While many advocates of storing up bountiful supplies of survival food are on the right track, few are aware of a potential pitfall in their plans. This paper highlights little-known dangers in using processed foods, particularly those prepared for lone-term storage; and the remedies for their shortcomings.
I was talking with a local store owner recently about food storage. He is a Mormon and he told me he has a couple of thousand dollars worth of long-term stored foods. He prepared a couple of mugs of soup mix to show me how good it tasted. I admitted it was pretty good, but knew what was in store for me. Sure enough, I got a monosodium-glutamate (MSG) and processed salt reaction about ten hours later when I awoke. I am not alone, by far, in such bodily reactions.
The human body knows a harmful substance when it is ingested and forms mucus to surround it and get rid of it. In the mornings when you awaken, if your eyes are glued shut a bit; this is an indication. Many people with allergies and adverse reactions to different food additives will have phlegm form in their sinuses and lungs. I am allergic to heated milk and wheat. I can drink raw milk and eat corn just fine, but if I had to live on stored wheat, I would be putting my body through agony and I would be a fool; the same for running around all full of phlegm.
Other Survivalist should also be aware of how they might react to their food stockpile. Survival may be difficult enough without adding avoidable health problems.
The Japanese ship tons of monosodium-glutamate (MSG) to "junk food" manufacturers. MSG fools the taste buds, making tasteless foods palatable and creating a craving for more.
The amazing thing about MSG (and other additives) is that it is tolerated in such huge quantities by so many people who have a reaction to it. Apparently, they have had the reaction for so long that they do not even know it can be avoided to a large extent, nor what it feels like to "feel good".
MSG is not the only culprit. The most destructive food additives we have in the world may be processed sugar and salt.
At this point you are probably citing me as another health food fanatic, but I really do not put myself in this category. I seldom go into health food stores and can climb onto a restaurant or bar seat with the best of them. However, in my hard-won years on this planet, I have learned to survive and avoid excesses of harmful food additives.
Sugar and its various relatives, like honey, glucose and such, are fine in very limited quantities.What happens to most people, however, is that they consume too much of this little energy bomb and upset their body metabolism. Millions have symptoms of harmful sugar excesses. Doctors have long names for maladies springing from this abuse, but I will lay it on you this way: If you are sweating too much, have frequent cyclic temperature changes, you feel drained of energy and you pass a lot of gas; you had better watch your sugar intake.
Hyper children often have too much sugar in their diets and are easily recognizable. Adults often burn themselves out; as can be recognized through the symptoms above. The point is to stock and use sugar, but do not use enough to significantly affect your metabolism.
The salt situation is known to most health fanatics, but is generally unknown to the general public. What happened is that early in this century salt makers started drying their salt in huge kilns where the temperatures reached over a 1,000° F in order to improve its pouring characteristics. Salt is composed of sodium and chloride. When mixed in their natural proportions, this combination is a needed element in food. When the chloride is driven out as a gas by heat, however, you get an unbalanced, vile, inert substance called sodium.
Doctors are constantly putting people on a low-sodium diet to prove this point, but a move of far greater intelligence is to simply find a natural, unchanged salt you can use in your system. The fact that the average American consumes an estimated twenty times their daily recommended dosage of sodium reinforces this point.
If you crave salt, feel drowsy, have bloated limbs and clogged kidneys, you're a candidate for a better form of salt. Where can you get it? It may take some looking. Irregular crystals are a good sign. Regardless of what the package may tell you in the health food store, if the granules are about the same size, you have "processed" salt. Unprocessed salt will usually dissolve more completely in a cup of water if you care to go to this trouble as a final proof. Once you do get the genuine article, you can use it regularly to avoid the sodium excess you get from the many forms of "processed" salt from most grocery store foods. The new "No Salt" salt is a great alternative.
Unprocessed (or no sodium) salt is what you will want in your survival stockpile as it is one of the most important things you will have in your diet.
Do not let unprocessed salt be added while cooking food as it will drive the chloride out, leaving the sodium unbalanced - use it after processing your food.
People with years of swollen flesh and arthritic joints have gotten relief from reducing their sodium intake. However, your interest will be from a survival viewpoint and overburdening your system with a harmful food additive is not using your "smarts".
Mother Nature and the Creator pretty well have things worked out as far as human fare is concerned. If a food is eaten when reasonably fresh, it gives our body various forms of energy. If it is eaten after the immeasurable life energies have left it, it furnishes only part of its normal energies and bulk, even if special "preservation" steps are taken. Most processed foods are not good for you after sitting around in a sealed container for a period of time. Nature has furnished us grains and seeds to carry nutrition to use in a storable form. If these do not go rancid from too much heat or get eaten-by nature's scavengers, all is well. In early times acorns, nuts and such, were often put on racks to be smoked and dried to protect them in storage. Today, there are much quicker ways, which are still safe if you prefer to prepare your own food for long-term storage:
- A grain fumigant is probably the easiest way to protect grains in airtight containers. A standard formula for grains is stocked by many big city chemical suppliers and with some searching, can be tracked down.
- Harmless bug destroying powders are often available in local health food and feed stores under different brand names. These contain Diatomaceous Earth or Silica and dehydrate bugs to oblivion after getting under their armor plates or shells.
- While there are Rotenone based poisons, which are fairly safe for humans; most of the poisons you get in commercial channels will still be "bad news" for your body.
- If you get a good deal on commercially grown vegetables and fruits and wish to preserve them yourself, use a soaking solution of 3% Muriatic Acid first. This will usually wash the current varieties of insecticides and herbicides off of them.
If you are ingesting harmful food additives, you will often have a skin itch, ailing kidneys, etc. Watch your food intake carefully and do not store improperly prepared or preserved foods.
If you are listening to your great little animal body like you should be, it will try to tell you what to eat and what to lay off of, to a surprising extent. The trick is to recognize what is causing the reaction. For example, let us say you start to crave mints. This could be a sign of lead poisoning from some source. What you need then is some pure natural wintergreen oil to help chelate the lead out of the body. Knowing that the flavor in mints is artificial, you can get some of the real thing from your druggist or health food store.
When you buy food for a survival stockpile, check its additives as carefully as you check the contents and price. If you are already stuck with shelves full of survival foods, heavily laced with "bad news" additives, you can try to wash the stuff out prior to using it. Warm soaking and rinsing will work wonders, as you can then add some more healthful additives to improve the taste yourself. For example, many canned goods contain many times the salt content of fresh goods because of the salt brine used to preserve them. Soaking and rinsing will remove much of this "processed" salt. You can then add unprocessed salt and spices after cooking for the taste effect.
You should also consider having a battery of allergy tests done. You may well be allergic to some foods you have been eating for years without your even knowing it.
Recognizing your reaction to many of the current food additives and knowing how to avoid excesses of them, should be an essential part of your survival food stockpiling plans. Let your natural cravings and common sense keep you as healthy as possible both now and when circumstances force you to rely on your survival food stockpile.
