How We Can Feed Us All

The human race can not survive unless we continue to eat and drink. We are not paying enough attention to this fact.

Having enough food and enough good drinking water to go around is going to be a worse and worse problem from now on. We humans have largely created the problem with growing enough food for us all and having enough good drinking water.

We like to plant cities where we have the best land for growing food.  Our food is grown in ways that ruin the land that is used to grow it. We have been doing things that have even changed our weather to make it harder and harder to grow food. 

Climate change, bad farming techniques and pollution have all combined to ruin a lot of the good drinking water on earth. Many of our large cities all over the world are in such great need of drinking water that they destroy agriculture by stealing agriculture water, for long distances around them. 

We need to stop wasting our time and energy fighting each other and start working on growing food in ways that will keep on working in the future. These land wrecking ways to grow food have to stop. 

The fight to keep growing enough food to eat and repair the damage we have done to the earth is a greater battle than any battles between humans. 

We don't have enough people who are good at growing food, to be able to grow as much as we need on small sustainable farms. Growing food is not something that can usually be learned overnight. It may take even longer than learning regular agriculture to learn to grow food sustainably.

sustainable [səˈsteɪnəb^əl]

adj

1. (Economics) capable of being sustained

2. (Life Sciences & Allied Applications / Environmental Science) (of economic development, energy sources, etc.) capable of being maintained at a steady level without exhausting natural resources or causing severe ecological damage sustainable development

3. (Economics) (of economic growth) non-inflationary

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003

The definition above came from here:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sustainable

I think we will not only need to make use of sustainable agriculture techniques to get ourselves out of this mess. I think we will have to use our spiritual gifts to grow our food. When you use spiritual gifts for growing things you can get a good crop during circumstances such as droughts, or other bad weather and grow more and better food in a much shorter time than usual. With extremely moody weather, we will need that.

Using spiritual gifts for agriculture is not something that you could get a timetable for learning. I expect everyone has their own time for having it kick in. The biggest barrier to getting your spiritual gift of growing things working seems to be not believing you can do it. If that is going on, you will have a brown thumb and kill every plant you get your hands on. 

If a brown thumb is happening, you probably are meant to have a green thumb. It is against chance for you to be that bad. It means you have some kind of reverse thing going on with your green thumb spiritual gift. The minute you get over whatever is blocking your gift, every plant you touch will grow like crazy. 

Just having your green thumb gift working won't completely make up for a lack of knowledge. If it starts working, or you want it to, do whatever you can to learn about growing things. I think sprouts are the easiest way to start. Don't waste any time. You will need that green thumb spiritual gift working and educated, and so will the rest of the human race.

Build On What You Have To Get Food Storage

Apologies for not posting yesterday. There was a power outage and I was not able to post. I decided to do the one for last night now.

It can be very discouraging when you have a big job to do and you don't have enough money to do it all. This applies to preparedness.

When you first realize that you want to be prepared for emergencies, the size of your task can overwhelm you. The beginning stage of preparedness usually means you find out about the expensive way to prepare for emergencies. There are usually cheaper ways to do just about anything. That is also true for preparedness. Finding ways to save money on preparedness does not mean inferior quality.

You can save a lot of money on preparedness by investing a little bit of your time. Your time investment can mean you will have a better quality item than is available at any price. This is not always true, but it often is.

It is possible to build up money for the purchase of more expensive preparedness items. An example of how I did this was with savings on my power bill. I bought compact fluorescent light bulbs to replace regular light bulbs as I could afford them. This lowered my power bill every month. 

The money saved from lower power bills went to equipment to do laundry by hand. Doing my laundry by hand saved me more money which went to items to save even more money and so on.

You living costs will probably be different from what mine were back then. You will have to take a look at your living costs and find where you can pry some savings out of them to get started. You will also need to plan the best place to invest those savings for the next tier of money saving and the ones after those.

Food costs are a common expense that modern people often spend too much on. Many of the most costly items in a food budget are the least healthy or nutritious. Examples of this are soda pop, junk food, and take out foods. You will probably be shocked at how much healthy food you can buy for what you spend on the examples I just mentioned. 

Other bad habits besides food cost many people a lot of money they could use in better ways. Cigarettes or other forms of tobacco, or other kinds of recreational drugs are a real drain on a budget.

Candy and other sweets are usually very expensive on a pound for pound comparison to regular, healthy food.

Entertainment can be a huge drain on many budgets. Chances are very low that you will actually die if you do not immediately buy the latest music of your favorite singer. This is also true for seeing the latest movie by your favorite movie star or director.

Some of the vices that might have to be reined in can be things that seem innocent, unless taken to extremes. Expensive shoes or clothes, tools, jewelry, books, collections or redecorating often, can all sink a budget and make emergency preparedness impossible. 

Sometimes you have to hold off on getting what you want right now to have something better or more important. Preparedness for emergencies is something better and more important to do right now. It is possible that waiting for what you want will save your life during the next emergency.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Red Yeast Rice, Statin Drugs And CoQ10

If you have very high cholesterol and are therefore considered a health risk for strokes and heart attacks, you are probably on cholesterol lowering drugs. Statins are one of the cholesterol lowering drugs that are often given.

Red Yeast Rice is a somewhat natural alternative to statin drugs. One of the problems with Red Yeast Rice is that it does the same things as statin drugs and has some of the same side effects. I had been taking Red Yeast Rice for some time and posted about it on this blog, before I found out about the association between both statin drugs and Red Yeast Rice and a very high incidence of ALS (Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis), or Lou Gehrig's Disease.

Given a choice, I have a preference for a nice fast heart attack over creeping paralysis, thank you. 

I'd just as soon not have either if given that option, so I have been doing more research, of course. That brought up information regarding a food supplement that lowers the risks associated with both statin drugs and Red Yeast Rice. 

That food supplement is called CoQ10. This food supplement can be found in many health food stores and online as well. It is advised that one not wing it on use of CoQ10, but consult on the use of it with one's physician.

Some sources that I found suggested that in order to be therapeutic, the doses of CoQ10 need to be massive doses. If you are going to mess around with massive doses, I strongly advise you to consult with your doctor.

You may know from reading my blog posts that I have a decided preference for getting my medicine naturally from my diet as much as possible. Naturally, that meant that I also researched foods that contain a lot of CoQ10. Fatty types of fish and organ meats have the most. 

Since I am veggie, I also looked up vegetarian foods that are higher in CoQ10. Soy oil is one of the ones that came up high. Since soy is one of the major GMO culprits, I am not entirely happy with that. 

Raw foods do the best in providing your body with vegetarian types of CoQ10. Reading about some of the raw foods that are high in CoQ10, made me wonder whether my body is starting to become somewhat educated with its cravings. I have been wanting to eat peanut butter and sesame seeds a lot lately. Those happen to be two of the better plant sources of CoQ10. 

Raw peanuts are much better sources of CoQ10 than peanut butter. This is because any heat processing of the foods containing CoQ10 remove much of the value of the CoQ10. I have already been eating unusually large amounts of raw sesame seeds.

I have not found any studies on this or even posts, but I intend to try sprouting raw peanuts and sesame seeds and eating the sprouts raw. Many, if not all sprouts contain several times the nutrient value of the plant itself. 

I am not going to suggest anyone try this great leap into the unknown, with the use of raw sprouts as sources of CoQ10. I did feel that I want to get the idea out there however. Being between a heart attack and ALS is not a comfortable place to be. 

My research into CoQ10 has not progressed far. I intend to find out a lot more about it and I will keep readers posted as I work on it.

World Obesity Epidemic

There is an old saying in the USA, "You are what you eat". There is a lot of truth in those few words.

Most Americans eat a large quantity of junk foods on a regular basis. In that case Americans have junk bodies. Our health reflects that. More than half of us are obese now. Children are more obese than previous generations.

We have an epidemic of health problems related to being too fat. Some of those health problems are high cholesterol, clogged arteries, and growing numbers of heart attacks and strokes.

It is commonplace to see extremely obese individuals in public places who weigh hundreds of pounds and up to a thousand pounds and over. Extremely obese people often have to use battery operated wheel chairs because they are too heavy to walk around much.

This problem is not limited to the United States. Obesity is a growing problem in most developed countries. 

It is common for overweight individuals to blame their extra pounds on "glands", or thyroid problems. They often claim that is not possible for them to do anything about the extra pounds.

Most of the time it is not true that obese people can do nothing about their weight. Studies show that boredom, habit, and emotional distress usually contribute more to obesity than any medical causes.

Habitual overeating and boredom overeating are problems that a normal person can work out ways to deal with.

Emotional distress overeating is a problem that can be overcome with counseling help. Most developed nations have options for counseling based on income-based fees. If that is not an option, there are support groups.

It can seem overwhelming to face a large amount of extra weight. You must remind yourself that you can approach it one bite, one pat of butter, one spoon of sugar, and one step at a time. It all adds up to pounds/kilos of weight loss. Don't be discouraged. Obesity is a problem that you can overcome.

Make Your Money Buy More For Every Day And Preparedness 3

When I am making an extreme effort to cut down my food budget, I usually buy a large amount of rice. Rice is not always the cheapest food, but it is most of the time.


If rice is not the cheapest food in your area, you need to find out what is the cheapest. Then you need to find out how to cook it and try eating it. That way you will know whether you will be able to eat it a lot.


It is possible to eat nothing but rice for a while. There are people in the world who do this most of their lives. I don't think it is a good idea to eat nothing but rice if you can possibly avoid it, because of malnutrition.


You can make whatever else you have to eat besides rice, last longer by putting a small amount of it on a lot of rice. I had to do this for a long time once. It really inspired me to learn what edible plants grew in my area. The rice tasted a lot better with those edible plants on it.


If you are not making much, if any progress with your preparedness, switching to a mostly rice diet to save up a little bit of money may be necessary. Nothing at all except rice will cause malnutrition if you do it very long, so be careful. White rice is not very nutritious, so use brown rice. It may cost more, but it is worth it.


A lot of people have told me that mulberries are not edible. I would be dead if that was true. In order to make the best use of the plants available in your area for food, you will probably need to do some research. Some books even list mulberries as inedible, so you may need to check multiple sources.


I used to live under several mulberry trees. I ate them as long as the trees bore them. They are good on rice. They are not very sweet, but if you cook them on low heat until they get soft and the liquid from them starts to thicken they are sweeter. This works for most fruit. 


After the fruit thickens, you can put it on rice for dessert. This can be done if you  have no sweetener. After you do without sweetener for a while, you will be more easily satisfied with the sweetness from plain mulberries and other fruit. I think that your taste buds may become more sensitive.

Not everyone will want to do everything I have done to stretch the food money. You can pick what appeals to you and maybe you will think of things that I did not think of that you will like better.


Finding more different ways to cook the foods that I had available made eating more pleasant for me. I read a lot about cooking to find different ways to prepare the same ingredients. A different preparation method can make a big difference in the taste and texture and looks of the same food.


I sometimes invented ways to cook things that I had never found mentioned elsewhere. One of those was with rice. I would put it in a skillet, already cooked. I spread it out thinly on the bottom of the skillet and cooked it until it formed a crisp sheet. I liked it slightly burnt in places. That gave me something crunchy to eat. Sometimes I crumbled bits of the crisp rice on top of other food.


It would have worked to just eat plain rice with little bits of local plants on it, but I enjoyed it a lot more when I did something to make it different. I believe that enjoying your food is worth something.


Varying a diet even by different cooking methods makes it easier to keep eating something like rice when you don't have to. There were times when I was tempted to spend a little more money and buy more food to put on my rice. 


It was easier to keep eating the rice when it tasted different. That meant that I was able to save up and buy more compact fluorescent light bulbs and reduce my electric bill.


Reducing my electric bill gave me more money to work with that I could use to buy a large amount of food on sale. That way I got to eat better and better as I saved more money. 


I think it was worth it to eat rice for a while to be able to save more money later on. Sometimes you have to make short term sacrifices to make any progress over the long term. 


If you look carefully at the way you spend money, you will find changes that you can make that will help you to save little bits of money that you can use to save even more. This way you can make your life better and have money to invest in emergency preparedness.

Make Your Money Buy More For Every Day And Preparedness 2

This post is a continuation of a post about saving money for every day as well as for preparedness. 

The next way to save money was laundry. I have already posted several times about doing laundry during and after a disaster. I will not repeat that information here, except to say that coin operated machines suck up a lot of your money. 


If you wash your laundry yourself, especially by hand, and stop using dryers, it will save you a lot of money. Saving money on laundry is possible if you have your own washer and dryer at home as well. Dryers do take a lot of money to operate. You may want to use it as little as possible or not at all.

Stop going to corner grocery stores and use the big cheap places as much as you can. Buy your food in bulk. If you can't eat that much before it spoils, find someone to split larger amounts with.

Either don't use convenience foods or make your own. I have posts about doing that as well. 

Saving money works best when you pick something that will add up over time. An example is the change to compact fluorescent bulbs. Every electric bill after switching to compact fluorescent bulbs was lower. 


That gave me money to use to buy other things that would help me save even more money. An example was buying a big enough bowl to mix my own convenience foods in and a container to store the convenience mix in. I was able to buy those with electric bill savings.

Even if you and your family are not vegetarians, you can use some vegetarian food to save on your food bill. The first one I am talking about is called, "textured vegetable protein", or TVP for short. You can add it to meat dishes to make them go farther. If you get TVP by mail in bulk, it is much cheaper than meat. 

It is a good idea to avoid serving an all meat dish that you plan to put TVP into very close to the time you serve the TVP. Your family, and you, are more likely to notice the difference that way. If you wait at least a week to put TVP into your chili, it will not be as noticeable. I chose spicy dishes to help hide the different taste of the TVP. 

TVP comes in different flavors such as beef, chicken, pork or fish or sausage, etc. It also comes in different shapes and sizes. The most common form is small hard pieces that are about the size of cooked ground beef. You can find this size and type of TVP in a lot of health food stores, to try it out and see if you will like it.


Since TVP comes in so many flavors and shapes, you can easily substitute it for meat in many of your favorite recipes. TVP is also a convenience food since you only need to add boiling water and soak it for five minutes to have it ready to use.


This post is too long so I will continue it in another post.

Pick A Water Filter For Your Budget and Needs

 My favorite water filter would be a lousy choice for a go bag if you had to evacuate on foot or were in a very crowded vehicle. There are lots of commercial water filters on the market. Some are very big and heavy and some are very small.There are some tiny ones available that are like a drinking straw and are very light and easy to carry. These do not filter very much water and the cost per gallon is high.


My personal preferences in filters may not work at all for someone else. They are largely a matter of what an individual likes and wants to spend and their circumstances. The most likely disasters in your area could also influence your decision on a water filter for emergency preparedness.


I will just tell you about them and you can decide or go read more about them and then decide what you want.


My favorite is a ceramic filter that has silver in the ceramic filter elements. You can buy these according to size of filter elements, and quantity of filter elements. They work by gravity. You pour the water to be filtered in the top. The water goes through the filter elements and into a lower container with a spigot that you can take drinking water out of. The bigger and more filter elements you have in this filter, the faster and more water you can filter. They are big and heavy and cost a lot. They are easy to use and you get very clean water from them. The per gallon cost is low and they filter a lot of water before you need a replacement filter element.


There are water filters that are made for filtering water for a whole village. They are made so that they can have water pumped by muscle power through a filter. This allows a lot of water to be filtered in a short while. These are good if you have a very large family or want to filter water for a village. They cost a lot, the cost per gallon is low and they are fast. They are not very portable.


There are little straw water filters that can be easily carried in a go bag or pocket for everyday preparedness. They are pretty cheap, but the cost per gallon is high.


Some water filters look like a sports water bottle. You put your water to be cleaned in the bottle and sip out of a straw. The clean water comes out of the straw. This is not too expensive, the cost per gallon is slightly lower than the straw types, but still high.


You can buy tablets or liquids to put in water and shake it up and let it sit for a while. They kill germs. They are cheap, and take very little room and are light and are easy to carry. Their cost per gallon is low. Their disadvantage is that you are drinking the stuff that killed the germs.


You can find some of these various types of filters, especially the smaller, lighter ones, in sporting goods and backpacking stores. Military surplus stores often have water filters.


The larger ones, like the ceramic element ones with  silver in them, are harder to find. Companies that sell food storage and that specialize in emergency preparedness have them. Places that sell bulk foods and farm supply stores online and offline often have water filters, including the big ones.


The whole village ones can be found in places that sell to missionaries and to homesteaders.


I want to write about go bags next.