So far we have learned about the dangers of inflammation, and the mechanisms behind it. How can you make changes in your life to minimize the effects of inflammation?

Insulin Resistance

As we went over in the last article, insulin resistance is highly inflammatory and having high inflammation affects insulin resistance. The solution? Improve your insulin sensitivity. There are a number of ways to do this. Eating a low-carb paleo diet will remove many of the insulin spiking survival foods such as grains, dairy and sugar. Regular exercise can also increase insulin sensitivity.

Balancing your Omega 3:6 ratio

Another common cause of inflammation is an out of sync omega 3:6 ratio. Omega 6 is responsible for producing healthy inflammation in the body. However, most modern diets are far in excess of the optimal ratio. Follow our handy guide to improving your ratio here to further reduce inflammation.

Keep Your Pearly Whites Clean

Inflammation is a global response, regardless of whether it’s a local threat. Small offsets to your system can affect inflammation in a big way. One of the quick wins you have have to reduce inflammation is flossing your teeth. Fighting diseases in your mouth like gingivitis raises the immune system and has an inflammatory response. It’s even been linked to heart disease!

Watch your gut

No, I’m not talking about the fat on your belly (even though that probably speaks to your insulin sensitivity) I’m talking about your intestines. One of the most inflammatory substances that is present in your body is the food that is being digested in your small and large intestines.

Unfortunately, the lining of our gut can be far from bulletproof. A number of things can affect the permeability of our gut including diet, medication and toxins. Generally speaking, this is the kind of thing that a paleo diet will be able to solve.

Dietary boosters 

There are a number of foods which are known to be anti-inflammatory. Incorporating as many of these as possible into your cooking on a day to day basis can do wonders for your inflammation levels.

Cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower are a great choice for greens. Spices like ginger  and tumeric can add a tasty kick to a number of dishes and have some of the highest concentrations of antioxidants for their weight around. When it comes to high potency spices for health, there are few better preps than these.

Minimize toxins

The final tip we have for reducing inflammation is cutting down on inflammatory toxins in the diet. These can come from a number of sources, including the mycotoxins found in mass farmed grain. Keeping proper storage of your preps is absolutely critical for preventing toxins: even a small amount of mold can contaminate the entire contents of a pantry within days.

Some other common toxins include pesticides. When buying food, it’s important to look for organic, but not always. When it comes to produce, look for organic with the dirty dozen, but feel free to buy the clean fifteen anywhere.

I have been seeing some heated discussion over the past few days in regards to one of our old friends, hCov-EMC. I originally wrote this out as a very long comment on one of my favorite blogs, The Organic Prepper, in response to an article about the role of science in dealing with the disease.

The Case Against Science

In the pursuit of a cure for hCov-EMC, H1N1 and the other dangerous flu variants which have come up over the years, Pandora’s Box has been opened. In researching the disease, information on how these diseases infect, how they spread, and how they kill are more known than ever. Assuming this is kept in the right hands, it should eventually lead to a cure. Or will it?

H1N1 became a matter of international safety back in 2009. After close to a year the death count was listed north of 16,000 worldwide in 213 territories. It was reduced from pandemic to post pandemic status in September of 2010 with a final measured death count of 18000. With the heat on and the clock ticking, the best science was able to come up with was the use of tamiflu to lesson symptoms and a vaccine that was as questionable as any other year. Thousands continued to die.

The price we have paid for these advances is opening pandora’s box. Engineering viruses is commonplace these days, genetically engineering bacteria is done in high schools across America. People with the wrong intentions have the means to produce superbugs, if they have access to the knowledge. In addition to the possibility of research being published, there is the threat of lab data and samples being stolen from the places where research is being conducted.

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

A moratorium was placed on research on H5N1 for 60 days that was extended to well over a year. The potential cost of unleashing weaponized forms using stolen information about superbugs seems to be too great for the paltry results we seem to be getting.

These viruses are mutating from generation to generation, not unlike HIV, which creates a moving target that is tough to cure. Despite not having an answer, we are more knowledgeable than ever on this subject and to stop short would be to sacrifice years of work. If we ever hope to fight these diseases the research must continue. We need to think long term.

Are we focusing on the right conversation?

What does bird flu from chickens, swine flu from pigs, and the transmission of these both to humans have in common? None of them would be possible without factory farming. Instead of pointing fingers at the institution of science and having conversations about whether the knowledge to find a cure can be found, we need to look at why these things in the first place.

There was a farm where swine flu started. There might have been another farm where it jumped to humans for the first time. Those people and animals were shipped around the world to support the sick system of mass agriculture, and tens of thousands are dead for it. If we didn’t support these systems as a society every day by voting with our wallets we wouldn’t have these situations. We might not prevent disease from coming around overnight but every day you make the decision to support systems like this or not.

The word inflammation has been coming up a lot, especially in regards to the omega chain fatty acids. What causes it, and why should it make a difference in your selection of survival foods?

Immune Systems Gone Wild!

Your body relies on a number of very specialized cells in order to defend itself against invaders like bacteria, heal when you cut yourself or break a bone, and break down toxins when they reach your bloodstream. There is a delicate balance of white blood cells, platelets, t-cells and a bunch of other fun cells that I am neither qualified enough to talk about nor willing to bore you with.

The important thing to understand is that they work as a system. Our bodies are beautiful machines but they are not perfect. While it would be nice to get only part  of the immune system involved when say, a splinter got into your skin, it isn’t the case. When anything under the blanket of immunity comes into question, it’s all hands on deck.

The Dangers of Chronic Inflammation

Many of the cells in your immune system are born killers. They are built to break down, swallow and otherwise dismember cellular material. The constant presence of these in your bloodstream is not unlike a bunch of sailors drunk on shore leave. Sure they’re here to help, but a few windows might  end up broken by the end of the night.

This is ok in the short run and as a matter of fact is necessary in the event of an actual infection or defense situation. However, when it becomes a norm it can be dangerous. Getting there might be easier than you think.

Self Sustaining Cycles

The road to chronic inflammation can be a slippery slope. Many of the conditions caused by inflammation cause more inflammation in turn. For example, we know cancer can be caused by inflammation. The presence of faulty cells in a tumor cause a number of damaged proteins. Responding to the presence of these in the bloodstream, inflammation will rise.

Body fat is another road to inflammation. The presence of even 20 extra pounds can cause elevated inflammation in people, especially during weight gain. These cells can emit inflammatory markers like interleukin-6 and c-reactive protein which, you guessed it, raise inflammation. That’s unfortunate because inflammation also makes you fat.

The final pathway is our old friend insulin resistance. In addition to creating fat in the body, the presence of inflammation leads to insulin resistance. Studies with mice have shown that injecting mice with inflammatory markers creates resistance to insulin, even in healthy mice. C reactive protein and IL-6, produced by fat cells as mentioned above, actually have also been shown to create insulin resistance.

What to do?

If this sounds like a giant mishmash of awful factors designed to create inflammation, that’s because it is one. The leading preventable causes of death in the modern world are seen, not coincidentally, in higher rates in those countries with a highly inflammatory diet.

How can you break the cycle? Stay tuned to our next post in the series to find out.

Network to the Top

Kevin O’Brien is back from season one with a vengeance – and a tent. Having moved from the tsunami zone of Florida, he has successfully transplanted his family to the highlands of Tennessee.

Instead of being an outcast for his prepping, Kevin is now welcomed by a group of preppers including Lucas Cameron and his Seven Trumpet preppers. He is able to facilitate this through a website he set up for networking.

Networking has been described as one of the most important skills to have for a reason. Instead of having to develop an entire skillset with himself and his family, Kevin has effectively gained the skillsets of everyone in the seven trumpets group. Beyond this, he is now part of a more imposing group that can defend itself much more adequately against the threat of gangs.

Have you looked into the local prepper groups in your area? Most of the states have representation through sites like the American Preppers Network. You should check to see whether there are any groups that match your personality and skill set.

“Kevin doesn’t eat rice”

Another offhand comment about rice came up in this episode. Despite focusing his stockpile on rice, Kevin himself does not enjoy rice or even eat it. This presents a number of problems.

First, without the desire to eat rice, Kevin will not be able to rotate his stores. While rice has a very long shelf life under proper conditions,

Learning to enjoy the food you intend to survive on is an important factor to psychological health. Food is a source of comfort and stability in our lives and taking the enjoyment out of that makes an already stressful situation.

Another benefit to rotating your stores is learning different recipes with the limited food you have. Including spices into your preparation can give a boost of antioxidants and other nutrients, as well as keep things interesting. It’ll be a lot harder to pick up curry powder once the poles shift.

In the hurt locker

Kevin describes his financial situation as being in the hurt locker.

The whole practice of prepping is essentially about taking things into consideration. Making a big financial move that prevents following through with a plan fully is essentially a lack of consideration. In order to follow through with a plan completely, financial ‘preparation’ is just as important as physical preparation.

What Kevin is left with is a situation where he might not be much better off. Who can really say whether it’s better to have a secure and organized house in Florida or a small rental and a bug out location made out of canvas?

The word inflammation has been coming up a lot, especially in regards to the omega chain fatty acids. Why should it make a difference in your selection of survival foods?

Heart Disease

The common thought behind heart disease places the blame squarely on the presence of plaque on the walls of the artery. Frequently thought to be caused by ‘high fat diets‘, this eventually forms a large mass which can stiffen the artery and burst, or break off to form a blood clot. Recent work by cardiologists has proven that it may go deeper than just cholesterol or fat in the diet.

Inflammation has been linked to stroke and heart attack patients for some time.  While a causative relationship between the two has been a subject of increasing study over the past several years, there are a number of theories to justify why.

Plaque on the walls of arteries becomes more problematic in the presence of a highly inflamed bloodstream. Immune cells will attempt to block off the plaque from the rest of the bloodstream. In the event any breaks off, the likelihood of a clot forming is much higher.

Any way you slice it, the link between the two has been established. If you have more inflammation, it’s more likely that you will suffer from heart disease and many forward thinking doctors are suggesting measures to lower it.

Autoimmune Disorders

Autoimmune disorders are (not surprisingly) related to your immune response. It doesn’t take a Nobel Prize winner to see the connection between the two.

What people don’t know is the prevalence of these sorts of diseases. You or someone you know might be suffering from an autoimmune disease without even knowing it is one. There are over 100 of them, and 50 million Americans are estimated currently suffer from them.

Some of the common ones include rheumatoid arthritis, irritable bowel disease, and celiac disease. Bringing down levels of inflammation has been shown to be effective in a number of these diseases and many more are being discovered all the time.

The Really Bad Diseases

Inflammation has been linked to a litany of terrible things that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. Cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and even Huntington’s Disease have all been linked to inflammation in numerous studies.

Cancer, the big mambo, has been linked to inflammation in a number of studies. As many as 25% of all cancers have been estimated to stem in part from inflammation. While the exact mechanism for this is not agreed upon, there are a number of theories.

Researchers at Ohio State University found a connection between a molecule called microRNA-155, which is produced in greater quantities in the presence of inflammation. This in turn increases the rate of spontaneous mutation and a drop in the proteins responsible for repairing broken DNA. Any of these cells when mutated can become cancer.

Wrapping up

I hope you aren’t too scared. While the consequences of inflammation are dire, there are ways to understand it and minimize it in our lives. Stay tuned for more information on inflammation in our next post.

Wood gasification

Lucas has assembled a crack team for a possible New Madrid earthquake. One of the members of his team is Scott Spence, who specializes in alternative energy. He has an interesting set up including a wood gasification system.

Believe it or not, the process of gasification has been around for hundreds of years, attributed to William Murdoch in the late 18th century. As opposed to simple combustion, gasification uses a much smaller amount of oxygen and a very high amount of pressure.

Under these conditions, any sort of fuel such as wood or coal is turned into a gas – char in the case of coal. The pressure turns this gas into a liquid which is filtered through a cooling chamber and filtered for impurities like sulfur. The end result is a product called syngas which can be used much like natural gas.

Due to the refining process, gasification does not pollute the air like firing a coal stove does. In addition, setting up one at home is fairly easy and many people on youtube have made their own gasifiers. FEMA even released public plans for use in a gas crisis!

“Why isn’t there brown rice?”

This was a comment from one of Lucas’s family members but I think it bears some inspection. Lucas claimed that white rice stored better than brown rice. I haven’t been able to verify, but the numbers on any type of rice stored in an oxygen free environment are roughly 30 years.

While there may not be a big difference in storage time, there are a number of nutritional differences to keep in mind. Mainstream health would have you believe that brown rice is simply the better alternative. Because it includes the husk, all sorts of minerals and vitamins are attributed to be contained within.

There may be more than meets the eye. Rice husks contain phytic acid, which if you recall are responsible for keeping seeds from sprouting. They do this through the binding of minerals. While the minerals contained within brown rice may show up when using a calorimeter, they are not necessarily absorbed.

Moreover, regular consumption of brown rice has been show to affect mineral absorption globally in a number of studies. In addition, phytates  are considered lectins, a known cause of inflammation. It’s a big price to pay for the supposed fiber benefits of brown rice. While a diet heavily based on carbohydrates is not ideal, minimizing phytates can offer some damage control with the rest of the nutrients.

Food dehydration

Another practice that Lucas and his family has taken up is food dehydration. I have had all sorts of fun with my dehydrator so far  and it is an easy way to make your food more storable. Removing water greatly reduces the ability of bacteria to form on your food. Storing in a vaccuum sealed contained can further improve longevity.

Important disclaimer – beef jerky will not keep for much longer than a month without secondary storage. While it is great for portability it is not necessarily shelf stable.

Derek Price is reminiscent of Gus Fring from Breaking Bad. The kind of guy with the brains to run a business and hide ulterior motives in plain sight. That is of course, until he showed his plans on national television.

Good Publicity? Or a Bonehead move?

Derek should have really taken the time to read my article on prepping in secret before deciding to go on Doomsday Preppers. Let’s take a look at the possible pros and cons of this appearance.

There are a few advantages for appearing on the show. As a business man, being featured on TV may give awareness to Deadwood. More business translates to more preps.

However this is a double edged sword. The general population might not take so kindly to an amusement park that they now know is designed with killzones in mind. Moreover, the subterfuge of hiding in plain sight is now over, once the bomb drops everyone with a TV and a tourist attraction map is going to know exactly where to find a fat stash of food and a defensible location.

I’m curious to see what the net effect on profits would be. However unless they are enough to hire a personal army to defend against the hungry droves who now know where the food is, the verdict is: bad call.

Sustainable fuel sources

Derek has one of the best biodiesel rigs we have seen on the show thus far. His advantage is owning an actual restaurant. Unfortunately, it becomes a bit problematic to stockpile fuel as biodiesel is not particularly stable. With a shelf life of roughly 6 months it would be difficult to stockpile even with prudent rotation.

There is a biodiesel train in the mix but it would be inteeresting to see a biodiesel tractor or forklift on the scene. If the worst came to a head before he was ready, construction could continue, or impromptu barricades of dirt could be set up.

Defensive Perimeter

Speaking of barricades. there is a very interesting multi-stage approach. The bamboo that Derek has planted around Deadwood can serve as a versatile and incredibly renewable building material. Bamboo has been reported as growing as fast as 39″ in 24 hours depending on climate. If only it was edible…

In addition to the punji pits (which I’m sure will bring the potential customers flocking to Deadwood), bamboo can be used to fortify existing perimeter defenses and make some interesting traps such as deadfalls. When not hunting the most dangerous game, these could be used to set up a way to harvest wild game.

With a bit of elbow grease and some google-fu, Derek could be on the road to adding some meat to his stores. Considering his flavor of the apocalypse (EMP) aboriginal skills are a particularly helpful skillset.

So far we have learned about omega 3, omega 6 and how the balance can affect our health. We have also gone into the different types of omega 3 fatty acids and how they are not all created equal. In this last segment, we will learn how to use this knowledge to select the appropriate survival foods for peak performance in a collapse situation.

At the end of the day, we are seeking to restore our Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratio as close to 1:1 as we can. With the vast majority of people on western diets leaning north of 1:10 in favor of omega 6, we have three options. We can either reduce the omega 6 in the diet, increase the amount of omega 3, or both.

1. Reduce the amount of omega 6 in your diet

Omega 6 is prevalent in the standard American diet primarily due to the amount of vegetable oil present. Before the advent of the industrial revolution, animal fats such as tallow and lard were saved from the processing meat butchered locally to use for cooking. However, since we have distanced ourselves from our food production, capitalism has rewarded the cheapest form of oil production, vegetable oils.

It has been estimated that as much as 20% of the calories consumed by the population of the US consists of soybean oil alone. Other vegetable oils such as canola, corn and safflower oils are rampant in packaged foods across the country.

The solution to this is to avoid mass produced foods containing oil. I challenge you to go to your fridge and look at the ingredients in any salad dressing, condiment, margarine or any other fat containing product. 9 times out of 10 they will contain a harmful vegetable oil.

For those of you investing money into long term food storage, make sure you are not buying foods containing these oils. They will make you sick!

2. Increase the amount of omega 3 in your diet

The other option is to boost the amount of omega 3 in your diet. Now, considering the availability of food in a survival situation, the options might be limited. We will speak in terms of ideals, but at the end of the day any form of omega 3 will help offset the balance.

From our last article we learned about the hierarchy of omega 3s: DHA, then EPA, then ALA. While getting cold water fish may be great for those of you who fish through holes in ice, it will be difficult for most other people.

A great option for people who are planning to homestead is grass fed meat and dairy. The omega 3 versus omega 6 content can be a double edged sword when eating meat. The fat profile of meat reflects the diet, so factory farmed cows eating corn will typically be high in omega 6. However, healthy, grass fed beef, butter, milk and cheese is one of the best sources of omega 3 out there. This also applies to wild caught game.

Finding your balance

Reducing your Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratio is not easy. Some of the biggest names in personal health such as Dave Asprey eat incredibly rigorous diets and still have a tough time getting to 1:1. This is one of the situations where you can never do too much. At the same time, you don’t need to kill yourself for it.

Making the choice to do something small like  make your own salad dressing instead of using the stuff from the grocery store is a win for you. Over time these will add up to less inflammation, better blood markers and overall better performance and survivability.

The Last Retreat

Brent is a real estate agent who has used his considerable wealth to become a true king in the castle. In a twist that seems dramatic even by Doomsday Preppers standards, he promises to give executor status of his million dollar trust to his children pending their performance in a day at the castle. But enough about that, let’s get on to the nutritional consequences of his plan.

The perils of Old MREs

At the end of a hard day’s work, Brent and his clan dig into some 12 year old MREs. With an official shelf life of 3 years, this puts them at 9 years past expiry. Although Brent claims to have eaten them once per year, is this really a safe option to feed your children?

As the food that feeds our soldiers, MREs have been researched extensively by the US army. Given that an extended shelf life would make things considerably easier from a logistical perspective, we can assume they are trying to maximize it. Strangely enough, the tests conducted on MREs were based not on nutrition, but taste. With these parameters, a recommended expiration date of 7 years past the date of manufacture. This is also assuming proper storage at a temperature no higher than 60 degrees farenheit.

What would happen to the nutritional value of MREs past the date of expiry? Due to the wide variety of foods contained within it is difficult to give a conclusive answer. Claims have been made about canned ham lasting indefinitely, but other studies have suggested degradation of the usable amino acids in protein over time. Even SPAM does not recommend eating past the recommended expiry date.

There are some very brave people who like to try this sort of thing. But again, this brings us back to taste and is no indication of nutritional values. Aside from performing a biochemical assay on the food within we can’t conclusively tell whether the nutrients contained within are actually making it into your bloodstream. For my money, I would invest in something a bit more sustainable.

Electricity and the EMP

One of the interesting things about Brents plan is the inclusion of solar panels. At face value, one would assume electrical equipment to be vulnerable in the event of an EMP. However, most solar photovoltaic units are equipped with bypass diodes which would prevent them being fried in the event of a EMP strike.

The children have a difficult time assembling the solar panel. Maybe they should have gotten one from IKEA. Regardless, they seem to have a well thought out source of renewable energy. In order to maintain the use of their devices in the event of an EMP, they have chargeable batteries in all forms of voltage from 9V all the way through to 120V.  A system like this is miles ahead of the gasoline crowd and even the biodiesel types.

In our last segment, we went over the basics of omega chain fatty acids. We learned about how most people are vastly above the omega 6:3 ratio that is best for the body. We also learned about the consequences of this, including inflammation, heart disease and autoimmune disorders.

Let’s go deeper into the different omega 3 fatty acids.

The Omega 3 Pathway

Omega 3 fatty acids are constantly touted by the news as good fats. In relation to the modern diet, omega 3 levels are what are severely lacking in most people. Where the ratio should be 1:1 for 3 and 6, it can be upwards of 1:30 in some people. However, there are some important differences in the types of omega 3s and how they interact in the body

DHA (Docosahexaenoic Acid) is the big daddy of omega 3 fatty acids. Within the body, it the primary structural component of some of the most important tissues for survival. These include the the brain, cerebral cortex, retina, and skin. Also for the fellas, it is a critical structural component of the testicles.

DHA can be found in nature through eating cold water fish or by drinking breast milk.  The benefits of fish oil supplements are based in large part around their DHA content. However for those of you who have been weaned and have no access to cold water fish, there are alternate pathways.

EPA (Eicosapentaenoic acid) is the next step up from DHA. The body is able to convert EPA to DHA, however at a less efficient rate than obtaining it directly from food. Interestingly, women are more effective at conversion, which makes sense considering the need to bear children. Like DHA, EPA is found in fish, although they need not be cold water. The fat from fish like salmon, herring and cod is an abundant source.

EPA itself can be synthesized from another Omega 3 fatty acid if it is not available. Again, conversion rates are much less efficient than direct consumption. The fatty acid we need in this situation is ALA (alpha lipoic acid). This is the form of Omega 3 most abundant in plant sources such as flaxseed oil, chia seeds and to a lesser extent soy.

Conversion and sources

So to summarize, what we are looking for and need for our bodies is DHA. DHA can be converted from EPA, which in turn can be converted from ALA. This forms a distinct hierarchy in what we should be shooting for with dietary sources of Omega 3.

As with anything else, there is a lot of hype surrounding Omega 3 supplements. While on paper they all qualify as omega 3, the farther away we get from DHA, the more we lose in converting it.

For example, taking 1000mg of pure DHA would render the same amount of usable DHA as 10000mg of EPA, or  33000 grams of ALA, given a 10% conversion rate for EPA and a 3% conversion rate of ALA suggested by studies. The difference can be tremendous!

Stay tuned to our next segment where we will show you how to use this knowledge to optimize your omega 3 to omega 6 ratio with the right survival foods.