Great video from our friend Chris Nyerges and the Dirttime crew about edible plants in a survival scenario. The group brings up some good points. When it comes to survival, subsisting on plants alone is a difficult strategy to sustain. There is simply too much fiber being digested with not enough calories.

The lack of survival foods is true in southern California (where they are located) and is even more true the farther north one goes. The ability to continue and recover is limited if you depend solely on the environment.

Another interesting topic brought up is the matter of protein and amino acids. As we know, getting the complete spectrum of essential amino acids is a must when it comes to running your body. Each one is tied to thousands of functions within the body and without them, the ability to perform is limited.

There was an interesting discussion on the use of grains and legumes as the subsistence diet of many of the impoverished peoples around the world. While both grains and legumes fall squarely in the bad category for a paleo diet, it is definitely worth exploring. Stay tuned for a future blog post.

In a situation of survival, performance on all aspects of mind and body can literally be the difference between life and death. That’s why we advocate taking care of the most important item on your bug out bag list.

While keeping in peak condition will more often bring to mind thoughts of battling attackers, leaping over obstacles to bug out and running to a bug out location, the mental aspects of preparation can be even more important. History has been written according to those who did not make mistakes in the heat of the moment. This isn’t to mention the countless survivors, pilgrims and colonists who weren’t able to survive mentally.

In our last post, we learned about the importance of the gut and how changes in diet can create massive differences in health. But did you know the effects lead as far as the brain? Recent research has even gone to far as to describe a gut-brain axis because it is that significant.

Serotonin and the Second Brain

The terms for describing emotions in the gut have been around forever. From butterflies in the stomach to giving yourself an ulcer, the connection is a part of our culture. However, recent research has shown that this connection is a lot more literal than many people expected.

The work of research professionals such as Dr. Michael D. Gershon has led to the set of nervesaround the stomach being referred to as the second brain. In addition to dealing with many of the local issues of digestion, such as the speed of food movement, pressure and ph balance, it has feedback with the first brain.

Remember serotonin, the chemical necessary for feelings of well being? 95% of serotonin within the body is found not in the brain, but in the gut. Interestingly enough, most patients suffering from anxiety and depression have significant disturbances in their gut flora. Gut health has even been connected to diseases like autism and the development of the hippocampus in animal research.

Inflammation and the blood brain barrier

Carrying a cargo of partially digested food and close to 100 trillion bacterial cells, the intestines are something we definitely don’t want leaking into our bloodstream. However, when inflammatory survival foods make their way into our diets, the tight junctions between cells of our intestinal walls can loosen up, releasing parts of our food into our bloodstream.

Where this gets even scarier is if these inflammatory chemicals irritate the brain. Your brain is actually separated from the rest of your bloodstream by what is called the blood-brain barrier. This prevents infections of the blood from reaching the break and wreaking havoc.

The difference in capillaries surrounding the brain and those in the rest of the body? Tight junctions – the same ones that hold the gut together. The inflammatory chemical that can cause the gut to get leaky can also cause the blood brain barrier to become leaky – which is bad news.

Leaky brain can cause inflammation of the brain, which is governed by different cells. Cells called microglia function to defend the brain from outside influence, but unlike our body cells, they have a lot harder time turning off. It’s no surprise this has been connected to autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis.

Gut Flora

Pop quiz: do you know how many cells are in your body? The answer is close to 100 trillion. However, the number of cells that belong to your body proper are outnumbered by bacteria within your body by almost 10 to 1. Woah.

Let that settle in for a minute. In reality, you  are less of a single organism and more of a symbiotic colony of a number of different ones. Even in the body cells proper, organelles called mitochondria have their own set of DNA and are effectively a different organism.

Yet most of the focus on medicine throughout history has been focused on the observable. Only recently has the function of the bacteria within us become a popular topic of study in health sciences.

The lion’s share of this bacteria lives within the gut, the area including the large and small intestines. They are essential to many roles within digestion and without them, we would not be able to process food correctly. We need their enzymes to break down certain foods or absorb vitamins and nutrients.

Another key role that the gut flora plays is in the protection of the body against threats. The gut is one of the most contaminated environments in the body and the potential for bad bacteria to build up and cause illness is always present. The bacteria within your gut can protect against negative bacteria and change the environment to prevent infection.

Gut permeability

To the naked eye, the intestines seem to be a more or less solid barrier. However, on a cellular level this couldn’t be farther from the truth. The cells of the small and large intestinal walls are known as epithelium. Between them they are held together by what is known as tight junctions which, for the most part, remain tight.

However, a number of things can cause the tight junctions to break apart. Considering the incredibly dynamic nature of what passes through the guy. When these junctions leak, the incredibly septic contents of predigested food and bacteria can leak into the massive amount of blood vessels which surround the gut. This can lead to massive inflammation in the body at large and even brain problems.

The connection

The connection between your gut flora and gut permeability can be good or evil. There are thousands of different types of bacteria in your gut at any time competing some resources, each with a different diet. Which ones become the most common depends on what kind of fuel you give them.

If you don’t protect the good bacteria in your gut, it leaves the door open to all sorts of bad ones. The name for this condition is SIBO -small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. When we kill the bacteria in our gut with toxins, depleting them of good, healthy fuel or by taking antibiotics, we effectively start a power struggle for what bacteria will take over.

How can we choose our survival foods to stop this? Stay tuned for the next part of this series.

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.