Food Rationing: It Will Break You Down Mentally

SHTF Plan ^ | 2/27/14 | Tess Pennington

[Kartographer]

There are certain factors you should consider when living through an extended emergency. It is common for your physical, mental and emotional state to be affected following a disaster. On top of that, you are hungry due to rationing food portions and still have to continue daily activities, physical labor, parenting, etc. If you haven’t put thought into the right types of food and the amounts needed to see you through the ordeal, then you could be setting yourself up for deficiencies in your diet.

Repeatedly, I have told readers interested in leading a self reliant lifestyle to simulate a disaster at home so that your family can practice living through it using the supplies you have. This creates a safe environment to prepare and train family members for what they might expect and help you learn what you may need for the future. Using the contents of your emergency pantry is no different. In fact, you should be using your pantries regularly to ensure the food you store is as fresh as possible. In my cookbook, The Prepper’s Cookbook, I list 25 must have foods for your pantries and also touched on what to expect in an emergency situation when you are rationing your supplies.

[SisterK]

The homegrown potatoes will be good to have when or if you cannot buy them. It is possible that the USD will collapse. Also, irish potatoes can be grown vertically. Sweet potatoes not so much.
But I see your point.

[SisterK]

the military sends a lot of their warriors through foraging school
I am pretty sure that special forces all go through foraging school.

[reformedliberal]

I already boil down carcasses, but I haven’t used the vinegar to leach calcium. Can you taste the vinegar in the broth?

[reformedliberal]

Actually, you can buy potato seed.

Getting seeds that germinate is a challenge, but it is how new varieties are developed.

Here are some folks experimenting, w/links to sources of True Potato Seed (TPS):
http://www.curzio.com/N/Potato_starting_from_seed.htm

[familyop]

"And my understand is you best have some Metamucil handy!"

Yes. That was the word that went around, although I wasn't sure. I was in a combat specialty, so we didn't sleep much and were extremely active--conditions that cause constipation regardless of diet type. Three of the MREs per day as served to us could make sedentary folks put on weight really fast (only a little less than 10,000 calories).

And Two Kids' Dad, most of the ones issued to us in the early through mid-'90s had a tiny bottle of Tabasco sauce in them. ;-) I enlisted in '89 at the age of 31, BTW (called "old man" and all of that during our initial training--one-station unit, 13 weeks and more rough than for most most other specialties, even for National Guard soldiers like me).

Hmmm...searching this deteriorating Baby Boomer brain for an MRE story... During some classes in the field for our easiest kind of school (a leadership school), there was one Jewish woman from an ARCOM office, who poured the whole bottle into an MRE main packet (something like chicken a la king, if I remember correctly). She had to eat something, or she would have fallen out (field classes somewhat rigorous for non-combat soldiers).

IMO, the Army should do more to make sure that kosher meals are available for every soldier who needs them--even those training with reserve components far from the more builtup, populated posts. We rarely saw women in training, because there weren't any in my military occupational specialty.

[Tailback]

One word: Spam. Indefinite shelf life. “Without SPAM we wouldn’t have been able to feed our army” -Nikita Kruschev

Way ahead of you on the SPAM front.

I saw a show about the battle of Kursk, and a T-34 crew that survived the battle were talking about the rations they got per day. Something like 500 grams of bread per person, a bottle of vodka per tank, some butter or cheese, canned vegetables or meat. Then one of the guys said "when we were lucky, we got a can of American supplied Spam. Those were the good days." You could see the little tear in his eye that memory brought out.

[bgill]

No, you can't taste it and it's only a spoonful or so. We may not need the extra calcium now but it might be something to think about in the coming bad times. This is along the lines of that science experiment you probably did in elementary school when you put a chicken bone in vinegar and after a few days it became rubbery.

On a related note, since pickle juice is basically vinegar, use it to clean the sink drains. I also put up to one cup of pickle juice into a crockpot of a beef roast. Add onions and water to cover and no need to add extra salt because there's salt in the pickle juice. No, it doesn't taste like pickles. The vinegar dissipates with the cooking. Same principle when making homemade bbq sauce, at first the vinegar is overpowering but once it cooks and sits overnight, it mellows out. As you can tell, I don't waste anything.

[driftdiver]

When I learned about the brownie we were on a mountain top overseas that was commonly used for training. The aggressors were flown in via helicopter and the rest of us had to defend the site. We weren’t allowed to use the bushes as people tended to crawl thru them. So they had a porta potty. Unfortunately, the portapotty hadn’t been emptied in a while. The pile of processed MREs was about a foot taller then the seat.

[Sherman Logan]

I strongly suspect the potential damage to a frozen can is related to how wet the contents are.

Sardines packed in oil or corned beef, very little.

Tomato soup, probably quite a bit.

[Iron Munro]

Two weeks ago one person sent in a photo of a homemade potato tower filled with rotting leaves as a growing medium.

Thanks for that post.

I have tons of leaves composting and ready to go so I think I will try that.

[greeneyes]

Add a little sachet of rice. Rice will keep moisture from causing clumping in salt.

[greeneyes]

I use lemon juice instead of vinegar. On rare occasions, though I use balsamic vinegar-gives it a little more kick.

[Freedom56v2]

Last summer I grew a number of winter squash, edible gourds, and pumpkins. I am still eating the harvest as these all keep wonderfully in a 60-65 degree basement/root cellar environment.

Tho squash have their own set of growing issues such as squash beetles, vine borers, and powdery mildew, wouldn’t winter squash such as acorn, butternut, spaghetti, etc., be as good or better a choice than potatoes?

I know potatoes are good choice in northern environment, but much of US is more temperate...Thots?

[metmom]

Thank you. I’ll do that.

[metmom]

Potatoes are a good choice here up north. The only thing people need to do is make sure they use a variety that has good storage properties.

Squash grows well up here, too, so a combination of those two will give you variety.

[Freedom56v2]

Thanks. Probably good to have variety so that if one crop succumbs to a disease or pest, still have produce from the others.

[metmom]

Absolutely.

That’s what did the Irish in in their potato famine.

[metmom]

Just curious. Potatoes are really cheap. It would seem logical to me to buy potatoes at the store and use my limited garden space to grow more expensive stuff.

That's what I do. Potatoes are not cost effective for the limited garden space I have.

Beans are, as is zucchini, asparagus, scallions, peas, lettuce and tomatoes.

One option to consider is a community garden.

That can give you experience in growing different kinds of things when space is limited.

[metmom]

I remember the first time I saw a tomato hornworm on my tomato plants.

I must have set an Olympic record for the longest reverse standing long jump in the world.

[georgiabelle]

I can only tell you what my grandmother told me and what I have learned on my own.
You do need seed potatoes. Never plant potatoes on a new moon or you will have all plant and very few potatoes. Plant the potatoes in dark nights in March (in Ga.) and always plant them when the signs are in the feet.
Don’t know if that will help but I always have a very good crop of “taters”
Also, when the plant comes up you must hill the dirt on top of it. You do this until the dirt is at least 4 to 5 inches high or higher.