Southern Plains Consulting

The Essential of Preparedness                        FOOD

This is part of an ongoing series discussing preparedness issues. This segment will deal with one of the key areas of self reliance, food and water. For the purpose of this discussion food and water are considered equally vital because one without the other is self defeating. In order to survive the human body must be nourished and hydrated. Failure to do either for the appropriate length of time and the body will slowly cease to function, that is an unequivocal medical fact. No hype, no spin – fact. Without nutritious food and clean water we cannot long survive.

The struggle to grow enough food to survive goes back to recorded history and beyond. Working the soil to enrich it, planting, fertilizing, weeding, irrigating then harvesting is a full time occupation that millions of people around the world do every day. The methods used to accomplish this can vary widely. From the small hand worked plots up to the large corporate farm which might have thousands of acres of crop land under cultivation all which is worked with Swiss clock like scheduling to maximize land use.

During the time of the Great Depression a much higher percentage of people grew gardens, raised livestock and poultry to meet the needs of their own families. Family groups were also usually much closer together geographically which allowed for support of all types. Today neither of these factors are the same. More people now live in urban areas than ever before and do not have the ability to grow sufficient food to live on. A telling number is that depending upon whose figures you use only one to two percent of the US population feeds the rest of us!

Often times the food we purchase comes to us from a significant distance away including a sizable percentage from foreign sources. Here is an example; wheat is harvested from a field in Oklahoma. It is then transported to a grain elevator and from there to a mill. The wheat is ground into flour then sold to a bakery who turns it into dinner rolls. The rolls are packaged and shipped to a distribution center. From there they are sent to a retail outlet in say, Mobile Alabama. If there is a delay or break anywhere in this supply chain then there are no rolls on the store shelf.

With the widespread use of the JIT (just in time) supply system grocery stores like so many other businesses no longer maintain large stocks of goods in the back of the store. For the business it reduces the amount of on hand inventory they have to have so it reduces operating costs. JIT allows them to resupply every few days to keep on hand amounts up. The key to this is a complex tracking system that automatically reorders items as they are sold. This system isn’t foolproof, if there is a disruption in deliveries the store is not able to replace certain items or if something triggers a larger than average shopping rush such as a storm or other event stock will be depleted quickly with resupply not possible for several days or longer.

All of the previous points brings us to the central question. How do we acquire the food/water in order to stockpile and replenish what we need to consume? There are several methods available; the most common is to purchase commercially prepared food from a variety of sources. Another is raising it yourself using greenhouses, gardens or hydroponics. An important point to remember we cannot store enough food for us to live on indefinitely. At some point we must grow more food to replace/supplement what we have stored. This is one of the most overlooked concerns among those who live a preparedness lifestyle. You cannot stockpile a lifetimes worth of food, you must prepare an infrastructure to grow additional food. This entails having a supply of non hybrid seeds, fertilizer, the tools to work the soil for production and willingness to work hard. Gardening or if you will farming is hard, hard work. Doing it in order to survive under conditions far less than ideal would be even more challenging.

For water it a different story, here in the United States the overwhelming majority of homes have municipal water plumbing that delivers potable water at the turn of a faucet or spigot. As with food there are a variety of governmental agencies at several levels charged with ensuring that the water that is provided to the general populace is clean and safe to drink. Water is bulky and hard to store long term. One method of obtaining more is to have a high quality filter. This can help you to purify the water you need from a variety of sources.

Adding to your food supply isn’t as difficult as you might think or as costly. The key to this is consistency. Each time you make your regular grocery purchases you add a few items. If you normally buy three cans of green beans, buy four. Add an additional pound of rice and beans to your cart. As you do this on a continuing basis the amount on your shelves and in your pantry increases. Soon you have added a full week’s worth of food and so on. One way to ensure to proper rotation of your stored food is to use the FIFO method; this means First In First Out. By placing the older product to the front of the shelf you are using it before the one purchased more recently. This helps to maintain quality and saves money since you are not forced to toss out something that was accidently shoved to the back of the shelf and lingered in the darkness for too long.

One very important factor to remember and this can’t be overstated is to only buy what you already eat regularly. If you are in a post event situation that is not the time to try and give your system a whole new menu. Your body will be under stress already due to the situation, a radical departure from what it is customarily used to will only add to the stress which could result in digestive irregularity. Test out various recipes and meal ideas now to see if you like them or if the food agrees with you. If it does – great! You’ve added another meal to your repertoire and expanded your own capabilities but if you don’t like it or if the meal doesn’t agree with your system that too is a learning experience. Better to find out now what does and doesn’t work. Also make sure that the meals you do like you can still prepare post event / without grid power.

In a post event environment you may be struggling with having no municipal power and water available as well as dealing with cleaning up from a major storm or other disaster. Your body MUST have nutrition that it is able to process and turn into the energy you will need to do what is required.  There is a psychological factor to consider as well. Consider this scenario; a major storm has rolled through your area leaving some serious damage behind. Your home is still standing but there is a threat of flooding and some large trees are down near your house that need to have some large limbs trimmed to avoid damage to the house.

The power grid is down and will be for some time. Authorities are doing everything they can but the devastation is over a wide area and resources are stretched beyond thin. You’ve been working steadily for most of the day trying to protect your home, your hands and arms are aching and sore, you are tired and know that there is much more to that still must be accomplished. Your spouse / significant other tells you to take a break and offers you a bowl of warm stew heated over the propane camp stove and a bottle of water. The smell of the stew takes hold and you realize how hungry you are. Finding a reasonably shady spot you get off your feet and begin to eat. The taste of warm food in your mouth reduces your stress, your body takes in the fuel it needs to keep itself going. Savoring the bite you close your eyes and lean your head back as you chew. What is that moment worth to you? How much longer will that warm, tasty and nutritious meal keep you going? Hard to say but certainly much longer than if you didn’t have it. An additional facet to consider is the psychological aspect. Eating helps keep us going and it reinforces an element of normalcy into what is now a very unnatural situation.