Food

Sweat and Drinks

Sweat, or perspiration, is the primary means that humans use to cool themselves through the use of evaporative cooling. Very few mammals actually use perspiration as a cooling mechanism: in fact, other than a few primates, horses are the only mammals that use perspiration to cool down.

Sweat is 99% water. Dissolved in each liter of this water are the following minerals:

  • Sodium 900mg
  • Potassium 200 mg
  • Calcium 15 mg
  • Magnesium 1.3 mg

This means that perspiration has a much lower concentration of electrolytes than does blood. Still, as we sweat, we are not only losing water, but a lot of key electrolytes. If you are sweating heavily, you are losing more than just water, and that needs to be replaced. If you aren’t sweating heavily, then you shouldn’t have a lot of these because too many electrolytes is just as bad as not enough of them, especially if you have high blood pressure or heart failure.

There are a ton of electrolyte drinks out there: Gatorade is perhaps the most well known, but there is also Pedialyte, as well as a plethora of others. My biggest issue with many of these drinks is that they also contain an incredible amount of sugar. That’s why I only drink the zero sugar versions of these.

Gatorade has the electrolytes, but also comes with a lot of sugar. It carries 2 grams of sugar, 13.3mg of Sodium and 4.2mg of Potassium per ounce. I only drink these when I am exerting myself, and even then, I only drink the zero sugar versions. Cost is about 65 cents for a 16 ounce serving.

Liquid IV is a powder that is mixed with 16 ounces of water. When mixed, it carries 0.7 grams of sugar, 31mg of Sodium, and 23 mg of Potassium per ounce as mixed. I haven’t tried this one, but I know a lot of people who swear by it. Cost is $1.38 per 16 ounce serving.

LMNT (pronounced “element”) is another powder. It has 0.8g of sugar,16.5 mg of Sodium, and 12.5mg of Potassium per ounce as mixed. Cost is $1.30 per 16 ounce serving. I have never tried it, but I have seen advertising for it.

Pedialyte is a powder that is designed to replace electrolytes in children. It has about 0.675g of sugar, 16.25mg of Sodium, and 11.25mg of Potassium per mixed ounce. Cost is about $2 for a 16 ounce serving. I know that there are some athletes that like this stuff, but I hear that it tastes like armpit sweat.

I drink Gatoraid zero or another drink called Propel. I think they did well for me because my electrolytes were just a tiny bit low when I was in the hospital. Had I been drinking water, they would have been much lower, due to perspiration losses.

The disclaimer: I don’t advertise, and receive nothing for my reviews or articles. I don’t think that I ever will. I have no relationship with any products, companies, or vendors that I review here, other than being a customer. If I ever *DO* have a financial interest, I will disclose it. Otherwise, I pay what you would pay. No discounts or other incentives here. I only post these things because I think that my readers would be interested.

By Divemedic, ago

Food and Water

Let’s continue with our series on prepping. As you recall, I am using a prepping pyramid to organize my preparations.

So far, we covered energy with the solar project. We touched on medicine. Let’s talk about food and water. There are three considerations for food and water: short term, intermediate, and long term.

Short Term

For the short term, I am talking about food and water to get you through three days. This is easy, and most of you have that already. If you have a few cans of tuna, canned soup, and other nonperishable foodstuffs in your pantry, along with a case of bottled water, you likely have enough for the short term. You aren’t going to starve to death in a couple of days, so the real struggle here is going to be water. You need at least 3 gallons of water per person for your short term needs. That works out to 24 bottles of water per person. If you are looking at short term foods, I recommend things that don’t require cooking.

A great example of this is hurricanes. When we know a hurricane is coming, we grab a couple of Sub sandwiches from Publix, a bag or two of chips, and a box of toaster pastries. The idea being that you can ride out the storm and have food to eat that doesn’t require cooking, with the understanding that the food is there more for comfort than it is for nutritional value.

Intermediate

Intermediate is from three days to about the first three months without services. For that, you need to have a good mix of foods, with some of them requiring preparation and some not. This is what I have, and I am planning for 4 people (even though there are only 2 of us):

  • A freezer with a good stash of food. Meats, frozen vegetables, frozen butter, etc. The advantage is that this is exactly the food you usually eat. With this and what is in our pantry, we can last a couple of weeks. Most Americans can, as we tend to keep both the pantry and the refrigerator full, unless you are one of those people who shops every day.
  • A case of MREs for those times when you can’t cook or need portable food that won’t spoil. There are 12 meals in a case, and you can easily get by with only eating two per day, per person.
  • On top of that, we have cases of #10 cans and some pouches of freeze dried foods, a good mix of Mountain House and others.
  • We also have some portable water jugs like these. I would like to have more water storage, and I have been looking at something like this. Having a 55 gallon barrel of drinking water would be sufficient for four people for a couple of weeks.
  • We also have a water filter like this one.

Long Term

For long term food and water needs, you want to start thinking about services not coming back for the foreseeable future. Here in Central Florida, we get a good amount of rain. From an inch and a half per month during our dry period in December, to six inches in June, on average. A nice rain barrel coupled with our filter and some boiling should give us potable water for the long term. If you are in an area without appreciable rainfall for at least part of the year, you may need to think about something else.

Rain gutters and a barrel should get you plenty of water.

This is an upcoming project for me.

For long term food, you need to think about planting vegetables. After a week or so without food, you should be planting.

Three months without food should mean that much of the population is now gone, and the ones that are left are going to be ruthless, hungry, and resourceful. This will complicate your security situation. That talk comes later.

At a minimum, everyone should have short term food and water stored. Depending on your locale, you could be facing a hurricane, a blizzard, or some other relatively common event that means the stores aren’t open. Be ready for that.

Build up an intermediate storage capability slowly. A couple of things bought per month, and you will quickly have a couple of months’ supply. That will put you ahead of 95% of Americans for preparedness.

By Divemedic, ago

Can I Eat Him?

If a deer attacks you on your own front porch, and it’s outside of hunting season, I would assume that it’s still lawful to shoot his ass. I’m sure a couple of handgun bullets to the cranium would take him down, no problem. (mute the audio. The woman screaming is annoying.)

My question here is: Would you then be permitted to add his meat to the freezer? Some venison steaks would be delicious!

By Divemedic, ago

Roll Your Own

One of the problems with storing food is that your stores are finite. That is, they eventually will run out. So you need to have a way of securing more food once those supplies are gone. If you are like me, you don’t have a lot of room for growing food, and raised beds are a good way to grow food in a small area.

If you are considering building a raised garden so you can grow your own vegetables, consider this video as a helpful starting place:

If you happen to live in Florida, you know that we have some unique issues here: heat, humidity, large amounts of strong sunlight, sandy soil, and a plethora of insects. This channel is created by a Florida raised bed gardener. I am sure you will find it helpful.

By Divemedic, ago