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.

When the Cat and Mouse Agree, the Grocer is Ruined

by Todd Walker

Moose, our largest rescued dog, will sit in the backyard and watch squirrels steadily eat the sunflower seeds from our bird feeders. When we open the door to go outside, he springs to his feet and sprint toward the offending tree rats. They scurry up trees and wait until we go back in and Moose, our beloved squirrel watchdog, settles back to his post.

They’re both in on this seed-stealing racquet – a mutual agreement of sorts. He’s obliged to attack when the backdoor opens, they fain fear. Oh, they’ll sacrifice an occasional slow squirrel to make their cat and mouse game look real for us onlookers. In reality, it’s just a game they play.

This analogy is easily applied to many aspects of our world today. The consequences are far more serious than our backyard escapades. In our rigged world, the grocer being ruined is you.

Here are just two examples the cat agreeing with the mouse to ruin the grocer.

1.) The FDA and the Industrial Cancer Machine

Dirt Road Girl has only had one doctor (let’s call him Dr. Jones) tell us to seek alternative cancer treatment – off the record of course. This doctor has to keep his job. When I asked if he had heard of Dr. Burzynski, I was surprised, no, shocked that he did. He knew of Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski’s gene-targeted approach using non-toxic peptides and amino acids, known as antineoplastons. I’ll not go into detail on how the FDA and the Texas Medical Board spent years and millions of dollars attempting to ruin and silence his patented treatment. Click here for more info if you’re interested.

I called the Burzynski Clinic and asked about DRG being treated there in January 2012. Our insurance would not cover the treatment because it wasn’t FDA approved. We were in the rock-and-hard-place scenario. We went with the conventional route. When a loved one’s life is on the line, you do whatever you think is the best method of healing.

One side benefit of our conventional experience has been the great awakening we’ve experienced watching the creepy-cozy mutualism between Big Pharma and the medical establishment. Dr. Jones flat-out told us that pharmaceutical companies call the shots for mainstream medical practitioners. The system is set up to punish anyone who doesn’t prescribe their ‘best practices’ and drugs.

The bottom line is: Follow the money trail. The FDA is supposed to act as a ‘cat’ protecting the grocer (individuals) from destructive vermin. As in Dr. Burzynski’s case, the FDA has admitted that his treatment actually cures resistant forms of cancer. The problem lies in that one man, Dr. Burzynski, owns the patent and would be the only beneficiary if the FDA approved his methods. Big Pharma would not get their usual piece of the money pie. So, it makes perfect monetary sense for those deeply invested in the Industrial Cancer Machine to keep their mouths shut and do as they are told – by the deep pockets of Big Pharma.

What can you, the individual grocer, do to escape ruin?

Question everything. Get second opinions. Seeking alternative treatment for life threatening medical issues like cancer is a very scary individual journey. The powers that be throw all their resources into preserving their monopoly. They spin every treatment outside their reservation as quackery. Do your own research and make your own decisions. If a free market existed in medicine, one could choose, based on self-interest, which method of treatment to pursue – without regulation. If a treatment is truly quackery, it would soon be exposed. On the other hand, effective treatments are available to individuals that are being silenced by our ‘watchdog’ FDA’s marriage to Big Pharma.

The marriage has been consummated – and we’re the ones being forcibly screwed.

Investigate for yourself:

• Vitamin D
• Hemp oil – A Harvard Medical School study found that marijuana cuts lung cancer tumor growth in half.
• Burzynski, The Movie
• Several alternative protocols listed here

2.) The Industrial Food Machine

Children drinking fresh milk, Australia 1929 / Sam Hood

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Obviously, living a healthy, active lifestyle is less expensive than conventional medical treatments. Eating a diet of nutrient dense, organic, whole foods is becoming more and more difficult. Enter the pesky FDA (and other alphabet agencies) yet again. Are you starting to see a common denominator in our equation? It’s that money trail again. Follow it.

Increasing your level of self-sufficiency, preparedness, and resilience has certain costs. You may not need a permission slip from local authorities to grow a backyard garden or raise a few chickens – yet. Times are changing. The Powers That Be hate individuals following their natural self-interest of independence. Even growing a garden for a portion of your own food can turn you into a Freedom Outlaw.

You may have missed some of these stories of ordinary, everyday people taking their health into their own hands.

• War on raw milk
• Steve Cooksey was drug and insulin dependent, taking (4) insulin shots per day, just to survive. His nutritional blog came under attack by North Carolina’s regime because his method of breaking free from insulin shots didn’t meet conventional USDA standards. He found freedom through following a primal/paleo lifestyle.
• Gardening Outlaws in Michigan, Florida, and Oklahoma have been targeted for arrest, harassment, and fines.

Reducing nutrient dense food choices is not the stated goal of the FDA. They would not admit that Genetically Modified foods are harmful to humans. They’ve got 90 day studies to prove that GMO’s are safe for ingestion – wink, wink. Independent long-term studies are showing otherwise. Another discrediting blow to our we’re-from-the-government-and-here-to-help crowd.

Food and water are essential to our survival and ability to thrive. The Industrial Food Machine wants total control of these life-sustaining resources. Thankfully, more ‘common folk’ are beginning to wake up to the lies promoted by the elite’s ministry of myths. As the orbit of freedom continues to expand, thanks to independent, alternative news sources, people are starting to ‘get it’. We’ve been lied to. Over and over.

“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” was the line screamed from Howard Beale in the classic film Network in 1975. Simply screaming out the window and into the streets won’t change the game our cat and mouse are playing. You’ll only loose your voice. Individual action is needed to protect the grocer (you and me).

Action Steps to Food Freedom

• Grow your own food.
• Buy locally produced food.
• Connect with local farmers, farmers markets, and food coops.
• Stock up on non-hybird, heirloom seeds.
• Find resilient-minded people in your community and connect.
• Get educated. Do the opposite of what the USDA/FDA recommends – unless their methods agree with your lifestyle.

Not only are we to register our guns, children, property, and even our thoughts, it won’t be long before we have to register our backyard gardens. Control is the goal. Are you really willing to submit and put tumor producing GMO’s into the bodies of your children? I didn’t think so.

Don’t wait for the cat to keep the mice in check.

Stock up on plenty of rat shoot – if you can find it.

Keep doing the stuff!

Related articles

• Case Dismissed! Texas Ends 15-Year Fight Against Cancer Doctor Burzynski (articles.mercola.com)

Do You Have the Guts to Survive?

 

Maintaining your gut for survival

by JP Martin

Source: Bug Out Nutrition

Gut Flora

Pop quiz: do you know how many cells are in your body? The answer is close to 100 trillion. However, the number of cells that belong to your body proper are outnumbered by bacteria within your body by almost 10 to 1. Woah.

Let that settle in for a minute. In reality, you  are less of a single organism and more of a symbiotic colony of a number of different ones. Even in the body cells proper, organelles called mitochondria have their own set of DNA and are effectively a different organism.

Yet most of the focus on medicine throughout history has been focused on the observable. Only recently has the function of the bacteria within us become a popular topic of study in health sciences.

The lion’s share of this bacteria lives within the gut, the area including the large and small intestines. They are essential to many roles within digestion and without them, we would not be able to process food correctly. We need their enzymes to break down certain foods or absorb vitamins and nutrients.

Another key role that the gut flora plays is in the protection of the body against threats. The gut is one of the most contaminated environments in the body and the potential for bad bacteria to build up and cause illness is always present. The bacteria within your gut can protect against negative bacteria and change the environment to prevent infection.

Gut permeability

To the naked eye, the intestines seem to be a more or less solid barrier. However, on a cellular level this couldn’t be farther from the truth. The cells of the small and large intestinal walls are known as epithelium. Between them they are held together by what is known as tight junctions which, for the most part, remain tight.

However, a number of things can cause the tight junctions to break apart. Considering the incredibly dynamic nature of what passes through the guy. When these junctions leak, the incredibly septic contents of predigested food and bacteria can leak into the massive amount of blood vessels which surround the gut. This can lead to massive inflammation in the body at large and even brain problems.

Read the rest here

Related articles

• Acquisition of Gut Flora in the Infant (thepaleonurse.com)

 

How Chronic Couch Preppers Can Look Good Naked Again

by Todd Walker

Do you hate mirrors!

In the not so distant past, mirrors were my arch-enemy. I’d talk myself into believing that the shirt hid my love handles. The Dirt Road Girl must have used a shrinking agent in the laundry. Wait a minute! That doesn’t explain my leather belt shrinking. Hum. What’s up with that?!

I had become a chronic couch prepper. I was carrying 50 more pounds than my once athletic frame was intended to haul. In my delusional mind, I figured on summoning super-hero strength if the time came for me to hump my 40 pound bug-out-bag plus an extra 50 pounds of self-indulgent body fat. Pulling myself up by the bootstraps in a SHTF scenario or emergency situation has it’s time and place. What do I do when merely reaching for my boot straps is exhausting?

If you’ve followed my journey any length of time, you’ve heard me talk about my primal/paleo lifestyle. It’s not some fad diet. It’s a lifestyle of making choices and taking your health and fitness into your own hands. I can’t imagine that preparedness minded people would not embrace this lifestyle. Going into any emergency, natural or man-made, optimal health and fitness might give you the edge in survival. The people who depend on you can’t if you’re a chronic couch prepper.

If you stumbled upon this site and aren’t into preparedness, self-reliance, and resilience, but are looking for a solution to the dieting dungeon and want to experience real long-term health and fitness, you’re in the right place.

The benefits of going primal

Since going primal in February 2010, I’ve lost the aching joints, irritated bowel, sugar cravings, and 50 pounds. I’ve gained confidence in my physical abilities, muscle mass, increased energy levels, new appreciation for play, and a lifestyle of healthy living. An added bonus is I look good naked again – according to Dirt Road Girl Vanity? Not really. It just goes with the territory of a primal lifestyle.

Do you have to follow the primal lifestyle to be physically fit? No. It’s the path I’ve followed and highly recommend for those who have tried ‘everything’.

Prisoner of the Pyramid

The real Zombie Food Pyramid is the USDA Food Pyramid

Nutrition is key to a healthy lifestyle. Following conventional wisdom on nutrition was a big fail for me and millions of Americans. I have two degrees in Health and Physical Education. In those six years, I was schooled to follow the conventional wisdom of eating mostly carbs mixed with a little fat and protein. Great plan if you value chronic health problems, fatigue, and dying. Following the misinformation put out by our benevolent government (corporate-driven USDA food pyramid) will only help you remain a chronic couch prepper. Why would they do that? Follow the money. I’ve chosen to abandon willful ignorance and take control of my own life. Self-reliance and preparedness starts within you.

RESET!

Flip the pyramid upside down and start over. Eat no grains, or grain based meals for one month. Hold on there pilgrim! All preppers know that storing grain in 5 gallon buckets is the way to survive TEOTWAWKI. Again, think like a hunter/gatherer. Destroy the old conventional paradigm. I know this will offend and even anger traditional/conventional preparedness folks. I’m no expert on nutrition, I just know what worked for me. All I’m asking is that you take the challenge for one month. Break free from the conventional wisdom and give it a chance.

The Caveman’s Gym

What would Grok do? Short and intense is better than long and grueling. I’ve had friends join me on my work outs. They are very simple and minimalist. No gym membership, long hours, expensive equipment, or boring stuff. Here’s some of the ‘gym’ equipment I use.

• My body weight for pull ups, push ups, lunges, and squats.
• Rocks for throwing and lifting.
• Fallen trees, broken into manageable pieces, are used for weighted squats and balance.
• Sledge hammer swung at old tires. I also do Shovelglove. Never heard of it. Click here to check it out. Splitting wood with a sledgehammer, wedge, and axe are great full body movement creating functional fitness.
• Don’t discount children and grandchildren. I hoist my grandson on my shoulders (40 pounds) every time he comes over and we do our walk. Well, he rides and giggles. I walk.
• 7 gallon water containers. Grab two that are full to perform killer lunge sets. I don’t do many with that weight. Work up to heavier weight with two gallon jugs of water or other object with a handle.
• Sprint as fast as you can every 7 to 10 days. This is all out effort whether you bike, run, or swim. My sprint sessions only last about 10 minutes. Long slow distance only leads to stress related injuries (chronic cardio)…especially in shoes.
• Tree climbing. I’m not talking about with a deer climbing stand either. Get over your domesticated workout and go wild!
• Here’s another wild workout I posted that you may find helpful.

Functional fitness for SHTF

Specialization is for insects. “Time to go to the gym,” my buddy moaned. He can bench press 400 pounds but can barely squeak out a pull up. In any survival situation, versatility will be the key to not becoming room temperature. If he and I were hiking and had to climb a tree to escape a charging wild boar, he might be out of luck. Ever watch a dog ‘exercising’ outside? He doesn’t run in a boring circles. He mixes it up with jumping, sprinting, sparing, playing, with an occasional stop to pee on bushes. Animals move without monotony. Movement is survival.

Wild animals depend on their ability to move to survive. The odds of us having to sprint to the nearest tree to outrun a wild beast is small. WTSHTF it’s the two-legged predators I’m worried about. Knowing we could escape a dangerous encounter is rewarding. More practically, could I carry my wife or children to safety if called upon? Our fitness level should be well-rounded. We’ve got to be strong to be useful.

Here are a few resources I recommend to get you into the wild and moving naturally.

1) The 13 MovNat Movement Skills© (Check out this site for natural movement)

If you’re wondering what moving naturally means for human beings, think of human species-specific movement aptitudes. Visualize how the human animal would move in nature for his survival – that is natural human movement.

‘Aren’t there more natural ways to move naturally than just running?’

Human beings possess locomotive skills such as 1) walking, 2) running, 3) jumping, 4) balancing, 5) crawling, 6) climbing, or 7) swimming.

In addition to locomotive skills, human beings also utilize manipulative skills such as 8) lifting, 9) carrying, 10) throwing, and 11) catching, and 12) throwing and combative skills, such as 13) striking or grappling.

2) Mark’s Daily Apple. Reprogram your genes for effortless weight-loss, vibrant health and boundless energy.

3) The Paleo Solution. Revolutionary solutions to modern life.

4) Free The Animal. Richard Nikoley’s quest to live a primal/paleo lifestyle.

If you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired when it comes to your workout, give these suggestions a try.

You’re turn. What’s been your exercise regiment? – I hate that word. It’s so hard to keep up with a regiment. Share your wild functional workout with us.

NOTE: A recent email conversation with Daisy Luther got us both thinking about the importance of fitness and health for survival. Over the next few weeks I’ll be putting together a more detailed series on functional fitness, healthy living, and unconventional advice for those following a preparedness and self-sustainable lifestyle.

Got anything in particular that you’d like to hear discussed?

Related articles

• Doing Push-ups for Preparedness (survivalsherpa.wordpress.com)
• The Paleo Solution For Preppers (survivalsherpa.wordpress.com)
• Survival Fitness: Walk the Walk (dprogram.net)

 

Forehead-Smacking-Simple Health Hacks for Intermittent Fasting

By Todd Walker

Lifting heavy things in a fasted state

Abundance and scarcity. Are we meant to live in abundance always? In our modern world of food at all hours, convenience on demand, and an all out orgy of sensory stimulation our survival genes don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of getting expressed.

I woke up in a warm home, crawled out of bed, went to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee in my electric coffee pot with water from my Berkey filter. Then I turned on my computer and started my daily routine. I’m sipping on a cup of joe with a teaspoon of coconut oil and some heavy organic whipping cream as I attempt to share my thoughts. Amazing! All our progress as a species allows me to enjoy modern invention and convenience.

Pursuit of pleasure is part of our genetic code. I’m all about enjoying and using these life luxuries. However, to be true to my genetic soup, scarcity needs to be introduced to make my genes really thrive. In Primal Connection, Mark Sission states that the genes we inherited from our hunter-gather ancestors haven’t changed when it comes to health related and survival issues. The paradox occurs because we engage in behaviors that were originally intended to enhance our survivability, but now there are no saber-toothed tiger adding selection pressure to our species. Today we live in overabundance with easy access to out of season fruits, vegetables, and treats that were once hard to come by.

Shocking our genes with scarcity takes a conscious effort on our part. It’s what our genetic soup expects. Intermittent fasting is one way to shock our system out of homeostatic boredom. Proceed with knowledge and caution before attempting IF.

First, here are few benefits of fasting intermittently

• Reduces inflammation:  Inflammation is a major warning sign for many modern diseases.
• Reduces cardiac risk factors, such as triglycerides, weight, and blood sugar levels.
• Coupled with high intensity interval training, IF can counteract lean muscle loss. One recent study confirms the positive effects of fasting on human growth hormone (HGH) which works to protect lean muscle mass and metabolic balance – in a 24 hour window of fasting, HGH increased an average of 1,300 percent in women, and nearly 2,000 percent in men. As an added bonus, HGH plays an important role in anti-aging. At age 50, I like that
• Increased life span and cancer fighter
• IF’ing causes hunger and stress, which triggers your body to burn fat as a fuel source instead of carbohydrates.

IF is a supplement to a healthy lifestyle – not a magic wand

Is IF for everyone? The simple answer is no. NOTE: If your diet consists of processed foods loaded with toxins, sugars, and carbs, it would be wise to stop here and consider what you do eat before moving forward with any fasting protocol. Fasting may do more harm than good for Standard American Diet eaters. Check out The Primal Blueprint for how I eat.

When I opened one of my plumbing tool boxes last weekend before I headed to my in-laws to repair their kitchen sink, I notice a few tools I haven’t used in while. Memories of using them with my daddy rushed through my mind. I’ve kept these tools in my collection because one day I’ll need one to get the job done which only that tool is designed. I’ll never throw away these hidden tools because they have a specialized purpose – and sentimental value.

Before dismissing fasting and slamming the lid of your health and fitness toolbox, let’s examine fasting as a useful tool/weapon in your overall lifestyle. I love life hacks that create forehead-smacking, why-didn’t-I-think-of-that simplicity – little shortcuts to enhance my ‘Sherpa Simple’ lifestyle.

Sherpa Simple - Living life 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.

If things get too complicated, I’m probably doing something wrong. In the spirit of Sherpa Simple, here are my forehead-smacking-simple hacks for intermittent fasting.

1.) There’s no one right way to fast. If you’ve never tried fasting, you may imagine the experience to be a prison sentence or the end of the world as you know it – or it may prove to be a whole new world for thriving health. Intentionally skipping meals goes against many conventional wisdom advisers. Do your own research before starting IF. I’ll also add the obligatory “consult your physician before changing your diet or starting a fasting protocol” – which may be completely useless as I’ve found in my conversations with conventional medical practitioners. But there it is, my CYA statement.

Below are a few methods to experiment with. What works for me is a 16 to 18 hour fast. That means I skip breakfast and eat around 11:3o after my sprint workouts. I sometimes graze on nuts or eat a pickled beet egg before my allotted fasting time ends. That’s okay. Keep it simple and pay attention to your body. Don’t get all legalistic and dogmatic about IF. Do what works for you and be flexible.

These suggestions come from Mark Sisson’s excellent how-to guide on fasting. Mark’s work introduced me to IF after I started my primal lifestyle three years ago.

• Skipped Meal:As Mark alludes to in his comment in the 1/3 meals post, he likes to miss meals naturally or on an unplanned basis. When we listen to our bodies rather than blindly follow routine we find we’re not always hungry when mealtime comes around. Let yourself skip a meal when this happens, or plan a meal skip during a convenient time.

  Condensed Eating Window:
  As shown in the comments from last week’s post, this is a popular option. The day’s food intake is condensed within a set number of hours, often somewhere between four and seven hours. The timing of this window varies depending on the individual’s schedule and preferences. The time since you prior meal or until you next day’s meal becomes the fasting period.

  Early and Late:
  For some, this option is more easily managed than the condensed eating window. The day’s food intake and nutrients are balanced between an early meal and later afternoon/early evening meal.

  Single Twenty-Four Fast:
  Most people choose to have a normal dinner and then fast until the following evening. Others choose to extend the fast until the following morning. For many people, this can be a weekly routine. Others may integrate it on a monthly basis or as an occasional event based on their sense of progress/plateau.

  Alternating Day Fast for Week (or more):
  This approach is often credited with a deeper “cleansing” character. Some people do it once or twice a year. Others make a seasonal commitment. You can choose to drink only water or include teas/small amounts of juices during fasting days. On the alternate days, some people choose to eat normally, and some opt for reduced caloric intakes.

Here are a few more alternatives to help you get started

• Leangains by Martin Berkhan. Try his method if you’re already working out with heavy things on a regular basis and can handle do so in a state of fasting. He recommends only drinking no caloric liquids during the fast. * WARNING* It’s not okay to drink diet sodas as he recommends.
• Fast and Feasting is a plan by Ori Hofmekler which combines under-eating, hunger, and exercise together to re-design our bodies and health. Read Dr. Mercola’s interview with Ori here.

Who should NOT be IF’ing?

• Chronically stressed individuals. Why add more fuel to the stress-fire?
• Non-fat adapted individuals. Folks that can’t go 3 or 4 hours without eating a meal. Can you skip a meal without feeling light-headed and dizzy? You may be fat adapted – you muscles are using fat as their fuel instead of mainly relying on carbs – the normal human metabolism.
• Pregnant or nursing mothers.
• Diabetics or persons with other eating disorders. Really consult your physician in this case.
• Elite athletes or even a person going through intense training most days of the week. Don’t add scarcity to your training menu.

IF is not for everyone. Although now might be the time to find out if it’s right for you (if you’ve met the prerequisites). The day may come when you have no other choice and experience forced fasting due to scarcity of food in a real TEOTWAWKI scenario. Building resilient food sources (free-range meat sources, community connections, and growing your own fruits and vegetables) into your lifestyle gives you an edge and ability to bounce back from unknown unknowns.

I can say that I’ve experienced resilience in my health from practicing IF. What about y’all? Got any IF stories to share?

 

Doing Push-ups for Preparedness

I do a lot of push-ups every day. Why? I don’t need fancy equipment, gym shorts, or a gym membership. Al Kavadlo does an excellent job with his guest post over at Mark’s Daily Apple explaining this perfect primal (and prepper) exercise. Can’t do a regular push-up? No worries. Take it step by step and gradually build up to massive amounts of this functional fitness exercise.

Push-ups: The Perfect Primal Exercise

This is a guest post from Al Kavadlo of AlKavadlo.com.

Push-ups are one of the oldest and most widely known strength exercises on Earth. They’ve been a staple in military fitness, martial arts and just about every other type of exercise program that’s ever existed. Anyone who has even the slightest interest in working out has probably tried to do a push-up at least once in their life.

Funny thing is, amongst many modern fitness enthusiasts, the push-up is often overlooked due to its simplicity. A lot of people are under the misconception that something so basic couldn’t possibly be the best overall upper-body exercise out there. Even members of the primal community who know better than to buy into mainstream hype are often skeptical of my claim that the humble push-up is nature’s perfect exercise.

I hope you’re at least willing to hear me out.

 

Perfect Push-up

Push-ups are as close to a perfect exercise as you can get. They work your entire upper-body (including your abs), and can be modified in an infinite number of ways to suit any fitness level. Push-ups emphasize the chest, shoulders and triceps but every muscle in the body has to do its part for a proper push-up to take place. Your lats, traps and abs must stabilize your pushing muscles, while your lower back, legs and glutes need to stay engaged to keep your hips from sagging or piking up too high. Like many calisthenics exercises, push-ups teach your muscles to work in harmony with one another.

But my favorite thing about push-ups is that they don’t require anything more than a floor, so you can do them anywhere. And as I always say, If you don’t have a floor, you’ve got much bigger problems!

Wall Push-up

Everyone knows strength training is great for your muscles, but a lot of people don’t realize that working out also does a lot for your bones, tendons and other connective tissue. It’s true though; strength training makes the entire body strong. It’s obvious when you really think about it – your connective tissue needs to be strong to support those muscles! Sometimes people are so concerned with aesthetic goals that they overlook the changes that can’t visibly be seen.

If you have bad shoulders, wrists or elbows, in time your joints can be restored with lower intensity variants like the wall push-up. The body can only be as strong as its weakest link, and connective tissue tends to be slower to adapt than muscle. A novice or an injured person should start with the wall push-up, working to 20 and eventually 50 consecutive reps in each set before moving on. To perform this variant, simply lean against a wall with your toes a few feet away and do the push-up movement from this semi-upright position.

Read the rest here

 

The Paleo Solution For Preppers

February will mark my third year of following a primal/paleo lifestyle. Finding other preparedness minded individuals living this lifestyle has been difficult at times. Recently I discovered JP Martin’s blog Bug Out Nutrition. He was on my Top Ten List recently and wrote an excellent article explaining why paleo is good for preppers. Enjoy.

Why paleo is good for preppers

by JP Martin

As you can imagine, as someone who has had a lifelong interest in nutrition, I have tried out my fair share of strange diets. From heavy bulking “see food diets” (you see food, you eat it. Yuk yuk yuk) to ultra low carb ketogenic diets, I have done almost all of them. Aside from drugs I’ve experimented with almost everything you can put in your body nutrition wise.

However, I ended up settling on a paleo diet which I’ve been eating for over two years now. Why did I stick with it? Paleo foods might be some of the best survival foods around. I have a few reasons why eating paleo is the best from a preparation perspective.

1. You’ll be doing it anyways

Preppers all around the world are obsessed what’s in their pantries. I don’t criticize, I think it’s a fine plan for many kinds of potential disasters. But the problem with this sort of strategy is that it’s dependent on the eventual return to civilization. What’s going to happen after infrastructure cuts down and you finish your last can of beans? You’re back to square one, living in the wild.

That’s if you have a choice. There are a lot of disaster scenarios in which you won’t be able to stay in your house. In the case of large scale civil unrest, you might not be able to defend your home. Sometimes it’s hard to think of what could happen if your house was attacked, but if you end up being the only person in the neighborhood with food things will turn Mad Max pretty quick.

Not a good discussion to get in with the neighbors

It’s probably not hard to guess but at BugOut Nutrition we’re fairly fond of, well, bugging out. There is food to be found in every climate in the world if you know where to look for it, it’s how we made it so far in the first place. By eating paleo, you’re one step closer to switching back to those roots if you need to.

2. Your health will be better

Paleo diets have been touted far and wide as one of the healthiest diets you can possibly eat. There are massive communities based around the results people can get from paleo style diets such as Mark’s Daily Apple. Check out some of the transformations people have seen when they go on paleo diets, they’re incredible.

Some of the stuff you can expect:

• Safe fat loss
• Improved muscle mass
• Clearer and healthier skin
• Improved mental performance
• Better energy and libido

I’ve recommended diets like these to my friends and family and have gotten incredible results for them. I’ve always been a pretty fit guy but my brother, who weighed 225 lbs at age 17 went on a paleo diet I recommended and lost close to 15 lbs the first month. He kept it up for 5 months and ended up getting down to a healthy weight of 175, a total loss of 50 lbs.

In the event of a disaster, who do you think is going to be more likely to survive getting out of dodge?

3. You’ll have fun doing it

Finding out ways to eat paleo food has brought me into a lot of fun situations. A little while ago my girlfriend and I went into a deep dive with paleo cooking for a strict month of paleo cooking. We ended up having to go way outside of our comfort zones when it came to shopping, checking out all sorts of weird grocery stores, farmer’s markets and holes in the wall to get ingredients we had never heard of. Learning how to cook a different style makes every meal an adventure of sorts.

There’s a sense of satisfaction from making something like paleo spaghetti and meatballs , indulging in it and knowing that you’re making yourself healthier. You’ll never know until you try though – so give it a shot!

 

Top 5 Resilience Resolutions with Homework Assignments for 2013

by Todd Walker

What a year!

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January 12, 2012 is etched in our memory, hearts, family, and bodies. Fear in her voice was relayed as I held the phone. “They found a mass in my lung,” she said. Four days later it was official. Dirt Road Girl was diagnosed with cancer in her lung and brain. The past 12 months was like riding the Scream Machine for the first time – with no seat belt or safety bar to hold us in the roller coaster. The good news is that DRG has made amazing progress in her fight for life.

We prepare for the unknown unknowns as best we can. This is the time of the year people usually make resolutions as to what they are going to stop doing or start doing. Out with the bad habits and in with the new, good habits. I’m no longer a big fan of goal setting. I prefer a life theme. Goals have always been an act of implementation. Start – work – achieve – now what? Once the target is met, there is a great sense of accomplishment usually. However, in my experience, goal setting seems to be less effective than adopting a lifestyle theme. It’s an individual choice. YMMV.

With the approaching new year, I go into reflection mode and tweak my theme. What did I do right last year? How can I improve our life in the new year?

There’s so much doom and gloom in the main stream media: Fiscal cliff, school shootings, never-ending wars, unemployment, and talk of gun confiscation. DRG’s journey has taught me that we aren’t guaranteed today, tomorrow, or next year. We’ve always given lip service to that fact. But how do we start living it, practicing it, and owning it?

I hated homework in school. That’s why I don’t assign any to my students. “You’re a bad teacher, Mr. Walker!” Really? Homework is designed to take up valuable time that could be used by students to pursue something that really interests them. Following their interest is how they discover learning and not just studying to pass some silly state standardized test.

Here is my top 5 list of ways to prepare for the new year. I’m going to break my No-Homework rule and give each of you a simple assignment. By the way, it’s for a grade. Extra credit if you share it with someone else.

1.) Health

Diets are not sustainable. Most diets aren’t even healthy. Once the bathroom scale stops screaming for relief and the mirror smiles at your naked body, how do you maintain the new you?

This is a foundational theme for our family. I think it was Ben Franklin who was credited with saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” This is never more true than when it comes to our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. More and more evidence shows the link between our eating and health. You are what you eat. The S.A.D. (Standard American Diet) is recommended by the government food pyramid and most prepper experts. The strategy to store food for disasters and end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenarios is smart. If you’ve followed my blog at all, you already know my beef with SAD food storage.

The prepper community, like most Americans, bought the lie about high fat, low carb eating plans. I had a receipt for my purchase until three years ago. If simply surviving is you goal, spend your cash on all the SAD foods you can afford to cache. Just remember that pesky notion about being what we eat. Why not adopt a new theme – a natural, healthy, unconventional lifestyle – for the new year. 2013 may force us all to prepare like cavemen. Go ahead and get a jump on the herd.

Homework Assignment: Dust the chalk board erasers, forget everything you’ve been taught about “healthy diets,” and take a 30 day challenge (heck, just try it for 21 days) – and report back with your results.

• Mark’s Daily Apple – Mark Sisson helps you follow the Primal Blueprint with help of “worker bees” and real community of primal lifestylers.
• The Organic Prepper – Daisy Luther offers practical advice on healthy prepping and low-tech solutions. We’ve featured several of her articles here.
• Bug Out Nutrition – A blog that applies the science of nutrition to survival.
• Mercola.com – Dr. Joseph Mercola’s excellent natural health website.

2.) Learn Liberty. Free Your Mind. Take the red pill.

Homework Assignment: Your reading and viewing assignments are listed below:

• Watch The Matrix. Rent it. Buy it. Watch it.
• LewRockwell.com. Visit regularly.
• Stop watching mainstream propaganda news for 30 days. I stopped 5 years ago. Ditched talk radio too. Here are a few of the alternative news sources I read regularly.

1. LewRockwell.com
2. Zero Hedge
3. Eric Peters Auto
4. Living Freedom
5. Before It’s News – They publish my RSS feed under “Self-Sufficiency”

3.) Build Tribe. Even if the gun-grabbers don’t get their unconstitutional bill passed, I’ve made this a priority. I met a gentleman a week ago to buy a tool for DRG. We made the transaction and I noticed the welding machine on his truck. He builds safes and safe-rooms. He also builds some very cool steel targets for pistol and rifle practice. I’d like to buy the welding machine from him. But I’ll have to settle for a few targets. Once I try them out I’ll post a review. By meeting this stranger, we found we have a lot in common. We plan on eating lunch together soon.

Coming in contact with others that you’d like to build tribe with sometimes happens accidentally. Other times I initiate the contact. I’ve got a meeting with a fellow blogger next week to begin building tribe. I’ve followed his blog for a while now and like how he thinks. Don’t forget your neighbors.

Homework Assignment: Approach at least one person outside your immediate family about building mutual assistance, relationship, and tribe. Use common sense. Don’t ask the first stranger in line at the grocery store to be in your tribe.

4.) Build Resilience. Resilience is defined by Dictionary.com as:

1. the power or ability to return to the original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity.

2. ability to recover readily from illness, depression, adversity, or the like; buoyancy.

I get the feeling in my gut that we will all be bent, compressed, and stretched in 2013. Not really a gut feeling. Reality is staring us in the face. I’m no financial wizard or mystic. I’m just a simply country boy at heart. Even simple folk like me can see the handwriting on the wall – even without watching the propaganda robots on TV.

Our plan to build resilience doesn’t just include our family’s needs. We understand that a resilient community (physical location) opens many avenues to preparedness. See building Tribe above. Every step we take this year to become more self-reliant builds more resilience. Will it be enough? Probably not. But we’re one step closer – plus, we enjoy the journey.

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Practical Steps To Becoming Resilient

• Contact local farmer’s markets, food co-ops, and farmers. Here’s a unique approach to buying locally – Locally Grown. It started about 12 years ago as the first online farmers market. Unlike other co-ops, buying clubs, or CSAs where everyone gets the same box of stuff (and you don’t know what you’re getting until you get it), with Locally Grown you get to order what you want, in the quantities that you want, from the farms that you want. If you don’t see a market close to you and you know one or more growers ready to sell their products, you can create your own new market! Also, try Eat Wild, or Local Harvest. Also, do a little cowpooling to help keep cost down.
• Hone your skills and build your kits in these key areas:

1. Potable Water. Have as many methods of making and storing potable water as possible. I’m not going into how-to details here. There’s plenty of info on the net and books on how to do this stuff. Dependent on “city water” (as Daddy calls it) leaves many high and dry when grid-down disasters strike. Even if you have “country well water”, it won’t pump itself out of the ground. You may be ahead of the game and have an alternative pumping method (hand pump, solar, hydroelectric, etc.). We own a Berkey filter for our home and portable MRS filter for our G.O.O.D. bags. Options are plentiful.
2. Food. Eating happens. Store stuff you already eat. Most of us can’t or don’t know how to grow all our fruits and vegetables. But even a few patio tomato plants is one step towards building resilience. It may seem difficult to store nutrient-dense, healthy food, but it’s really not. Click here for my plan.
3. Band Aids. The medical aspect of preparedness is overwhelming to me. Beyond basic first aid, I defer to others with real skills.
4. Protection. This isn’t all about bullets. Guns are tools in my kit that have redundant purposes. The recent run on battle rifles and full capacity magazines shows the psyche of Americans. They’re securing their liberty with each ammo and gun purchase. This can’t escape notice of TPTB. The protection category also includes investing in tangibles that will only go up in value as the dollar crashes. Purchasing items now that will help you become a producer is a wise hedge against the unknowns.

• Be A Connector. This dovetails with building community. For the non-introverts, this comes easy. The digital age has opened so many opportunities to network. No matter what you’re interested in, its easy to find like-minded people willing to do the stuff with you.

Homework Assignment: Locate one source of locally produced meat and vegetables available to you. Extra credit if you raise your own meat/protein/veggie.

5.) Build Barter Networks. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. With the economy in a tailspin, bartering has become more common. Many forums and websites have established local barter networks. When bartering, trade value for value. A hair cut wouldn’t be of any value to me, since I shave my head. But there might be a service the local barber has to offer that I need.

In my latest hard-copy edition of Backwoods Home Magazine, John Silveira wrote an article called, “Bartering for bad times.” Click here for the online version. He covers physical barter items such as food, seeds, silver and gold, ammo, garden tools, tobacco, booze, medical marijuana, coffee, water, and solar power. You don’t have a stockpile of these items to trade? Try trading your skills.

What skills/services can you offer to improve the quality of life for others who have stuff you need? I’m not a plumber by trade, but the skills my daddy taught me growing up are in demand now and will continue into the next Great Depression. Mr. Silveira recommends the following useful skills for trading value:

• Barber
• Poker
• Repairing stuff
• Gardening
• Tutoring
• Fuel for heating
• Clothes: Making and Mending
• Caregiver: Babies and Elderly

I really like what Alt-Market promotes and purses. Their mission is “to facilitate networking, local community action, and the exchange of knowledge and ideas. We promote decentralization, localism, and the de-globalization of human economic systems. We aim to work with and support local economies, markets, barter networks, and farmers cooperatives; and to promote alternative currencies and monetary systems.”

Homework Assignment: Transact one or more barter exchanges in the month of January.

This kind of free market trade is something that the Feds hate and want to control. Trading value for value voluntarily, between consenting parties is a skill we should all learn…sooner, than later.

What are you’re ideas for resilience in 2013?

Reducing Chronic Illness As We Age

I highly recommend the primal/paleo lifestyle for health, longevity, and just plain fun. Lose the dieting paradigm and embrace a lifestyle.

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by Harriet, Editor-at-Large,

Source: Seasoned Citizen Prepper

One of the most important preps I believe we can make is to stay healthy, or for those of us suffering the myriad of conditions that occur as we age, to improve our health.

I am one of those unfortunate people who have had poor health all my life. As a child I suffered a lot of pain that was variously diagnosed. Mobility became lessened and physiotherapy twice a week was instituted. Later I suffered extreme fatigue, occasions of massive inflammation, much pain and disability. The labels don’t really matter as they changed from decade to decade. Sometimes I got a “respectable” auto-immune diagnosis. Other times they wanted to characterize it as a neurosis or psychiatric problem. But all that time I staggered through life, suffering and getting no help from the medical profession beyond occasional two week placebo effect from some of the pills. There were also occasions when the doctors insisted the drugs they gave me worked when they actually made me feel worse. For decades suicide seemed a good choice as I was given no way out of the pain and suffering.

As a result of this I became very interested in healing and unexpected recoveries from severe illness. I knew there were always some people who had recovered when they weren’t expected to from stories in the bible, to the miracles at Lourdes, to miracles claimed by the modern evangelical churches. So I set out how to find out how to make a miracle healing more likely and along the way have learned how to be healthier than I have ever been in my life.

I became a researcher in a university department of primary care and later got a PhD in medicine studying people who should have died but didn’t. It was difficult to get patients for my study as the doctors did not accept that miracles occurred. However when I suggested I was interested in people who had less than a 10% chance of surviving they came up with people for me to talk to. As a result of that quite major study I discovered the psycho-social-spiritual components of health that all the survivors had.

However when I was publishing the paper a decade later (it took me a long time to be able to write it up in a way that my medical colleagues would accept) I went back to my survivors to see how they were doing. Many of them had died in that time and I had to accept that there was something in the physical arena that I had missed. The psychological, the social and the spiritual components were not enough.

I realized that all of the people in the study had eaten a basic vegetable and grass fed meat diet with little in common with the Standard American diet (SAD) pushed by the current dietary advisers. Because that was the way we all ate it didn’t seem remarkable to me at that time. However more and more industrialized food was being sold and eaten. Was that the reason they died? I had no idea but from the perspective of my own health it was a good place to start.

Read the rest here

Caveman Classroom Tips for Real Learning

Leaning is “so easy, a caveman could do it.”

Can education be as simple as the GEICO ad?  Education, yes!  Schooling, no!

Two years ago I discovered “The Primal Blueprint“, thanks to Karen De Coster’s article over at LewRockwell.com.  I was 50 pounds overweight with aching joints.  I decided to go primal because it seemed so easy.  It was.  I lost the excess weight and started making choices for my life and health.  What’s my primal experience got to do with learning like a caveman?

Simple is better.  The institutionalized school system was set up to bastardize the learning process.  The rules, bells, standardized testing, and structured control, to name a few culprits, are all part the corruption of meaningful learning.  Sides are taken on how to reform “education”.  What the intellectual reformers miss is so simple.  Look to the caveman for the answers.

Caveman Classroom

If you assume there wasn’t much to being a hunter-gatherer in pre-agricultural society, you’d be wrong.  Young Grok’s survival depended on skills learned from birth.  He learned animal tracking, weapon construction and usage, physics, weather patterns, structural engineering, free market economics, plant identification, navigation, medicine, social interaction, music and dance, self-defense for both two and four-legged animals, athletics, art, negotiation, and the list could continue.  Grok and his buddies learned this stuff without being schooled.

Here’s 3 Easy Ways To Learn Like A Caveman

1. Play.  Allowed to play, Grok discovered things about himself as he explored the world around him.  Mom and Dad were wise enough to give him all the time and freedom he needed for discovery.  This was the surest path to education.

My experience with play as a child taught me much about myself and what I enjoy.  By age 7, my dad loaded up the family and moved to the country.  The nearest neighbor was a mile up the dirt road.  My brother and our two best friends spent our daylight hours and some nights in the woods.  We explored creeks, caught crayfish, built forts, had BB gun fights, and camped on horseback.  We didn’t have video games.  We played in real life.

2. Observation.  Grok and his friends learned new skills by watching the adults in the tribe.

I learned how to shoot, not from cowboys on TV, but by watching my dad and his adult friends while hunting or target practice.  Around 10 years old, I showed genuine interest in learning to shoot a shot-gun.  Daddy would take me with him to the landfill when it was time to dump a load of trash.  He’d throw glass bottles into the air and I learned to bust them with some helpful coaching.  I wanted to be as good a shot as my dad.

It was not always my dad I learned from.  There was people I respected of all ages and backgrounds.  Those that were successful at certain skills, I followed if I was interested in learning.

3. Explore.  Curiosity and inquiry naturally leads to exploration.

As an adult, I’ve become more curious about things I never was interested in growing up.  A question pops into my head and I begin my journey of exploration.  I’ve always been a serial multitasker.  I pursue what interests me.  That was not the case for me in school.

Subjects were forced on me.  I hated history.  Now I love it.  Why?  Because it interests me. I love learning as an adult.  School, on the other hand, was brutal.  I honestly can’t remember 90 percent of what I was “taught” in school.  I’d estimate even less during my college days.

The classes I remember learning in were Shop, Art, Physical Education, 4th grade Math, and 6th grade English.  I loved to draw, play sports, build stuff, and write.  The 4th grade Math class was fun because I learned all my multiplication tables that year.  The English class was taught by my aunt.  That’s not the only reason I loved that class.  Aunt Cindy would send the whole class outside to write or draw.  Our class published a poetry book that year.  One of my drawings and short stories got included.  I still remember the winter scene I drew.

I learn best when I really want to learn.  I bet the same is true for you.  Play, observe, and explore your passions.  Discover how easy it is to learn.

Fight the urge to think that kids need to be taught.  Kids are able to teach themselves if the right environment is provided.  If they need or want help, they’ll find it.

Doing the stuff,

Todd