Must Read Survival in The Worst of Times

[Proud Prepper]

While going through our prep foods I’ve started questioning my pounds of food per person on a few items. The food calculator I’ve been utilizing has these items set as below…

ADULT PER YEAR

Sugar 40#
Powdered Fruit Drink. 6#
Brown Sugar. 3#
Powdered Milk 60#
Evaporated Milk. 12 cans


My personal opinion is that 40# sugar per person is extreme. Perhaps that is because we don’t eat a ton of sugar? The rest of the group doesn’t know how much sugar per year they consume.

Powdered fruit drink for adults. Really? Totally there with the children.

Brown Sugar can be used to make syrup. It stays good forever. I’ve bought 7# per person.


Powdered Milk is needed for children, coffee (for some folks) as well as cooking and baking, but 60# a person? Did not purchase that much…yet.

Evaporated Milk seems fine to me, but since I’m questioning the powdered milk thought I would include it too.


PLEASE give me your thoughts, ideas and what you‘ve done!

I believe the amount of sugar should be extreme if your able to store it. It has so many uses and is a carb staple. It lasts forever and even if you don't eat much of it, so many do.

Do you bake all your breads and your own confections now? Think of all the food you buy that has suger in it.

It's up there with salt. I store even more than that amount per person. It's a great barter resource when food becomes rationed.

The Milk is about right. The type of milk can vary depending on your preferences.

The fruit drink mixes help during stressful times to comfort people, especially kids when all you have is water to drink. Like orange flavored water in morning, lemonade for lunch and fruit punch for dinner.

 

[Survivor_316]

I bake my own stuff but we don't use sugar for it. The yeast just takes longer to make the bread rise.

But I agree, many would not only use it but be addicted to it.

 

[Oddcaliber]

I keep a lot of drink mixes like Kool Aid, Tang, instant tea ect. Plane water is just boring.

 

[GeorgiaPeachie]

I keep a lot of drink mixes like Kool Aid, Tang, instant tea ect. Plane water is just boring.

Me too on storing the Tang and Kool Aid for the kids. And different teas for adults. Coffee is a biggie and it is rarely on a food calculator list.

 

[Mountain Dragon]

Coffee is an must!

 

[GeorgiaPeachie]

Should I admit that all these years I’ve been working from a food calculator list of what and how much to store? Did not pay too much attention to calories. So…today I added up the calories from wheat and oats for each person I’ve stored, and it came out to 1,869 calories per day!! Maybe I’ve got longer stores of the wheat and oats than I figured? The average man I think needs 2,400 a day if they are active. Women need less.

What got me to thinking about calories is a podcast talking about Wise Foods getting sued in 2019.

”Lead plaintiffs accused the Wise Company of deceptively advertising its food kits. In particular, the company touted various food kits as sufficient to sustain a particular number of people, for a length of time as a part of disaster preparedness.

However, the kits, according to the plaintiffs, would not sustain a person for the amount of time advertised. The Wise long-term food class action lawsuit contended that the calories provided by the kits would lead to adverse health effects and starvation in the event a person needed to rely upon them for survival.”

The podcast folks said Wise Foods were touting that their product would feed a person for an entire year. Turns out the calories would only feed a person 800 calories a day for a year! Not sure how long a person would live on those few calories?


Who is prepping from a food list with pounds needed vs calories?

 

[Mountain Dragon]

I had my time i worked with those food lists / calories / protein calculators.
Interesting part was those lists suggest always this kind of food and in an amount i never can or would eat and not even buy in my daily life.

So i gone to do my own list with the things i really eat, keeping me overweight and especially those i can store for an longer time.
Of course, food you don't like would last longer. And of course, my way is proably the wrong one - but this i'll find out if the SHTF scenario is here. If i die about unhealthy, wrong and not enough food, well at least the weeks before wasn't that bad.

I have seen many of this food lists. And i have seen enough people who are counting calories, carbs, proteines and healthy stuff in their emergency food boxes.
At the end i said to myself:
Surviving has to make sense. Suffering to survive a few days more dosn't make sense to me.

 

[EastenerWesterner]

I have a bunch of Propel (diet gatorade) packet for electrolytes to add to water. I found it helpful for cramps if I become dehydrated.
Rest of my stores is what I eat and what i figure to need to supplement fresh (examples powdered for milk, extra flour for bread, etc).
I know how long it takes to go through for rotation. It’s kinda of fun to use some of the long term stuff to make a meal, example Canned corn beef and dehydrated hash browns.

 

[Danil54grl]

I have a bunch of Propel (diet gatorade) packet for electrolytes to add to water. I found it helpful for cramps if I become dehydrated.
Rest of my stores is what I eat and what i figure to need to supplement fresh (examples powdered for milk, extra flour for bread, etc).
I know how long it takes to go through for rotation. It’s kinda of fun to use some of the long term stuff to make a meal, example Canned corn beef and dehydrated hash browns.

Just FYI if you don't already know, pickle juice is something else that relives the cramps from dehydration. Even the homemade kind. In the years past, there was 2 occations that Hunny would call me on the road saying he was cramping so bad after going down to the beach property to mow. GET THE PICKLE JUICE READY WHEN I COME THRU THE GATE!! He didn't listen to me saying take something down there to drink. Nope, he would just load up and go. He finally started listening.

 

[Oddcaliber]

It's a balancing act between weight and calories. When the army developed the C ration prior to WW2 they had to consider a lot of factors. Calories, nutrition and weight were factors along with good taste. That's a lot to ask for especially for a military ration.

 

[Danil54grl]

I know when I make a batch of 7 1/2c juice of whatever jelly I go thru 14 cups at a time so it does add up, but in a SHTF situation, not sure how much jelly I will be making. I have been known to doing close to 100 jars in one season which is multipe batches, but normally many jars goes out as gifts or the holidays. I do use it when making bread items though. Sometimes I will add it into veggies, like corn when they are starchy tasting to get it better tasting. I bought some canned corn that just needed major help. Very disappointed on that one. A little sugar, butter and dill goes a long way to help. Thank goodness we have those alternatives. I also use sugar in bread items and baking goods. I can imagine making breads often, but the baking goods would be a total treat. Keep your sourdough starter going if you have it ladies.

 

[Danil54grl]

I did see where Mike Adams is selling a freeze dried cream powder to add into recipes that could add in extra calories. If someone had a freeze dryer, good idea to add if you properly store it.

 

[Proud Prepper]

I know when I make a batch of 7 1/2c juice of whatever jelly I go thru 14 cups at a time so it does add up, but in a SHTF situation, not sure how much jelly I will be making. I have been known to doing close to 100 jars in one season which is multipe batches, but normally many jars goes out as gifts or the holidays. I do use it when making bread items though. Sometimes I will add it into veggies, like corn when they are starchy tasting to get it better tasting. I bought some canned corn that just needed major help. Very disappointed on that one. A little sugar, butter and dill goes a long way to help. Thank goodness we have those alternatives. I also use sugar in bread items and baking goods. I can imagine making breads often, but the baking goods would be a total treat. Keep your sourdough starter going if you have it ladies.

A sourdough starter will be like gold for households after SHTF.

 

[DrHenley]

Just FYI if you don't already know, pickle juice is something else that relives the cramps from dehydration. Even the homemade kind. In the years past, there was 2 occations that Hunny would call me on the road saying he was cramping so bad after going down to the beach property to mow. GET THE PICKLE JUICE READY WHEN I COME THRU THE GATE!! He didn't listen to me saying take something down there to drink. Nope, he would just load up and go. He finally started listening.

My doctor told me about pickle juice!
I tried to get my wife to take it but she wouldn't believe me until she had really bad cramps and I poured some in a cup and made her take it. It worked immediately.
She went out and bought two jars of pickles after that, LOL.

 

[tmttactical]

I will have to try the pickle juice, as I do get a lot of nocturnal leg / foot cramps. On another note, I did just get a unpleasant surprise. We had some very old Ramon stored (5+ years old) and decided to use some of it. Two cases, 48 packages had gone bad. I was under false impression that due to their being sealed, they would last almost forever. Better to learn now than when we needed them. I either need to find a better way to store it or find another item to supplement the menu.

 

[EastenerWesterner]

Not many pickles eaten here. I tried to entice my wife to get a gallon size pickle Jug. She had just finished downsizing a gallon of pepperocini With a vacuum sealer. I am sure that juice would work too.
The size of a 100 packets of Propel makes sense. Much better than pickle juice.
My wife probably got kicked off a freeze drying site. Somebody finished off a quart of Buttermilk in their freeze dryer. Spent way more time and energy to do the rest of that quart than buy a premade pkg that makes a couple gallons For $10-15.
Everything has a balance point. $, Space, We can’t be so blinded that doing it ourselves is the only way.
That time will come soon enough.

 

[GaRp58]

PLEASE give me your thoughts, ideas and what you‘ve done!

You are thinking and planning, that is all that is important.
At the moment, your real needs are approximately known, but your future needs will change as you will work harder and not have the use of many electical and fuel powered tools and machinery.
Even if you have too much, it will compensate for the extra work--and extra workers who will maybe show up and be integrated into your survival group.
You can find many things to do with different foodstuffs. Condensed milk can be diluted with water and drunk. Powdered milk can be used in coffee or to make cheese. Sugars are not only for your coffee or tea, they are needed to make jelly, pickles and jams, baking, caramel, preserving meats and it even makes a good explosive if you know things. Sugar can be used as a feeder for your yeasts and sourdough and emergency food for bees.
Everything you have, as long as it can be preserved and is well stored can be used for bartering.
Keep looking for other uses for each item and teach your family how to use them.

 

[GaRp58]

At the end i said to myself:
Surviving has to make sense. Suffering to survive a few days more dosn't make sense to me.

Excellent idea and thought. Too much of certain things does not mean you will survive for how long...
The idea of counting calories and calories per day is ok, but none of us need the same calories daily, this changes day to day as the work load changes also.
I used to eat 2 pieces of toast, butter, jelly, a glass of milk, 2 pancakes, 2 raw eggs mixed into a glass of orange juice and a bow of cereal with milk for breakfast when I was in the Army.
I now eat a bowl of rice, or oatmeal, or 2 toasts with butter and jelly or with a bit of cheese and meat.
Sometimes I only have a cup of tea or coffee till lunch. This is not unusual since I plan my consumption according to my daily stress and work load. I trim or expand my needs DAILY as needed and planned.
A couple of cookies and a quart of milk for dinner or even a bag of chips and a beer is dinner also.
Sometimes my body needs salt, sometimes sugar and sometimes lots of water.
I listen to it and feel free to take whatever it needs, regardless of calories, fat, carbs or salts and sugars.
But, I have no diabetes or weight problems, I have no heart or blood pressure problems, no sleeping problems.
We each and our families have different food, medical and work needs. The idea of "just 2500 calories" daily is a farce just as the "FOOD PYRAMID" is a farce.
Google that. Live free, Gary

 

[Danil54grl]

 

[GaRp58]

When I get beans, rice, lentils and such, I put them in jars without lids, put them in the cold oven, heat the jars and contents to over 150°F/80°C to kill any bugs, eggs or bacteria and then take them out hot and put the lids on and they vacuum seal themselves for longtime storage.
Cute machine for the job tho. Good idea.