When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need to Survive When Disaster Strikes

by Cody Lundin

  In summary, the three macronutrients found in foods—proteins, fats, and carbohydrates—contain different amounts of calories and metabolize at varying rates within the body. The savvy survivor should store foods containing all three macronutrients. In addition, it would be wise to have on hand a one-size-fits-all, portable, quick, no-cook combination food source containing simple sugars and carbohydrates that jump-starts the body's glucose levels immediately. This same food source should also possess longer-burning carbohydrates for short-term energy and fats for sustained, long-burning energy. Proteins, with thought given to their disadvantages, should be present as well, thus stabilizing simple sugars and carbohydrates, helping to prevent the "crash," as well as providing the body with extra, long-burning fuel.

  Foods including all macronutrients will give you the greatest bang for your buck, metabolizing in succession sugars, carbohydrates, proteins, and finally fats. Native American people knew the advantage of combining foods for maximum energy and performance all too well as their rugged lifestyles demanded the most from their bodies. They developed "pemmican," a staple that possessed all three macronutrients: berries for simple sugars and carbohydrates, meat for protein, and fat for fat. All three elements were prepared and mixed together to create the ultimate indigenous trail mix.

  Your Basal Metabolic Rate [BMR]: Defining How Much Feed You Truly Need

  Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the amount of calories you burn at rest doing absolutely nothing. It is the bare minimum number of calories or energy your body needs to sustain the life process: respiration, circulation, cellular metabolism, glandular activity, and the maintenance of core body temperature. BMR requirements vary widely based on age, sex, muscle and bone weight, and height, so pinning down how much calories you burn sitting on your butt can be a challenge. The four main physiological factors that influence the burning of calories for BMR are as follows:

  1 Being male. Men and boys burn more calories simply being men than women do being women.

  2 Your age. Young people burn far more calories than middle-aged or older folks.

  3 Muscularity. More muscles require more nutrients, even at rest.

  4 Tall people. The more body one has, excluding fat, the more nutrition is required to keep the body idling.

  The biggest calorie burners or those who eat the most food are young, tall, muscular men or boys—ask any mom. Statistically, tall women will burn more calories than shorter women and so on. Make no mistake about it, if you go by the serving size posted on the labels of foods, they will not have taken these variations into account—how could they? If your household plans on feeding several large teenage boys during a crisis, plan on storing much more food.

  The following BMR worksheet can be photocopied and filled out by each member of your tribe. This will give you an estimate of how many calories will be required to feed your family when they are doing absolutely nothing. However, being inactive is not a typical daily survival activity so the worksheet also has an activity level option that will increase the daily amount of calories required for that person depending upon which activity level they choose. This will give you an estimate of the active caloric needs of each family member, a more true representation of what they are burning right now in the bustle of daily life. Other factors such as illness and weather conditions will also influence how many calories your body uses. Cold weather without proper shelter or clothing will dramatically increase the amount of calories your body burns in order to thermoregulate its core body temperature.

  Basal Metabolic Rate and Active Caloric Needs Worksheet

  for Guys and Gals—Harris-Benedict Equation

  Women

  Men

  Your height in inches:_____

  Your height in inches:_____

  Multiply by 4.3 = _____= A

  Multiply by 12.7 = _____ = A

  Your weight in pounds: _____

  Your weight in pounds: _____

  Multiply by 4.4 = _____ = B

  Multiply by 6.2 = _____ = B

  Your age in years: _____

  Your age in years: _____

  Multiply by 4.7 = _____ = C

  Multiply by 6.8 = _____ = C

  Plug in the above information into this formula to estimate your BMR:

  Females: A + B + 655–C = _____ is your basal metabolic rate per day.

  Males: A + B + 66–C = _____ is your basal metabolic rate per day.

  As your BMR is simply the amount of calories you burn doing absolutely nothing, choose one of the following options regarding your activity level and add it to your BMR number as indicated below.

  Sedentary to lightly active: (active less than 30 minutes 1 or 2 days per week at minimal intensity)

  Multiply your BMR number above by 1.3 = _____ calories you need per day

  Moderately active: (active for 30 minutes 6 to 7 days per week at moderate intensity)

  Multiply your BMR number above by 1.4 = _____ calories you need per day

  Very active/athletic: (active for 60 minutes 6 to 7 days per week at a high intensity)

  Multiply your BMR number above by 1.5 = _____ calories you need per day

  The active caloric needs are the amount of calories you burn each day being you, doing all of the activities, work or play, that make up a day in your life. Life sucks without enough calories and you may be obliged to share some of your stored food with others so choose a calorie number on the high side.

  If you're curious about the breakdown of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats of your daily energy consumption based upon your active caloric needs, use the following formula.

  Protein = (Your active caloric needs) _____ multiplied by 0.15 = _____ calories, divided by 4.0 = _____ grams of protein

  Carbohydrates = (Your active caloric needs) _____ multiplied by 0.55 = _____ calories, divided by 4.0 = _____ grams of carbohydrate

  Fat = (Your active caloric needs) _____ multiplied by 0.30 = _____ calories, divided by 9.0 = _____ grams of fat

  Factors That Will Determine What You Choose to Store and Eat

  The type of food your family prefers. Your choice of emergency food should be linked as closely as possible to the realities of your pending disaster. In other words, if you and the kids love steak at every dinner, think again about how that stored steak will look after six days without the freezer working due to a power outage.

  How long your supposed "emergency" will last. There are many forms in which you can buy your beans: canned, freeze-dried, dried whole, and dehydrated into a powder, to name a few. Each form will have its advantages and disadvantages in regard to its shelf life and palatability, or in other words, how long it will store before it gets nasty, or at the very least, becomes virtually nutrition free.

  The age and health of your family members. Dietary restrictions of one kind or another are very common. Grandpa Joe and his dentures will not be happy campers when he attempts to eat leathery lentils that were either stored too long or undercooked because of lack of water, fuel, time, or ability. Bouncing baby Francine will be equally unimpressed at your meal plan. Take time to research family members who may have certain food allergies; an allergic reaction can range from an annoying inconvenience to killing your loved one. I don't care what the emergency food company phone representative said about their company's one-size-fits-all food storage plan being the best, people don't have the same needs. Think ahead to avoid food preparation hassles and pissed off family members.

  Your home's ability to store the food of your choice through variations in temperature, available space, and location. While bulk foods such as whole grains are cheap, they're heavy and take up space. . .a lot of space if your survival scenario involves weeks of cooking rice in the backyard. While people can and have gotten creative with how they've stored their food stash—five-gallon buckets becoming legs for the dining room table, for example—it may not be practical for your efficiency apartment on the thirtieth floor. All stored foods are highly affected by fluctuations
in temperature. If you live in a warm climate, or experience times of the year where it gets warm in your house, your stored food will not last as long as it will in a home that achieves a constant, low temperature.

  How big your wallet or purse is. Many prepackaged emergency or "backpacking" foods, while convenient, are not cheap. You pay for the preparation that goes into that pasta primavera and cranberry-walnut chicken. Large families or those on a budget will be turned off at the pricey cost per meal for these options.

  Pets. Don't forget about Fluffy and Scrapper when storing food. Like human canned food, canned pet food is a no-brainer to store. Dry dog and cat foods can be stored in the same way as dry human food. If you have finicky pets, they won't be if they get hungry enough. Jillions of unwanted back-alley feral dogs and cats in the country are proof to the fact that animals will eat about anything to stay alive. Although I can't imagine that your family would have any wasted leftover food on their plates after an extended crisis, any leftovers that for lack of safe cold storage can't be saved should be given to Peaches and Fido. I once lived at a radical hippy commune that made their own dog food from scratch. The pets ate like the people, who were all vegetarian. While many will argue that this is not healthy for a dog, and they may be right, the commune dogs were as obnoxiously healthy as ever. Maybe they cleaned up on supplemental mice and rats, too. In a serious pinch, eat the pet food. While it's not for human consumption, neither is the weird stuff written about later in this chapter that humans all over the planet have eaten in dire need. When I was a little boy, like most little boys, I experimented with eating many things. I specifically remember how the dog food tasted that day long ago because my mom whipped my butt when she caught me with my face down in the doggie dish. One morning, years later, I ate a common breakfast cereal and instantly flashed back to the dog food incident. Yup, one of those popular, "healthy" breakfast cereals tastes just like dry dog food—without the milk.

  Junk Food Junkie

  Although I love, appreciate, and recognize good-tasting food when I eat it, I'm not attached to the whims of my taste buds. After all, I drank blended tuna fish for years. Although you probably won't choose to get your protein in this manner, when push comes to shove, food is nothing more than fuel for your body. The more food you eat that has the desired nutrition your body demands, the less food you'll require to get your nutritional demands met. Translation, you will need to buy and store less food for your family. Junk food is just that, junk, and you will require much more of it to fuel your body during times of stress. High-quality simple foods, such as whole grains, possess much more burn time for the buck (and are typically much cheaper than processed foods) and are great additions to any survival pantry. You would require cases of sugary snack cakes to achieve the equivalent in nutrition of a few pounds of whole wheat.

  Here's one more thing on the "my food needs to taste good" school of thought. If this last statement is true for you, so be it, but plan now for having the proper culinary training and ingredients required to make your food taste wonderful long after the grid goes down. For hundreds of years, the spice trade was one of the most lucrative on the planet, as our ancestors were all tired of eating bland, crappy-tasting food. Who can blame them? My concern, as a survival instructor, is not how your food tastes, but that you have food to taste at all. I have eaten many things in the wilderness that would make most people vomit, all in the name of survival nutrition, and because we didn't have any other options. My point is this: please don't get too picky with your food if supplies run thin. Necessity might require from you someday that you ingest things that you didn't think were edible. Many, many people all over the earth have been reduced to eating the greatest of all taboos, each other. This book will not include ideas for barbecuing Uncle John, but it will include bare-bones survival fare that is cheap, easy to store for long periods of time, nutritional, and, with a little bit of ingenuity, good tasting.

  What About Fasting?

  I know many people who have fasted for more than three weeks and they are still breathing air. While hunger is a bummer, especially when combined with the stresses of a survival situation, food-deprived folks can still function for long periods of time. Fasting (deliberately not eating) has been around for thousands of years, and in some world religions it's standard practice. Fasts lasting longer than two or three days use up liver glycogen completely and consume nearly half of the muscles' glycogen stores. After this, if the body is still without food, the body synthesizes glucose through a process called gluconeogenesis. Ketone bodies are then formed by the oxidation of fatty acids that are utilized as energy by the muscles and brain. In a normally fed individual, ketone oxidation accounts for less than 3 percent of the total energy bill for that person. Longer fasts produce so many ketone bodies that they provide for more than 40 percent of the body's energy requirements and up to 50 percent of the brain's glucose needs. Eventually, the longer the fast, the less glucose the body uses, therefore reducing the amount of cannibalization the body must undergo to support gluconeogenesis. Fasts lasting more than fourteen days cause the body's basal metabolic rate (BMR) to decrease by 21 percent as the body becomes superefficient with its resources.

  * * *

  WHY BE HUNGRY WHEN YOU CAN BE STONED?

  No one likes the feeling of hunger. Its persistent presence gnaws at even the most psychologically hardened souls. If things get bad at your place, consider what others have done to lessen the feelings of lack. Eritrean women are known to tightly strap flat stones to their stomachs to lessen hunger pangs. Mothers in many countries boil water with stones and tell the children that the food is almost ready, hoping they will fall asleep waiting. Let's hope (and prepare) that it doesn't come to this.

  * * *

  Real-life starvation scenarios, such as the Donner Party in which far more women survived than men, show that women may have a metabolic advantage over the guys. As an important side note, medical research has found that ketone production may come to a screeching halt after eating only 150 grams of carbohydrates per day. This means that if you have fasted, and then eat a very small amount of food, you lose your former ketone production advantage when the food is gone. I have talked to people with a lot of field experience who feel this is nonsense, so the choice is yours in how your body may react to the effects of fasting and food.

  If you haven't tried fasting, do so. Your family may hate you for a few days but feel free to blame it on me. The best time to find out that you become a raging ass with low blood sugar is not when your food supply is running low. Fasting will give you a broad look at how you and your family, physiologically and psychologically, deal with the stress of a no-calorie meal plan. Unknowns are scary so anytime you can cut down on the fear factor with simple training and hands-on experience, do it with enthusiasm.

  The Minnesota Starvation Experiment: A Window into a Hungry Person's World

  Wow! My clothes look sloppy! My belt buckle is in the last notch—a decrease of three notches since the starvation began.

  —Lester Glick, Minnesota volunteer, March 16, 1945

  In the early 1940s during World War II, thirty-six young male conscientious objectors participated in a human semistarvation study for six months conducted by Ancel Keys at the University of Minnesota. The intention of the study was to learn the physiological and psychological effects of semistarvation in the hopes of dealing with the rehabilitation of refeeding civilians who had been starved during the war. As the psychological ramifications of the study were just as important as the physical, all participants were heavily screened for extraordinary psychological stamina. Overall, the participants lost 25 percent of their total body weight in a controlled, clinical setting.

  For the first three months of the semistarvation experiment, the men ate normally while researchers documented their personalities and eating patterns. For the next six months, the volunteers were fed half of what they normally ate. The study ended with a three-month rehabilitation time in which the
men were gradually refed to prestudy levels. In all cases, the volunteers experienced radically altered physical, psychological, and social changes.

  I'm beginning to want to isolate myself from the other subjects who are developing all kinds of weird behaviors. . .and the starvation is less than half over!

  —Lester Glick, June 24, 1945

  Predictably, all of the men fantasized about food: in their conversations, readings, thoughts, and actions. Menial tasks during the day were harder and harder to accomplish as the volunteers' concentration remained solely upon food. As the experiment continued, and sex drives plummeted, the men smuggled food, made bizarre mixtures of food which were eaten in long, drawn-out rituals of two hours or more, and collected cookbooks, menus, and educational literature on food, including basic agriculture. As the calorie cut continued, they hoarded food memorabilia such as kitchen utensils, hot plates, and coffee makers. The "collecting" progressed to nonfood items as well, such as old clothes and garage sale junk. Chewing gum was limited after one subject was found chewing more than forty packages of gum per day, so much that he developed a sore mouth from the exercise. All achieved extreme pleasure by smelling food or watching others eat.

  Books on starvation tell us that hungry people eat clay, wood, bark, unclean animals, and often become cannibalistic. Yesterday I took the lead out of a pencil and began chewing the wood. I think about how cannibalism is a terrible option for a starving person, and try to put it out of my mind, but I can't seem to stop thinking about it. People are a terrible bore. I don't know what I'd do without my private room and my stack of cookbooks.