Primal Preparations for the Post Apocalypse
With oil spreading across the surface of the ocean, the world economy teetering on a precipice, and the Real Housewives of New Jersey premiering on Bravo, it’s not a stretch to believe the end of times are coming. While several companies will sell you kits for the occasion, usually they amount to a four thousand dollar credit card bill and a truckload of rice and oats. Rice and oats are no good for the low-carber, or for anyone wishing to avoid the all-too-common emaciated look of apocalypse survival. Thus, to wind down the week with something a little light-hearted (and what’s more light-hearted than the end of the world as we know it), the Worker Bees have come up with a Primal-approved list of supplies to ease the transition through the fall of modern civilization. Be it global warming, the rapture, or a zombie outbreak, get ready to stock up your bomb shelters! (NOTE: Bomb shelters have been on the decline since the late 1950′s when scientists figured out that six inches of concrete won’t stop a twenty mile wave of cell-melting nuclear radiation. If you have no bomb shelter, a basement will suffice).
First a few non-potables, the most important being…
1. Friends. More important than food. More important than weapons. If there’s one thing evolution, ancient history, and modern horror movies have taught us, people survive in groups. Unlike the blood-thirsty mutants surrounding your village, you don’t have eyes in the back of your head. Having friends to watch your back, to take the night watch, to drag you to safety and to pull out the bullet, is the one thing you really can’t live without. And no fair-weather friends. Golfing buddies, “frenemies,” and people who poke you on Facebook don’t count. You need people in your Dunbar’s circle. The type of friends who would risk life and limb to preserve your spot in line at the premier of Sex and the City 2. The type of friends who would forgive you for farting in a closed elevator. Humans have a capacity to attain roughly one hundred fifty such close friends, and while you may not need all hundred fifty, it’s good to have at least five. Friends won’t store well in a basement, but you’ll want to keep a fresh supply within a twenty mile radius.
2. A Dog. Basically a small, fast friend with a good sense of smell. Dogs will alert you of approaching lycanthropes, and if the situation is dire, a dog makes for a quick protein-filled emergency meal.
3. Knives: steak, butcher, bowie, and spork. Knives are the weapon of choice for the Hell-World survivalist. Much preferable to guns, a knife will never run out of bullets. Whether separating a homunculus from its limbs or carving a wooden doll for the creepy little clairvoyant girl, knives get the job done. The spork has been included for eating efficiency and style. It’s a modern culinary blasphemy that fine cutlery may include fourteen various sizes and shapes of utensil, and yet not one spork.
4. A Vacuum Sealer. Oxygen is the enemy of longevity. Whether fruit, meat, or the remains of a favorite cat, the less air it touches, the longer it’s going to last. While most modern vacuum sealers are powered, you’ll want to find a non-electric sealer for the low-tech times to come.
5. Emergency Kit. Most kits include a variety of bandages, tweezers, ibuprofen, matches, and flares. Flares aren’t really useful so much as aesthetically impressive when fighting crime underwater, measuring how a deep a cave goes, or distracting dinosaurs at Jurassic Park. By the way, if your post apocalypse is overrun with dinosaurs, you might as well kiss yourself goodbye.
The Grocery List
Toss the kids into the Voyager and bring along a hand truck, because it’s time to hit Costco! The key words are “calorically dense.” The more calories per cubic inch of food, the better. And now, the list of approved foods…
1. Water. You may be able to survive a month after the food runs out, but you’ll be dead in three days without water. While eight glasses a day isn’t necessary, a quart of water a day works as a rule of thumb. That comes out to roughly 100 gallons of water a year. And don’t you dare buy Dasani. Aside from the environmental footprint of wasted plastic bottles, and the fact that you’d be lining the wallets of Coca-Cola executives, purchasing 100 gallons worth of 20oz water bottles would require a second mortgage. The best option is to buy a couple 50 gallon plastic drums and fill them with good old tap. And make sure to get the air-tight barrels. As the old saying goes, “An unkempt water drum makes for a hotbed of mosquitoes… and/or a sentient face eating slime monster.”
2. Sardines. Loaded with omega 3s, an amazing source of fat and protein, you want the ones in olive oil, not in water. Sardines should compromise the base of your daily diet. They can be mashed into a salad, eaten raw, or even cooked in a soup. Anchovies and canned tuna (again, in oil, not water) also work.
3. Jerky: Beef, Salmon, Venison, Quail, Turkey, Aardvark, basically any meat you can dry out. DIY Jerky is the best route, though it may only last six months if you don’t vacuum seal it. If you choose store-bought jerky, go for dry, unflavored, or peppered jerky. Avoid “Teriyaki” and similar flavors as they typically contain unnecessary quantities of HFCS. And remember, a SlimJim is not jerky, it’s mechanically separated chicken parts mixed in a corn oil emulsion.
4. Pemmican. Pemmican is Eskimo for “meat wad.” Learn how to make your own as a travel snack for the long days spent on the tundras of a world climate-changed to an endless Winnipeg.
5. Canned Fruits and Vegetables. While canned goods last for decades, fruits and veggies are a luxury considering the relatively low macronutrient density. If a pickle only has eight calories, you’d need an Ark full of pickles to survive for a year. Pick nutrient dense canned goods; spinach, tomatoes, pumpkin, and pineapple are fine choices. Avoid fruits canned in syrup, canned corn (not a vegetable), and canned asparagus, which is just plain nasty.
6. Nuts. Nuts won’t keep as long as canned goods, though nut butters can stay edible for more than a year. A large jar of almond butter may contain over 3000 calories.
7. Coconut Milk/Cream. In the calorie-dense department, this stuff really takes the cake. At 700 calories a can, it’ll keep you energized for days. And because so many people have sent in emails on the subject… no, coconut milk is not a dairy product; and no, you cannot milk a coconut by squeezing its teats. Coconuts have no teats.
8. Olives. Canned olives don’t have the zing of fresh Kalamata olives, but they still contain healthy fat, and they go well with the piles of sardines and anchovies you just purchased. A hundred cans will do.
9. Vodka. It’s not strictly Primal, but it disinfects, it’s flammable, it can be traded for goods, and you just bought a hundred cans of olives, so why not mix a few martinis?
10. Vitamins. Scurvy is not fun. Not even for pirates. Goiters aren’t very pleasant either. Jaundice. No. Not fun.
11. Herbs, Spices, Salt, Tabasco. Herbs are cheap, and while they will go stale after about 18 months, a little fennel can go long way for flavor. Considering the massive amounts of coconut milk you’ll be consuming, investing in a heavy supply of curry powder is also suggested. And Tabasco is included on the list because, frankly, a world without Tabasco is its own Hell on Earth.
12. Sugary Drinks and Sodas. Whatever version of doomed future you may be living through, there are bound to be a few self-aware robots vying for world domination. And whether the robots disguise themselves as former Austrian body builders or colorful 18 wheelers, you can bet they’ll be bullet proof. Enter soda. As anyone who has ever owned a laptop or blackberry will attest, no electronic device can survive a direct spill from a can of sugary soda. If the machine’s wires don’t short circuit immediately, it’s only a matter of time before nearby ants creep in to suck at the corn syrup laden innards of a mean robot who will most certainly not “be back”.
13. Ant Farm. Ants are a great source of protein. Or you can unleash them on a Coke-soaked terminator.
14. Cheetos. The orange coating on Cheetos permanently bonds to many surfaces, perfect for marking trails, unsafe buildings, or members of the group infected with mind-control parasites.
15. Quaker Low Fat Rice Cakes. Though scientifically proven to be inedible, Quaker low fat rice cakes do have many of the same properties as Styrofoam. Soaked in gasoline for a week, they work as a kind of poor man’s napalm, a great defense against hordes of wayward bikers and rapscallions.
As useful as this grocery list may be, it is only a temporary fix. The average person may eat close to a million calories a year. Most people don’t have enough basement or money for an extra year’s worth of groceries. Or a decade’s worth. Stocking up for a lifetime is impossible, but stocking up for the time it takes you do adapt – to re-adapt - to a primitive hunter-gatherer lifestyle is possible. In the future, money will be worthless. Good looks won’t get you by if the zombie only wants you for your brains. Only healthy, Primal lifestyle habits will carry a person through the hardest times.
No one ever said living through the fall of man would be easy. But in the mean time, with a little know how, the right tools, a basement full of calorie dense, fatty foods, and a few good friends, you’ll have everything you need to make your living nightmare a dream come true.
Thanks for reading, everyone. If you found this article highly informative and took it very seriously you might like these, too. Enjoy!
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Posted By: Worker Bee
Is it wrong that I immediately want to go out and buy Quaker rice cakes and soak them in gasoline to see what kind of mayhem could ensue?
In my defense, I grew up with 3 brothers…
I’m glad someone finally figured out something useful to do with rice cakes. Can’t believe I used to eat them and think they were healthy (whole grain and all)!
One single line disappointed me today, Mark. Why?
A real martini is made with gin.
That is EXACTLY what I commented about. Srsly – vodka?! Not even in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by zombies. Not even.
I asked the same thing… Well, y’all are welcome to hang out in my gin-only bunker
That is because you don’t know vodkatini!
No, serously!
Things you’ll need:
1. Water
2. Tabasco
3. Some type of edible material plus #2.
I’m sort of sad, but relieved, that this post ended my futile attempt to find the teats on a coconut to milk it. I kept turning it round and round and round…looking, peering…
I can’t believe you even dared to say that vodka should be anywhere NEAR a martini. You Americans, I tell you…
On another note: in the post-apocalypse? I doubt we’re going to care that much about HFCS, srsly.
…well, maybe an appletini.
Cannibalism=survival.
Here’s the problem with cannibalism: you’re going to want to eat the healthiest people, in the same way that its best to heat the healthiest, grass-fed cows. But they healthiest ones are the hardest to catch, they’re in the shortest supply, and they might be your Primal buddies!
I love a challenge.
I am really curious about recommending the sardines and tuna in oil instead of water. From what I have seen the tuna in water is much higher in Omega 3′s.
I’m guessing it’s the energy density mate… As Mark states – you won’t have unlimited space and money – the food you buy has to have as many calories per square cm, sorry square in…
Plus from a Primal point of living, you need oils in your diet, and bottled oils once opened will eventually go rancid… I’m guessing here so could be completly wrong.
Seriously, though, I keep nuts, sardines & bottled water in my car… my mama taught me to be prepared in case I’m trapped in my car during an earthquake. I should really add a can of coconut milk and some thai curry paste… sardine curry tastes a heck of a lot better than knawing on the limbs of the guy in the next car.
When buying canned fish packed in oil, be sure to check the ingredient list. Many are packed in soybean oil. I generally don’t even bother to pick it up off the shelf unless it states that it contains olive oil, and even then it’s sometimes a blend.
This definitely had some great potential. I love the humor though!(I laughed my ass off for sure…) But you all should definitely put some quality primal survival up on the next post.
You’re not going to need the vitamins. People who don’t eat fruit and veggies only get scurvy if they eat a ton of grains. An all meat grainless diet poses no threat of scurvy. Post-apoc, those who survive are going to be way healthier! Something to look forward to =).
I haven’t read the article yet… I was just so excited by the title that I had to comment first!! Thanks for this in advance. I love preparedness… whether it’s zombies or for a tornado! Thanks Mark
Okay, that was pretty fun. Thanks for the post! I’d love further exploration on primal food/water storage!
Although this story is very amusing, I believe that Mark didn’t write it just for fun. To get people to listen you must make it amusing especially when you are talking about changes that you can’t confirm.
Well, look at the world today and the changes that are taking place. Study what the age old cultures had to say about our time, it might give you a clue.
There could be more truth in this story than you want to believe…
Well done Mark!
Someone watched The Road
Awesome Book and Movie!!
How about canned corned beef and canned coconut milk for a nutritionally dense emergency food kit.
(Burger and a milkshake in cans….)
I tried canned corned beef once – had bought it for hurricane preparedness, and after hurricane season passed, I opened it to see how it tastes and if it could be used for normal eating. YUCK! You’d have to be really hungry…
Awesome stuff – nice to see this topic treated lightly.
I must say even the thought of this sort of topic is quite American.
Bomb shelters and panic rooms etc seem to be largely confined to the US… The Cold War has a lot to answer for!
I’m not saying we don’t have them in Australia, but here (and the UK and Europe), you just don’t hear references to these things like you do in the US…
You would struggle to find a property in Australia with either a bomb shelter or panic room if you wanted one… In fact I’m now so curious I’m going to do a search to see if I can find one!
Not a judgement, just an observation… Is the Cold War the only factor I wonder? I guess if younger Americans born after the Cold War ended don’t think of these things as much, then you could say it was the major reason.
Just some random thoughts…
Peace, love and (sprouted) mung beans!
I live in the USA and have not heard the term “bomb shelter” since the 1960s. Unless, of course, you count the reference to a bomb shelter in the 1999 movie “Blast From the Past”, which was about a bomb shelter in the 1960s.
I suspect that you will find that at the peak of the cold war there will maybe 10 bomb shelters in any state. People considered the idea, but I have seen no evidence that anyone did – other than people writing an article on how they made their bomb shelter for magazines.
Wow, I can’t believe you forgot honey.
Honey is the only food that doesn’t spoil, so its a requirement for any long term storage of goods.
Plus its full of a ton of antibacterial properties so it can be used not only for food, but to put on wounds in the event you get hurt. Remember man didn’t die from food early on, he died because medically he couldn’t fix things today we find an easy mend. A broken bone and bad teeth meant death back in the day.
Lol. I cut myself chopping some veggies (not too deep) & immediately after stopping it from bleeding, dabed some raw honey on it. W/ in mins the pain was fading. I used it like a Neosporin & put a bandaid on it. It really does work. No scar or mark shows now on my finger. (Now to get my husb from eating soo much raw honey everyday lol)
A serious discussion on emergency survival would probably require a whole nother website! But there are some easy things to do at least for smaller emergencies. Make sure you have water on hand. It stores nice frozen in the freezer and also helps the efficiency of the freezer. Have some kind of off grid cooking stove and fuel around, or bbq or whatever. And keep yourself well overstocked on canned goods that you usually eat and then make sure to always eat the oldest ones. And have a hand powered can opener. That way, if there is an earthquake and something knocks out the grid for some days or weeks, you will be able to survive for the short haul. Other good things to have are basics like toilet paper and weapons. For the long term you would be looking at learning basic farming, getting heritage seeds, animal husbandry, hunting, getting a water well, etc. That’s a whole diff level of planning, learning, expense and commitment. However, everyone should try to plan for smaller emergencies. As we have seen with Katrina and other situations, emergencies do happen and govt response often takes days to even show up.
Too totally funny!
Great and humorous article! I LOL’d!
Excellent & creative post! Mark, you never cease to amaze!
“a dog makes for a quick protein-filled emergency meal”
you’re a freak. you just lost one loyal reader after that disturbing line
“you’re a freak. you just lost one loyal reader after that disturbing line”
Lighten up. It was a joke, or did you think all the stuff about killer robots and radioactive mutants was factual was well?
“long days spent on the tundras of a world climate-changed to an endless Winnipeg.”
It’s really not that bad here in Winnipeg…though good jerky is always in order.
I know this may have been written in fun, but I do live on the Gulf Coast and we are starting our preps for hurricane season. I have been wondering what to stock up on – most non-parishables are crackers or carbs. It has crossed my mind more than once this month that I need to get to work on a primal survival kit.
Am I reading that parody site, “The Onion?”
Oh, yeah, I get it now.
This is “Mark’s Daily Onion!”
Jim Purdy
“…and if the situation is dire, a dog makes for a quick protein-filled emergency meal.”
That was awesome!
My husband pointed out something vitally important that you forgot: duct tape.
Can’t hold the world together without it.
For an excellent blog on food storage preparations, try Sharon Astyk:
http://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook
She’s not primal, but she’s not vegetarian either.
Seeds.. For growing stuff after the apocalypse is over.
but PLEASE not monsanto seeds!
I have to disagree on the tap water decision. Desani might be more useful in the end. You can use the bottles as urine storage receptacles. Furthermore for trading afterwards…as you cannot tell the difference between Desani and urine…
Just kidding….kinda.
No, no. You would need Aquafina bottles for urine storage receptacles! They’re in wider mouth bottles.