20 Ways to Build a Whole Food Kitchen on a Half Price Budget

 

 

 

 

[Editor's Note] This was originally published by Daisy Luther on her site The Organic Prepper and reprinted here with permission. Daisy has been a friend to our site and frequent contributor. Please share it with family and friends. Check out her bio at the end of this article.

by Daisy Luther

Making a trip to the grocery store these days is like running a gauntlet.  From one side you are assaulted by food-like substances in brightly labeled packages, some even touting exaggerated health benefits from the toxins within.  From the other side, you are gouged and poked by cleverly marketed “natural” foods that are 4 times the price of conventional foods.  When you change directions to avoid one onslaught, you are immediately attacked by the other.

We’re at war and the grocery store is the battlefield.

That war has been declared on us by multiple enemies with unlimited budgets, such as Monsanto, Big Pharma, Big Agri and Big Food.  What’s even worse is that they are aided and abetted by their allies at the FDA and the US Congress, administrations peopled by those who are actually supposed to be the gatekeepers that protect us from this.

What’s a frugal whole food shopper to do?

Lots of people write to me and say, “I’d love to eat the way you do, but I can barely afford regular groceries. There’s no way I could afford all that healthy stuff.”

Good food might be expensive, but as the saying goes, have you checked out the price of illness lately?

If you don’t believe you can afford to eat healthfully, consider the high price of being sick and lethargic.  Calculate the cost of days missed from work for illness. Add up the price of having no energy to play with your kids or to do things that would help you to save money.  Think about the exorbitant prices of medical care.  Many of these things are completely avoidable – all you have to do is feed your body real food and you will be astounded at the resultant glowing health.  How much money have you spent over the last year fighting ill-health that could have been avoided through good nutrition?

GMOs have been proven to cause cancer, ghastly tumors, organ failure, and death.  Many of the additives included in the products proudly displayed on grocery store shelves have been banned in other countries because of the health consequences they wreak.  Top this with a produce section absolutely drenched in pesticides that have been proven to result in cancer, hormone disruptions, and learning problems in children.

To quote the Terminator, “Come with me if you want to live.”

We all know the reasons that we should switch to whole foods, but with the ever-increasing checkout counter inflation, how can we make it happen?  Here are a few realistic tips that do not include relocating to 30 acres of prime spring fed organic  farmland blocked off on 3 sides by mountain ranges.  Realistically, you may not be able to make every one of these things happen, but for each positive change you make, you are taking steps towards better health and you are revolting against the toxic food cartel.

1. Buy local. Ideally, you never need to set foot in a grocery store.  Change your shopping habits and buy from local farmers, either directly from their farm or from a farmer’s market.  You will get your produce at the optimum time, right after it was picked. As well, you can directly ask the farmer about his practices.  Sometimes farmers grow organically and they just haven’t gone through the expensive and highly regulated certification programs that exist to make increase the monopoly of factory farms. (Find a local farm HERE.)
2. Join a food co-op or CSA. This is win-win, because it helps out the farmers and it helps out your family.With both of these options, you can register ahead of time (in some cases you pre-pay for the season) and then receive a box brimming with abundance from your own area.  You will get to try lots of new things (this is how we tried one of our family favorites, rutabaga, for the first time) and you will get to do this at a fraction of the price.
3. Buy produce that is in-season. Purchasing food that is in-season is not just cheaper, it is nutritionally beneficial too.  Buying strawberries in January and asparagus in October requires that the produce be picked before it is fully ripe, and the produce begins to decompose and lose nutrients the second it is separated from the plant.  Avoid the high cost of transporting your “fresh” Christmas berries and melons and stick to the items that nature is currently providing in your area.
4. Grow as much as you can in the space you have.  Plant a sunny windowsill with salad veggies and herbs, grow a container garden on a balcony, or turn your yard into a mini-farm.  Every bite of food you grow yourself is a revolutionary act.
5. Plan your menu AFTER shopping, not before. This allows you to stay on budget because you aren’t shopping for special ingredients to make pre-planned meals. You can take advantage of the best deals and plan your meals around those.  This can also help by keeping those unplanned budget purchases from going to waste in your crisper drawer while you carry on with your planned menu.
6. Drink water. We generally stick to drinking water. Not fluoridated tap water – we purchase 5 gallon jugs or fill them in a spring when that option is available.  Water is cheaper and healthier.  Beverages that you make yourself like coffee and tea are far less expensive than the soda pop and energy drinks that fill most modern refrigerators, not to mention, relatively free of the toxic chemicals that overflow in the store-bought drinks.
7.  Buy staples in bulk. Organic grains like brown rice, wheat berries, cornmeal, barley and oatmeal can be purchased in bulk quantities.  This reduces the price to lower than or equivalent to the smaller conventional packages that are offered in your local grocery store.
8. Buy some meats frozen instead of fresh.  Some butcher shops freeze meat that isn’t sold immediately and sell if for a lower price.  Look for deals on frozen chicken breasts, frozen fish, and frozen turkey breast. Fish is nearly ALWAYS cheaper frozen. Just read your ingredients carefully and make sure you are just getting fish, and that the fish is from a safe source (not the radiation-laden Pacific Ocean, for example, or a tilapia farm where they feed fish their own recycled feces).
9. Buy meat in bulk.  Look into buying beef in quantity.  Check out the prices at local farms for a quarter of a cow.  You will pay slightly more for the lesser cuts but much less for the better quality cuts.  It balances out to a much lower price for meat farmed in the healthiest way possible.
10. Add some lower priced protein options.  While lots of us would love to have grass-fed beef and free range chicken breasts twice a day, the cost is prohibitive.  Add value-priced wholesome protein with beans, farm fresh eggs, homemade yogurt and cheese, nuts, and milk.
11. Stop eating out. Just one McCrud meal for a family of 4 is between $20-30.  Delivered pizza is about $25 plus a tip. The $45-55 that you would spend for this “convenience” could buy a lot of whole foods.
12. Get into the habit of bringing a cooler with you.  If you are going to be out running errands for the day, load up a cooler with healthy snacks, water, and even a picnic lunch.  This is the perfect answer to the lament from the back seat, “I’m huuuunnnngryyyy.”
13. Don’t buy anything with an ingredients list greater than 5 items. The more items on the ingredients list, the more likely you are to be consuming someone’s chemistry project.  Even things that sound relatively innocuous, like “natural flavorings” can be, at best, unappetizing, and at worst, harmful.
14. Cook from scratch. Cooking from scratch doesn’t have to be as time-consuming as you might expect.  I don’t spend hours each day slaving in the kitchen. Spend a weekend afternoon prepping your food for the week ahead and you can have weekday dinners on the table in less than half an hour.  Consider the price differences in homemade goods:  homemade tortillas (pennies for a package that would be $3 at the store), pizza dough, peanut butter oatmeal cookies, trail mix,  and granola bars. This stuff is literally pennies on the dollar in comparison to the same goods store-bought.
15. Some conventionally grown foods are okay. Learn about the Dirty Dozen and the Clean Fifteen.  Some foods have a fairly low pesticide load, even when conventionally grown.  Use these foods to help offset the higher prices of items that are soaked in poison, like strawberries.
16. You will actually eat LESS when you feed your body.  Part of the reason that the obesity problem is epidemic in North America is because people are desperately seeking nutrients from depleted food-like substances.  Their bodies are crying out, “I’m hungry!” even though they have consumed thousands of calories, because their nutritional requirements are not being met. What’s more, many chemicals are added because they are engineered in a way that makes you want to eat more and more (like MSG, for example).  They don’t stimulate the satiety centers in the brain that tell your body that it’s full.
17. Brown bag your lunches.  When I worked outside the home, most of my coworkers ate out every single day.  They often invited me along, saying that a certain restaurant offered “healthy” food.  The thing is, the price of that presumably healthy food was 4-6 times higher than the healthy food that I had brought from home.  My daughter takes a healthy lunch from home to school every day, as opposed to eating the offerings there.  Depending on the school, this may or may not be cheaper, but it’s guaranteed to be more nutritious.
18. Preserve food.  Whether you grow it yourself, rescue it from the “last day of sale” rack at the grocery store, or buy it by the bushel from a farmer, learning to preserve your own food allows you to buy in bulk and squirrel some of that delicious food away for the winter ahead.  Canning, dehydrating, and freezing are all methods to help extend the summer harvest for use later in the year.
19. Eat leftovers.  The act of eating leftovers is almost unheard of, it seems.  But if you put aside small amounts of leftovers in a freezer container, you can make “soup” for a meal that is basically free because it came from items that would have otherwise been discarded.  Use larger amounts of leftovers for lunch boxes or  a “buffet-style” meal for the family.
20. “Shop” from nature.  You might be surprised to learn how many edible plants are growing wild in your own neighborhood.  Even city dwellers can often find things to forage.  When we lived in the city, we used to pick up fallen walnuts from a tree in a local park.  For those not ethically opposed to it, hunting or fishing can abundantly supply your protein needs, and you don’t have to worry about whether or not you are consuming antibiotics and hormones with game.

If you’re ready to make a change to a whole foods lifestyle, don’t let your budget hold you back!  Take a long hard look at what you are spending on take-out coffees and lattes, fast food, delivered pizza, microwave meals, and frozen dinners that you shove into the oven. Look at the beverage budget you spend at the grocery store every week, and keep track of how many soda pops you buy from the vending machine at work. You might be pleasantly surprised when your budget goes down, instead of up!

About the author: 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

 

Wild Food Survival: Can I Eat Those Mother’s Day Flowers?

[Editor's Note: After Mother's Day, florists must be taking the day off. So how many of the blooming plants are actually edible? Crunchy Mama (See her full bio below) gives us a detailed analysis of a popular plant that you may have in your yard that's pretty and nutritious. I hope you enjoy the second post in her Wild Food Series here on our blog. Leave her some feedback please.]

Reprinted with permission from  Crunchy Mama’s Urban Homestead.

Gorgeous, Delicious and Nutritious Violets! My Wild Food Adventures Series

BY THECRUNCHYMAMACHRONICLES

I’ve said that ostrich fern shoots are my favorite wild edible but violets are a super-close second.  They are so lovely!  On my property, I have lots of Viola odorata.  

The young leaves are mild and great in salads.  The flowers are mild-tasting with a hint of sweetness; you can just pluck and eat or gather some for a beautiful addition to your salad or sprinkle on your cooked and plated food.

 In this photo, I have a base of cut-up turnips topped with an avocado slice, tomato slices, garlic mustard leaves, and violet flowers and young leaves.

Here are some close-up photos that I took:

  

In this photo, you see a violet plant growing all by itself and so I just used some scissors to harvest the leaves.   

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Here is the itemization of the violet:

Identifying Features:

Flowers have 5 petals in a butterfly shape.  They grow as a single flower at the end of the stem.  There is a sharp bend where the flower and the stem join.

Leaves are heart-shaped; the sides often curl toward the juncture of the stem and the leaf.

Roots are fibrous and are NOT edible and actually toxic according to Teresa Marrone.

Time of Year: mid-spring to early-summer for the flowers and leaves (before they become tough from the summer heat)

Environment: Preferably moist soil with some shade.

Method of Preparation: You can eat the flowers and young leaves (lighter green) raw.  You can also cook the young leaves as well as older leaves as you would spinach.

Medicinal uses? Yes! Two Herbal Mamas has a video on how to make an oil infusion with violets. And on their blog they have a post which lists the medicinal qualities of the plant: “Violet…contains saponins, salicylates, alkaloids, flavonoides and volatile oils. The actions of this shy plant are anti-inflammatory, expectorant, diuretic, anti-rheumatic, laxative and stabilizes capillary membranes. Violet contains an enormous amount of Vitamin A. Chew on a violet leaf and spit it out on to your hand. Give the leaf a good rub. You will feel the slippery mucilage contained in this powerful plant. Mucilaginous herbs are moist, and soothe skin ailments and internal mucous surfaces.”

Poisonous look-alikes?  Larkspur and Monkshood– there blooms look similar perhaps to an untrained eye but you can absolutely tell the difference between them and violets in short order.

The larkspur bloom has a long spur on the rear of the bloom.  There are good photos here. The leaves are very different as well.  And, lastly, there are multiple blooms coming from one stem (unlike the violet which is one bloom on the end of the stem).

There are some good photos and information on monkshood here. Again, the leaves are very different from violet leaves; monkshood leaves are palmate while violet leaves are heart-shaped. While the blooms can be the same color as violets AND have 5 petals they are shaped differently.  According to the Wikipedia link at the beginning of this paragraph, “[the flowers] are distinguishable by having one of the five petaloid sepals (the posterior one), called the galea, in the form of a cylindrical helmet; hence the English name monkshood.”

According to Abundantly Wild by Teresa Marrone, you would be wise to collect violet leaves only when the plant is in bloom because the leaves can resemble some poisonous plant leaves.   When the plant is in bloom, it will be easy for you to recognize and gather the correct leaves.

As with anything that you put in your mouth, you need to properly identify the plant. Here are more resources on properly identifying and eating violets:

Green Deane’s Eat the Weeds;

Eating Violets by The Urban Forager (Ava Chin);

Wild Man Steve Brill (great illustrations and close-up photos);

Elias and Dykeman’s Edible Wild Plants: A North American Field Guide (pages 95, 96, 116);

Abundantly Wild by Teresa Marrone;

Edible and Medicinal Plants of the Great Lakes Region by Thomas A. Naegele

Author bio: The Crunchy Mama is a libertarian unschooling mama to three sons, married to her husband since 1998.  They live on their Midwestern homestead of 2 ½ acres with chickens, ducks, dogs and an ever-growing organic vegetable garden.  She is an avid wild food eater.  In general, she’d rather be outside enjoying creation.  She can be followed on Twitter @thecrunchymama or on her blog Crunchy Mama’s Urban Homestead.

 

Hunt-Gather-Eat Wild Foods: Ostrich Fern Shoots

Editor’s Note: Today we’re pleased to have a guest post by The Crunchy Mama on eating wild foods. We look forward to further value adding posts by her in the future. Before going out to gather a basket of weeds to eat, make sure you have properly identified the plant before eating. This is a valuable skill in a pre and post SHTF world. 

This article originally appeared on her blog Crunchy Mama’s Urban Homestead. See her full bio below. 

My wild [food] adventures — ostrich fern shoots

BY THECRUNCHYMAMACHRONICLES ON APRIL 29, 2013

My journey with wild foods began when I first became aware that socio-economic collapse was possible (and probable).  I bought several wild edible field guides and began to look for the plants.  For the past few years, I have added a few wild edibles to my knowledge base and diet.  Last fall, I found a revolutionary set of books on wild food that my set of wild food adventures on fire!  Those books are John Kallas’ (KAY-less) Edible Wild Plants and Samuel Thayer’s The Forager’s Harvest and Nature’s Garden.  I’ll be talking about the books in coming posts but I want to dive into some great and ready-right-now wild foods that are easy to find and identify.  In the meantime, you should check out their reviews on amazon.com.

So, let’s take some wild food adventures together!  Spring is a great time to learn about, find and eat wild foods because there is not too much vegetation to overwhelm you — at least in the Midwest and northern part of the US.  Once the heat of late spring and summer comes, it might be harder because so many things are growing.

The first and tastiest wild vegetable that I want to urge you to go out and find is ostrich fern shoots and fiddleheads.  Oh my goodness, if people were to be introduced to wild foods with ostrich fern shoots and fiddleheads rather than dandelion leaves, we might have more wild food eaters.  And, one more thing before we begin: I will only post about wild edibles that I have personal experience with.

Green Deane, who runs the most watched foraging channel on YouTube called EatTheWeeds (http://www.youtube.com/user/EatTheWeeds), teaches us to itemize a wild food.  ITEM = identification (be sure the plant is what you think it is by examining its features), time of year (is it the right time for eating a particular plant part?), environment (where does it like to grow; under what conditions?), and method of preparation (can you eat it raw or must you cook it a particular way?).

So, we are going to itemize ostrich ferns because there are some fern species that you don’t want to eat.

Identifying features of Ostrich ferns during the edible season for this plant which is spring when the trees are leafing out:

• The ostrich fern shoots are either green, smooth and shiny or have a thin whitish powder covering the stalk. The ones that I’ve enjoyed are the ones with a very fine whitish powder.
• They have a tightly coiled top (called a fiddlehead).
• They have a deep groove running up the middle of the shoot (think of a celery stalk groove) and, according to Samuel Thayer on page 80 of The Forager’s Harvest, this groove is what distinguishes the ostrich fern from other INEDIBLE fern shoots.
• They taste crisp and sweet.

Time of year for collecting and eating ostrich fern shoots:

• Mid-spring; about the same time as when the leaves begin to emerge on the trees

Environment:

• The Midwest and Northeast of the US in river bottom forests and “places prone to erosion by floods or human disturbance” because they need bare soil its spores to germinate.
• Mine are in a flood plain of a creek.  Unfortunately, I do not have large population of them so it is a rare spring treat to have a few servings of them in the spring.

Method of Preparation:

• Pick the stalks near the base when the stalks are between 8 and 28 inches tall AND they still have the tightly coiled top (the fiddlehead).
• Only pick 1/3 to ½ of the stalks from one rosette so as not to kill the entire plant and only do this once per season for each rosette.
• They can be eaten raw but boiled or steamed until tender and served with butter is a very tasty way to eat them.
• Thayer lives near a super abundance of them and collects enough to freeze and pressure-can some so that he can enjoy them throughout the year.
• 

Here is a video of ostrich fern shoots growing on my property:

Remember that “knowledge weighs nothing” and, even if your food storage is stolen or destroyed, you can still have food by knowing the foods that nature supplies!  Practice eating wild foods now so that should you ever need to rely on them for short-term or long-term you will have confidence in foraging for them.

Author bio: The Crunchy Mama is a libertarian unschooling mama to three sons, married to her husband since 1998.  They live on their Midwestern homestead of 2 ½ acres with chickens, ducks, dogs and an ever-growing organic vegetable garden.  She is an avid wild food eater.  In general, she’d rather be outside enjoying creation.  She can be followed on Twitter @thecrunchymama or on her blog Crunchy Mama’s Urban Homestead.

 

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)

Chris Wark’s Top 10 Anti-Cancer Vegetables

Fighting Dirt Road Girl’s cancer over the last year has led us to some great and not so great advice. Here’s a great one: Chris Wark’s story of surviving cancer without conventional chemo treatments. Even if you haven’t been diagnosed with cancer, prevention is so much better than going through the Big Pharma controlled Medical Industrial Complexes sick-care system.

How did he beat cancer?

Here’s a taste of his journey.

The Top 10 Anti-Cancer Vegetables

 

Photo by David Grunfeld

If you haven’t noticed, we are constantly bombarded with pleas from charities for cancer research money.

“Race for the Cure, Stand Up to Cancer, Buy Pink products, grow a Movember mustache….”

This is often accompanied by the message  that “we are running out of funding for cancer research”.  And of course this is a problem, because “without funding for more research, we will never find a cure”.

Cue the shots of bald women and children poisoned by chemo, accompanied by dramatic music. Then insert a high-profile celebrity to say, “The cure is just around the corner.
Together we can make cancer history. Please give today.”

Here’s the reality. The mega billion dollar pharmaceutical industry has plenty of money to fund research, they would just prefer that you fund it with your donations instead of theirs.

Real problem #1  They are running out of your money.

Real problem #2 They are only interested in medicines they can patent.

Real problem #3  Research on nutrition and natural therapies is ignored.

There are literally thousands of published peer-reviewed studies demonstrating that the 100,000+ phytonutrients in plants have the ability to prevent and reverse cancer.
But because the pharmaceutical industry can’t figure out how to extract these compounds, synthesize them, and patent them for profit, they are ignored.

Doctors can’t even use this published information or they risk losing their license.

But you can!

One of my favorite studies was published in Food Chemistry, January 2009 called,
“The antiproliferative and antioxidant activities of common vegetables: A comparative study”

The title is so boring I almost fell asleep typing it, but hold on, because the results are awesome.

Researchers studied the inhibitory (cancer-stopping) effects of 34 vegetable extracts
on 8 different tumor cell lines.

They basically just ran vegetables through a juicer and then dripped the extracted juice on different cancer cells to see what would happen. Here’s what they found…

The #1 most powerful anti-cancer food was Garlic.

Garlic stopped cancer growth COMPLETELY against these tumor cell lines:

Breast cancer, brain cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer,
childhood brain cancer, and stomach cancer.

Leeks were #1 against kidney cancer. Garlic was #2.

But not just garlic and leeks, almost all vegetables from the Allium and Cruciferous families completely stopped growth in the various cancers tested. Here they are:

Learn more here

Related articles

• Benefit of Garlic to our Body (gudchef.wordpress.com)
• Omega-3 fatty acid may slow tumors (futurity.org)

 

Healing Broth: Fungus, Seaweed, Sage and Sea Salt

Why should a man die who has sage in his garden?
Old English proverb

Today’s article was originally published at Eatkamloops by Caroline Cooper, one of our valued contributors at Survival Sherpa, and reprinted with her permission. 

Healthy Household: Healing Broth: Part I

Here is my personal blend of fungus, seaweed, sage and sea salt. Have fun and create your own blend to help balance your unique endocrine needs.

“Cur moriatur homo cui Salvia crescit in horto?”
Why should a man die who has sage in his garden?
Old English proverb

Food can be medicine. Special broths can have a healing effect when drunk on a regular basis. Here is just one healing broth that will be especially good for peri-menopausal and menopausal women. Healing broths can be a good substitute for caffeine containing beverages which can become troublesome as a woman ages.

This powdered broth can be brought on a road trip or stored as in an emergency food. You can drink the broth by itself or simmer it in some bone broth.

3 parts dried wild-crafted fungus, powdered (choose from list below)
3 parts dried organic sage, ground (optional)
1-2 part sea salt, ground
1 part seaweed, powdered (chosen from list below)

Grind each individual ingredient by itself and in small amounts. Use a Vitamix machine, coffee grinder or food processor. The finer the grind the better the powder will dissolve in hot water or bone broth.

Store broth powder in a glass jar. Remember to date and label the jar with your chosen ingredients and the amounts used. Don’t be afraid to try different combinations. Actually, this is a good idea because you will get a better range of micro-nutrients.

Use one or two teaspoons in each cup of hot water or bone broth. Add more salt if you like a salty broth. Don’t be afraid to use sea salt to taste. If you are wondering if salt is safe to consume please read these two essays: The Salt of the Earth by Sally Fallon Morell and Salt and Our Health by Dr Morton Satin.

Choose your Fungus:

1. Maitake has a complex immune stimulating effect and is reported to help the liver clear viral and environmental contamination. Maitake helps the body better absorb nutrients like zinc and copper.
2. Shiitake has a rich, smoky flavor and is loaded with nutrients, essential amino acids and a highly potent antioxidant, l-ergothioneine. Shiitake contains lentinan which is reported to have a anti-tumor effect.

Choose your Seaweed:

It is reported that seaweed being naturally very high in iodine can improve a woman’s progesterone to estradiol ratios, decreasing estrogen dominance, by increases your free Triiodothyronine (T3).

Here is how different seaweeds can be used to help balance endocrine function. Choose your seaweed with these guidelines in mind or just use your favorite seaweed.

1. Arame (Eisenia bycyclis) was traditionally used to reduce fibrocystic breasts, uterine fibroids, excessive bleeding and ovarian cysts. This seaweed can reduce acne and excessive facial hair common to Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS).
2. Bladderwrack (Fucus vesiculosus) is an excellent adrenal adaptogen. It appears that the seaweed helps lengthen, short menstrual cycles, and relieves symptoms of Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) by supporting progesterone production when a woman is estrogen dominant. The seaweed is reported to help with osteoarthritis and inflammatory joint conditions.
3. Dulse (Palmaria palmata), is very rich in iodine and iron. This seaweed can help with constipation and cyclic mastalgia. It is reported to have an antiviral action against the herpes virus.
4. Irish Moss (Chondrus crispus) is traditional used for low sex drive. It is reported to support Triiodothyronine (T3) levels which is involved with the conversion of high-density lipoproteins into progesterone pathway and not into the cortisol pathway.
5. Kelp (Ascophyllum nodosum) like all brown seaweeds is rich in alginate and can chelate radioactive materials and heavy metals from the body. The plant is very high in iodine and can help normalize adrenal, pituitary and thyroid health. It is reported to be a blood purifier and can relieve arthritic stiffness.
6. Wakame (Alaria esculenta) can help with constipation and lower blood pressure. It is reported to have an antiviral effect against cytomegalovirus and herpes virus.

For more recipes please see Healthy Household: Staying Clean Safely and Saving Money.

Related articles

• To broth or not to broth…that is the question! (talkpaleo.com)

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Frankenchickens, Sustainable Poultry, and Food Freedom

Editor’s note: Part of planning to be self-sufficient should include a method of raising your own groceries – meats, veggies, and fruits. With each step, however large or small, we become less dependent and more resilient. 

Today’s post highlights the Sustainable Poultry Network in a post which was originally published on Durable Faith.  SPN offers workshops on raising heritage poultry for profit and pleasure. Be sure to check out the practical tips for achieving food freedom.

Feed your Community and Achieve Freedom with Poultry

BY CLEOPAS | APRIL 5, 2013 · 6:30 AM

Today, I attended the Sustainable Poultry Workshop at Full Circle Farm in Suwannee County, FL. Full Circle Farm is operated by a family who glorifies God through their stewardship of the land and their Christian family life. They are a grassfed dairy farm that uses silvopasture and intensive grazing; and raises beef, lamb and poultry. Full Circle Farm’s mission is to provide nutrient dense food for maximum health and to educate producers and consumers. Their food and their network of other family run local farm produce is delivered around the state of FL. Dennis, the proprietor, became frustrated with poultry after having Cornish Cross broilers (the modern industry standard) turn their nose up at kitchen scraps. After hearing, Jim Adkins speak at an Acres USA conference, he invited Jim to come speak at his farm about sustainable poultry. I’m glad I had the opportunity to attend!

Jim established the Sustainable Poultry Network after becoming dissatisfied with a lucrative career in the conventional chicken industry. Many people are not aware that chicken bought in a store or restaurant and labeled “family farm”, “natural”, “free range”, “organic”, “antibiotic free”, “hormone free”, and “vegetarian fed” are almost always raised in chicken houses with thousands of other birds. The birds are of a genetically engineered stock that cannot reproduce naturally and grows to full weight in 37 days (most likely suffers pain of growth and exhibits health problems due to undersize legs and organs). Due to their close confinement, the birds have to be protected by biosecurity measures that include wearing hazmat type suits and limiting exposure to essential staff. All conventional birds are fed GMO soy and GMO corn based feed, typically with antibiotics, sometimes arsenic. Industry whistle blowers say that often “natural” or “organic” birds often get drugs as well when they become sick due to their conditions and consumers are none the wiser. As Full Circle’s proprietor said, Publix GreenWise chicken is produced just down the road from his farm and is neither “green” nor “wise!”

Jim Adkins, of the Sustainable Poultry Network, went back to his roots of raising standard bred poultry. Jim said he grew up raising chickens in 4H and dreamed of becoming a chicken show judge as a child. The man loves chickens! Standard bred poultry must meet 3 criteria: The bird must be able to mate naturally; Live a long, outdoor, productive lifespan (5-7 years for hens); And, grow at a slow growth rate (112 days). The Standard of Perfection for standard bred poultry is governed by theAmerican Poultry Association. Standard birds, such as the Barred Plymouth Rock, Rhode Island Red, and New Hampshire, were once the production birds of the industry. These are vigorous chickens that forage for much of their diet, produce longer and with less inputs. The characteristics of these chickens make not only a healthier bird, but a better tasting bird as well. The foraging ability results in a greater variety in the animal’s diet enhancing the taste of meat and eggs and the nutrient profile of same.

Once the modern frankenchicken was developed, farmers stopped breeding these standard breeds. Though some of the breeds are near extinction, many have been kept alive by poultry fanciers in small numbers. Hatcheries still provide the breeds to backyard and small farm egg producers, and though the birds may resemble their once great predecessors in feather color, non-selective breeding by the hatcheries produce birds unfit for table meat and lacking the qualities of the standard. Half of the chicks produced by hatcheries are male chicks, upwards of 90% which get trashed because the hatcheries serve an egg market and their genetic lines no longer meet the dual purpose of the standard. The hatchery system is dependent on the financial beleaguered postal service to continue shipping live chicks by mail. Experts believe it is a question of not if, but when, live chick shipments will end. Small farmers, homesteaders and backyard chicken lovers will then be left with only frankenchickens produced by multinational companies of which 3 own the rights to over 80% of all the chicken genetics globally. Have we allowed the merchants in the temple to own creation?

The mission of the Center for Sustainable Poultry is to provide education, resources and training to equip people around the world to raise standard bred poultry for sustainable farming, marketing, exhibition and preservation. The center does this through the Sustainable Poultry Network, which is a network of farmers developing standard bred poultry for meat and egg production once again. It is the development of these old breeds that will allow production of sustainably raised chickens that meet the demands of consumers and don’t enslave us to the government-industrial agriculture food complex. The network consists of breeders, growers, processors, feed producers, marketers, chefs and mentors and seeks to duplicate the model in small communities around the world that will be able to feed themselves. And, its already doing so from its home base in Western North Carolina to Montana and beyond. These are small scale family farms, with low capital input, creating a vastly superior product and are not dependent on GMO feeds, genetically engineered chickens from three producers shipped by mail and are building the value of their community. The network will certify flocks so that consumers and producers know the standard at which the chicken was bred and raised. And, unlike the industry farms, the network farms are open at all times for visitors, ensuring trust among the community. I highly encourage you to attend a workshop and learn how you can achieve food freedom!

Hot tip!: If you’re looking for a book on raising chickens, try to find one published before 1950.

Now let’s hear from you. Do you purchase or raise heritage poultry? If so, could you tell us why you choose heritage poultry vs. conventional industrial poultry? Leave your feedback in the comments below! 

 

 

 

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

 

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