ysabetwordsmith | Healthy Nonperishable Foods

One book I read suggested canned beans over dried for emergencies... because canned beans do not need to be soaked/cooked for a long time in a lot of precious water.

Also, nuts and nut butters, while useful may not be an option because of allerges.

Also, (speaking of nuts) please enjoy this video about a peanut oil mousetrap: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BxxFNkNf6q8

>> One book I read suggested canned beans over dried for emergencies... because canned beans do not need to be soaked/cooked for a long time in a lot of precious water. <<

Choose based on the availability of water in your area. Dried beans are much cheaper and more compact than canned, but as you said, canned have their own water.

>> Also, nuts and nut butters, while useful may not be an option because of allerges.<<

Frankly most people with life-threatening conditions are going to die in disasters that last longer than a few days. They simply can't get their survival needs met.

However, this actually makes a useful point of divergence: if you are not allergic, then you should stock survival supplies containing those allergens, which will discourage people from stealing things they can't eat since allergies are so widespread now. If you are allergic, consider yourself responsible for providing all of your own survival needs as nobody else will bother. If you are stocking a shelter, choose hypoallergenic supplies to support as many citizens as possible.

Water becomes far more precious when you have to haul it sveral miles by bucket (and filter the to-drink bits).

Having allergies is a relentless exercise in keeping other people from accidentally killing you. (This is why we keep asking, every single time, "Does this have X in it?" It's not an insult; its a survival technique, and even then it doesn't always work.)

Anyone who requires life-sustaining equipment or medicine should plan for disasters as one would plan an expidition to the Amazonian rainforest, the Pacific Ocean, or possibly Mars.

Oh, and for shelters? It might be a good idea to check about allergies /before/ you open the jar of peanut butter. Probably no-one will remember or think to check, but I'll just put it out there...

That's the kind of thing I mean when I say some people won't survive. They can in a protected environment, but not outside that. Because if people are hungry, they're going to open that jar. Better to lose a few people with allergies than a lot of people without them. And if you put the people with allergies outside the shelter so everyone else can eat, that also reduces their chance of survival.

Hence why I said, if you're stocking a shelter, buy hypoallergenic supplies.

If you're hungry enough, yeah you'll eat anything that won't immediately kill you. But maybe we can start with opening the soy spread and leave the peanut butter for last. If its a 6 month crisis, it wont matter. If its a 2 day one, it might help.

>> Water becomes far more precious when you have to haul it sveral miles by bucket (and filter the to-drink bits). <<

No shit. That's why it's important to gauge your access.

>> Having allergies is a relentless exercise in keeping other people from accidentally killing you. (This is why we keep asking, every single time, "Does this have X in it?" It's not an insult; its a survival technique, and even then it doesn't always work.) <<

Yep. The American foodstream is a contaminated mess.

>>Anyone who requires life-sustaining equipment or medicine should plan for disasters as one would plan an expidition to the Amazonian rainforest, the Pacific Ocean, or possibly Mars.<<

If it's medicine you need, buy it online from a saner country. Despite all the disaster prep advice to "carry extra medicines" -- including the government sites, who of all people should know better -- that's basically illegal with prescription medication. You're only allowed to have exactly as much as you need. You also can't get things you'll obviously need in an emergency, like antibiotics. Buy human ones from another country, or buy veterinary supplies of the same stuff (which you can get over the counter). The government will tell you not to do these things. It's up to you whether or not you want medicine available when you rip your leg open while wading through floodwater or whatever.

Not exactly the foodstream (though that is problematic), but in my experience some people are just effing clueless. Namely:

- If I think I might have eaten an allergin, telling me to stop worrying is not helpful.

- If there is only a little, I still can't eat it.

- I also had someone tell me once: 1st there are no nuts, 2nd there is only a sprinkling of nuts on the top 3rd we'll just scrape them off. (In her defense, I might have been the first person with severe allergies she'd ever had to deal with.)

Allergies also make it far more complicated to travel. Theres a reason "I am allergic to..." is on my shortlist of foreign phrases to learn first. And they're a reason I keep fussing about food labels at potlucks...

>> Not exactly the foodstream (though that is problematic),<<

The foodstream is the worse problem because even people who want to compensate for that one can't. There's so much contamination, much of it unlabeled, that nothing is really safe unless you know exactly where it came from and where it went through to reach you. >_<

Honestly, we could make a huge improvement just by using separate factories for things including the top 8 allergens vs. things that don't use those. So much stuff that should be safe isn't, unless you pay a premium for a label saying it's safe.

>> but in my experience some people are just effing clueless.<<

That part is fixable with education. If they choose to abuse people, that's a different problem with a different solution. Most folks would rather not murder someone.

>>Allergies also make it far more complicated to travel. Theres a reason "I am allergic to..." is on my shortlist of foreign phrases to learn first.<<

Good plan.

>> And they're a reason I keep fussing about food labels at potlucks... <<

It's a good idea to name or write down the ingredients in things for group meals like that, or tell people in advance what to exclude. Our house rule is that any allergen that would require expert care if consumed should not be served when the allergic person is present; otherwise it's fair to include as long as there are other things they can fill up on and they know what to avoid.

I'm concerned by the state of special dietary needs, though. Just a few decades ago when I was growing up, food issues were extremely rare. Now they're so common that it's getting hard to find things to feed a group that everyone can eat.

Banning potlucks is not a solution, although people are doing that, which is heinous given its history and the sociological damage. You're no safer in a restaurant because hypervigilance is a learned skill and most people can't acquire it without either an allergy or an advanced degree. Most food is prepared by people with only a casual awareness of the issues, and that's not good enough in a foodstream this careless. But if you required every restaurant to train its staff in advanced food safety, that would probably be prohibitively expensive. It's not a good situation at all.

I know plenty of people with serious allergies who never eat out, or do so only at restaurants that advertise their awareness of such issues. Can't say I blame them.

With one social group, I've taken to joking "Are you sure there are no nuts? Because if there are you get to practice calling 911!" The usual responseis a laugh and a "No, no no! I don't want to do that!" (This also works decently at cutting through cross-cultural difficulties in the group.)

I think that disclosing the level of allergies becomes more advisable the higher it goes.

Now I want to see a scifi story where the disabled guy is the most prepared for the disaster/alien diplomacy trip/whatever because he is used to being responsible for his own survival equipment and having the 'normal' setup not work.

Here you go. The quality ranges from wretched to brilliant.

http://www.twelfthplanetpress.com/products/ebooks/defying-doomsday

Healthy Nonperishable Foods

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