How do I prep for famine?

[DeadwastePrime]

Should I stockpile Spam? I use it in a Hawaiian-based stir fry recipe, so it's not like I don't eat it at all. I have enough calories to live on for months, but none of it is meat.

you dont
continue to starve like the rest of us, coward

 

[User names must be unique]

learn to eat disgusting things now, so when you're digging up worms and ant larvae it'll feel like a feast not a famine.

Food is plentiful, good tasting food is not.

 

[SilentDuck]

Should I stockpile Spam? I use it in a Hawaiian-based stir fry recipe, so it's not like I don't eat it at all. I have enough calories to live on for months, but none of it is meat.

The "bacon" flavored version of Spam is the most palatable. Much easier to eat with breakfast. If the salt is too high you can rinse the salt off rather than buying the low salt version of regular Spam which without the salt, well you start tasting what Spam actually is.

If it's a full blown apocalypse the salt is not too terrible for you. Too little in your body is as deadly as too much.

Shelf life is 4 years. You could also keep tins of corned beef but then you need to know your Carribean cooking, spices and ingredients or else you have to make it into horiffically bad Britbong dishes. Spam is more practical and has more options.

 

[Pomniman]

Get comfortable with the idea of eating longpork.

 

[Fried-Rice12]

@Ughubughughughughughghlug
Learn how to fish, find shellfish, hunt, and forage.

 

[Hyperbolic Steroids]

Buying as much water as possible should be your goal if you have no way of getting to a well or a source of clean running water

There's plenty of ways to make water safe. Boiling is the simplest but there's also iodine and chlorine tablets that you can buy. The method I use mostly is just an inline filter like in the image below. (Apparently mobilefags can't add links below thumbnail images? I had to delete the image and then do the link.)


Another option is manually digging a well which can depend on where the water bed lies in your area. For food you'll want to store canned items and not rely on anything in a freezer (obviously), ideally you'd can your own items to replace the shit that starts to hit that year mark. For the short term you can stockpile rice. A little bit of rice can go a long way and so long as it stays dry you can store it for a few years. Rice has the added benefit of being a lot lighter.

 

[Gangstalker #32194]

Do not buy prepper food. Buy and store food you eat. Assuming you are in the USA, you are not going to starve because the USA is a breadbasket.

What is going to happen is that because the US Government has declared economic war on its citizens, you need runway to win the war economically. You are being economically blockaded, so you will get through it the same way any war of attrition is won.

Keep a deep pantry. When you run out of something and you are at the store check the expiration date and compare that against the amount of that item you use in that timeframe, and then buy x amount of that item.

Learn to cook. This is absolutely paramount. Bulk calories are still very affordable but you need practice composing meals with them.

Buy food grade buckets, gamma seal lids, and oxygen absorbers. Flour for example; buy 25lb bags, freeze for 48 hours, fill into a five gallon bucket with oxygen absorbers and that flour can sit on a shelf for up to a decade. Between that and salt and a sourdough starter you can have years worth of fresh bread for a few hundred dollars. And critters can't spoil it.

Garden. Whether that is a backyard plot or a hydroponic indoor grow, you can insulate yourself from shortages and price spikes on perishable foods.

Buy meat in bulk. I buy whole beef primals and foodsaver them and freeze after breaking them down. I am currently paying $10 per pound for ribeye steaks, half the supermarket price. I haven't bought ground beef in years because I grind it myself.

Keep everything stocked up. Toothpaste, dishwasher detergent, laundry pods. Everything. Remember, this is an economic war, and food isn't the only thing you need to survive. You should never buy 1 of anything at the store.

This is all stuff you should be doing anyway. Do you know how freeing it is to run out of garbage bags, and I can just walk into my basement to get more?

I've never thought to look at that particular aspect of it as a matter of attrition between two parties, and I really should have.

 

[cybertoaster]

I'm just gonna chill in my river and wait for some dumb fucks to get near to drink...

 

[SpergioLeonne]

When the bombs start falling, ask yourself
“How do I get water out of a 500 feet deep artesian well with no electricity?”

Something everyone needs but everyone forgets to stock up on: salt. There's a reason it was used as a currency in ancient times. It's inexpensive, has a shelf life that goes until the end of time, makes literally everything taste better, and can be used for food preservation. Go grab a 50lb bag for the apocalypse.

Secondary under-recommended item is some kind of fat to cook with.

Salt is also deer bait. Hope you have ammo!

Step four: be like me, a long time smoker. I have a kitchen drawer full of bic lighters because I forgot to bring one when I went out and bought a new one. Unlike dope smokers, I never let anyone borrow my lighters. My wife makes fun of me for having like 30 lighters, but little does she know.

Step ten: if you live out west, deer are retarded and will walk into your yard in broad daylight. If you live in the northeast, white tail deer are practically fucking cryptids so don’t bet the farm on hunting deer, unless you can bait them with a salt lick. And it helps to have a spotlight because they really do freeze in panic. It’s not because they’re hypnotized or whatever, it’s because they’re trying to be still in the vain hope you won’t see them

Know what there’s a shit ton of? Like an obnoxious surplus population of? Beavers.

Step forty seven: don’t burn poison ivy. The smoke WILL give you poison ivy rashes -inside your lungs-

Step one hundred and four: hunting takes a lot of patience. Trapping, less so. But a deadfall is not a good trap. A knothole in a tree with nails poking out inwards like an evil Chinese finger trap IS a good trap.

Step eight hundred and ninety two: if you have strike anywhere matches, put them in a small glass jar. If your hands get too numb to open the lid, you can just break the jar

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

When the bombs start falling, ask yourself
“How do I get water out of a 500 feet deep artesian well with no electricity?”


Salt is also deer bait. Hope you have ammo!

Step four: be like me, a long time smoker. I have a kitchen drawer full of bic lighters because I forgot to bring one when I went out and bought a new one. Unlike dope smokers, I never let anyone borrow my lighters. My wife makes fun of me for having like 30 lighters, but little does she know.

Step ten: if you live out west, deer are retarded and will walk into your yard in broad daylight. If you live in the northeast, white tail deer are practically fucking cryptids so don’t bet the farm on hunting deer, unless you can bait them with a salt lick. And it helps to have a spotlight because they really do freeze in panic. It’s not because they’re hypnotized or whatever, it’s because they’re trying to be still in the vain hope you won’t see them

Know what there’s a shit ton of? Like an obnoxious surplus population of? Beavers.

Step forty seven: don’t burn poison ivy. The smoke WILL give you poison ivy rashes -inside your lungs-

Step one hundred and four: hunting takes a lot of patience. Trapping, less so. But a deadfall is not a good trap. A knothole in a tree with nails poking out inwards like an evil Chinese finger trap IS a good trap.

Step eight hundred and ninety two: if you have strike anywhere matches, put them in a small glass jar. If your hands get too numb to open the lid, you can just break the jar

In the South deer are so common they are not worthy of any comment or thought at all. The North really is an industrial urban blighted hellscape.

I don't know if they live everywhere in large numbers, but groundhogs are common and are something people can eat that doesn't really get talked about. There was a Cherokee chief named Groundhog Sausage (Oconostota). I assume that name suggests something of them eating it.

 

[User names must be unique]

There's plenty of ways to make water safe.

the simplest option is a little bit of ordinary household bleach, preferably unscented bleach. but a little bit of scent is a lot less dangerous than contaminated water or no water.

You can make a filter with rocks, sand charcoal, and a funnel but it's not as foolproof as a couple drops of bleach per litter.

 

[Lone MacReady II]

Step forty seven: don’t burn poison ivy. The smoke WILL give you poison ivy rashes -inside your lungs-

Tell me more of this.

 

[SpergioLeonne]

Tell me more of this.

Fire just doesn’t completely break down it’s irritating compound, but rather gives it the ability to fly

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Someone recommended I buy Water Bricks.
Well, I can't find that original post to reply to it, but I finally did. I bought eight. Thankfully they fit under my bed so they take up no extra space while acting as a partial barrier to keep the cat from getting underneath it (only a problem when it is time to put him in a cage). It's a month supply of water.

 

[You're MDNWU]

Fire just doesn’t completely break down it’s irritating compound, but rather gives it the ability to fly

I wonder if a 3M mask and filter could save you while you burn it for whatever reason

Also, people shouldn't forget about squirrels. Grab a $100 BB gun off Amazon now and you'll have a near silent way of grabbing food.

 

[888Flux]

But here is a little fact those retards don't know. The whitetail deer population was almost driven into extinction during the great depression. They had to set up a whitetail deer conservation program to bring the population back up. I will repeat, whitetail deer nearly went extinct

You've made this up entirely. There is not one source I could find anywhere that says this at all. The only sources that have anything even remotely to do with your claim says that the whitetail deer population of the United States was drastically reduced starting in the mid 19th century due to ecological changes and lack of game management and began to gradually recover towards the turn of the 20th century as conservation efforts and wildlife programs were introduced. Please link me any source that says this, because your claim is so absolutely insane I'm shocked no one has called you out on your bullshit.

 

[Birdie0]

Invest in alternative protein sources like bugs

 

[Freshly Baked Socks]

Trapping, less so.

And the game warden shouldn't come knocking if government has fallen, so a set of conibear steel traps are like perpetual fur&meat making devices.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

You've made this up entirely. There is not one source I could find anywhere that says this at all. The only sources that have anything even remotely to do with your claim says that the whitetail deer population of the United States was drastically reduced starting in the mid 19th century due to ecological changes and lack of game management and began to gradually recover towards the turn of the 20th century as conservation efforts and wildlife programs were introduced. Please link me any source that says this, because your claim is so absolutely insane I'm shocked no one has called you out on your bullshit.

That is a very hostile and over-the-top reaction, especially to what could have been him repeating what he heard someone else say.

There WAS a time when the American Indian, particularly Cherokee, nearly hunted it to extinction due to the deerskin trade, and when that ceased they rebounded dramatically.

 

[ENDTOPII]

Rice, oats and pasta have a very long shelf life if stored dry and dark. Also throw in some vitamins and salt, then you can worry about how to cook it (water and heat). Then you got at least a few months of survival rations.
For a real SHTF, you better learn basic homesteading, or at least the absolute minimum of hunting or fishing. Which is a whole rabbit hole since it's not "just do it bro".

Not a prepper junky, but one thing a lot of noobs and city raised people do is buying the stuff they need rather than the tools to gain the stuff they need. Instead of buying a lot of bulk stuff with an expiration date, try to get the tools to collect/create the thing instead. For food, maybe get some basic fishing equipment or a rifle, some butchering tools. But it honestly takes a lot of time and investment if you actually want to "prep" for a real SHTF event.

Some nice books: https://www.survivorlibrary.com/

Enjoy the larp.