FEMA put out a set of plans for an old gas tractor. Find them online or buy a set. I bought a CD on Ebay with around 100 different books and plans for gasifiers. Been a year or more ago but I think it was around $10 or less. I have not had time to read it all yet, but I did look through it, and I am glad I bought it. Good luck.
You have to grow “Food” Not vegetables. Potatoes and parsnips are the only real options for a survival garden. My family survived for a few generations eating not much more than this in the Midwest. We grew in wooden containers and when ever the weather looked like hail we moved them under cover. We had about 1/4 acre and ill tell you it was a lot of work to move all under cover then putt them back out after the storm.
We had hen in 2′ x 10 ft long boxes and 2 people with 2 dollys could move them easily. It was a lot of work but that 1/4 acres along with rabbits and the occasional chicken fed 30 people.
yep, ED , potatos and a place to store them , green beans are easy and plebtiful too.
Forget the leaf lettuce and cauliflower .
Basics , easy grow stuff.
Dont fotget to put in and acre or two of wheat.
I’ve said this before, it takes just over an acre to produce the green food to feed a family for a year. Add protein needs and double that area, for chickens, rabbits, a few pigs, etc., then add more area for beef production, stock fodder, and fruit and nut trees. For a family of four it’s a minimum of 5 acres, and constant daily labor. It’s not gardening, it’s farming.
This is my survival dinner, and yes I made this!
Go out the back property to the lake with fishing line and bug on a hook.
Catch a largemouth bass, fillet it, and dig out the duck potatoes growing in the lake, pull some lily pads and 5 cattail stems and take them home.
On the way home, collect the raspberries in a bucket and
Grab some lambs quarters growing along the trail, pick some puff ball mushrooms in the yard, and dandelion flowers for a salad.
Make a fire.
Cook the fish filets and duck potatoes in the coals wrapped in the lily pads.
While the fish and duck potatoes are cooking, peel the white stems from the cattails that tastes like cucumber and slice to put in the diced mushroom lambsquarters dandelion salad. Cover salad in crushed wild Garlic Mustard leaves and it’s seed that grows near the woods for a garlic-pepper flavoring.
Put cooked fish on plate with duck potatoes, raspberries, and nature’s salad.
The cost? $0. Time to make? 1 1/2 hours, not $1500 and 6 months. This is why most people won’t survive a food crisis– they don’t know cr*p on survival skills to save their lives.
Woogie,
How does that plan work in January…..and February ?
I have written articles about winter survival. I have tested what I ate and recorded what was good and what is barely tolerable.
It would take a couple hours to a day, not 6 months nor cost $1500. Hunting, trapping and ice fishing would be my bag since I live where plenty of game abounds on my acreage and no people.
Winter gives me Basswood and pine Cambrian bark to eat, wild hazelnuts drops missed by squirrels, along with birch buds, rosehips, wintergreen and sumac teas, not to mention wild crabapple drops under the snow that can be cooked and are sweet because they ripen very late this far north and the breakdown into sugars. Dig down into the snow and you will still find dandelions and plantains preserved. There’s more but I don’t want to bore everyone with their longer preparation as winter foraging and hunting takes a longer time to acquire the food.
Your lake may be clean today, but once SHTF comes it will probably not be safe to eat anything from any open water source for a long time. I used to be a biologist and worked for the UN doing water quality analysis in Africa. After any such strife or war the rivers and lakes rapidly became extremely polluted with all sorts of bugs that will make you ill or kill you. It took years to get back to normal.
I am out in the wilderness. I have a lake no one (but me) fishes it, it is so remote. No city or town, no farms or population near it. I was talking about a food shortage and what I would do to cut costs and time, not the end of the world. If you want to open a new topic about that, I would be glad to say we are all screwed then.
It dosent matter where you are. Most contagion is transmitted by birds who eat or come in contact with the germs, then fly away to greener pastures just to die in that nice pristine lake. And contaminate it…. Sorry
Can you do that year round? NO!!! Even if you could, you would have to keep moving because you will deplete your area in a short amount of time. We don’t have wild rasberries but we do have wild blackberries, for a month or so. Your cattails may seem endless but you will eventially exhaust that supply too. The Indians that foraged, moved hundreds of miles a year. What happened when the white man put them in one place year round? yea, most of them died.
I feel that after 3 months, half of the population will be deceased. That still would leave 150,000,000 people out foraging for the same rasberries and catails that you are eating. Now, is half or three quarters of them going to be in FEMA camps? Maybe, but if they are not????
People need to wake up. The average life span used to be 50 – 60 years of age, BEFORE electricity, refridgeration, Jolly Green Giant, and Sara Lee. I am Native American and I am going to make it, but it is going to be harder than anything we have ever been through. Bad crops happen all of the time. How about plauges and pestalence? Even the greatest farmers in the world loose crops, but you could go to wally world and supplement your diet. NOT if TSHTF. How many people are gaurding your fish ponds? Don’t forget, every guard you add is another mouth to feed, even if it is a dog. How many large mouth bass can you catch before it takes two to feed yourself? Then three? Then four? Then NONE. Good luck and get REAL.
For all of those that think I am full of crap and say you can live off of your property indefinitly, prove it. Don’t go to wally world for a month, once every season, and see how you really do. PS, going to wally world before every test and spending $1,000 and putting it in the fridge, DON’T COUNT.
fish and mud,
I am 1/2 native american and I totally agree with you, MOST pople are city slickers and have NO idea on what it takes to survive, let alone try to grow your own food, especially while hungery people are after you and your supplies. will be a very tough time mentally, physically and emotionally. lots will not make it
Bad crops happen a lot easier than folks think, and even worse if your growing on a garden size scale rather than an acerage size scale. At least if your growing 5-6 acres of veggies you will still be able to scrounge a few dinners, at the home garden size all it takes is 4 hours and 2 pigs or herd of deer and your garden and food is gone, never mind two legged pests,,,
Yep. I never had a pig problem however if one shows up Id gladly trade part of my garden for him. Deer are easy to keep away and birds seem to get the message after you shoot a bunch. My problem has always been the little bugs and animals such as gophers. that is where containers help a lot.
Come SHTF you would be pretty stupid not to have someone watching your garden 24/7
Birds make a pretty good alarm system. They fly off at the drop of a hat……..only problem is that you have to feed the birds to keep them around.
A friend of mine had gopher problems so he scooped out his beds, put 1/2″ hardware cloth down then put the dirt back with extra compost and stuff and the gophers didnt bother his permanent beds again, glad we dont have that sort of varmints here in the islands. but the pigs are sneaky, you pretty much got to pull watch for them in order to get them, people try and trap them but its a crap shoot if it will work, more often not than do
If you guys dont have a green thumb try planting Jerusalem artichokes, Asparagas, Horseradish. You cant kill this stuff and it comes back every year!
I’ve got a brother in law that says he’ll go hunting when the shit hits the fan. I reminded him that everyone else will be hunting also, and it may not be just for animals.
I wrote what I said. It doesn’t take $1500 and 6 months to make a meal for “me” when I can get it free from the wild. I don’t understand the anger you have.
I don’t eat a complete wild meal every day of my life, and neither would someone eat a chicken sandwich every meal of their life either, especially at $1500 and a wait of 6 months for a chicken sandwich as the author claimed!
I only supplement wild food now, but there for a couple years it was touch and go. If need be, I could scrounge up a meal from the wild just for today. Deer meat, Porcupine duck, goose, grouse, fish, bear, beaver, all have made it to my dinner plate a few years ago when things got tight and I couldn’t afford to buy food. Now I have quite a lot of food stored.
And if people didn’t fully read my comment, I was saying it was to learn to forage, hunt, fish, etc. because your life may depend on that source of food. A chicken sandwich someday may actually cost you $1500.
1) You are right, $1500 for a chicken sandwich is insane.
2) You are right, one of the best strategies for food in SHTF will be knowing what is and isn’t edible that most people won’t know.
3) You are right, that the food sources that other people either won’t or can’t do will likely be the things to keep those who prep doing better than those that don’t. If someone really is interested, they need to study the great pogroms via starvation in Russia and China. When people joke about pets disappearing to tables, it wasn’t a joke then. People ate stones to fill their stomach. The grass disappeared, it made them sick, but was something. There were cases of cannibalism in St. Petersburg related to the war and the winter, so people get real creative when it comes to starvation.
4) You miss the point. I think he makes a hugely valid point that the average person has no clue how the food they eat is created from beginning to end. And the $ amount is for the experiment, not the cost of feeding yourself using these methods. Scales of economy always play into any production, but to get people’s attention he did this for “one single sandwich.” $1500 for a sandwich got attention didn’t it?
fishandmud; good advice but it will be too late for many.
Preserving food is pretty important, too.
Try to learn some ways that don’t require canning or refrigeration. For instance, you can make sauerkraut in a bucket and it will keep for overwinter in a cool spot. You can make various pickles that don’t require canning or refrigeration. We just made 8 day pickles for the first time and they need neither refrigeration or canning.
Pork can be cured and smoked and, if done right, it can be hung in a cool place with no refrigeration.
All of it needs time and experimenting to get what you want.
We can extensively, and root cellar. But also have 6 freezers,(all 7-9cuft. Eat one out, shut it off)and enough solar power to keep them running.
I pickle northern pike. I use a sweet/sour recipe with some spices. I tried other fresh water fish and they deteriorate. I only use pike. There’s no need to remove the Y bones on the lateral sides because they dissolve in a few days. I love it!!!!
I’ve eaten dandelion greens cooked up in bacon grease, but I’ve never eaten the flowers. I use them to make wine.
I put them in with my garden lettuce salad with columbine, pea, wild violet, wild onion and clover flower heads, and wild rose petals. All are edible.
Woogie, I dare you to try any of that in the dead of winter. And not everyone can identify mushrooms.
I know how to spin yarn, weave cloth, and I have a treadle sewing machine. I could make my own clothes from scratch, but it would be one hell of a pain in the ass. It’s easier to just buy cheap clothes at a thrift shop.
We all have food stocked away, but I’d be more concerned with keeping warm in the winter.
Everyone needs clothing, and sooner or later, I’ll need some myself. I would like to learn to use a spinning wheel, and also learn how to “card” the wool, etc. The only problem is that I have no clue as to where to go to find people that DO know how to do this stuff. It’d be a great barter tool for the people that would know how to knit clothing.
As stocked up as I am, I own 1 pair of wool socks, and two old Army wool blankets. How sorry is that!? One thing I do know tho, is that wool will keep you warm even when it’s wet.
Mike:
If you find a store that sells yarn, sometimes they will show you how to knit.
Buy Alpaca socks and accessories instead of or in addition to wool. It is more expensive. It is softer than cashmere. And it is warmer.
Keep the moths away!
Sharonsj; I have. I see people here have no idea about ice fishing, and I had a 10 lb northern pike for the freezer, for pickling and a few meals. Dead of Winter. Cold as hell and it froze solid in 5 minutes. Had to thaw it in the bathtub. Hey, don’tcha know, us nordern Minn-is-SO-tans have our winter fun!
I said what I can do because I am a survivalist. I am NOT telling people to go live off the land when they can’t. They are just not educated in wild food that is available out there…. And most people would starve to death while sitting in front of a lambs quarters plant.
I would rather sew material than skin a deer, scrape the hide, cook the brains for curing the hide, spread the brains on the hide, wait 3-4 days for the hide to cure, stretch the hide again, scrape to soften it, and hang it up in my TiPi to be smoked for two days..then it would be ready to cut and sew.
Mushrooms have no nutritional value, they are a dead loss in calories. You actually expend calories gathering them that are not replaced by eating the mushrooms.
Cook them in butter, you gain lipids and calories from the butter, but not the fungi.
where are they going to get something to kill just to fix food?
Food is all around – you just gotta open your mind:
Insects.
Birds.
Rodents.
Wild plants.
Am I saying eat everything? No, window putty is pretty nasty. But if you study a bit now, you’ll be sitting pretty compared to others that think they’ll just die from eating a cricket. And in the end, it may kill them NOT to eat it.
It is not difficult to keep warm in the winter. with all the physical work required just survive during a collapse, you should be reasonably warm.
snuggling in a bed at night with a warm body is advised, even if that warm body is your dog.
Now is the time to take that class on “Mushroom foraging. Mushroom season will be here before you know it. With so many shrooms popping up , there will be plenty to eat and to dry for future us. Always, always hold something back for later.
Learning what you can and can not eat in the wild is so important. Those food items can make a big difference in the diversity and flavor of your meals.
Right now I have dried blackberry leaves and several flower peddels that will season my drinks through the winter. It is important to be able to gather food stuff around your environment,
If you don’t know your area how do you expect to provide or protecty your family?
God bless and keep on prepping.
Last Spring I learned what “pheasant back” mushrooms look like. It usually grows from dead or rotten trees, is somewhat horizontally flat, and has a pattern on the topside that looks like the back of a pheasant! I’d bet a dollar to a dime that most people would not know it’s edible, and just keep walking past all of them. Glad someone showed me what to look for. Almost everyone knows what morels look like, but most of the other edible ones go unnoticed.
yep. Brains over brawn.
OK, we have a half acre of veggie plots each year. My computations are that about 8000 sq ft are required to feed one person for one year. I highly recommend “The Resilient Gardener” by Carol Deppe. We’ve a Kubota B7510 diesel tractor, all the implements, and some 150 gallons of stabilized diesel in four separate caches. And hundreds of pounds of 15-15-15 and 46-0-0. This year (for example) we harvested some 350 pounds of winter pumpkins. I had the good fortune to grow up on a farm. For any newbie thinking about growing all their own food, the learning curve is very steep, very difficult. One cannot expect to do this without either a team of mules or a diesel tractor and implements. We save oodles of seeds each year, figuring to be able to help out our neighbors by supplying seeds. We dehydrate, can, and store in our root cellar.
RE Learning curve,
It can be VERY steep,
And brutal.
Add to that the stress of a SHTF moment and things will go south real quick.
Our weather here can be real nice or it can do like it did this summer and rain every day for sn hour at a rate of 1 to 2 inches per hour, doesnt matter how good a gardener we are stuff just wont grow in that.
I finally put up an 860 sf high tunnel and an 860sf greenhouse so i could start and grow stuff.
Most folks have no clue….
MONA
Good advise.
I’ve been doing the same and dehydrating as much as I can. Canned everything from Tomatoes to Beef. If I didn’t can it I dehydrated it.
Don’t forget food is one thing, but water is another. Folks you need water purification equipment and a way to store it.
One thing I can say is “THANK GOD I’M A COUNTRY BOY”!!!!
I also have the manpower and firepower to protect things. And know how and when to use them.
Sgt.
Ha, hah. Ha, haaa, Sarge, I was about to post that and you did the honors. Who the hell longer would wand to eat a banker..they look like sh…t and will taste like sh…t.. I cannot stress it enough guys, everyone needs to get ready.. the party is about to begin any day now.
Aka,
HCKS.
F…k the bankers.
HCKS
Great minds think alike.
How have you been?
Have you heard anything more. On my end I haven’t heard a thing, and that kinda makes me wonder what is really happening. Last time it was this quiet we had a major shooting. I hope if there is another one that a Patriot that is carrying take the bastard out.
Wgt.
Not concerned about cold winter temps. here in the tropics but one concern is how long our canned 5 yr. shelf life foods will last. Kept in a concrete and block basement built into a hillside, but temps. can be 82 on the hottest days of summer. A couple of the pancake mixes have cooked off because of the baking soda/powder in them, but the beans and split peas seem ok.
I’m not surprised by the amount of land area you people have said would be necessary to have a viable garden. Here it’d be tough because of the bugs, horn worms mainly, and some giant grasshoppers that look like locusts. Gardens have to be enclosed with shade cloth, so big structures are out..
Our fruit trees are starting to produce, we’re having a bumper crop of avocados but not good way to preserve them.
There are numerous creeks in the area with large prawns that are excellent eating and not much pressure with locals “fishing” them out.
It would be hard to starve here but there will be many days of going hungry waiting for that next crop/fruit, etc. to ripen.
We do have a couple of dozen coconut trees producing and IIRC, they’re 6% protein. Not bad for the price.
As remote as we are, would still need a few extra security guys for the “ventilation team.”
Keep discussing things, I learn something regularly, even though I’ve been prepping since we were called survivalists.
I wonder if the agency watchers learn anything ? 🙂
I got some gandule bean seed from an organic farm down there in PR, they have a nice website,
Prorganics dot org
Your climate seems real similar to ours here in Hi, little higher humidity though i think, im pretty lucky our farm is at 3200′ elevation so way cooler most days but the swing in temps is the killer in the winter, 40s at night then it can get into the mid tohigh 80s during the day,
Ketchup:
They are taking notes.
If they worried less about us and more about themselves they would be better off and so would we.
67 at night in the Winter. Around the year 2030 it will be 67 on a summer day at high noon.
It would be hard to start from scratch and count on everything to work out. Takes much learning to homestead.
This is exactly why most people will die they are so used to drive up windows to get hot prepared meals. Fat lazy slobs that live off the fruits of others labor. I will be going a mile down the road to the bay and eating crab fish and little necks plus my garden and game meat. Gonna get a clam rake and put that back so I can get buckets of clams. Mmmmm seafood.
Rabbits are easy to do IMHO they will provide a lot of meat. Feed is cheap and grass is free. You guys down south have a lot of wild hogs I hear. I’d build a smokehouse.
Maybe I will can some clam chowder both kinds Manhattan and creamy New England to trade possibly you deer eaters are gonna get sick of that and want something different.
Just the usual stuff Sarge. Working prepping, etc.. just met a chick, on e of my friends cousin, so I am dating her her right now. She likes me which is surprising, considering my modus operanda. Not sure what to expect once I unload my shtf philosophy in her..not sure the reaction when she finds out that all I spend money on is shtf.. the funny thing is that she met my scientist friend and she got to hear all the food stuff. So she has potential. If she likes me great, if she does not then she can can move on.. thousands more will be throwing themselves at us. Business is picking up again which is normal for October so I can’ t complain..I better make the money in the mean time before Yellen belches…more crap on national TV.
The scientist keeps telling us that April and May 2016 is when the laughing stops because of the environmental effects of Nibiru.. then he says that June and July is when all the problems on every level begins. So I have decided to just prep and wait it out..this is all we can do for now.
Aka,
HCKS..
that ole crystal ball changed the prediction on ya eh?
Pity,
What I’d like to know is what happens when we get to April of 2017 and Niburu still hasn’t killed us off or even worse, nothing has changed at all? Do you think this idiot will be stupid enough to think nobody will call out his bullshit and keep repeating himself?
Question where is all the equipment and men that was moved for Jade Helm? Are they being moved back I think not, it was left in place or it was never moved in he first place. Come on all you authors of the Jade Helm stories time to follow up on what REALY HAPPEN. Credit of your reporting is starting to suffer in my opinion.
I have no idea. All I know is, there have been a couple of chinook flyovers around here. Apparently they’re searching for potential fires in the nearby national forest. It’s been pretty calm out here in Hoodland.
Go to Walmart get cart put a grey plastic 20 gal. Box with lid price tag to front. Get 20 lb. bag flour put in box price tag up. Do same with 20 lb. bag of rice and pinto beans Put gal. Of cooking oil on kids seat with salt .Get jar of equate vitamins 220 per jar. And yeast and sugar if you can afford it.powdered milk too . Funnel powdered milk into plastic juice? Jar. Do more boxes .put against wall lay 16 inch by 8 foot sheet of plywood on row of 5 boxes or 6 .home depot will cut plywood free .lay strip of plywood on boxes . Stack more boxes on top then plywood strip more boxes then another strip of plywood. If no room at home or home not fire proof rent fire proof storage unit . No wood in ceiling or wall . Best all steel building.60 lb. food per box 300 lbs. per row.
i am just trying to get on the channell. a lot of my post never get posted. ok. but on the subject, no one deserves to survive!!! no one deserves not to survive!!! if this is not a comment that can be handled, then live in your own small world and gossip!!!
go away troll.
People forget that about 70 years ago a great many people died of dysentery, malnutrition, and general sepsis. Walking down to the river can be one of the deadliest things you can do.
Hello all! This is the first post of any kind I have ever made, but felt the urgent need to offer my two cents. I am a Canadian survivalist prepper, soldier of Christ, who has been prepping, learning, practicing since 1999. Here are some more suggestions and information: [to the person who suggested living off the sea] the oceans of the world all have substantial amounts of radiation because of the Fukushima disaster in 2011. So living off the sea is a no-go. Also, living off of freshwater fish is also questionable because like someone mentioned before, after the shtf the waters become polluted with all kinds of nastiness of biological, chemical pollutants. I’ve seen first-hand the aftermath of a skirmish between rebel Uygurs against the army of the PRC. It was in the fall of 2000, me and my mates went trekking in the Taklamakan Desert (can’t remember the proper spelling of the desert), and I came upon a creek with putrid corpses in it and along the banks. Your physique and health are most paramount. You must be / strive to be the best of the best in strength, endurance, speed, agility, dexterity, balance, etc. with some mixed martial arts and military training. Yesterday is the time to be like this. In any post-disaster scenario, people will devolve into base animals within just a couple of weeks. Your neighbours, friends, acquaintances, distant family will suddenly come knocking on your door because they all knew you to be a prepper/survivalist. When you refuse, they’ll all turn on you and you’ll end up taking out many of em while you go down too! When your ammo runs out, you’ll have to rely on your fighting skills. If you don’t already have martial arts and or military training, might I suggest that you find a mixed martial arts place, or learn anything involving close combat skills, learn to use other weapons, such as bow and arrow, crossbow, sling-shot, sling, knife-throwing, knife-wielding, also learning how to wield a quarterstaff is excellent. A quarterstaff is basically a long stick/pole for inquiring minds. Get to know the plants in the areas you plan to roam. Learn their medicinal benefits, their edibility, their toxicity (for use against your enemies). For those naysayers out there, I am not a rich, solitary man. I am a down to earth minimum wager supporting my mother, trying to get by just like every other Joe Blow. I don’t have a place to bug out to, but I have the know-how and the experience to take care of me and my own for extended periods, years even, of time roaming the country just like the Natives did for thousands of years. For my Christian brothers in arms, keep up the excellent work, for we will suffer the most hardships because of what Jesus has planned for us! Thank you for allowing me to post.
Good, helpful comments all around! THAT is the reason I scan the forum here as often as I can. I don’t post much. I am just in awe of the wisdom and helpfulness of the people who comment on Mac’s site.
There are huge advantages to a collapse of the current food system. One is population die-off: the metaphorical ‘useless eaters’ will be gone in a few months. The next is the end of obesity as a problem. Nobody is going to be obese, not even the biggest, laziest loudmouth lesbian diesel wearing a t-shirt saying “This is what a feminist looks like”.
The planet will breathe a sigh of relief as industrial agriculture comes to a halt. People will not be able to eat the current junk-food diets. Simple dishes will be in; double beef patties of grease, offal, chemicals, will be out. A typical meal will look like this: a piece of protein – be it insect-based or a luxury meat – lots of beans, some green vegetable, and rice or a tuber. The neegar feeding stations of KFC, Burger King etc., will be gone.
Knowing how to garden and raise livestock is a great skill. I am currently doing those very things. However Its likely we will not be a 1800,s type lifestyle. In of the opinion we will sky rocket to a stone age existence. 90% will die. The most dangerous varmit you will ever encounter is another human who wants what you have. And that human will more than likely be a member of your group of so called allies & trusted friends. It will be a root hawg or die survival of the fittest meaniest & craftiest. I will get more sleep not worrying about being stabbed in the back by some so called friend.
So, maybe a complete financial collapse would be somewhat better..
(we still like half and half with our coffee, so depending on grocery stores stayin’ open is weak…all kidding aside. But we did buy a box of that Mini Moos half and half someone recommended here,.”Cookin’ Mom was it?
Thanks, we’ll get a few extra weeks of it after the crash..
Taking the dogs to the beach today and not thinking about the America that was.
Cdn, your right on the way you have prepped. I am a martial artist also. You have to be ready on every level. The kills needed to survive whats coming since i have been told what really coming, and its real nasty, very, very, bad, horrific hell on earth. Most of the metro idiotic metro types in the major cites stand a ZERO. ZERO, 00000.000….O% Chance of survival. You have to be muscular, strong, and able to fight with skills, and you must have a constant supply of vitamins, food, water, guns, bullets, etc, you name, you need it. Women dont know how stupid the men that they live with really are. The shock will hit them head on, when they look to the little solft panzy type, untrained, un atheletic feminine men, or should i say boys, is unable to defend her and the kids. Totally fu…k….g laughable everytime i think of it. The white bairded red necks, who are untrained will also survive at our level because the best martial arts is still a gun. Red necks are my first choice for allying with because of this veriable..
People are going to die in mass numbers, and my scientist friend want me to remind most that once the dead bodies fill the streets, you have to leave the area, if you decide, then the preppers need to clean up the mess and dump them off far away from the water sources. Calapse is a nasty sick, bad experience, and its war, and starvation, all our violence of every kind. Women are the ones that in the most danger with kids. A single woman with kids, is in very extremely seroius trouble and so are women who live alone, and the ones with men, who are soft and weak, and just as useless as themsleves. The supid fusion center employee trolls are so confident in their employer, that they feel that coming on talking crap, intimdaing us, is funny and that they are so secure and so covered and protected. What if they are being used and we be abandoned, and will be left on the surface. You idiots need to learn here, and take our advice and begin prepping now, save yourself and learn one thing, that if they are doing this to us, then they will do it you. Now i have more challenges on my hands, since it appears that i am no longer single. Now i am going to have to teach her self defence, and how to kill and fight, so that she can protect herself and save my ass in post shtf, if i get challenged.
Aka.
HCKS.
If you expect to want chicken “sandwiches”, you really will be hurting come shtf! …Sounds like you’re the enemy, if you have to have that kind of culture to “survive”. If this culture–the one that empowers the elites and their powers-that-be–is your culture, then you need not be on here or planning on going against those powers-that-be or their elites on whom you obviously depend for your “survival”. You’re their slave and had better just bow down and serve them,,,Chicken-sandwich-eaters.