When All Hell Breaks Loose Part 11

The Great Plains of the United States, 1930s The United States experienced the worst drought of the twentieth century. The resulting lack of precipitation caused ma.s.sive dust storms, which dominated the landscape, causing severe health problems while destroying crops and killing livestock. Death toll is unknown. Dust storms destroyed my grandmother's garden several times in a season. As the garden was necessary for the family's survival, she simply replanted, watering the acre-plus garden by hand with a bucket. The subsequent malnutrition and hard labor nearly killed my pregnant grandmother (and my aunt). A couple of times a month my grandfather would bring home "treats" from town, which consisted of two oranges. One orange was split between her two children, the other eaten by my grandmother during the pregnancy of her third child, in which she ate the entire thing, peelings and all.

The Soviet Famine, 19321934 The Soviet Famine was initiated by Josef Stalin in an attempt to boost industrialization financed by forced collective farms in which grain production fell by 40 percent. His draconian measures included forbidding peasants to leave the country without permission; expelling, killing, or sending rich peasants to labor camps; and forcibly seizing what little food remained to double grain exports to raise cash for his failed plan. The predicted chaos included a report issued by an Italian consul member in the Ukraine reporting "a growing commerce in human meat" and that people were killing and eating their own children. Astute authorities immediately responded, not with food, but by distributing posters that read: "Eating Dead Children Is Barbarism." Due to a national cover-up forbidding doctors to disclose on death certificates that the deceased had starved to death, numbers for the total dead are sketchy but estimates are at 5 to 8 million people, 10 to 25 percent of the population of the Ukraine.

When the snow melted true starvation began. People had swollen faces and legs and stomachs. They could not contain their urine. . .and now they ate anything at all. They caught mice, rats, sparrows, ants, earthworms. They ground up bones into flour, and did the same thing with leather and shoe soles; they cut up old skins and furs to make noodles of a kind and they cooked glue. And when the gra.s.s came up, they began to dig up the roots and ate the leaves and the buds; they used everything there was; dandelions, and burdocks and bluebells and willow root, and sedums, and nettles. . .

-Soviet writer Vasily Grossman, recording the spring of 1933 The Warsaw Ghetto, 19401942 Three hundred eighty thousand Jews were confined to a 3.5-mile area that normally housed 160,000. The population eventually reached 445,000 before the n.a.z.is sealed off the area with a ten-foot wall, with the intention of starving all of the inhabitants within nine months. Official food rationing provided 2,613 kilocalories per day for Germans, 699 kilocalories per day for Poles, and 184 kilocalories for Jews in the Ghetto. Tens of thousands died from starvation and disease.

People of all ages died in the streets, in shelters, in homes, and in hospitals. Nighttime produced a special hazard as even the most courageous or insensitive lost their nerve when, in the darkness of the night, they happened to accidentally step on some soft object that turned out to be a cadaver. The family commonly removed a body from their home onto the street, after removing all evidence of ident.i.ty. In that way, they might be able to use the extra ration card for a few days. . .. Mothers hid dead children under beds for days in order to receive a larger food ration.

-Witness account of life in the Ghetto Northern China, 19581962 Chairman Mao's failed bid to "industrialize" his nation, along with several natural disasters and drought, killed an unbelievable 30 million people by starvation, disease, infanticide, and cannibalism. Desperate families swapped each other's children to eat, thus avoiding having to eat their kin. The pest reduction campaign to protect crops included the entire country beating on pots and pans to prevent sparrows and other birds from landing until they fell down dead with exhaustion. Without the predation of the birds, insect pests multiplied, damaging crops. During the ma.s.s starvation, clueless officials doubled the exports of grain and decreased food importation. Although it was the world's largest famine, it was not revealed to the rest of the world until 1981.

On the muddy path leading from the village, dozens of corpses lay unburied. In the barren fields there were others; and amongst the dead, the survivors crawled slowly on their hands and knees searching for wild gra.s.s seeds to eat. In the ponds and ditches people squatted in the mud hunting for frogs and trying to gather weeds. It was winter, and bitterly cold, but. . .everyone was dressed only in thin and filthy rags tied together with bits of gra.s.s and stuffed with straw. . .. Sometimes neighbors and relatives simply fell down as they shuffled through the village and died without a sound. . .. The dead were left where they died because no one had the strength to bury them. . .. The silence was unnatural. The village oxen had died, the dogs had been eaten and the chickens and ducks had long ago been confiscated by the Communist Party in lieu of grain taxes. There were no birds left in the trees, and the trees themselves had been stripped of their leaves and bark. At night there was no longer even the scratching of rats and mice, for they too had been eaten or had starved to death.

-Famine survivor Mrs. Liu recounting the winter of 1959.

Of the 300 people who lived in Mrs. Liu's village, only 80 survived

Biafra (now Nigeria), Africa, 19671969 Civil war-caused famine kills 1 million people, leaving another 3.5 million to suffer from extreme malnutrition.

North Korea, 19941998 A combination of reduced Chinese and Russian food subsidies, along with the effects of collective farming, flooding, drought, and government corruption, caused an estimated 2 to 3 million people to die of starvation, disease, and cannibalism. Defectors reported the elderly routinely walked out into fields to die, thereby reducing the burden of having to be fed.

Weeds, of whatever kind, were boiled up and swallowed in the form of soup. The soup was so bitter that we could barely keep it down. Our neighbors collected gra.s.s and tree bark-usually pine or various shrubs. They grated the bark and boiled it up before eating it. And much good it did them: their faces swelled from day to day until they finally perished. The poorest children lived on nothing but gra.s.s, and during cla.s.s their stomachs rumbled. After a few weeks their faces began to swell, making them look well nourished. Then their faces went on growing until they looked as though they had been inflated. Their cheeks were so puffy that they couldn't see the blackboard. Some of them were covered with impetigo and flaking skin. My friends and I caught frogs and cooked them skewered on bicycle spokes. We also ate gra.s.shoppers, which are delicious fried, as are dragonflies. Grilled, the flesh of fat dragonflies tastes a bit like pork; but you can eat them raw, once the head and wings have been removed. Sparrows and quails ended up in the pot. We caught them with nets set in wooden frames. Other birds, like crows, we fried on a brazier.

-Excerpted from Hyok Kang's book This is Paradise!

Depressed? Don't be! Focus on the positive and get off your b.u.t.t and make sure your family has the food they need for potential emergencies. After all, stored food is a life insurance policy you can really sink your teeth into.

Food Storage Options Now that you're good and hungry, let's discuss the many options that you have concerning what form your stored food might take. Canned, dried, or dehydrated meals, whole grains packed in buckets, freeze-dried food, and MREs (meals ready to eat) are the more common types of food-storage strategies on the market. All have their advantages and disadvantages. All will, sooner or later, need to be rotated to prevent your stock from going bad and/or losing much of its nutritional value. There are extremely comprehensive books on long-term food storage. The Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) are the kings and queens of doing their homework regarding this and much can be learned from their generations of experience. Check out a Mormon bookstore in your area or search online for other food storage information.

Keep in mind that the focus of many of these books is a long-term storage plan for food that will last one year or more. The task of storing food for such an extended amount of time can seem so complex and daunting that many families throw up their hands in frustration and blow off storing any food altogether. Slow down and breathe. How much food your family should have on hand depends on your family's supposed emergency. Most households, excluding dest.i.tute college students, already have an ample supply of food on hand that should last for several days in a pinch. Maybe this is all you'll need for your perceived emergency, or all the room you have to store food in the first place. Knowing you're in an emergency situation will allow you to ration what food you do have, thus making meager rations last even longer. If you want specific lists of stuff to buy for a comprehensive, long-term food storage strategy, research other books whose focus is on providing you with that information.

The Simple Bare-Minimum Food Storage Plan The average person eats one ton of food each year. If you're not into storing large amounts of food, have on hand at least the bare minimum to get you through a crisis and to remain independent from the bureaucratic and logistical nightmare that will envelop those who failed to have reserve food supplies available. At minimum, your family should have a two- to four-week supply of food on hand at all times. This food should require little or no cooking and meet all of your nutritional needs. It should be easy to access, portable in a pinch, and require the bare minimum of preparation and fuss. To implement this type of food storage program, simply buy more food from the store than you normally would, and when you get down to the emergency two- to four-week supply, make a trip to the store. In your mind, your home should be "out of food" when you reach your two- to four-week stock. If you bite into this stock from laziness or whatever, replace it as soon as possible. This extra food should not sit in the closet for months. It should be a part of your regular meal plan and ROTATED normally. In truth, it is not "stored" food at all, simply extra food that you have on hand as part of your regular fare in the kitchen.

I can't emphasize enough that you keep this extra food as simple as possible concerning its preparation. On my outdoor courses, I state in writing that clients should bring simple foods that require NO COOKING. Regardless of this, many still do. Because they didn't pay attention to the instructions, we are at times forced to create a heat source to cook their dinner. This heat source usually takes the form of a campfire, which requires a safe area to build the fire, dry fuel, an ignition source, knowledge of how to make a fire, the constant adding and adjustment of the fuel, ha.s.sling with rocks or berms of dirt to suspend a fireproof cooking container that someone happened to pack, water, and lots of time. While the rest of us have eaten our bagels and trail mix or tuna with crackers, the food cookers are still trying to get their water to boil. Don't underestimate how tedious cooking over a campfire can be (a.s.suming you have the materials and know-how to do so), especially under the physical, mental, and emotional strain of an emergency. There are many down and dirty foods that are ready to eat on the spot. For most families, canned foods will be the cat's meow as they are widely available, durable and portable, cheap, store well for up to two years, and are easy to open and eat, in the can with a stick if necessary, with zero preparation.

Food Storage Rules of Thumb There is no perfect food storage plan for every family as there are far too many variables to contend with, from personal dietary preferences and restrictions to global climates affecting storage. Many people waste much of their food storage supply by failing to obey a few simple rules of thumb regarding purchasing and storing food in bulk. Almost everyone interested in the storage of food will agree upon the following rules.

1 Store only what your family will eat. This sounds straightforward yet many families buy food, especially bulk items, based solely on price rather than what the family actually eats. It doesn't matter if you get a good deal on lima beans if your family hates them or has never had them. They will surely eat them if they get hungry enough, but why go through the ha.s.sle and the dirty looks? In addition, an emergency is not the time to find out that someone in your family is allergic to the new food you just introduced them to.

2 Faithfully ROTATE what you store. Depending on what you store and how it's stored, you must continually rotate your food stock. Seasoned food storage junkies frequently refer to the concept of "first in, first out," abbreviated as FIFO. If not already possessing dates from the factory, all containers should be dated as to when they were purchased to easily distinguish the can of corn that's two weeks old from the one that's two years old.

3 Keep foods stored in the best possible conditions for maximum shelf life. Heat, light, moisture, and excess oxygen are not friendly toward stored food. A following section will delve more deeply into details. Keep all stored food off the ground. Concrete floors can "sweat" moisture during temperature fluctuations when in direct contact with storage containers so put containers on thin wooden slates instead.

4 Foods stored in moisture (canned or bottled) should not be stored longer than two years. After this time these foods will rapidly lose their nutritional value.

5 Use only food-grade storage containers. Food-grade containers won't transfer potentially toxic substances from the container itself into the food. If a container does not specifically state that it is FDA approved for storing food, you should contact the manufacturer, especially if the container is plastic. Specify the characteristics of the food you're storing, whether it's alkaline, acidic, wet or dry, etc., as these qualities may affect the container. Ideally these containers will protect the contents from light, moisture, insects, rodents, excess heat, and air infiltration. Check wholesale food companies for containers such as food-grade plastic buckets, Mylar bags, or metal containers such as #10 cans with lids. I have picked up several used three- to five-gallon plastic food containers from restaurants or school cafeterias for free, so be creative. Grocery stores carry a variety of plastic containers designed to store food. Gla.s.s jars with tight-fitting lids may also be used.

6 Keep it simple! Human beings can complicate anything. Looking at food storage plans in books, on the Internet, and elsewhere will prove that people are bound and determined to have just as many culinary choices after a disaster as they enjoy now. Feel free to indulge your quest for variety as you see fit, but the main intention of variety in your emergency diet should be the a.s.surance of necessary balanced nutrition for optimal health, not to t.i.tillate your taste buds. The more elaborate and complicated your meal plan is, the more time, money, and effort you'll need to spend to satiate your self-created complexities. If you insist on having steak at every dinner, you will need to plan ahead more than the average Joe or Jane in order to make that happen during an emergency. To combat the ramifications of a major catastrophe, I stressed at the beginning of this chapter the importance of treating your stored food as survival rations instead of regular meals. After reading earlier in this chapter of what people have eaten in times of famine, you might just decide that having beans every night for a month could be acceptable, appet.i.te fatigue or not. If that's not going to work for your family, that's fine, but don't let your wants interfere with your needs. If you reject the idea of storing food at all because it's too time consuming, expensive, or (add your excuse here)__________, your whining and whimsy are destroying your priorities for survival! In times of hunger, you will gladly trade your wishfully thought of blackened salmon with baby peas for my bought, stored, and very real plain rice.

Making a List and Checking it Twice Ideally, your family will make a list of foods that they eat over a specific period of time. This time period is dependent upon your family's opinion of how much food they wish to store. If you think you should have a six-month supply on hand, know how much, and what, your family consumes in that time frame. You can simplify this by keeping track of all food expenditures for one month and multiplying by six, but you will lose some details of your family's food plan by doing so. While the quant.i.ties of food consumed might be similar, the variety in your family's diet may suffer by looking at only the small picture. Personally, I don't care if I eat oatmeal every morning for six months, but your tribe might.

How to Store Food for the Longest Shelf Life Nothing beats the nutritional value and freshness of foods that have just been harvested. My family has grown a garden for years and there is no comparison between a freshly picked tomato to one that has made the long journey to the grocery store and sits lingering in the produce bin. For the majority of families, fresh food will not be an option after a crisis, thus you will need to know how to properly store the food that you purchase for your storage program. If you don't want to mess with a formal storage program, at least don't let your cupboard go bare before resupplying it at the grocery store. Murphy's Law is alive and well and you don't want the grocery store shelves to be stripped due to an emergency the day before you were going to go shopping. The following rules will directly affect how long your stored food will last. The more rules you can check off in your favor, the better your emergency food will keep and deliver prized nutrition and taste during troubled times. Not all households will be able to conform to all the rules but do the best you can for your home environment.

Keep it cool! Although impossible to obtain in most homes, the optimal temperature for storing most foods is 40 degrees F (4 degrees C). The lower the temperature you can achieve, the lower the rate of chemical deterioration of your food. However, if you let foods stored in liquid, such as canned goods or those bottled in gla.s.s jars, freeze they can burst or break. For every 18-degree F (10-degree C) increase in temperature, you will lose half of your food's storage life. This means that if you store food in your 72-degree F (22-degree C) closet instead of your 54-degree F (12-degree C) bas.e.m.e.nt, it will last only half as long. If you don't have a bas.e.m.e.nt, north-facing rooms or attached colder porches are another option. Try to avoid locations that have radical spikes in temperature variation. Unless you know your garage has a year-round cool spot, avoid it. Most garages turn into flaming infernos during the summer months.

Keep it dry! Moisture is a huge enemy of stored food. Those who live in high-humidity climates will have a challenge on their hands. The optimal atmospheric humidity level for storing food is 15 to 10 percent or less. At 10 percent humidity, most bugs can't hatch, but you'll be hard pressed to find such an environment unless you live in the desert. That said, even Arizona has times of high humidity, the most notable being the summer monsoon season. Factor your changing climactic and weather conditions into your food storage equation and avoid packing emergency foods for the long haul before, during, or after a rain. If your bas.e.m.e.nt is cool but has mold crawling up the wall due to inherent dampness, find another food storage locale. Beware also of steam or moisture created from water heaters or other out-of-the-way, bas.e.m.e.nt-dwelling appliances. Whenever possible utilize food storage containers that are moisture-proof and keep them off the ground and away from walls. Using wooden slats underneath and keeping containers from touching interior walls helps prevent the "sweating" that may occur due to temperature differences from the container and the surface it's sitting on or touching.

Keep it dark! Ultraviolet radiation from sunlight and light in general will degrade the nutritional value of food over time, especially fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, E, and K. Your food storage containers should be opaque, or made that way with nontoxic paint, or wrapped in newspaper, paper bags, black plastic, or put into cardboard boxes with lids to keep things dark. Your storage area as well should be kept as dark as possible. If your stored food shares the closet that you use twice daily, block off the part holding the vittles from light with sheets of cardboard or some other method.

Keep it free of oxygen! Oxygen oxidizes away the nutritional value from your food. Even seemingly moisture-proof containers such as plastic buckets will eventually breathe and allow oxygen and potential moisture molecules to permeate through to the food. Some food companies deal with the excess oxygen by packaging their product using nitrogen, carbon dioxide (dry ice), freeze drying and vacuum sealing, canning, or moisture-absorbing packets (desiccants).

Keep it ROTATED! Frankly, a solid rotational plan will forgive you from many mistakes in storing your food as you will use it up in the order it was purchased-first in, first out-so that it never stays stored for very long. Some companies offer freeze-dried fare and food preserved by other methods that will keep for many years without much thought on your part, but you will pay dearly for the thought they have put into their product. Unfortunately, I have opened more than one "nitrogen-packed in a foil pouch with an added desiccant packet sealed in a number 10 can" survival cuisine product only to have it be rancid after less than two years of storage. If the company guarantees their product can be stored safely for ten years, how do you really know unless you open their hermetically sealed a.s.sumption? Storing what you use and faithfully rotating what you purchase is the simplest and safest guarantee that your grub will be good when you pop the top.

What about Eating "Old" Food?

Foods should be thought of in two distinct ways regarding its eventual spoilage. Fresh food has both palatability and nutritional value. While technically all food starts to lose trace amounts of its nutritional value soon after the harvest, it might remain palatable or edible long after most of its nutrition is gone. How much nutrition is lost in foods is dictated by how much nutrition the food had in the first place, how the food was processed, and how it was stored before going home with you from the store. As explained in the junk food section, empty calories are just that. Food devoid of nutrition will leave the body starving for nutrients and you will still feel hungry after eating large amounts of nutritionally empty food. The end result is that a six-month supply of food that's old will not last six months, as you will eat more of it to remain healthy and "full."

When the grid goes down, your refrigerator will undoubtedly contain at least some perishable food. Eat the food in the refrigerator first, and then eat from the freezer. Save stored foods until all perishables are eaten. In a well-stocked, well-insulated freezer, foods will usually still have ice crystals in their centers-meaning they are safe to eat-for up to two days. However, use caution. After the 2003 blackout in New York City that left 9 million people without power for up to two days, an increase in diarrhea was linked to the consumption of meat and seafood from homeowners' unpowered refrigerators.

Nutritional loss aside, most foods will eventually break down until they look, smell, and taste like h.e.l.l. While it's impossible for the layman to know how much nutrition a food has lost, even little Johnny is capable of spitting out something that tastes disgusting. Luckily for us and Johnny, food that has lost its palatability is a great clue that it doesn't contain squat for nutrition either.

WHAT'S FOR DINNER?.

While nowhere near exhaustive, the following are examples of what people have eaten in times of need around the world. During the civil war in Liberia in the late 1980s, desperate people ate every animal in the national zoo except for the one-eyed lion. While some of the below "food subst.i.tutes" can cause diarrhea, which can kill more quickly than starvation, the more open you are to the possibilities of what can be eaten during times of lack, the greater your chances for survival if things get really rough.

Poisonous mukhet berries. African refugees soak the berries for days to leach out toxins, after which they are ground up. The flour has little nutritional value Wallpaper Glue from furniture joints Rats and mice. In Malawi, children stand on the roadsides selling skewers of roasted mice Seaweed Tree bark Gra.s.s and weeds Obscure plant seeds. In Africa, people excavate anthill and termite mounds to pick out the tiny seeds the insects have gathered and stored Corn stalks Dirt and clay. The epitome of "dirt poor," impoverished Haitians bake "dough" in the sun made from salt, b.u.t.ter, water, and dirt to make their stomachs feel full Dogs and cats Horses Bugs, bugs, and more bugs. In times of insect infestation and crop damage, people the world over have eaten the invaders, including locusts, crickets, and gra.s.shoppers, which in parts of Africa are called "flying shrimp"

Poisonous wild ca.s.sava. Made edible by pounding and soaking for days Mammal bones and raw skin Marula fruit seeds. Long after the tasty fruit is gone, hungry Africans crack open the tough seeds with rocks and the impossibly small seeds are sc.r.a.ped out with thin twigs Crows, ravens, and vultures Other people Rawhide and leather, from shoes, clothing, chairs, tables, drums, backpacks, tack from livestock, etc. ad nauseam Nearly any living (or dead) creature that flies, crawls, walks, or swims Your enemy. During World War II, some j.a.panese soldiers on the move tracked down, killed, and ate unlucky Allied forces Preserved human organs in jars. Due to severe starvation from the combined insults of combat and extreme cold, some from Napoleon's army were reduced to pillaging local medical schools for their next meal *

Older canned food-provided it's not bulging or leaky, thus indicating toxicity-can be rotated into a fresher food diet to help extend the fresh food. Think of it as filler that's much better than the Haitian filler of dough b.a.l.l.s that are composed of water, b.u.t.ter, salt, and dirt. One time, I was given a stored five-gallon bucket of brown rice. Upon opening it, I discovered it was horribly rancid. I decided to experiment with this spoiled food and I ate the rice as a normal part of my diet every day until it was gone. Other than having a slightly sour taste in my mouth and fierce flatulence (I was single at the time), I had no problems and went about my extremely active lifestyle as usual. At the time of this experiment, brown rice comprised half of my daily diet. Another time, I failed to rotate a large amount of canned tuna fish and found that many of the cans had slightly swelled up. They were out of date by two or three years. Being stubbornly cheap and wanting to know what I could get away with, I saved the cans that had the least amount of swelling and ate their contents, one per day for a period of a few weeks. After I finished each can, I noticed that I felt a bit "off" for half an hour, and then I was fine. I contribute this "off" feeling to my body dealing with the mild amount of toxins that were produced from the old tuna fish trapped inside the can.

I don't like wasting resources, and this includes food. I routinely eat rancid tortilla chips and pull, peel, or push mold off bagels, vegetables, cheese, and other food items. For many years I "dumpster dived" to retrieve a bounty of wasted food and have eaten in alleys where generous restaurants and health food stores left their dregs out for the homeless to feast. I eat the majority of trapped mice and rats at my homestead, not wanting to waste their value and wanting to ever know more and keep in practice about how I would react to extreme foods in times of need. On some of my field courses once-finicky students gleefully eat bugs, rodents, weird plants, flowers, crayfish, frogs, snakes, and anything else we can find. The "five-second rule" for dropped food has never applied in the wilderness.

Sometimes while pus.h.i.+ng the envelope in my experimentation with food, I've broken through the paper. I once ate a garden squash that was far too old on the inside, but looked fine on the outside. Another time I cooked and ate beans that I had left for several months in the garden after they had cured. In both instances I was deep in the wilderness, miles away from civilization, and in both cases I wound up power puking and with a bad case of the runs. The extremely painful stomach and hamstring cramps ripped through my muscles, jerking and bending my body like a reed in the wind. The cramps made the physics of trying to go to the bathroom in a normal position awkward to say the least. In both cases the food was "cooked."

After those learning curves, I did some research into how heat affects the pathogens that cause food poisoning. I used to think that I could boil virtually anything, including older roadkill, and that the heat would destroy all of the bad bugs that would present a problem. What I learned in the four-inch-thick medical manual that a physician friend lent me was distressing. Heat does destroy the actual critter, some of which are very reluctant to die. What the heat does NOT destroy, however, is the fecal matter created by the critter. Laboratory studies have been conducted with pressure cookers cooking food for long periods of time, and the food still posed a problem due to the long-dead organism's p.o.o.p. Some varieties of molds can produce toxic substances called mycotoxins which are also unaffected by heat, and those are most likely the culprits that knocked me for a loop in the infamous squash incident. Keep this in mind if you're forced to get creative with really nasty vittles.

I realize pulling a stunt such as eating questionable cans of tuna fish is stupid and potentially deadly, as certain organisms such as botulism and others can kill quickly. What I also realize is many so-called food storage gurus have never had the nerve to experiment in this way. Thus there is very little data about what happens to people when they consume spoiled food. There are too many variables in human physiology and "food physiology" for an experiment such as this to be accurate anyway. Anytime you deal with food that has expired, you risk becoming a victim to food poisoning or at the very least severely reduced nutrition. As my experiments prove, however, there is a gray area when eating some older foods. Use extreme caution when dealing with infants, small children, and the elderly or you could kill a loved one.

Being a survival skills instructor by trade, I'm well versed with how human nature reacts under extreme stress. I decided to include my personal stories above to give you as much information as possible about consuming marginal foods. In summary, I know what you will do if driven by extreme hunger. . .you will open the questionable can.

The Big Four: Whole Wheat, Powdered Milk, Honey, and Salt Whole wheat, powdered milk, honey, and salt have long been the bare bones "Mormon four" regarding foods that are nutritious and store extremely well. Some authors claim that you can live for very long periods of time on just these four foods. Others say it's bunk. Unfortunately, I can't give you a definitive opinion either way as I have never lived using only these four things for any amount of time, nor do I know anyone who has. Those who scoff at using only whole wheat, honey, powdered milk, and salt for a long-term survival diet ought to have tried to do so. No amount of book research on human nutrition can replace personal experimentation. Even if two people did experiment using the fantastic four as their sole nutrition, whatever result they had does not mean you will experience the same. Many people are allergic to wheat and don't even know it until, of course, they are forced to eat a diet in which half of the grub is whole wheat. Use common sense in deciding what you will store for your food storage program.

One of the main advantages of the four, especially salt, honey, and even whole wheat if stored properly, is that they will last indefinitely, or at least for as long as you'll keep your body. Salt might clump up over time but it can simply be unclumped and used as is. In time, honey will crystallize, especially raw honey, but it can be easily heated to turn itself back into liquid gold. Even nonfat powdered milk, under the authority of actual experience, has been recorded as lasting as long as fifteen years when stored properly in a dry, cool location. Long storage times are important, especially for the insanely busy average American family who doesn't want to d.i.n.k around with rotating stored foods. Although rotating your food is key to making sure it's loaded with nutrition and doesn't go bad, many of you won't do it. So why not have on hand something to eat besides dirt that has a super-long storage life.

In her book Pa.s.sport to Survival author and kitchen magician Esther d.i.c.key takes the fantastic four to unbelievable levels of culinary creativity. She shows the reader how to separate the gluten from whole-wheat flour to make subst.i.tute meat dishes from tacos and burgers to sausage and meat loaf. Esther takes the multiuse magic of whole wheat to new heights as she cracks it, cooks it, sprouts it, steams it, and juices it (wheat gra.s.s). The book has dozens of recipes on how to take the four ingredients and first make other elemental ingredients, such as gluten and wild yeast, which can then be used for many other recipes. She even creates all kinds of desserts, from lollipops to cookies and soft ice cream with caramel syrup using only the fantastic four and remedial seasonings. A sample meal in her book reads as follows. For breakfast: waffles with caramel syrup, rolled wheat, and amber tea. For lunch: sausage pizza, gluten cream soup, milk wheat sprouts, and honey taffy. For dinner: wheat "meat" loaf, steamed wheat, pinwheel cookies, and milk. d.a.m.n, what a woman! While her book may be out of print, the desire and creativity to do more with less is still available if you have the will.

Whole Wheat There are several varieties of whole wheat but the hard red or less common hard white variety have superior storage lives and relatively high protein contents, usually 12 percent. Hard wheats have a higher gluten content than soft wheats and are thus superior for making breads. Yet soft wheats excel at making flour for pastas, pastries, and breakfast cereals. Gluten is the protein within the grain that, in dough, traps the ga.s.ses produced by the fermentation of yeasts or the reactions of baking soda and powders. These trapped gases cause the dough to rise. The more gluten a grain has, the higher the dough will rise. Not all grains have gluten; rice has virtually none. How much gluten a grain has will dictate to a certain point what you can make with the grain.

Although it's been around for decades, triticale is still not well-known to the ma.s.ses. Triticale has a very high nutritional value and is a hybrid between wheat and rye. The combination brings together the productivity of wheat with the durability of rye, and it can be used in much the same way as both.

Using whole wheat or whole grains in general will be unusual for many people. Many recipes require it being ground into flour for everyday use. High-quality, manual-crank grain mills are worth their weight in gold for any food storage program that includes whole grains and legumes. Stay away from the electric mills for obvious reasons, unless you have a manual-crank mill as a backup. Unfortunately, grains that are ground into flour will lose much of their nutritional value in less than a week. This is the reasoning behind "enriched" flours at the grocery store. Without the added shot of nutritional value, processed commercial flour would be similar to eating s.p.a.ckling as far as the body's nutritional needs were concerned.

Buying Whole Wheat Whole wheat usually comes in large sacks and can be purchased from wholesale food companies. I bought some from the local health food store so check around. As with all foods for storage, research whom you're buying from and only buy food from reputable companies.

Storing Whole Wheat Keep it whole until it's needed, and store it like everything else in opaque, moisture-proof, airproof (if possible) containers in a cool/cold, dry, dark area. Although many claim that when properly stored whole wheat can last indefinitely-at least as long as you'll need it in your current body-it's always a smart bet to rotate your food on a regular basis.

Powdered Milk [nonfat]

Powdered milk is a nutritional powerhouse for the survivor and ranks near the top of the nutritional list (eggs being the highest) because it is packed with protein. While you can buy powdered whole milk, the fat it contains will cause it to spoil long before nonfat or skim milk. Nonfat powdered milk is usually available in two forms, instant and regular. While both are nutritionally the same, the instant variety takes up more s.p.a.ce than the regular as the instant is less dense and will more easily mix with water. Preparing the milk a few hours in advance of when it's needed will improve the flavor, and so will aerating the water as suggested in the water disinfection section. But it's not worth the risk if you have no means of refrigeration. Powdered milk can be added to a variety of foods to either thicken them or increase their nutritional value and flavor.

Buying Powdered Milk Instant powdered milk is available at nearly every grocery store. Wholesale suppliers will have large bags that hold many pounds of the product. If this is the way you wish to go, make sure you store it well and in smaller containers to be used one at a time. When powdered milk is opened, its flavor and nutritional content start to break down. Most brands of instant milk are fortified with vitamins, especially A and D, but double-check to make sure. Look for the fanciest Grade A variety you can find, with no artificial colors or flavors. The higher quality means better processing and will typically pay off with an increased storage life.

Storing Powdered Milk The fifteen-year-old powdered milk written about earlier is not typical, as powdered milks are very finicky to environmental changes, especially moisture, temperature, and light. Take great care to keep it dry, out of the light, and as cool/cold as possible. Vitamins A and D are particularly sensitive to heat and light and will breakdown rapidly at a rate of 20 percent per year, according to some milk producers. Powdered milk usually comes in paper sacks or cardboard cartons and should be immediately taken out and stored in opaque, moisture- and airproof containers. Gla.s.s works great as long as it's painted or taped to make it impervious to light. The use of moisture-absorbing desiccants is recommended, as powdered milk sucks moisture (and surrounding odors) out of the air. Properly stored, most authorities feel that dried milk is viable for about two years before needing to be rotated.

Heavenly Honey Honey has been utilized on planet Earth for a very long time. Spanish cave paintings dating from 7,000 BC depict people harvesting honey from bee colonies. Although the honeybee is not native to America, transported hives found their way to the eastern coast of America by 1622. Today, Americans consume about 500 million pounds of honey each year, more than half of which is imported.

Honeys vary wildly in quality, taste (there are thousands of flavors), colors, and potential medicinal uses. Much commercial honey available at the grocery store is cut with corn syrup. Beekeepers call low-grade honey "crank case oil." To have all of the benefits of honey, you need to purchase straight quality honey. Many health food stores and independent beekeepers sell pure uncut honey. Although it might be more expensive, you get what you pay for. Look for honey that's labeled U.S. Grade A or U.S. Fancy or find a local bee person who sells his or her own. By purchasing honey directly from the source you eliminate the uncertainty of lower-grade honeys or those that are cut with other stuff.

Sweet Medicine *

AWESOME ASHCAKES!.

So you're stuck with 700 pounds of whole wheat, now what? With a hand-crank food mill, a few other ingredients, and the imagination and wisdom of a chef, your whole-wheat stash can produce a startling array of goodies that are truly delicious. But what if you're a white-trash slob with minimal cooking experience beyond throwing away the boxes from fast-food joints? Fear not; many outdoor survival schools use flour and water to make a simple "cake" in the campfire with a minimum of preparation and cleanup. The end product resembles hard tack from the pioneer days if well cooked. Sometimes after eating the cakes for several days straight my students call them "a.s.s cakes." I remind the precious ones that it's better to have an a.s.s cake than no cake. Anyway, the simplicity of the below recipe can be modified and jazzed up in dozens of ways to please the picky palate.

Ingredients: Flour Water Twig Coals from a fire *

Directions: 1 With twig, mix small amount of water (2 or 3 tablespoons) with flour.

2 Use hands to flatten out dough ball into pancake shape.

3 Throw onto coals of fire.

4 Turn as necessary to keep from burning.

5 Let cool.

6 Eat.

Adding small amounts of water to the flour can be accomplished by making a little depression in the flour and pouring a tiny amount of water into the depression. A twig or something else is then used to stir the water, which will coagulate the flour around the twig. The resulting dough ball can be flattened out like a pancake. Add more dry flour if the cake sticks to your hands, because if it does, it will also stick to the coals in a fire. Toss the ashcake onto fresh coals from a fire (the things that glow red after the fire looks like it's out) and turn it every few minutes until it's cooked. The hotter the coals, the more frequent the ashcakes will need to be turned. Ashcakes can be cooked less for a more doughy texture but will not keep as long as those that are thoroughly cooked due to the extra inner moisture.

The above water recommendation makes an individual ashcake about four to five inches in diameter, depending on the thickness of the cake. For a bigger ashcake simply make a bigger dough ball.

Many things can be added to spruce up an ashcake. While not required, you can add baking powder and soda for a product that will rise to the occasion. You can also mix various types of flour, although make sure to use some that have a high gluten content or the dough b.a.l.l.s won't hold together. Turnovers can be made from the dough and loaded with dried fruit, jams, jellies, or whatever you have before they're pinched shut and put on the coals.

For thousands of years, the ancient Romans, Egyptians, a.s.syrians, Greeks, and Chinese used honey to treat a variety of wounds and ailments. A combination of low-moisture content, low pH, and the presence of hydrogen peroxide-a by-product produced from the conversion of glucose into gluconic acid-gives honey its resistance to spoiling, as well as its antibacterial and antifungal properties.

Many studies have shown that wounds treated with honey not only heal faster but also scar less. Honey has also been reported as a superior treatment for topical burns and is used as a component in many skin and hair conditioning products. It has also been used to treat stomach ulcers, diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, eye injuries, liver problems, coughs, colds, and flu. Although raw foods, including honey, can contain microbes, the potential microbes in honey have never been found to complicate any medical studies, whether adults used it internally or externally.

Honey and Infants Honey, or any raw foods, should not be given to infants, as it takes twelve months for the immune system in a human to fully develop. Although honey won't grow microbes, which are present in many raw foods, a botulism spore can lie dormant within honey. While an adult immune system can easily deal with the microbe levels occurring in raw foods, infants cannot. Gamma-irradiated honey, however, is free from all potential microbes.

Storing Honey Honey is mostly fructose and glucose. Over time, the sugars separate (mostly the glucose) and cause the honey to granulate. Spun, creamed, or whipped honey has been pregranulated but with particles that are very small. The type of honey as well as how it's stored will dictate when it starts to crystallize. The perfect temperature for honey to granulate is between 55 and 57 degrees F (12.8 to 13.9 degrees C). Although granulated honey doesn't pose any problem other than it being less convenient to spread, it can easily be brought back to its normal state of semitransparency.

Granulated honey can be liquefied by putting the container in hot water. The water should be from 110 to 160 degrees F (43.4 to 71.2 degrees C). If it gets any hotter you risk compromising the flavor and the antibacterial properties that make honey such a good keeper. I have degranulated honey by placing the gla.s.s jar in the summer sun for a day. Many types of store-bought honeys are prefiltered and rarely crystallize, as the process requires a particle upon which the crystallization begins and then expands. As with other foods, the cooler it's stored the better, and it should be kept in the dark, away from direct solar radiation. Honey can also be frozen and, according to many beekeepers, doing so for a few weeks will prevent it from crystallizing for up to two years or more. The flavor and some of the medicinal properties in honey do start to disappear over time. Even though honey will technically last your lifetime, it doesn't mean that fresher, rotated honey won't be a superior product.

Sacred Salt The history of salt is as old as humanity itself. Native Americans in my neck of the woods made a northward, several-hundred-mile journey on foot to visit the Great Salt Lake area of Utah to bring back that oh-so-precious commodity. One of the simple wonders of life is the sodium-pota.s.sium balance that continuously navigates back and forth through the lipid membrane of the human cell. Without sodium in the diet, we die. Two of the hardest items to come by in ancient ages for most people were salt and fat. The typical American diet is riddled with both, so much so that low sodium and fat diets appear as far as the eye can see. Maybe it is some memory deep within us that remembers how precious these two things were: is that why we indulge like a kid in a cookie jar for both? What hardy people used to walk for days to mine by hand, we can now buy for nearly nothing at virtually every grocery store in the world. We even throw a form of it called halite onto the streets in the wintertime.

Aside from melting snow, salt can be used to preserve animal hides and many types of food, including meats. Russ Miller, the ill.u.s.trator for this book, has done experiments with salt and raw rabbit meat. He put freshly butchered rabbit layered with salt in an unsealed plastic container, unrefrigerated, for over a year. The meat was not only still good, but it was pliable as well.

Not all salt is created equal and very little of it is made for human consumption. Table salt is by far the most common variety of salt for human consumption and it comes in two varieties, iodized and noniodized. Table salt usually has an additive that prevents it from absorbing moisture and caking up. People that plan to use their salt for pickling and canning might be better off buying other forms of pure salt such as kosher or canning salt without this additive, although both will work in a pinch. There are also a variety of "gourmet" sea salts available at many health food shops. These contain other minerals as well as sodium and should not be used for food preservation if you have a choice in the matter. Rock salts commonly used in homemade ice cream churns are not recommended by the manufacturers for human consumption, but in a pinch, who knows.

As sodium is so important in the human diet, I feel that having it trumps many of the so-called nonedibility of certain salts. On hard-core outdoor survival courses deep in the wilderness, we have commonly broken off a piece of a salt lick put out for cattle. I have personally seen this undoubtedly not-fit-for-human-consumption salt bring students back to life after they have sweated out much of their sodium in the desert heat. Take note that people living in hot climates or doing heavy exercise will lose much of their sodium in the form of sweat, thus will require and crave more salt in their diet. Even though you can get away with using sketchy varieties of salt, table salt and other types that are specifically made for human consumption are so cheap and readily available, why wouldn't you have some on hand for the health of your family?

Storing Salt As long as you keep it clean and free from dirt or debris, salt stores indefinitely. Salt should be stored in moisture-proof containers, like everything else, in a cool, dark place, although there is lat.i.tude in how it's stored. If you're short on cool, dry, dark places for food storage, salt can be put somewhere else as it's fairly forgiving. Although it may yellow over time, it can still be used. One of the reasons salt is such a good preservative is that it draws moisture, even from the air itself, and when it does, it will start to clump up. These clumps can be dried in the sun, a solar oven, or on a woodstove and broken up again for use.

Other Goodies to Store from the Store Groovy Grains There are many, many varieties of grains to choose from. If you don't want to eat wheat 24/7, research what other choices you have to tickle your taste buds. Some grains are familiar to the average American and others are going to be found only by the hardcore hippy, deep within the bowels of the neighborhood health food store's bulk bin section. Rice (in its many forms), corn, amaranth, barley, oats (in its many forms), buckwheat, quinoa, millet, rye, teff, and sorghum are some of the more common choices.

While the above grains all have their pros and cons, nutritionally, taste-wise, and in preparation, the long-term storage rules of thumb detailed in this chapter are solid for all of them. Decide which grains your family will eat and if you have the right long-term storage conditions for them in your home.

Luscious Legumes Legumes are great as most are high in protein (up to 35 percent!) and carbohydrates. That said, any self-respecting vegan or vegetarian knows to combine legumes with other grains to create a complete protein, as grains and legumes alone only contain a partial amino acid profile. As the legume family is one of the largest plant kingdoms on Earth, there are many choices to pick from and most store decently under proper conditions. Some of the more common varieties from the legume family are pinto beans, black beans, fava beans, kidney beans, mung beans, lima beans, soybeans, lentils, peanuts, black-eyed peas, chickpeas, and green and yellow peas (split or whole).

Fats and Oils Fats contain more than twice the calories of proteins or carbohydrates, making them powerful additions of concentrated energy for any survival diet-although they do require more oxygen in the body to break down and oxidize into usable nutrition. Fats also greatly affect the palatability of foods, and, much like salt, ingested fats are required for life to continue in a human body. This truth has been largely forgotten because fat is so easy to find in the average diet. As everyone knows, low-fat diets abound in America and other affluent parts of the world.

Stories are common of mountain men in the 1800s who ate all the rabbits they could kill and died with full stomachs because the wild rabbits did not contain the fat required to allow the men's bodies to metabolize the meat and absorb fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, E, and K. The rabbit meat was simply too lean. In another example, some early European Arctic explorers crash-landed their boat upon an ice flow. Many of the men were rescued by traditional Inuit people and given food caught by the natives. When another s.h.i.+p arrived months later, they found that many of the earlier explorers had died. The newcomers at first thought that the marooned sailors had been murdered by the Inuits. It turns out that the Europeans simply died from a lack of fat and nutrition in their diets. The friendly Inuits had fed the Europeans what they ate, but the Inuits ate the entire carca.s.s: fats, internal organs, and all, not just the lean meat. The finicky European sailors had survived the crash in Arctic waters to be killed only by their own refusal to eat the entire animal like the "savage" Inuit natives. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Storing Fats and Oils The problem with fats and oils is they don't store well for long periods of time. They go rancid quickly. Excess oxygen, the main culprit, is eight times more soluble in fat than in water, thus the "oxidation" or spoilage rate is much higher. The less saturated a fat is, the quicker it can go bad. Although it is much more apparent when animal fats become rancid because of the bad smell, vegetable oils still become rancid. Heat and light are also enemies to storing oils and fats. Pay special attention to the laws of food storage with all fats and oils; buy them in the smallest containers as practical and rotate your stock as often as possible. Remember that oxygen is the main factor in fats and oils going bad so larger containers will be repeatedly exposed to excess oxygen as the lid comes on and off. Rancid fats are not healthy to consume in quant.i.ty so don't mess around with them if they have gone bad.

Depending on storage conditions, most unopened cooking oils have a shelf life of a year to a year and a half. If you can, keep oils and fats as cold as possible, especially after they have been opened. If the substance freezes, the amount needed can be taken out of the mother container and heated or left out at room temperature. Typically, paler light-colored cooking oils will keep longer than darker-colored oils. Clogged arteries and taste notwithstanding, the best stuff to buy for maximum storage life is canned hydrogenated shortening. Some even contain antioxidant preservatives that will increase the shelf life. If you store an unopened can of this in the right long-term storage location, it may last six to eight years or more. I realize that this type of fat is the bane of all health food nuts, and is being outlawed by some states for commercial restaurant use, but consider what your intention is for having its concentrated, long-lasting calories as a part of your emergency food storage program.

Sweet Tooth [Sugars]

Life without something sweet is a drag. Although honey is multiuse and a great sweetener, it will take some getting used to when used for baking purposes in your solar oven. White table sugar (sucrose), while somewhat white trash, will last indefinitely if kept dry and clean, as sugar inhibits most microbial growth. Brown sugar and powdered sugar are close behind in longevity. Buy a familiar brand from the store and keep it moisture free, in airtight, insect-proof containers. If it does absorb moisture, it will cake up like salt and can simply be broken up and used. Dry sweeteners are more stable than liquid sweeteners over the long haul with the exception of honey.

I like to have a stash of hard candies around for a portable sugar fix on the go. Although they will, like everything else, deteriorate with time, simple hard candies such as peppermints will keep a long, long time and can be bought very cheaply at the end of every Christmas season. The sweetness in hard candies and sweet stuff in general, when used in moderation, can be very soothing on the nerves during stressful situations. It also works great to bribe or shut up kids when nothing else seems to work. Avoid storing candies with nuts or too many ingredients in them as they will spoil rapidly in comparison to straight sugar.

Because of the sugar content, I used to think all candies were invincible to spoilage. Several months back I found the remains of an old stashed survival kit. I went through all the components with great curiosity. I wondered if my opinion had changed over the years on what to store and how to store it. One of the items I found were two Snickers candy bars in a freezer bag. I estimated they had been in my jeep for fifteen years, and had been subjected to temperatures well over 120 degrees F (48 degrees C) to below freezing. As I excitedly unwrapped my archeological find, I found that the chocolate coating had completely vaporized, the peanuts were rancid as h.e.l.l, and something that I think was caramel and nugget was more or less intact. Of course I ate it anyway and it wasn't bad, other than a slightly funky aftertaste more than likely caused by the rancid peanuts.

Other Cooking Basics Baking powder, if kept dry in a moisture-proof, airtight container will store for about a year before it loses its potency. It can be tested to see if it's any good by putting a rounded teaspoon into half a cup of hot water. If the baking powder is good, it will bubble like crazy. Most baking powders contain aluminum, except for the Rumford brand.