Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

lobbyludd wrote: »

on an entirely different note -and if prepping for an end of the world... extreme situation, I've not seen anyone mention (although not read back)
a) salt: although we are warned against eating too much and everything preprepared is laden with it, it is essential for humans to live, it's a preservative for food and can act as a topical antibiotic (as can sugar paste) and as a steriliser. Difficult to get in the wild unless near the sea. Was a highly priced commodity in times gone past.
b) fat: there are essential oil/fat dissolvable vitamins etc that humans need external sources for, and lack for extended periods, causes big health problems. Vegetable sources are hard to process yourself, and animal sources don't store that well in any sort of heat.

Yes, this is crucial information.

We're very conditioned to be fat-phobic as most of us (inc me) live very sedentary lives and need less not more. But in a survival situation, with increased activity and perhaps being outside and needing to keep warm, you would lose bodyfat pretty quickly unless you were careful of your diet.

I've read about this in survival books before and a subject was also mentioned (sorry if anyone is eating) that if you suddenly went from your usual diet to one heavily dependant on either storecupboard and/ or meat from hunting, you'd be faced with constipation issues.

When I look at ordinary old vegetable oil, I see it with dates on of about a year ahead, and I have accidentally used some which was about a year past date with no noticable effects. Oil is best kept cool and dark. One thing I did once at Mum's was to store a bottle of olive oil on the concrete shelf in her pantry beside the air vent. When it got cold outside, the temp inside dropped so that the oil separated. It returned to its normal appearance once at room temperature.

Just thought I'd mention it in case anyone sees this and is alarmed.

There's a seed which you add to water and it forms a sort of jelly-like substance which is used as a stool-softener. I've had it before but not for some years and have blanked on the name - psyillum husks, perhaps? Somebody surely knows for sure. That could be a good part of your preps.

Plus, stressful situations tend to aggravate tendancies to constipation and you'd want to reduce (I nearly typed "eliminate" problems if possible).

I have quite a bit of salt as it's cheap atm and doesn't go off. As well as the food preserving uses, you can do a lot with saline water inc gargling for a sore throat/ rinsing sore mouth. I was taught as a nipper to rub mouth ulcers with dry salt. It nips a bit but it does dry them out and they heal more quickly.

I've had my stored water out of the dark dead-end corner of the kitchen where most of the two litre bottles stand, vacuumed and washed the floor. It wasn't bad but hadn't been done for a while and I figured I might as well clean while I re-organised.

I find I quite enjoy storecupboarding, in my funny little way. Adding stuff to the rear of the cupboard, moving stuff up, keeping up with dates. It causes me to think more about what I have, how long it takes me to use up a kilo of oats/ litre of oil/ pkt of teabags, which in turn assists shopping and budgetting.

Does anyone else enjoy the sight of a well-stocked larder?

the_cake

A well-stocked larder: a thing of joy, beauty and comfort! I think I may have been a squirrel in a previous life.

GreyQueen

the_cake wrote: »

A well-stocked larder: a thing of joy, beauty and comfort! I think I may have been a squirrel in a previous life.

You and me both, sister!

I think it's probably hardwired into the species as a result of countless generations of being custodians of kitchens. I used to love the two larders in my Nan's kitchen, places of mysterious wonder to a small girl.

[Deleted User]

Perplexed_Pineapple wrote: »

If the SHTF our bugging-in diet will be boring, but nutritious and healthy. Just hope we can grow some chillies to spice it up a bit

It pays to keep in a stock of curry power/paste, pepper, and even plain old brown and red sauce.

They can all be used to make bland food more appealing, to a jaded palette.

lobbyludd

this is really quite grim so if of a sensitive nature don't read on...


I used to work as a medical researcher and we had a lovely old medic come and give us a talk about working in some far flung war torn place, where they noticed that people travelling sometimes hundreds of miles with horrible wounds for medical attention had less chance of septicaemia if their wound had maggots in it. The nurse would invariably kill them all and scrub them out, but they started looking at it, and did some trials here, with great success including on non-healing wounds of diabetics. the maggots only eat dead flesh, secrete antibiotics and other helpful agents and clean a wound beautifully. but it's not really caught on in a modern world - people don't like the idea, or the feeling because I don't think you can have decent pain relief at the same time (makes the maggots stoned!).

but maybe something to look into......

mardatha

Be like anything else LL - bet you wouldn't be able to lay hands on a maggot when you needed one lol !

lobbyludd

LOL if only I could find a medicinal use for slugs, I'd be set for life, blighters have eaten my carotts, which people swore blind they'd not be bothered with.

GreyQueen

:eek: I knew about that, and it's squirm-inducing but it's good to have this awareness, in case (heaven forfend) we're confronted with a mggoty wound and need to know the best way to manage it without proper attention.

Read about a young woman who walked out of the Amazon rainforest after an airplane crash with multiple injuries inc a deep wound to her arm which got maggoty and this is probably what saved her.

Long before penicillin was discovered, some people had found out that you could help wounds by binding mouldy bread over them.

If you have a wide area of abrasion, with lots of skin scraped off, and need to do some bush medicine, you can carefully capture a clean cobweb (we used loops of twig to do this as a child) and lay it over the abraded area. The spidersilk helps the skin cells bridge the large bare area and speeds the healing. These abraded areas are beggars to heal and very sore.

Friend and neighbour SuperGran (career nurse, retired, and former theatre sister) told me how she spent months treating a leg ulcer on the shin of a much older friend, one which had defied all efforts of conventional medicine for years. She did it with something called manuka honey, which is made in New Zealand from the pollen of the manuka tree.

I've drunk manuka tea in the NZ bush- pluck a twiggy bit off and stick it in a mug of boiled water, very tasty.

manchestermargo

About 15 years ago my mum had a leg ulcer that refused to heal, despite daily visits from the district nurse. She was admitted to hospital and they put several maggots onto the wound (specially bred for this purpose) wrapped a bandage around it and within a week the wound had started to heal!

1

the_cake

Manuka honey was the only thing which managed to get rid of my bronchitis last winter; being a cheapskate, I hated paying all that money for it, but after three months of coughing and feeling completely wiped out, it worked in about four or five days, so it turned out to be an excellent investment. You can also use it externally: magic stuff.