Questioning the Paradigms We Accept, Part I: Food when the SHTF

[Thor]

Sounds kind of like Haggis...with more civilized ingredients.

 

[bobjones223]

Sounds kind of like Haggis...with more civilized ingredients.

I was thinking fried meatloaf without the green peppers and add the bay leaves.

 

[roisigns]

I expect we'll eat stored food for a year at most and homegrown food after that.

 

[churchmouse]

Always glad to share it. It's a family favorite.

That sounds delicious.

 

[indyjohn]

Was able to read through your post in its entirety tonight.

Our society’s modern food production and delivery system is remarkable. Becoming complacent and dependent on its convenience is easy and commonplace. My prep has always been against the long term interruption of that system caused by the large-scale failure of another system: electricity.

Some years ago, we started down this path of preparation. I am still looking for ways to supplement our current stores to delay that point we become true hunter/gatherers.

These things I know will be different from daily life as we know it today: I have come to realize water is the most valuable resource I can have and I cannot store enough of it to survive more than that couple of months. I know we would be smart to drop to one meal per day immediately. I realize we will have to maximize our scavenging skills. I know we may not have any game to hunt after a period of time (hope I’m wrong on this).

I agree with your thesis statement that increasing the efficiency of food consumption and reducing net waste is very important. We too have found out how challenging it can be to garden well. We pretty much got tomatoes down, but man cannot live on tomatoes alone.

 

[PistolBob]

Urban Survival Gardening is a real deal...close neighbors ought to work together to provide for the group...no man is an island.

Another website dedicated to Urban Survival...

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

Urban Survival Gardening is a real deal...close neighbors ought to work together to provide for the group...no man is an island.

Another website dedicated to Urban Survival...

I agree, the best scenario would involve several, if not many house-holds working in cooperation. Problem for us is, our neighbors are mostly oblivious and have no clue that there is any reason to prep, and whatever would happen, they will still be thinking WTF until they're near starvation. Our plan doesn't involve neighbors as much as family members and some close friends that bring something to the table and who can come to our place, if need be, to provide a mutually beneficial group.

 

[indyjohn]

Our plan doesn't involve neighbors as much as family members and some close friends that bring something to the table and who can come to our place, if need be, to provide a mutually beneficial group.

Nor does ours for the same reasons you cite.

 

[1861navy]

Thought provoking post Dave, though I'm a touch late. Food procurement won't be so easy. A lot of people hunting, gardening. Of course others are going to be trying to get in on some of that too in violent ways. Its pretty hard to maintain a garden, hunt food, and process it if you have to do so many other things to survive that take loads of calories. The question is finding balance.

For me knowing as many ways to procure food and medicine are up on the list. For food its knowledge of what plants/mushrooms are edible, gardening, and hunting/trapping. I figure gardening and hunting can only go so far, hunting even less because so many will be trying to hunt. There however remains the fact that many do not know how to forage their own food as they consider many plants useless "weeds".

Flour can be made from a variety of plants as well as flour extenders. Cattail roots and male pollen spikes, acorns, seeds of dock/rumex species, amaranth( which grows wild here), clover flowers, goldenrod flowers can all be used for grain purposes or in the latter two; an extension. Any nut that's edible can also be made into a flour.

Protein can be had from many plants as well. Things like; Clover leaves, stinging nettle leaves, lamb's quarters leaves, seeds of amaranth and rumex species, nuts, mushrooms like morels, oysters, puffballs, and more can provide protein. Fruits from brambles and trees like mulberries, raspberries, sumacs, roses make drinks and jams. Trees like maple and hickory provide flavorings, sugars, and syrups, and sometimes nuts.

Of course greens are plentiful in the wild plant world and wild plants actually contain two of the most nutrient dense greens ever analyzed; garlic mustard and lamb's quarters. Many flowers, shoots, roots, and tubers are edible as well. On top of it many wild plants also provide medicine and hard to come by nutrients and minerals that may prove beneficial in SHTF.

However foraging can only go so far too, like gardening and hunting. After all those there are not many options left besides scavenging. So supplementing what's grown with what's hunted with what's foraged, and if one of those doesn't pan out there are options left to put some food on the table.

 

[IndyDave1776]

Lots of good material there! Thanks, even if you weren't the first on the scene!

 

[1861navy]

Lots of good material there! Thanks, even if you weren't the first on the scene!

Your welcome Dave.

 

[pearlman1966]

This is making me think I need to make a trip to Finkes. I grew up in Florence Ky. and my mom would shop there for Goetta.

Goetta is a Cincinnati/German peasant dish, like a lot of peasant dishes it's a meat-extender kind of meal.
Each summer, they have a big Goetta-fest in Cincinnati, but I've never been.

1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground pork
8 cups of water
2 1/2 cups of Pinhead (steel-cut) oats
1 large onion, chopped
1-4 bayleaves (recipe says optional, but for us it's a must. Some substitute sage)
3 teaspoons salt
1 pinch of black pepper

Put water in a stock pot and when it's boiling, add salt, pepper, and oats.
Cook two hours, stirring often with lid on over low heat.
Then add meat, onion, and bay leaves, mixing well (you might be tempted to add more water, but don't).
Let that cook for another hour, stirring often.
Then, pour it into bread loaf pans and set them to cool, then put them in the fridge at least over night.

To fix Goetta, slice the loaf (that first slice is the hardest one to get out of the pan) about 3/4" thick slices, and fry in bacon fat or crisco until crispy and browned on both sides.
Careful frying, since the little grains of oats can randomly pop and spray hot grease. Serve with eggs, fried over-easy.

I've never made Potato pancakes myself, but now that I'm thinking about it, I think I'll find a recipe online and try to make some this weekend.

 

[Libertarian01]

I believe that in an extended crisis the first piece of wisdom will be to accurately identify the crisis and its repercussions.

The second you have addressed is acknowledging that we will "fall" in our standard of living. How far we fall can be controlled, or at least mitigated, by proper planning. This means getting skills and physical resources to allow us to operate at this lower level. The physical resources must include LAND! We will be far more inefficient with our ability to produce food and water than we are today, so having a large space to work/produce will be very important.

One issue to address is food storage. While people have survived without, many millions have not. Being able to store food does several things. It first does reduce waste. If you butcher a pig you may not be able to eat it all in the time before it goes bad without proper food storage. And while sharing with neighbors is certainly good, it doesn't do YOU any good directly. You are still left at their discretion on when/if they have anything to repay you with in the future. Plus, you simply may not have any good neighbors to share with, depending upon the cause of the crisis.

Food storage addresses this issue by allowing you to butcher the hog, then store it for consumption days or weeks down the road, thus maximizing the benefit of the butchering. Food storage also allows us to get through the lean monthes when there are no more fields to harvest, and no animals to hunt. Lean times must be prepared for. The seven fat cattle and the seven starving cattle and all that.

I like the issue of recycling and biodiversity. It may be the new in vogue today, but for farmers hundreds of years ago it was critical to see that they maximize efficiency by letting nothing go to waste. Waste is to be avoided when we do not have the abundance of modern food production.

As I see it the killer of most peoples planning is TIME! You may have the skills to do everything. You may have the tools to do everything. What you won't have is the TIME to do everything! A lone person cannot hunt and fish and till the fields and mend the house and maintain the equipment and collect the honey and butcher the food and prepare the food and weed the garden and feed the chickens and and and... You get the picture. So it is critical that people understand more of what they will specialize in, then either have other family members specialize in other things or trade their work product for that which they simply do not have the time to do.

One simple idea would be to plant some fruit trees and make your own fruit wine. Distilling is relatively easy, just time consuming for the process. If a person were to have the proper fruit trees available and the materials to bottle several dozen cases, I am quite certain that there would be those willing to trade meat and food for wine. Not everyone, but some could be enough.

Or even easier(?) would be keeping lots of chickens free range and producing eggs. Eggs are good protein and some folks may well come up with a trading system where eggs are important.

One of my Amish neighbors out in the country just built a smokehouse last year. He is going to share it with other Amish so they can come to his place, butcher their food, and smoke it for storage. Now that is a great idea for trade! Simply build a smokehouse, allow others to come and smoke their meat, then charge a small percentage for the use of the smokehouse. Charging just 5% could keep you in good with meat the whole year round, depending upon competition and need.

My goal was to plant fruit trees for enjoyment and possible SHTF usage. I planted ten (10), eight (8) died. I replanted eight (8), more died. I had three (3) doing OK until deer killed two (2). So now I have my one, lone peach tree that is slowing fighting its way to a good size. I need to order more this year. I am not good as a farmer...

Anyways, just some thoughts here.

Regards,

Doug

 

[IndyDave1776]

Anyways, just some thoughts here.

Regards,

Doug

And good thoughts they are. I generally take a forked view of much of this in that unlimited time is not an available resource, I foresee having the people to divide the circumstances with, but it is still good to be able to at least muddle through any element of it myself.

 

[Blackhawk2001]

Haven't visited this forum (or INGO in general) much lately, so I'm reading this well after the discussion started. I do have some thoughts.

As I seem to be always the pessimist, I'd point out that, in urban areas, at least, there are too many people for the land to support - even a home vegetable garden and chickens in the back yard won't be enough to feed your family as long as you have hungry neighbors to your right and left.

The growing season is relatively short; "hungry season" lasts from just after the harvest is in until the next harvest is ready to reap. This plays into the "food stream" cycle that IndyDave mentioned. Don't forget in your planning that "urbanization" has accelerated since your grandfather's time, and if the SHTF, there will be many more hungry "grasshoppers" out there than there will be industrious (and prepared) "ants." Plan accordingly.

And thanks for the thoughtful discussion; I'm looking forward to reading the next Paradigm shift.

 

[MohawkSlim]

All of us expecting to shift over to a primitive lifestyle and completely different food are in for a rude awakening. Keep in mind we also eat about 3,500 calories a day. If/when SHTF things like sanitation and hygiene are likely to go out the window too (at least for a little while) and most of us are going to get sick. Our modern stomachs aren't accustomed to eating the stuff our grandparents ate. Sure, we eat crap but it's food product crap and not natural crap.

We need to relearn our bodies to eat stuff we were made to eat. Whole milk, raw meats/grains/etc., water that may not be completely clean. There's really no good way to practice for this other than doing it. Eat the "gross" stuff!

On that note, here's a link to the good (goetta) stuff. I also recommend Skyline chili. Mmmm mmm! https://store.cincyfavorites.com/goetta--burgers-c20.aspx

 

[IndyDave1776]

All of us expecting to shift over to a primitive lifestyle and completely different food are in for a rude awakening. Keep in mind we also eat about 3,500 calories a day. If/when SHTF things like sanitation and hygiene are likely to go out the window too (at least for a little while) and most of us are going to get sick. Our modern stomachs aren't accustomed to eating the stuff our grandparents ate. Sure, we eat crap but it's food product crap and not natural crap.

We need to relearn our bodies to eat stuff we were made to eat. Whole milk, raw meats/grains/etc., water that may not be completely clean. There's really no good way to practice for this other than doing it. Eat the "gross" stuff!

On that note, here's a link to the good (goetta) stuff. I also recommend Skyline chili. Mmmm mmm! https://store.cincyfavorites.com/goetta--burgers-c20.aspx

I agree with a couple of caveats. First, I can't call it gross. I prefer it over the crap I find myself stuck eating for the time being, although I can see the change coming. Fresh milk is one of my favorite things to consume, so buying a cow is on my short list.

 

[1861navy]

All of us expecting to shift over to a primitive lifestyle and completely different food are in for a rude awakening. Keep in mind we also eat about 3,500 calories a day. If/when SHTF things like sanitation and hygiene are likely to go out the window too (at least for a little while) and most of us are going to get sick. Our modern stomachs aren't accustomed to eating the stuff our grandparents ate. Sure, we eat crap but it's food product crap and not natural crap.

We need to relearn our bodies to eat stuff we were made to eat. Whole milk, raw meats/grains/etc., water that may not be completely clean. There's really no good way to practice for this other than doing it. Eat the "gross" stuff!

On that note, here's a link to the good (goetta) stuff. I also recommend Skyline chili. Mmmm mmm! https://store.cincyfavorites.com/goetta--burgers-c20.aspx

Avoiding the junk is not so hard for me as I don't consume very much if any junk. I do however already make my own medicine from plants and herbs I gather. I haven't had a prescription or OTC in over five years. As for food, I again forage my own food, definitely not all of it. Just enough to supplement and or replace things from the store from time to time. Most of what I consume is organically produced, I drink raw milk and have for years. I make things like flour from acorns and curly dock seeds, eat more greens wild and domestic than most I know, and usually always have a few months supply of foraged mushrooms on hand. So for me it wouldn't be much of a change as far as food I consume is concerned. Though everything else I know most certainly would.

However your point is very valid, many people today simply do not spend or have the time to do all that. There isn't going to be enough time to learn them if SHTF though so learning what skills would benefit you the most in your situation beforehand is critical.

BTW, most wild plants aren't necessarily gross in taste, just very picky on preparation and harvesting time, and some cases location of the plant can affect its taste.

 

[1861navy]

A little info on the nutritional value acorns provide. If you got an oak tree nearby get some acorns this year and try them out. A valuable source of fats and calories, especially if combined with other nuts like hickory, walnuts, beech nuts, or pine nuts.
From: http://www.eattheweeds.com/acorns-the-inside-story/

Acorns are quite nutritious. For example, the nutritional breakdown of acorns from the Q. alba, — the white oak — is 50.4% carbohydrates, 34.7% water, 4.7% fat, 4.4.% protein, 4.2% fiber, 1.6% ash. A pound of shelled acorns provide 1,265 calories, a 100 grams (3.5 ounces) has 500 calories and 30 grams of oil. During World War II Japanese school children collected over one million tons of acorns to help feed the nation as rice and flour supplies dwindled.

 

[nj4020]

I agree with a couple of caveats. First, I can't call it gross. I prefer it over the crap I find myself stuck eating for the time being, although I can see the change coming. Fresh milk is one of my favorite things to consume, so buying a cow is on my short list.

You should have your milk cow plans in place before any situation occurs where it would be necessary.