A 2000 calorie diet is recommended for a healthy stable life.  This is true nowadays. A 2000 calorie diet is meant to sustain your current body composition.  If you stay true to this, you will not gain weight nor lose it.  That is pretty hard to do these days with most meals being 1000 calories by themselves.  If you want to gain weight, add 500 calories more. If you want to lose weight, then subtract 500 calories.  It’s pretty much that simple.  Your normal body uses 1200 calories just for normal functions such as digesting food, mental problem solving, etc. The other 800 is used for physical activity, repairing muscles, etc.  What happens in a world that completely changes your lifestyle and diet?

How many calories do you really need?

When you’re prepping for food, you have to take in account that most likely you’ll be doing more physical labor.  This will require more calories to help sustain your diet.  So when you’re shopping for canned food and groceries, look at the amount of calories per serving. This is when you want to purchase that 1000 calorie per meal stockpile.  What you thought was 6 months of food may only be 2 or 3 months, when you focus on the calorie count. You don’t want to encounter a situation where you are growing crops, have a month or two to go before they’re edible and you’re running out of food.  You thought what you had would be enough, but it’s not.  You’re eating more to fight the weakness so you can get out there everyday to grow more food.  Now, you’re behind on meals all because you prepped for today’s meals and not for a world different than we know it. You want to prep for at least a 3000 calorie a day food plan.  Take a look at your preps, pull out as much canned food or other preps equal to 3000 calories per day, not just for you but for all people in your family. If you have a family of four, pull out at least 10000 calories worth of food per day.  How much food do you really have? Are you concerned?

Malnutrition

The thing you want to avoid is malnutrition.  This is when your body is not receiving enough of those basic nutrients required to maintain itself. You’ll lose weight, muscle mass, and even the ability to think straight.  Try stocking up on one a day vitamins so even if you’re not eating enough, you’ll still be getting those nutrients needed to survive to the next day.  What also helps with malnutrition is growing herbs.  Add herbs to every meal you create. They have tremendous nutritional value to help your immune system and various other health benefits.  This is so important since modern medicine may be a thing of the past, in a doomsday scenario.  

The Japanese during WW2, could survive on just small amounts of rice and meat for months at a time. This was the rations the Imperial Japanese would give their soldiers to live off of during war time.  They were also expected to live off the land if they wanted more. American soldiers were ordered to do the same, so they could learn how to live as their enemies did.  Imagine being in the middle of a war and not having much to eat.  This is how any crisis situation will be.  There will be times where eating the same thing everyday is unavoidable.

What to buy

Food you want to stock up on.  You want to make sure you stockpile on those food that don’t go bad or have a long shelf life. White rice, honey, sugar, dried corn, salt, and many more will practically never go bad.  Pasta and other whole wheat items  have a long shelf life.  These items are also pretty cheap and are good if you’re prepping on a budget.  Canned food is great because of how easy it is to make. You can simply open it and eat it.  M.R.E.’s (meals ready to eat) are what the military uses for a replacement when a warm cooked meal is unavailable.  M.R.Es have around 1200-1500 calories in each meal.  These are slightly expensive, but are great to have as a backup. You could eat two a day and give your body more than what it needs to survive on.

The only problem with stored long shelf life meals is that they are so high in sodium.  Too much sodium is not good for your body.  Over time, it will affect the way your kidneys function and increase blood pressure.  This is a burden on your heart. It will increase your chance of stroke and having a heart attack.  You combine this with the amount of physical labor you’re doing and the results are not good.  You’ll feel like you have to pee constantly, feel sick, and be short of breath.  You have to make sure you are eating fresh food as much as you possibly can, in combination with foods that have preservatives added.

Food prepping does not have to kill your budget, nor am I saying go out right now and buy a ton of canned food.  Begin food prepping slowly. It has taken me almost 3 years to gather enough for just 6 months.  I certainly have more than this, but it has taken me awhile.  Places you can look is Dollar Tree and your local grocery store. You can find cheap rice, canned food, and other great prepping stuff.  Try to buy a can or two a week and watch how it starts to add up, when you stay committed to it.

The what and why of my stockpile

I store processed food for the first months of any crisis, winters, or maybe those seasons of farming that don’t go so great.  It will happen, especially if you’re new to growing your own crops. Even if you’re a professional farmer, mother nature no matter what you do can kill your crops.  Make sure you purchase heirloom seeds, you can buy a pack of 15000 seeds for less than 20 bucks on Amazon.  Heirloom seeds are the way to go. They have a 90% guaranteed germination rate.  The seeds you get from your crops will also live on for the next season. 

My general rule about food prepping is; If you are not going to have enough food to last over a long period of time, then make sure that you never wake up or go to bed hungry.  If this means sacrificing eating lunch, then do it.  It’s hard to work all day without eating, but it’s worse trying to go to sleep on an empty stomach.  That first meal when you wake up will give you motivation to work throughout the day.  During the day you can also distract yourself from your growling stomach.  This just doesn’t concern me as much as it does watching my family go through this.  I’m used to a military life style. I can go all day without eating and still complete my mission.  For people like my wife though, she is definitely not use to this way of living. It would be a difficult transition for her.

Now is the time to start your food preps.  What you save and store will greatly increase your chance on making it through tough times, whatever they may be.  It’s your future, not mine, so you better get started.

This is Ian I the Survival Guy, stay tuned for more advice on your 5 Stars of Survival.

© 5 Star Survival, 2018.

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