Are you healthy? Do you eat “right?” When SHTF, what are your plans for eating?

First, if you aren’t healthy now, it’s gonna be a lot tougher to get that way when things go south. You really need to start now, or even yesterday.

Me, I’m in reasonably good shape, although since I turned 50 I seem to be acquiring a few more injuries than usual. I burned myself with steam twice in the last month, then nearly again last night. Aside from a few arthritic aches and pains, my knees and back are holding up pretty well—then again, I’ve got this foot pain, sesamoiditis or metatarsalagia, take your pick. The initial treatments for both are about the same so I’m sure I’ll muddle through.

My weight is okay—who doesn’t want to lose a few pounds—and my strength is pretty decent. I’m working on both, and you’d be bored to tears if I kept updating any progress so I won’t. Besides, I have no advice other than eat right and exercise, and everyone knows that. Sorry, no shortcuts.

Now, these are the obvious things. What about internal health? And no, not going into mental health here—that’s called having the right stuff and you may not know if you have it or not until SHTF actually comes down. So good luck!

What do you eat? Seriously, think about it for a minute.

Every once in a while, I suppose you should take stock and write things down for a few days. You know, based on the USDA charts. Just to get an inkling. And remember when your kids were small? Didn’t the doc tell you that one day didn’t matter, but nutrition over a whole week was a better indicator? Keep that in mind.

What do I eat? Bacon. Of course. And granola, that I make myself. Lunch is usually either a salad or maybe something snacky, but most often it’s leftovers from the night before. For dinner we have meat, potatoes, vegetables. Sometimes dessert, but my guys have a sweet tooth and will eat sugar alone if that’s all there is—which is why I do make dessert. From scratch.

Case in point: at the store last week, the kid picked up a box cake mix and a can of frosting. I gave in, because I don’t make this stuff often even though the guys prefer it. Later, when I was mixing it up, I pointed out to the kid that when I make a cake, it has flour, sugar, eggs, leavening, vanilla, cocoa, butter. While this cake had those things too, it ALSO had a laundry list of additives and preservatives: 23 of them!

His response: Mom, you’re supposed to MAKE the cake, not READ THE BOX!

Are we bad eaters for having snarfed down that cake? No. Unless we did it every week. Then it could have consequences. Without going into all the latest food crazes, the more natural your food, the better it is for you. If I bake a cake, I know almost exactly what’s going into it and therefore what’s going in to ME.

All this to say you should eat for health, not fun. Not that it can’t be fun, or tasty, but the primary reason is to fuel our bodies. And, when SHTF is here, do remember what you like to eat and don’t invest in a stack of nasty-tasting stuff if it isn’t something you’d normally eat.

MREs are fine for an emergency, but don’t build your stock around them. Nutritious, lightweight, easy to prepare, yes. Have you read the labels? Just asking. Include seeds in that stockpile too. And maybe a pig. It’s hard to grow bacon in the garden . . .