Pantry Planning
--------------------------For the complete beginner-----------------------------
This is intended as a broad introduction – I am not a nutritionist or medical doctor – I haven’t played one on TV either. Use it as a starting point or overview on how food works together with/within a human body to help us thrive.
An average female (not pregnant or lactating) needs about 2000 calories a day to maintain weight and tone with typical activity. An average male needs about 2500 calories a day to maintain weight and tone with typical activity. This is where the statement ‘you need about 1,000,000 calories per person per year’ comes from. It assumes some minor losses during the preparation process and that a person will be engaged in some manual labor and need slightly more than the amount above for health ‘maintenance’. It also assumes that people can vary a bit in their base requirements.
Thanks to our ancestry, humans are seasonal eaters with a varied seasonal appetite. A typical person’s appetite changes for several reasons – including; activity, environment, age, sex, health status, chronic illness and several other factors. Cravings and appetite are a way for our own body to tell us what we need in our diet. This has two separate but sometimes confused functions. When we eat a meal, there is a lot going on behind the scenes about the experience. We assess the food quality as a nutrient. Consider peanut butter. It will appeal to most people almost all of the time in almost every culture – it is also very high in calories making it an excellent nutrient. We also tend to crave things our body is deficient in – raw calories, or salt or even micro nutrients. This can take some unusual or extreme forms like geophagia.
When we speak of a balanced diet in modern times, we are talking about a very different pattern of eating than where we came from several thousand years ago. With modern diets it is much easier to satisfy cravings and cater to our taste buds. This has led to the joke that the four basic American food groups are salt, sugar, fat and caffeine. On the flip side is modern convenience. We can easily satisfy all of these cravings all of the time. Thats why it is so easy for our diet to become unhealthy.
so, what is food?
In our more contemporary times, a healthy diet needs to be balanced within the following groups;
Water – from a variety of sources including food itself.
Carbohydrates – starches and sugars.
Protein – beans and meat.
Fats – nuts, seed oils, some fruits and meat.
Vitamins – from a variety of sources, including food, symbiotic bacteria and sunlight.
Minerals – from a variety of sources.
Fiber – resistant starch - soluble and insoluble. Fiber is its own category due to metabolic use.
The highest priority is water and the lowest is fiber. Eating too much of any of these will probably kill you. If you remove any one of these items from your diet you will eventually weaken, become ill and if removed for too long you will die. Balance or the right amounts in the correct ratios are key to being healthy. For this essay, I’m going to include a short description of the roll each of these plays in nutrition. Remember that a well-balanced and varied diet will contain all of the above and in the correct quantities. You don’t need to be a nutritionist or a chef - Just aware. Keeping your diet varied will make sure that a deficiency in something today will be filled tomorrow. It’s ok to have a donut today, perhaps you might want to eat an apple tomorrow. Humans survived for millennia eating seasonal food and using their stomachs and cravings as a guide to what their diet was deficient in. In our present society, outside of some jokes about pregnancy cravings, most Europeans or Americans have never been hungry enough for nutritional cravings to be part of our culture. Learn, or relearn, to follow your instincts.
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are a major energy source in the human diet. They are made up of two main groups; Sugars and Starches. Sugar provides a quick energy hit and Starches take longer to be turned into energy. As starches are digested they are broken down into smaller and smaller carbon chains until they are absorbed and utilized by your body. Because of how starches are broken down over time, they provide their energy over a longer time.
There are dozens of types of sugar eaten by humans. Common sources of sugar are corn, honey, fruit, sugar cane and sugar beets. Simple sugars are the building blocks that make up starches.
There are also dozens of types of starch eaten by humans. Common sources of starch are potatoes, grains, cassava and corn.
Not all starches and sugars are digestible by humans. Wood, as an example, is made up of cellulose it is composed of long chains of glucose, a sugar, linked together – it is not digestible by humans.
Factoid – Termites can’t digest wood and cows can’t digest grass – without the help of microorganisms in there digestive system.
Fiber
Fiber is found in grains, nuts, fruits and vegetables. There are several kinds of fiber performing different roles in the human body. I almost put fiber under carbohydrate – it is a long chain polysaccharide – but I thought it deserved its own entry. <polysaccharide = many sugar>
Dietary Fiber or roughage isn’t well digested by humans but is important in regulating the digestive tract and providing a scaffold for the gut micro-biome. There are two types. Soluble – dissolves in water – it’s what makes oatmeal sticky and is important for the gut bacteria. Insoluble – doesn’t dissolve in water – it helps regulate your digestive system. Both of these types of fiber will also make you feel full after eating. You should get plenty of dietary fiber if you have whole grains, fruits and vegetables in your diet.
Note – fiber deficiency is a modern group of malnutrition diseases. The rise in disease rate correlates nicely with the introduction and expansion of highly processed or ‘junk’ foods. North America and Europe are the two most affected populations.
Protein
Protein is what your muscles and connective tissue are made from. Proteins are made up of basic building blocks called amino acids. There are around 22 amino acids your body uses. Your body can modify one type of amino acid into another in many cases. However, there are several amino acids your body can’t make. They are called the 8 or 9 or 10 or 12 essential amino acids.
– vegan diets will need to be carefully managed. In an emergency, unless you have stored supplements or food ahead of time, it may be impossible.
-vegetarian diets shouldn’t have any problems meeting your basic protein needs.
Children can’t make as many amino acids as adults and this leads to some variation in how many essential amino acids there are for a human. In our current society, homeless, children and vegetarians are most at risk for protein deficiency. Some proteins are either not digestible, toxic or poisonous to humans. Eating a bit of meat a couple of times a week is the easiest way to get your dietary protein.
Common sources for protein are meat, eggs, dairy, and beans.
An interesting note – if you eat raw oil type soy beans, they contain a chemical that will not let you digest the protein in the beans.
Fats & Oils
Fats and oils are necessary for a whole range of functions in human metabolism. One example is the human brain – it is %60 fat. Fat is both a store of energy and a building block in the human body. Like proteins, your body can transform one type of fat to another but there are some essential fats your body needs. Fats and Oils are among the hardest things to store for long periods of time – they tend to go rancid within a year or so – compare to some grains that can be stored for centuries.
Most fats are found in nut oils, dairy and meat.
An interesting note – rabbit meat is so low in fat that you can suffer from malnutrition, if it is all the meat you eat.
Vitamins
For the purpose of this paper, vitamins are trace compounds your body needs for normal functioning. Some vitamins are created in the skin via exposure to sunlight. Some are made in your gut via symbiotic microbes. Some are found in plants and some in meat. A good diet will satisfy your daily vitamin needs. However, it is important to remember that vitamin deficiencies still cause diseases today. Cooking method, soil depletion, preservation method and even storage time will degrade the vitamin content of most foods. A well rounded multi-vitamin may be a good addition to your stores.
Interesting note - Rose Hips have more vitamin C weight for weight and size for size than lemons. So do bell peppers, fresh chili peppers, kale, broccoli, parsley – let’s just say most leafy greens to. Even fresh strawberries and pine needle tea will keep up with lemons. I’ll give the USofA citrus growers kudos for a good advertising campaign.
Minerals
There are several minerals the human body needs to thrive. They are divided into two groups, minerals and trace minerals, based on the amount you need in your diet. Calcium for bones is a well-known one. The mineral with the largest intake requirement is salt – sodium chloride. Trace minerals are also important for health – Iron for blood is an example and iodine for thyroid function. Most minerals in the diet are found in commonly eaten foods like plants and meat, even the water you drink. Many of the minerals in your diet are reflected in the soil the plant grew in. You may want to consider a broad spectrum multi-mineral tablet for your stocks. One other idea is to have several different types of cooking salt with differing mineral compositions. Sea salt typically has a broader mineral palate than table salt.
Interesting note – I eat a banana or two when I’m doing sweaty work – tastes better than Gatorade and has a lot of potassium, which keeps me from getting cramps.
Water
Water acts, in the human body, as the solvent that most of the chemical reactions take place in. It is then used to flush the waste products of those reactions out of the body. Water also contains some trace minerals. It keeps you cool and allows your blood to flow. Without clean water your body will start to shut down in under three days. An average adult should have access to a gallon of drinking water a day.
So why can’t I just drink sea water and get the minerals and water at the same time? The way your body gets rid of several waste products is by urination. Because the kidneys work by osmosis, they can only remove those toxins and the excess salt if the urine is less salty than the water you are putting into your system. Stated another way – if you drink salt water, you need to drink more fresh water just to get rid of the extra salt you just drank.
Interesting note – If you monitor incidents of kidney and bladder problems, you can tell if an area is suffering from drought.
Calories
Ok, so why does everyone always talk about calories? Simple – calories are the largest and bulkiest dry part of our diet <a year’s worth of water weigh about 1.5 tons>. Everything else is condiment. The ‘bare minimum’ one year recommended LDS food storage weighs in at about 800lbs. 400lbs of grain and everything else is not quite 400 pounds. Out of all of that, there are only 100 pounds or so of low calorie food – that’s an 8:1 ratio. The difference in calories is even more lop sided. More than ¾ of the calories comes from the grain alone. Calories are only one measure of your food requirements. You have a greater chance at staying healthy, long term, with the diverse diet.
A few last notes about food in difficult situations
Monotony;
In my younger (Army) days I spent my share of time in the field, I always tried to bake something once a week – I could make an edible cobbler from MRE freeze dried fruit and crackers. I did it, just to break up the monotony. I actually saw a hand written recipe book using C-rats as the base ingredient list. A couple of the recipes weren’t horrible. Modern MRE’s have 12 meal variations at any given time – they get boring very quickly. When planning what to put up or store, keep that in mind. I’m sure that rice and spam will keep you alive for a long time but it will get boring quickly. Even if all you can do is forage for a dandelion & chicory salad and add a rabbit or catfish to your dinner, it will break up the monotony. There are lots of sauces and other flavorings that store nicely and that you can use and rotate over time. Plan for that too.
Storage size and amounts;
One way to liven things up a bit is to trade a jar of preserves for a jar of maple syrup. Barter with a neighbor. This only works if the amounts are easy to manage – if all you have is 5 gallon buckets full you might have a harder time than trading the same amount of preserves in 1 quart sizes.
Smaller storage size amounts also shield you from adverse effects of all kinds. If you get mold or bugs in your wheat, – in a 5 gallon bucket – its extra scratch for your chickens. – in a 2000 pound tote it’s a loss of all your grain for a year. Moving a 5 gallon bucket is 40 pounds of wheat – a 50 gallon barrel of wheat is 400 pounds. It may take several trips to move the buckets but its gotta be easier to move than a 50 gallon barrel. Even when I’m using a 5 gallon bucket for storage, I typically package things in 1 gallon mylar bags and put them into the bucket.
Comfort foods:
I think this should be an important consideration. Ask a typical person how they handle being without their favorite food – Chocolate, Coffee… Pasta and powdered cheese stores well. So does cocoa powder. Coffee crystals may not taste great, but they store for a long time. There are options.
For Morale and especially for stressed elders and children, this should be incorporated into your thinking about how to use your storage.
Number of meals a day;
There are many schools of thought on this one and your specific area conditions or culture may dictate how you prepare meals. Humans can survive by nibbling on a hand full of food every few hours quite well. Your meal patterns are dictated as much by culture as by necessity. You may want to opt for a single main meal for the day and light meals at other times. Keeping cooking to a minimum can conserve scarce fuel. Or you might want to make a big production out of your meal to keep little ones busy and out from underfoot when the adults are otherwise occupied.
The psychology of meals and diet;
When possible, meals should be eaten together and shared communally within your group. Sharing food, as a cultural tradition, is as old as humanity and important psychologically. It is also an excellent time to make sure everyone is eating, coping and generally doing well. Most human celebrations involve food at some point. These foods are often thought of as special meals for that celebration. Use this idea to bring people together within your group and lighten the mood.
On the other side of this coin is hunger, chronic or full on starvation – normal healthy people start having noticeable problems with strength, stamina and with problem solving skills after only a few days not eating. If the person is under psychological and physical stress the effects can be dramatic – and this is just the beginning. In very general terms the human body will start digesting itself to survive. That’s the first step in starvation.
As a population starves – most people won’t actually live long enough to die of starvation. The immune system will start failing. People’s judgment and even sanity can slip away. People will become susceptible to opportunistic diseases or have a minor accident and not recover. The most common cause of death in a starving population is dehydration – and that can kill a person in only a few days. It’s not something we’re used to seeing in most modern cultures today. For those who didn’t learn about the scary things in the woods growing up – just google Minnesota Starvation Experiment. There are historical and cultural analogs and stories around the world about and for starving people throughout history. Starvation used to be an ever present danger in North America and Europe within living memory. It is still happening in some places today. It is a real threat in a disaster.
An Important note – for those who have never had experience with children and elderly or been in deprived of food for a while.
It is possible to go hungry, even if you have enough calories available. To combat this, you should store food you know your family will eat. Having a couple of cases of MRE’s or Freeze Dried Food or even Life Boat rations for an emergency is a good idea – but people under stress are not adventurous eaters. Children and the elderly are most at risk for dietary interruptions, including loss of appetite – they may not eat the MRE’s. If you want to wrap your head around it, go out and have a dinner of crickets, meal worms and grubs – this is outside the typical European and American palate. They can be quite nutritious and even good but may take some getting used to. Your pantry should bridge this ‘learning curve’ to your bulk or emergency storage. This is one reason I have included comfort foods in this essay.
An interesting thing I learned studying medieval European history is that it was ‘impolite’ to talk about a person starving. A commonly used English phrase was ‘suffering from the cold’. It puts Jack Frost stories into a whole new light.
KBOP MAR 2019
