Primal Prepping: Reprogram Your Genes and Health

Reading my daily dose of SurvivalBlog.com, I found what I’ve been looking for since 2010. I discovered SurvivalBlog.com in ’07 and read it daily pretty much. Three years ago I discovered primal/paleo lifestyle through an article on LewRockwell.com by Karen De Coster. After reading Mark Sisson’s book “The Primal Blueprint“, I changed my lifestyle and lost 50 pounds, improved my health, and looked good naked again

That may not be your “stated” goal, but it can happen.

My dilemma in my preps started after going primal. The prepping community promotes grain-based diet and food storage. While I don’t disagree that they’ll get you through emergency situations, we’re not designed to live on grains. Then I read Dr. Dan Stickler’s post today over at SurvivalBlog.com and got happy. It’s unconventional wisdom that really worked for me. I recommend this lifestyle highly!

Dr. Stickler, The Paleo Doc, can be found here.

Full article from SurvivalBlog.com:

I first began prepping about two years ago so I am fairly new to this.  In those two years I have been fairly aggressive with my education and training on the topic with much of my real world education coming from reading blogs.  I have found an area where there is a great deal of misinformation and limited preparedness so it has prompted me to address this topic since it is the one area where I possess a skill set that I can share.  The topic is healthcare after the SHTF.  I think it is difficult for any of us, especially in America, to understand how so many aspects of our health we may be taking for granted.  I can honestly say that I was in the same boat which is a sad statement considering the fact that I am a physician.

To give a little background as a lead in; I worked as a general and vascular surgeon for about 10 years after I finished residency.  A little over two years ago I walked away from that to focus on nutrition, fitness, and wellness counseling.  There were many reasons for this change, lifestyle being a big one but more importantly I came to understand that we were no longer practicing medicine but rather pharmacology and surgery.  I found that training people to modify lifestyle was the best defense and prevention strategy and this certainly applies to prepping.

I will be focusing on four topics:

• Optimizing your health
  • Nutrition
  • Fitness
• Healthcare skill sets
• Water and hygiene
• Healthcare supplies

Optimizing your Health

Health should be viewed as a spectrum with chronic disease at one end, disease-free in the middle, and optimized health at the other end.  Think about where you would want to be and whom you would want in your survival group should the SHTF.

In reading through the various prepper and survival blogs, I see so many people that are unhealthy and they do not hesitate to talk about it.  I would be worried if I were in this situation or if I had to rely on this person as an essential link in my support group.  Stocking up on medications may help but what happens when they run out or expire?   Will you live to take advantage of all your amazing preparations or will they be taken from you?  The solution is to get out of the chronic disease end of the spectrum and get as close to optimal health as possible.  I treat and resolve chronic disease every day by basically changing one thing: lifestyle.  This means nutrition and fitness.  You just have to understand that chronic diseases such as Type II diabetes, high blood pressure, and most high cholesterol are actually just symptoms of a poor lifestyle, you fix that, and you fix the problem without medication.

Nutrition is the key to good health; the problem is there is way too much misinformation out there as to what constitutes good nutrition.  What I am about to say will make most prepper gasp, but let me explain.  Get rid of all grains from the diet!  Now, that said, I do store grains but I do not currently eat them, they are reserved as emergency foods only.  You may now be asking, “where does this insanity come from?”  Well the answer is biochemistry and anthropology.  We are and always have been physiologically hunter/gatherers and grains were not a part of our natural diet.  Our bodies function best and experience the most positive effects from a hunter/gatherer style diet.  I am not asking you to immediately take my word for it just because I have a few initials at the end of my name, but I do ask that you try this challenge – give up all grain, bread, pasta, rice, crackers, chips, pretzels, popcorn, sweets, etc., for one month and see how you feel.  You will eat only meats, eggs, vegetables, fruits, and nuts during this time and eat all you want.  You will experience amazing results.  Since I do have limited space here to go into all the details, I have provided a link to a video on Vimeo to help explain my approach to this diet: Functional Nutrition.

Other good sources of information are the books The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet by Robb Wolf and The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson.  Sisson also has a great web site at MarksDailyApple.com.  Good nutrition is 80% of a healthy lifestyle, it is the base of the pyramid of health and without it you cannot develop optimal health.  I am not promoting some agenda here or trying to sell some magic snake oil, all I can tell you is that I have been utilizing this diet in my clinical practice for years and the health transformations and the disease resolutions I have witnessed are amazing.

Another aspect of optimal health is fitness.  It is a necessity in survival and should be an integral part of any preparation regimen.  Everyone seems to prep for food, medical and self defense but another aspect of preparation is your body.  I would like to see the 3 Bs change to the 4 Bs: Beans, Bullets, Band-Aids, and Body.  Your level of fitness will be directly proportional to your chances of survival so you need to train the right way.  Bottom line – lift heavy stuff and run fast.  What I recommend is functional fitness and you do not need a gym for this.  Functional fitness means training the body to be able to do the necessary things in life well and remember, life will be substantially different if society fails.  If you have weights available, then lift heavy – squats, cleans, military press, rows.  Add push-ups and pull-ups.  Chop and carry wood, dig ditches, and run sprints. The book The Primal Blueprint that I mentioned has some good functional training advice and workouts.

Healthcare Skillsets

The practice of medical care could change dramatically in this scenario.  Physicians and nurses currently practice with the aid of technology, sterile environments, a slew of available instruments and specialist referrals.  EMTs and paramedics are trained in stabilization and transport.  Despite my surgical training and experience, my experience in a level 4 trauma center and having been an Advanced Trauma Life Support instructor, I would have little skills to care for people in a post-apocalyptic scenario.  That was until I began studying wilderness medicine.  Wilderness medicine training is available for health care providers (EMTs, paramedics, nurses, and physicians) and what makes this different is that you have to diagnose and more importantly TREAT in the field without the benefit of technology and transport.  In TEOTWAWKI scenario things like minor wounds, burns, blisters, and fractures become potentially life-threatening emergencies. I never realized all this until I took a Wilderness First Responder course offered by NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) and I feel that this is an absolute necessity for someone in your group.  We should all know how to properly clean and care for wounds, close lacerations, treat a burn, splint and reduce fractures and dislocations in situations where we do not have the luxury of modern technology.  Now this course will not make you the Dr. House of the TEOTWAWKI but it will give you the basis to build from and a level of comfort in dealing with many of the issues you may encounter.  You should still have access to someone with advanced medical training.

Water and Hygiene

Wilderness medicine gets you thinking about things we take for granted like water or hygiene.  In the wilderness, clean water is your best friend.  Even sparkling clear mountain spring water can be full of protozoa and bacteria so boiling or filtration is essential.  What kills more people worldwide?  Infectious diarrhea.  This is also one of the number one debilitations in the wilderness along with food poisoning related to poor food prep hygiene.  It is also important to remember that filtration will not get rid of viruses, so in the face of a viral outbreak if the water supply gets contaminated, you will need a chemical disinfectant as well.  Iodine and/or chlorine will work well for this added safety.  We need to look at the health care issues faced in the third world countries in order to fully understand what we need to prepare for should the worst case scenario occur.

Healthcare Supplies

First thing to remember here is that it will do you no good to stock up on supplies that you have no skill or knowledge to use.  When I design and stock kits for people, I always find out what abilities they possess first.  You also have to determine what size group you want to prepare for and the environment where the kit will be needed.  I typically see a need for three types of kits and a stock of supplies on top.

Kit #1: Basic field kit.  This kit needs to be compact and lightweight but still be supplied to cover you for a 1-5 day trip away from your Bugout Location (BOL) for 3-4 people.  This should cover everything for stabilizing illness or injury long enough to get you back to your BOL.  This is the kit that I keep in my Bugout Bag (BoB) and I take hiking or camping.
Basic contents:

• Sterile and non-sterile gloves
• Facemasks with eye protecting, also antiviral mask
• Thermometer
• Ace bandage and scissors
• Various quantities of different size sterile gauze and gauze rolls
• Field surgical kit and sutures
• Variety of medical and athletic tape
• Moleskin for blisters and second skin for burns
• Opsite or other occlusive dressing
• Steristrips and benzoin for wound closure
• Small vial of povidone iodine or betadine
• Bacitracin and Cortisone
• Thermal reflective blanket
• SAM splint
• Eye pad
• Large irrigation syringe
• Several cravats
• Quikclot or Celox trauma bandage
• Pen light
• Emergency resuscitator pocket facemask
• Ibuprofen, aspirin, Benadryl, and various antibiotics

Kit #2: Advanced Home Kit. This is an advanced medical kit for the home or BOL.  It contains all the above items from Kit #1 just larger quantities, plus:

• Stethoscope and BP cuff
• Fiberglass casting wrap
• Greater variety of surgical items
• Lidocaine, needles, and syringes
• Battery operated cautery device
• Skin stapler
• Greater variety of antibiotics and other prescription meds
• Emergency cricothyrotomy kit

Kit #3: Advanced Trauma Kit.  Now this kit would be mainly for people with advanced medical training or military field medics.  I keep this is a STOMP bag and it weighs about 40 pounds.  It is basically a portable trauma bay with advanced surgical instrumentation, major wound treatments, airway control, etc.

My recommendation is to train each person in your group in the basic medical skills and have each carry a basic kit.  Many prep groups run drills for defense and bug-out but few run through medical scenarios and these are the most likely issues that they would encounter.  Each group or family should have someone in charge of medical and it should be their responsibility to train the others.

So our best course of action is prepare and prevent.  Prepare by optimizing each individuals health, have the training necessary for your environment, and have the appropriate tools and knowledge in order to act.  Prevent by obtaining/maintaining optimal health, recognizing and understanding the risks of your environment, practice good hygiene, and utilize adequately filtered water.

 

Related articles

• The Paleo Diet and the Case for Primal Living (mensjournal.com)
• What Really Makes Us Fat? (medicalnewstoday.com)

How to Make Turkey Jerky with 3 Ingredients (That’s Super Easy and Tastes Like Thanksgiving)

Source: Mark’s Daily Apple

How to Make Turkey Jerky (That’s Super Easy and Tastes Like Thanksgiving)

I’m pleased to have our friend David Maren of Tendergrass Farms pen today’s guest post. He’s written this great how-to for making your own delicious pastured turkey jerky. And don’t miss the coupon code that he’s generously provided below!

Most folks who make turkey jerky just make beef jerky out of turkey. They tend to use lots of teriyaki sauce, sugar, and Worcestershire sauce to mask the turkey-ness of the turkey. To each his own, but in my opinion this is a real shame. After all, turkey is super scrumptious! Especially if you go to the trouble of getting some good quality pastured turkey, you’ll want to preserve its essential turkey flavor as a special feature of your turkey jerky. We’ve discovered an extremely simple way to make delicious, high-protein, sugar-free, turkey jerky that will not only taste and look nothing like beef jerky, but will also magically transport you back to your childhood Thanksgiving dinner table. In fact, between you and me, I think it tastes a lot like buttery mashed potatoes and gravy. But no worries – it’s about as primal as primal can be.

 

This recipe is the very pinnacle of culinary simplicity. You’ll need:

• Turkey breast, at least about 2 LBS (preferably from a good pastured turkey)
• Salt and pepper
• An oven (no fancy dehydrator necessary)
• A few kabob skewers (or wooden chop sticks)
• Nothin’ else!

It’ll take about 10 minutes of prep time and then the jerky will need to be in the oven for 6 to 10 hours (depending on your oven and how thinly you cut the turkey strips).

You should really think about supporting a family farmer by purchasing some decent pastured turkey breast to make your jerky with. EatWild.com has a helpful directory of grass-based farmers across the USA, Canada, and beyond that would love your support. If you can’t find any local pastured turkey sources our little cooperative online meats shop, Tendergrass Farms, offers pastured turkey breast that we can ship right to your doorstep.

In fact, in the spirit of family farm generosity, we’ve created a coupon code that’ll give you four (4) free jumbo boneless skinless roasts of our pastured turkey breast with all orders over $199 (a $99.96 value), which will also qualify your order for Free Shipping. Head over to the Tendergrass Farms site and once you’ve added $199 of our grass fed beef, pastured pork, pastured chicken, or pastured turkey to your cart, just view your cart and apply the coupon code FARMERS-RULE-123 and four 2 lb. pastured turkey breast roasts will be automatically added to your cart with a price of $0.00 (expires 9/30/13, limited to 150 redemptions). Pretty cool, huh? I guess we just figure what comes around goes around.

Tip: If $199 sounds like a big first order just grab a couple friends from the gym and place an order together.

Once you’ve procured some good turkey breast, the first step is to cut it into very thin slices. There’s no danger of cutting them too thin, so just get a nice sharp knife and cut the pieces as thinly as you can. It’s best to keep them as even in thickness as possible to help them dehydrate at the same rate.

The second step is to sprinkle the turkey strips with a little salt and pepper. Salt and pepper the turkey just a little more than you would any other food that you were about to eat. The purpose of the salt and pepper is simply to bring out the natural flavor of the turkey, not to mummify it!

Read the rest here

3 Healthy Fast Food Meals in Mason Jars

 

 

Editor’s note: I’m working a post that’s requiring lot’s of research and thought. My brain hurts. Daisy is pinch-hitting for me today. As always, she is a heavy hitter when she steps up to the prepper plate. Although I don’t eat the sides she suggests (pasta and bread), these three recipes are healthy “fast food” dishes you can make and store in your pantry. Enjoy!

Mason Jar Meals: “Fast Food” for Preppers

by Daisy Luther

I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating – canning is the perfect way to provide “fast food” for preppers.

Last night we got home from 2 days of traveling.  We were tired and hungry.  It was so nice to pop a lid off a jar and heat up a tasty, nutritious and filling meal in less than five minutes, without worrying about all of those nasty additives that a store-bought can of soup would contain.  The instant gratification from a home-canned meal is wonderful on a day that you just don’t feel like cooking, and invaluable when disaster strikes and you are unable to use your usual methods of preparing a meal.

You can preserve your own recipes easily – find the guidelines HERE.

Canning meat – HERE.

Canning beans – HERE

Soups, stews and chili can help you quickly produced a well-balanced meal.  Click the preserving tab at the top of the page for more recipes.

Some meals need only a quickly boiled carbohydrate like rice or pasta to make a satisfying meal at the drop of a hat – here are 3  tried-and-true canning recipes to enjoy…

Hungarian Goulash

Ingredients

• 4 pounds of stewing meat (beef, pork, etc.)
• 4 tbsp of REAL Hungarian paprika (must be the real stuff for an authentic flavor)
• 2 tsp of dry mustard
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 4 onions, quartered
• 4 cloves of minced garlic
• 1 tbsp of olive oil
• 4 carrots, sliced into coins
• 6 potatoes, diced
• 2 bell peppers, diced
• 1 can of tomato paste
• ½ cup of red wine vinegar
• Water as needed

Directions

1. In a bowl, mix Hungarian paprika, dry mustard, salt and pepper.
2. In a large stockpot, heat olive oil and begin to sauté your onions and garlic.
3. Dip your stewing meat in the spice mixture, then place the meat in the stockpot to brown with the garlic and onions.  Brown lightly – the meat does not have to be thoroughly cooked.
4. In quart jars, layer your meat and vegetable mixture, carrots, peppers and potatoes.
5. Add 6 cups of water, vinegar and the jar of tomato paste to the stock pot and mix with any drippings or spices that remain after browning the meat.  Bring this mixture to a boil.
6. Ladle hot liquid into sanitized jars over the layered contents.  Use a table knife to remove any air pockets in the jars. If necessary, top up with water, allowing 1 inch of headspace.
7. Lid the jars and process in your p-canner for 90 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure, based on altitude.

SERVING SUGGESTIONS:  When heating your goulash, whisk in 1 tbsp of flour in order to thicken the sauce.  Once it is hot, stir in a half cup of sour cream or yogurt and heat only until the sour cream is warmed through.

Serve your goulash over egg noodles, potatoes, spaetzle or dumplings and don’t forget a side of fresh sour dough bread!

Beef Stroganoff

Ingredients

• 3-4 pounds of stewing beef or sliced sirloin
• 2 onions, finely chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 4 cups of mushrooms, sliced
• 1 tbsp of butter
• 2 tbsp of Worcestershire sauce
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Water to deglaze pan

Directions

1. In a large stockpot, sauté beef, onions, garlic and mushrooms in butter until lightly browned.
2. Stir in Worcestershire sauce and enough water to deglaze the stockpot.  Use a metal utensil to scrape the bottom of the pot to loosen the flavorful pieces there.
3. Add 1 cup of water and stir well, bringing to a boil.
4. Ladle the stroganoff into sanitized jars, distributing the sauce evenly across the jars.
5. Lid the jars and process in your p-canner for 90 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure, based on altitude.

SERVING SUGGESTIONS:  When you are ready to serve the beef stroganoff, stir 1 cup of sour cream or plain yogurt into the heated sauce.  Serve this over rice or noodles.

Chicken Cacciatore

The rich herbed tomato sauce and the tender chicken will not last long on the pantry shelves – as soon as you serve one jar of it, your family will beg you to make it again!

To make life even simpler, this is a raw-pack recipe!

Ingredients

• 3 pounds of boneless chicken, cut into bite sized pieces (a mix of breasts and thighs is nice)
• 2 cups of red and green peppers, cut into chunks
• 2 cups of onion, cut into 8ths
• 2 cups of mushrooms, sliced
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 4 cups of diced tomatoes, with juice
• 1 bottle of red wine
• 2 tbsp of oregano
• 2 tbsp of basil
• 2 tbsp of thyme
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Layer chicken, peppers, onions, mushroom and garlic in quart jars.
2. In a large stockpot bring wine, tomatoes, and herbs to a boil.  Ladle hot liquid over the layered ingredients in your sanitized jars.
3. Lid the jars and process in your p-canner for 90 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure, based on altitude.

SERVING SUGGESTIONS:  When preparing the cacciatore, stir in a small can of tomato paste when heating to thicken the sauce.  Serve over pasta, with a side of garlic bread.

Author bio: Daisy Luther is a freelance writer and editor.  Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at daisy@theorganicprepper.ca

 

5 Must Do’s Before the National Nipple Runs Dry

by Todd Walker

I hate labels. I’ve spent the better part of my adult life dodging bumper sticker nomenclature.

Prepping, survivalism, back to basics, resilience, self-reliance, sustainable, self-sufficient, homesteading, simple living, etc. all have a common philosophy: Taking responsibility for you own life. I wrote about chasing the simple life here. Sherpa Simple is…

Living in a way that is economical, sustainable, individualized, self-sufficient, comfortable, practical, resilient, and in harmony with nature and neighbors. It’s all about helping each other as we chase the simple life.

Weaning ourselves off the National Nipple requires time, energy, self-education, and force in some cases. And here’s the thing – the more we drink, the more we believe that the State udder will never stop flowing. We become addicted. Suckling becomes a basic right.

This is what the National Nipple will do for you

“Once the government becomes the supplier of people’s needs, there is no limit to the needs that will be claimed as a basic right.”

– Lawrence Auster

Even if you’re thumping your chest with pride for never wrapping your proverbial lips around the golden udder, we’re all affected by the overwhelming dependency bred into our culture. The State is the great equalizer dispensing fairness for the collective good. This arrangement is not voluntary. It’s sustained by force. “Legitimate” force.

If you knew the day our National Nipple would run dry, wouldn’t you live differently. It’s not a matter of if, but when. And ‘when’ happens, there will be more than a bit of bawling and screaming. Everyone will fill the pain – your elderly parents on medicare and fixed incomes, your neighbor working in the public sector, all the public school teachers (and there are a lot of us), owners of stocks and bonds, retired veterans, everyone. I’m not even counting those totally dependent government for food, houses, and cell phones. The reset will happen.

How could it not. The truth behind the recovery propaganda should cause some of us to begin self-weaning. The feral Federal Reserve will continue the train wreck by printing more fiat paper. The productive class will continue to shrink. It’s becoming more and more difficult for middle class families to provide basic necessities, much less save for that rainy day.

Retirement looks further away by the minute. The elites keep sending their handlers back to the kitchen to cook more numbers to keep the herd happy. Does this make me vigilant and awake or a conspiracy theorist?

You decide. Search economic collapse for yourself. Here’s a small sampling to get you started:

•             Personal Incomes & The Decline Of The American Saver

•             Comparing the past to predict the future

•             A chart proving that the MSM is lying about unemployment

The picture painted is scary. As people come up for air while nursing on the National Nipple, there may be some that begin to wean themselves. For those of you already standing back from the feeding frenzy, you need to get into high gear with your preparedness plan.

You may think I’m hardnosed or uncaring by my next statement. I prefer a sudden reset over a long, drawn out collapse. I never liked tip-toeing into our cold lake. I found jumping in head-first to best for me. My body adapted to the shock of cold water better with total immersing. Let me clarify. I’d prefer no collapse at all. But that ain’t happening.

You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your power – he’s free again.  — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The list of nations spiraling towards collapse is growing. What steps should Joe and Jane Average take now to build a hedge against financial Armageddon? This is not a step-by-step plan. It requires thought, creativity, and determination – no matter what your financial status. To answer the previous question, do what we know is the right thing to do. Simplify. Less is more. ‘Less’ dependence on the fragile systems of mono-crop corporate farming, fractional reserve banking, and our ‘sick’ care medical establishment.

Building resilience in these areas one step at a time will only increase your chances of survival. And may actually help you thrive.

While this list is not exhaustive, it points us in the right direction.

Food

Grow your own or buy from local farmers. Doing this will accomplish several things:

• Strengthen your local food system. These producers live where you live. Small family owned and operated farms will contribute to your overall health and resilience in return.
• Reconnect with your food and community. Build relationship with food producers that don’t live 2,000 miles from your house. Better to meet them now than after the balloon goes up.
• Save resources. The amount of packaging material and fuel is drastically reduced by purchasing/bartering for groceries you can’t produce for yourself. Find farmers that practice sustainable growing practices.
• Education. Many local farmers/producers are happy to help you learn how to grow your own. Plus, you’ll begin to know where your food comes from.
• Food storage you’ll actually eat. When you preserve the harvest from you garden or local farmer’s market, you’re putting away food that you’ll actually enjoy eating and not some pre-packaged, processed items or MRE resembling food. Dehydrating, canning, and proper storage techniques will go a long way in supplying your family with stores of food for the long run.

Health Vigilante – physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

• 90% of what we eat is the cause of our chronic health conditions.
• Be your own health vigilante. Take your health into your own hands. This past year taught DRG and me that modern medicine is run by pharmaceutical companies. There’s a chemical soup in pill form for everything.
• Explore holistic health practices.
• Eat nutrient dense foods. Avoid processed junk foods. I recommend the Primal Lifestyle. Your mileage may vary.
• Regular exercise without being married to the gym. Develop a mindset of functional fitness. Lift heavy things, move slowly every day, and sprint (max capacity) once every 7 to 10 days.

Invest in assets and skills

• By assets, I mean tangible items that hold value. Look up Alpha Strategy. That case of ammo you bought last year was a good investment after all. 
• Focus on your strengths. You’ve got one or two skills that you’re very good at. Develop those even more. But don’t forget to add more resilience-adding skills to your toolbox.
• Barter is becoming more important these days. It may one day be a crucial skill for acquiring basic necessities.
• Learn permaculture. Hiding food in plain sight.

 Build Community

• Most of us don’t live in a rural homestead self-sufficiently. We live mostly in urban and suburban neighborhoods. Your neighbors will play a huge part in your families ability to survive and thrive in coming days. I’ve written some thoughts on the importance of neighboring here. 
• With proper planning and the existence of basic resources, your neighborhood is very defensible and livable in SHTF scenarios. More on this in a later post.

Housing – Living big in small places

• Learning to live big in small places (locally) means re-educating ourselves on what resilience really means.
• Simplifying your life gets rid of all the clutter. If you’re like me, that’s a hard thing to do. Letting go of things I’m going to do something with one day. It forces me to really evaluate what’s important. Prioritizing my stuff allows me more free time to focus on what’s really important.
• Consider downsizing your home. We’ve downsized twice since the housing bubble popped. Talk about freeing up time!

I’m aware there are many more must do’s before the National Nipple runs dry. This is intended to spark a discussion on adding to our list. Please feel free to comment on the list and add your valuable insight. Or email me your thoughts via the contact tab at the top of my blog.

Follow me on Twitter for the latest on our journey to self-reliance, preparedness, and resilient living: @SurvivalSherpa

Related articles

• Time To Plan For The Worst Rather Than Hope For The Best (personalliberty.com)

How Dropping the F-bomb Can Save Your Life

by Todd Walker

With spring break around the corner, MTV will be busy bleeping F-bombs. Drunk and delirious, foul-mouthed frat boys is NOT my subject matter here. Nope, the F-bomb you need to drop is…

Fructose. High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) to be exact.

Not all sweeteners are created equal. If you eat pre-packaged foods (think long-term food storage), drink sodas or fruit juice, you’re likely ingesting HFCS. So what? Well, you might want to rethink this behavior. Research shows the not-so-healthy (horrible, actually) consequences of this cheap sweet.

Adipose gone wild!

• A Princeton study shows that rats with access to the HFCS packed on the pounds (dangerous adipose fat) faster than those that ate other sugars – High adipose fat levels are markers for heart disease.
• Increased risk of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) is linked to fructose. Kool-aid, fruit juices, and nondietary soda (I have no clue what nondietary soda is) intake raises your risk of liver damage.

There’s economic benefit to using HFCS. For years plain table sugar (sucrose), a molecular mix of glucose and fructose, was the sweetener of choice for beverage companies. Growing up we only had 6 oz. or 12 oz. bottles of soda. I’d sit in the barber’s chair at our local gas station and drink a RC Cola with peanuts floating in the drink. I know, a barber’s chair in a gas station. Our one-armed gas station owner didn’t cut hair. The chair served as a local gossip seat. It was a one-horse town.

Pull up to any Stop-N-Rob convenience store and you can supersize that HFCS concoction. Big Gulp anyone? Add an ice cream novelty bar, or even a ‘healthy’ carton of milk, and you’ve got the makings for a destructive F-bomb.

The Industrial Food Machine figured out a ‘cheaper’ way to sweeten things up. Subsidized corn. Corn and soy were being propped up by our government. The use of HFCS expanded. So did America’s waistline. Now, the inexpensive sweetener is in almost all processed foods. It would be difficult to walk down the aisle of any grocery store and not find random items containing HFCS.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that six out of 10 Americans are overweight and 31 percent are obese. That’s number is double from 30 years ago. Could the increased use of HFCS be the sole culprit of our obese nation? Not hardly. But it certainly adds a bulge to the fat equation.

It’s everywhere!

I ran across a post a popular prepping online community that even promotes and praises the benefits of eating junk food loaded with F-bombs. They call it ‘comfort food’. I’m no stranger to comfort foods. My choice is organic dark chocolate with almond butter spread on top as an occasional evening treat. The problem occurs when we make HFCS a large part of our daily diet. Even some ‘health’ food impostors are loaded with King Corn’s sneaky syrup. If you eat store-bought bread, fogettaboutit. It’s in there too. Agave syrup is marketed as a healthy alternative to sugar. Avoid it at all costs. It’s 90% HFCS. It’s a dirty little sweet secret.

Check out Dr. Mercola’s article exposing the bitter truth about the F-bomb.

This report will show you how the sweetness of high-fructose corn syrup comes with a dear price to your health, possibly worsening the illnesses you’re already experiencing! Without knowing it, the HFCS in your body may be setting the stage for health problems including:

• Diabetes. Know how HFCS worsens diabetes, which is mainly rooted in insulin problems.

• Metabolic syndrome. Learn why you should say no to HFCS-containing soft drinks and other foods that may cause this condition.

• Damage to your immune system. Acquaint yourself with how asthma, food allergies, multiple sclerosis and other immune system problems are triggered by use of sugars such as HFCS!

• Speed-up aging process. Know through this report how HFCS and other sugars and grains accelerate the aging process.

• A load of dangerous mercury poisons. Find out how mercury is found in samples of commercial HFCS, and get the shock of your life with the many life-threatening conditions mercury poisoning entails!

Who’s benefiting from this sneaky F-bomb of a liquid? Big Agra and our Big Pharma controlled medical complex. Other liquids might be more dangerous in our foods, like diesel, but not by much. So what’s a preparedness minded individual to do for everyday meal plans and food storage to ensure optimal health?

• Drop the F-bomb. HFCS doesn’t send signals to your brain telling you to stop eating. If you’re experiencing constant sugar cravings, take it as a signal that you’re not feeding your body what it needs. What it needs is NOT more sugar. Especially the F-bomb type. For the sweet tooth cravings, choose natural sweeteners like raw local honey, stevia, or incorporate healthy berries into your snack.
• Read labels. If you can’t pronounce it, avoid it.
• Eat nutrient dense, whole foods. Avoid processed, pre-packaged meals.
• For food storage ideas, here’s what I suggest.
• Get to know your local farmers. Search for those who raise grass-fed animals, free-range poultry, and non-GMO chemically grown fruits and vegetables.

Dropping the F-bomb from your diet will save you money on medical bills and put you on a path to optimal health.

Cheers to resilient health and preparedness!

Follow me on Twitter for the latest on our journey to self-reliance, preparedness, and resilient living: @SurvivalSherpa

 

 

 

Pass the Rolls: Why We Eat Grains

I wanted to share a post from Bug Out Nutrition today. JP Martin spends his time slaying the conventional wisdom of foods we eat and store and applies the science of nutrition to survivor scenarios. He was on my Top Ten Not-Famous-Yet Preparedness Sites post recently. 

by JP Martin

Source: Bug Out Nutrition

Gluten is everywhere. We eat bagels and toast for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch and rolls with our dinner. The USDA recommends we eat 30% of our calories from grains and prior to myplate was recommending 6-11 servings of grain per day. Doctors and nutritionists in the mainstream media push whole grains as a solution to the problems caused by the standard American diet, which is about as effective as putting out a fire with gasoline.

We talk about being paleo and optimizing health a lot on this site but the reality is that most of the time it isn’t that easy. Whether it’s choosing a sandwich when you have 15 minutes to prepare lunch or buying flour by the drum instead of setting up a homestead, wheat is the easy way out a lot of the time.

The purpose of this series is to illustrate the health problems related to gluten specifically. This series is aimed at those of you that eat gluten occasionally, knowing it is bad but trying to minimize as much as you can.

For a while I was completely paleo compliant except on weekends, where I took ‘cheat days’ which I needed for training to epic proportion. Since cutting out gluten entirely I have seen a huge improvement in health and my hope is that by the end of this series, you’ll be able to see improvements too. And next time you eat out, you’ll feel comfortable in saying pass the rolls.

Also, for those of you that are die-hard paleo already, there should be some fun ammunition for your inevitable conversations with vegans, bageltarians, and low fat advocates.

On to the knowledge

Why the government is making you sick

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect

It’s common knowledge that fat is evil, grains are good for your heart and wheat is the bedrock of your diet. We all learned this in school, saw it supported by politics, and see it in pop culture. This serves as evidence for the majority of people who are comfortable with not questioning authority.

Many of these recommendations were developed by what our good friends over at Survival Sherpa refer to as alphabet agencies, such as the AHA and USDA. Much of the research that formed the basis for these recommendations  was done in the 1950s, on research that was far from conclusive (see Todd Walker’s excellent post on that over at Survival Sherpa). However, there are many reasons that it was not looked into more.

Follow the money

Wheat production is big business. The US has produced 50-60 million tons every year for the past decade. Much of this is controlled by massive agrobusiness outfits such as Monsanto. The consolidation of local farms into these huge companies happened over the 20th century and considers to accelerate.

Where there is money, there is political influence. But surely the people responsible for our health are looking after us, right? Not trying to help out big business at the expense of our health?

In many cases they are the same people. The above diagram is from a right-leaning website but I’m sure the list would expand if you put a magnifying glass to the republican party as well. For further evidence of the government’s support of agrobusiness, check out the subsidies on wheat, which amounted to over $34 billion of your tax dollars from 1995 to 2011.

Hiding behind the image of the farmer, many justify the actions of these companies but the fact of the matter is the local farmers you see don’t need subsidies because they aren’t competing in international markets. These are the companies that in many cases turned them from business owners into employees.

And if you’re open to making your extra tinfoil into a hat, there are also those that say that big pharma is involved, keeping the population sick. After all, how much lipitor can you sell to a healthy nation?

Full circle

Regardless of what you believe, the fact is that there are ulterior motives to the recommendations of the government. If this cannot be trusted, the bottom falls out for any rationalization made by the mainstream media and consumers. Think for yourself and stay tuned for some of the consequences the grains we are pushed can have on your health.

Charcuterie: Off The Grid Food Storage For Meats

Ever eat cured raw pork?On my list skills to learn is the lost art of off grid meat preservation. I can meats, store meat in the freezer, and have some canned seafood in our primal pantry. What happens when the fragile electrical grid goes down? Leaning to cure meat for long-term storage would be a great skill for bartering, building resilient preps, and, well, it’s just plain cool to see meat hanging from the ceiling in your basement or root cellar.

Caroline Cooper has an interesting article on her blog (eatkamloops) about a technique I’ve never heard of or was able to pronounce. Click here for the proper pronunciation. It’s fun to say and sounds like it’d be fun to make and eat.

Any of y’all ever tried making charcuterie? I’d like to hear from you.

Pantry Foods: Charcuterie

Source: eatkamloops

Charcuterie adds a wonderful element to winter pantry food. A small slice of cured meat goes a long way with its rich flavor. With traditional charcuterie there is a natural order to when the cured meats are ready and when the cured meats should be eaten.

“These dry-cured meats and sausages, almost always sliced thin, are dense and chewy, with a strong, dry-cured flavor and smooth, satiny fat. When we eat them, we’re most often eating pork that’s never gone above room temperature, let along come close to the 150F recommended by government. And yet, properly prepared, these are perfectly safe to eat. There really is nothing similar to eating cured raw meat — it has a flavor and an effect like no other food.”

Charcuterie: The Craft and Salting, Smoking and Curing by Michael Ruhlman

Raw cured ribs are the first cured product to come out of the cellar. Sliced thinly, the sweet meat of the ribs is a wonderful contrast to the salty cure. One rib will satisfy.

I just wanted to share a few pictures of the cured pork my husband Shaen made with the expert mentoring from Joe Trotta. Charcuterie is not an easy craft to learn from books. Charcuterie is a craft best passed down from the older generation to the younger generation. If you are interested in learning the craft, I have no books for you, or courses you can take. You will just have to look around and find someone knowledgeable in the craft and someone willing to mentor you in the techniques. If you can find someone to show you how to cure raw meats, the process becomes simple, and the stress of wondering if you are doing it right, is greatly reduced.

Two warnings. Hurry up and learn. Many of the people who know these techniques are older. Many have children that do not value the wisdom that came from the old country and have never learned the craft. These old techniques are dying with the people, and unless we learn their knowledge, the knowledge will pass out of this world. If you are a professional cook or chef, you will have to empty your cup of knowledge, if you want to learn traditional charcuterie. Everything you think you know about FOODSAFE is wrong regarding these foods. If you come to traditional cured foods with your own ideas of how to do it right, you will likely miss the mark, and mess up the process. Saying “Oh my God, that isn’t safe,” is meaningless and disrespectful to someone who has eaten these foods their whole life.

This is raw cured bacon with sea salt and paprika. The sticks help keep the bacon flat and stop it from curling. This is the second cured product out of the cellar. Very few people have enjoyed the flavor of raw bacon. It can be cooked but you will miss the satiny smoothness of the fat.

“Dry-curing results in a beautiful type of sausage, the most individualistic, idiosyncratic, and temperamental sausage there is, precisely because of its reliance on atmospheric conditions, which change all year round, and the presence of varying microflora in the air.”

Soppressata is the third cured product out of the cellar. Soppressata is made from raw pork, sea salt and paprika which is stuffed into the pig’s intestine. There is no curing salts or other ingredients. Soppressata’s flat appearance is from pressing to help remove air from the salami.

But when your sausage has dried just right, and you slice it thin, and the interior is a glistening deep crimson red with bright pearly chunks of fat, it is incredibly exciting. This is real mastery over the food we prepare. To make a home-cured pork sausage, with just salt and pepper for seasoning, is a deeply gratifying experience, like making a great wine.”

Soppressata is hung by it’s string on clothes hangers cut into hooks. Soppressata with its white coat is an eerie sight in the cellar. The white coating is safe to eat though traditional Italian sausage makers like Joe wipe the soppressata with vinegar and water to remove the coating.

Mastering the technique of transforming raw meat and fat, whether a sausage or a whole muscle, into something delicious without using heat, enhances your ability to work with all food. This is true craftsmanship, craftsmanship aiming for art, a craft reliant on the cook’s skill and knowledge and, perhaps, a little bit of divine intervention.”

Divine intervention indeed. Or maybe just allowing for the peaceful co-existence of humans with their helpful bacterial friends. When you cure long-term your household will become colonized with helpful microbiota. If you would like to learn more about traditional Italian curing please see: Pantry Foods: Fast Cured Green Olives.

Related articles

• Bacon, sausage and ham, oh my. Learn charcuterie at Save on Meats (blogs.vancouversun.com)

Coconut Oil: A Prepper’s Panacea

I just ordered a 5 gallon bucket of coconut oil. I’ve posted before about the greatness of this humble, healthy oil. Below, Daisy Luther gives even more reasons to add it to your kitchen pantry, bathroom, and food storage larder. Check out her bio and updated site for healthy prepping tips. I’ve added her link to our Blogroll and Resources page.

Still doing the stuff,

Todd

Reprinted with permission from the author

_______________________

Author bio: Daisy Luther is a freelance writer and editor.  Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at daisy@theorganicprepper.ca

December 7, 2012

What shelf stable item can be used (nutritiously) in place of butter, shortening, and cooking oil, and then pressed into duty as a health and beauty aid?

Coconut oil!

One of my favorite pantry items is my big jar of organic virgin coconut oil, and the crazy thing is, I don’t even like coconuts.  If you slip me a cookie that has those nasty little flakes of coconut in them, I’ll probably spit it out – I really, emphatically don’t like coconut!  I am stressing this point because coconut oil has a place in the kitchen of even the most die-hard coconut hater (like me!).

Sometimes people who are seeking a healthier lifestyle make the mistake of avoiding all fats.  Sure, eating a bag of Doritoes covered in cheese is terrible for you (in more ways than just the fat content!) – but certain fats can be a healthy, and very necessary,  part of your diet.  In fact, these “healthy fats” can actually aid in weight loss, if that is your goal.  Some examples of these healthy fats would be those from nuts, avocados, seeds, certain fish, and coconut oil. Consumption of these fats will improve your hair, your skin, your immune system, and your organ function when consumed in moderate quantities. As well, certain nutrients are fat soluble and can only be properly used by your body in the presence of fat.  For example, Vitamins A, D, E, and K should be taken when you eat a small amount of fat.

All coconut oils are not created equally. There are a few basic types of coconut oil, and it’s important to get the “right” kind for your needs in order to reap the full benefits of your purchase.

Refined or Unrefined?

First, you’ll need to decide between refined and unrefined.  This relates to the process of extracting the oil.

A refined coconut oil is separated by heat.  Refined coconut oil is more heat-stable and can be used in cooking methods like frying.  Many people opt for refined coconut oil because it is flavorless and odorless. The shelf life of a refined coconut oil, according to the expiration dates is 18 months to 2 years.  A refined coconut oil loses some nutritional benefits but how much really depends upon the refining process that is used.

• Expeller Pressed:  This is the traditional method of extracting coconut oil.  No chemicals are used in this method – the oil is extracted by a machine which physically presses out the oil, then is deodorized by distilling it with steam.  If you opt for a refined oil, look for “expeller pressed” on the label.
• RBD:  The RBD (refining bleaching deodorizing) process often uses chemical solvents like hexane to extract the oil. (Hexane is a toxic chemical that can be used to dissolve adhesive, cement and glue.)  This process is generally performed on previously dried coconut kernel called copra, which is often made from lower quality or old coconuts.

An unrefined coconut oil is also called virgin or extra-virgin coconut oil.  This oil has the light scent and flavor of coconut, which disappears somewhat when used in cooking. This type of coconut oil has the most nutritional benefits and the shelf life has been documented as anywhere from 2-5 years, to “indefinite”.

Health Benefits

The number one health benefit of coconut oil is that about 50% of it is lauric acid, an essential fatty acid that is only otherwise found naturally in such high levels in human breast milk. The human body turns lauric acid into monolaurin, which contains antiviral, antimicrobial, antiprotozoal and antifungal properties, so basically, it boosts your immunity in every possible way.

Read the rest here

Author bio: Daisy Luther is a freelance writer and editor.  Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at daisy@theorganicprepper.ca

Pastured Poultry Butchering

Kids say the darndest things. The topic of where our food comes from was raised in my new Science classroom a few year back. I’m still in shock at Tony’s ‘enlightened’ response on the origin of meat. “From the ground,” he said. I probed. I never pass up these entertainment opportunities.

“So, it’s kinda like planting corn,” I asked.

“Yep. You plant some meat in the ground and it grows,” he said with confidence. That, my friend, is called job security.

Tony, if you’re reading this, you can stop wondering where pastured chickens come from. Matronofhusbandry over at Throwback at Trapper Creek gave me permission to share this with you and the Sherpa crowd. I love their site. It chronicles the similarities and differences of homesteading on a 1881 farm and in present day.  Located in the Pacific Northwest, their goal is to be as self-sufficient as possible. Our kind of folk. Take some time to read their musings and practical articles.

Now for the featured article. HEED the WARNING for the squeamish, vegans, and/or vegetarians.

Not for the squeamish…

June 28, 2008

WARNING – LOTS OF BLOOD AND BODY PARTS WILL BE SHOWN AFTER THE SERENE VIDEO and the first 5 pictures.

Last supper – really it is last lunch.

[Click here to view their short Pastured Poultry video]

Here is what those adorable chicks I showed you 8 weeks ago, turned into.  Grass and grain eating and pooping fertilizing fools.   I’ve just moved them to fresh grass, and am watering them, you can see them grazing and doing the contented chicken leg and wing stretch.  They have had an enjoyable eight weeks.  I always think if I was a dog, I would want to be one of my dogs, and if I was a chicken, I would want to be one of my chickens… .

We withhold the feed the afternoon before processing the chickens.  They receive water and fresh grass, but no grain.  This allows the crop  and the rest of the digestive system to clear out.  This step is important,  a clean crop and a flushed out intestinal tract make life a little more pleasant during this task.

We loaded them into our crates during the dark, they stay calm and settle right down in their crates.  They were going to get to travel and see other chickens in the nearby state of Washington at our friends farm, who let us come over and butcher when they do.  On the slate for the day:  4 adults and an assortment of kids from age 9 – 16 were going to  butcher 500 chickens and be cleaned up by lunchtime. This is in addition to doing chores as usual, on three farms They had 365, their friend from church had 70, and we were bringing 71.  We were home by noon.

As an aside to people who might be bothered by this post – I worked today alongside a nine year girl teaching her how to butcher a chicken.  Her biggest concern?  Her apron was a little too big, and the straps kept slipping off of her arms.  She was a trooper.  She stuck with it and like a good trail horse, she was bombproof, even getting playful and making a dead chicken fart, by bouncing it on the table.  I don’t think she wonders where her food comes from.

This post will be long on pictures, but I will try to explain each so you can see how we spent our day.  I’m still number crunching – I’m scared to see how much they cost me, but the accountant in me has to know to the penny.

Crossing the Columbia River, looking east towards home.

Yep, this is the place.

Jerseys and broiler pens.

Missy, our greeter.

New baby chicks.

*****WARNING***** the party is over!

 

Read the rest here and stop wondering where our food comes from

 

Add A Cow To Your Primal Pantry

I found this article from SurvivalBlog.com to be an excellent addition to my long-term Primal Pantry plans. Even cows function better when eating what they’re genetically engineered to consume.

Photo credit

The Family Cow, by Faith S.

How can a family cow be an ideal addition to your food storage and survival plan? We started our self-reliance plan with gardening.  Then we planted a few fruits and added chickens.   One day we realized that if we had a cow, we could truly be self-sufficient with our food supply.    We now raise family sized milk cows with grazing genetics in Virginia.  This article should persuade SurvivalBlog readers who own two or more acres, of the wisdom of owning a family cow. It should also answer questions we frequently hear.

Why a Cow?
Owning a cow produces milk, cream (butter, crème fraiche, sour cream, cream cheese), hundreds of cheeses, buttermilk, yogurt (which you can keep going for years), ice cream, meat (the bull calves), and manure for the garden and fields.  Raw grass-fed milk is 500% higher in conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) which is has health benefits for the heart, joints, and a myriad of other things.  Raw milk has natural probiotics and enzymes to help you digest all the goodness in the milk.  In fact, we learned that 90% of people who think they are dairy intolerant, are just reacting to the processing.  We used to think that three in our family were allergic to milk but found out that they can all drink raw milk and have no reactions whatsoever.

Raw milk is probably one of the most nutritious foods on the planet and has all the amino acids.  According to history, the famous Mongolian warlord Genghis Khan would ride a mare and take a mare into the rugged winter mountains and live on raw mare’s milk for weeks at a time during his battle forays.   One could survive quite a long time on raw milk.  I know people who have done raw milk fasts for weeks at a time and their health thrived.

How to Purchase a Family Milk Cow? 
One can choose to purchase a calf or a mature cow.  There are advantages to both and some of it may come down to personal preference and/or budget.
It will be less expensive to start with a weanling.  If one starts with a calf that has been “bottle” fed (as long as the calf has been fed with the bottle in a bottle holder the calf should not become too pushy.  Otherwise, they tend to butt you as they would their mom.  That is not “cute” when they get bigger.  Make sure the calf has been raised on real milk for four months.  This insures that the rumen will properly develop so they can digest forages as an adult and not need to have much grain, especially if you get what we call grazing genetics, which I will explain later.  It also sets the cow up for a healthier immune system for life.

If you purchase a weanling, we suggest halter breaking and leading it while young.  Also, touch her all over.  Touch her on her belly, legs, udder, etc.  Make her move her leg back like you would if you were going to sit down and milk her.  Give her a voice command.  I say, “Move your leg back”.  Once your calf has bonded to you, it takes much less time to maintain that familiarity.  If your calf gets too pushy, correct them as mama would.   A smack to the nose, which is tender, and a sharp, “no!” usually works.  Eventually they learn what “no” means.

You could also purchase a mature cow but be forewarned that unless they are hand-milking already, you may need lots of determination  and patience to train them.  Mentoring would be useful too.  Sometimes a cow takes to milking almost right away once they get over their fear of people but it can take a good bit of patience if they were not what we call “gentled” as a calf.  The obvious advantage of an adult is that you can enjoy your milk and other dairy products right away.  Usually a neighbor or friend will donate money toward the care and upkeep of the cow to help pay for her, and take the extra milk if you have extra.

If the SHTF you can always breed her to a bull of any kind in the neighborhood but a cow will also keep lactating for years.  You just will not get the peak production that a freshening brings on.  However, you can live pretty well on 2 gallons a day, which is what the average Jersey should maintain with decent grazing and no grain.  Especially after the second and even third lactation which get subsequently more productive.

Size?   
Size is one thing to consider.  You could purchase a miniature cow such as Dexter.   I personally have not been impressed with them but do your own research.  If you purchase a Dexter, make sure they come from milking breeding lines, as many Dexter’s are not milked and being bred for production.   You could purchase a mini Hereford that will not give as much milk but as any beef breed, can be milked.  Our favorite cow is the Jersey whether mini or full-sized.  The minis as a rule do not give as much milk and to be honest, there is always some way to use extra milk.  I will cover that later.  However, mini’s work well for some situations such as smaller acreage, family size, and are sometimes not as intimidating to new hobby farmers.  Minis will cost more as a rule.  All Jerseys whether mini or standard have wonderful cream so we skim off ½ of the cream to use for our ice cream and butter and we still have great tasting milk.  To me the most important factor to consider as far as intimidation goes is whether the cow was gentled (not spoiled) as a calf and whether it trusts and is bonded to people.

Read the rest here