This report was originally published by Selco at The Organic Prepper
Editor’s Note: If a disaster is bad enough and lasts long enough, it isn’t going to take long before there is no food to be had. In this interview with Selco, he shares his real-life experiences and explains how people kept from starving to death when there was no food in the stores. ~ Daisy
How do you get food when there are no stores?
At the beginning of everything, most of the people did not have any significant “stash” of food in their homes.
In other words, the majority of common folks had food a or couple of days in their pantry and that was it. There were exceptions to that because the process of collapse did not happen in a few hours (in terms of suddenly there is no food in the stores).
When the chaos started, people looted stores after a short period of everyone buying things in a panic. Still, the majority of folks did not manage to get a decent stash of food from stores. Some did not want to believe that they were gonna need a stash. Others did not want to go out and participate in looting because it was dangerous. But I think the most obvious reason was that all food from stores was taken very fast.
In beginning period of SHTF, events unfold at a very fast pace. Actually, events go one after another so fast that if you find yourself lost in one event at the end of several events, you ask yourself, “Why in the name of God I did not go out and buy a whole bunch of food while I still could do that?”
Was gardening an option? If so, how did people protect their gardens?
Yes, it was an option, but the percentage of food from a garden was low because of a few reasons.
It was a city, without enough land for significant food growing, and the second reason is that even people who had some land (small gardens near houses) needed time to grow food there.
People usually did not grow food there in normal times, flowers, tea, maybe some particular kind of tomato, salad greens, and similar.
I remember going and checking gardens for tomatoes because people had tried some new sort of tomato close to their home, not as a way to have food, but as an attempt so they could see is if it was OK to have it somewhere before they had a bigger piece of land for growing (before SHTF in a peacetime).
So yes, gardening was an option, people used every part of the available land, but that was not enough, and it was like you are checking every day how your tomato is growing and you wait for it, but then you pick it and realize you have food for only a couple of days.
We were not prepared at the time to use every piece of land for food growing. It takes time to establish that.
Still, it was precious, and it was protected of course, just like your home, in the same way.
How often did MREs get dropped?
There was no schedule for food drops, at least no real schedule because it was all based on rumors like, “Tonight they are gonna drop food from airplanes.” If you asked, “Who told you that?” the answer was “a guy who heard it from guy who heard…” So, of course, it was completely based on luck.
Sometimes, it would “fall down” every second night, or you heard it had fallen somewhere, it would be “I heard it from a guy who heard it…”
Sometimes it was 3-4 times per week. Of course, they dropped it, but that does not mean we could find any of the food. Other people would simply grab it before you.
Some folks headed for the hills every night in order to wait. People would choose one guy from family to go up every night and wait.
If those food drops had any schedule there where they loaded planes (as I understand later, the place was in an air base in Italy) it was completely lost on us down in the city in the chaos and empire of rumors.
You need to understand that in that time those planes were not the only ones to fly, so sometimes we were out waiting for food but actually other planes bombarded us.
But very early we learned to recognize the low humming sound of food planes, distant but powerful.
Now when I look back, it is weird how we trusted some of that information. For example, if we heard that food was gonna be dropped that night in some particular part of the city, some small area of some hill, people would go there.
A reasonable man would have thought, “Oh, so some poor ragged guy in the middle of civil war and information blockade suddenly has info on where several huge military airplanes are gonna do some operation?” Not to mention the fact that the whole city together with all the hills looked to those people in the airplanes like small dots.
It was nonsense. But we were hungry, scared, and in the middle of chaos without any real information, so people trusted in a lot of things, especially in good news.
Do not underestimate the power of rumors in hard times.
“Food drops” were performed for many cities in this area during the hardest part of the war. They helped on different levels.
Even today I find one of the happiest sounds to be the sound of MREs raining on a hard surface. I did not know the technical details (and still don’t) of how exactly that worked, but most of the things that were dropped would break apart in the air, so on the ground, it would “rain”.
It was like a lottery to be in the middle of that rain because the MREs were good stuff, and valuable, but some of the bigger stuff coming down could kill people. (It happened with bigger packages).
MREs were meals all in one package: food, sweet stuff, matches, even that hot sauce that was pretty handy when we want to add taste to some weird food that we ate or to mask a bad taste.
What food were you able to forage?
When it comes to foraging for plants, I know it is a popular opinion in some circles that you can survive and live by foraging.
In terms of urban survival, it is, in my opinion, overestimated if you are an average man.
Maybe it would work if you have lots of knowledge about edible plants, and maybe if you have many resources of those plants and are in the wilderness.
We were average urban folks. Our knowledge about edible plants was limited to the one or two usable plants that could be used for homemade tea.
For example yes, we used pine needles for tea. It sounds great today, it is good healthy tea with vitamins and so on, but you can not live on it, it can be in addition to your food, but not your main resource.
Older folks jumped in with their knowledge. They were folks that in those times remembered WW2 and hunger, and people usually listened to them when it came to what plant you could use for food.
Plants like nettle and dandelion were used, and in the worst periods, people simply started to use any available grass mixed with small amount of flour.
Eating plants and herbs in that time was not a case of healthy living. It was a matter of not having anything else to eat.
Were you able to scavenge for food from deserted buildings?
Yes.
When the SHTF, especially in the beginning, some houses became empty. People left or died inside (for whatever reason, for example, shelling). Then folks would go through the empty houses and scavenge for food.
One memory from that time is the endless stench of rotten food (there was no electricity for the fridges). In the beginning, you could find food on that way.
If you were lucky sometimes you could find a bigger amount of food. Sometimes you came upon a house where the ex-occupant clearly hoarded food in the first days of rioting.
That period of time did not last for long. The stench of rotten food was pretty much substituted with another kind of stench. Soon there were more dead people then spoiled food in the city.
But even later, you would never know what you could find in destroyed and abandoned houses. Maybe few cans of food hidden or forgotten somewhere under the rubble, or in a destroyed fridge.
One thing interesting from that period (when it comes to scavenging) and also very important in prepper terms is that I witnessed and was part of something that I can call the transition of scavenging or maybe resetting the values of goods.
It goes something like this:
First people ran riot on stores and looked for valuables like gold, money, TVs, stereos, cars…then as they realized the situation, they looked for weapons, fuel, then candles, batteries, and food, then they’d dig up some gardens for few potatoes.
People needed some time to realize what was really important. It didn’t take very long but sometimes even a few days or a week is important.
I have seen people running from a mall with items that, in few days, would become most ridiculous items to possess (and to take from a burning mall) in the middle of a collapse, things like a TV or a laundry machine or a music collection of a famous band.
The majority of people could not imagine what was coming, so they could not fathom that a bag full of AA batteries was gonna worth more than 50 laundry machines.
For example, the laundry machine was usable only to plug a hole in the wall from shelling or to reinforce the door.
I am not advocating that you go out rioting and taking stuff from malls and stores when SHTF, but let’s say that if you find yourself there, think about what is useful to take in prepper terms.
Here is one example: if the SHTF again here, there is parking machine in front of my home that gives you an automatic ticket when you sin here insert coins. As soon as I see someone busting it open to take money from inside I will go and take the small solar panel from it (it is solar power operated). While other people think about money inside, I am thinking about solar power on the outside of it.
Where you able to hunt or trap anything for meat?
It was the city, so hunting or trapping anything more complicated than a pigeon was not really an option. The other reason was that it was city in the middle of a war, so real trapping had its own complications like shelling, constant noises, and similar.
If your situation is extreme, hunting or trapping can be about trapping pigeons or shooting a stray dog.
What are some things you can eat that most people wouldn’t think of as food?
It is a matter of levels. Sometimes I get questions over mail asking if we had cases of cannibalism, and the answer is no. People need to realize that the road to that extreme is very, very long.
There are many bad things to eat before getting to that extreme (even if you are willing to go there) and people do not realize that.
I ate spoiled and old food of different kinds, expired food (cans of cookies from military storages that were expired for decades), food with worms (cooked together with those expired cans), grass that was boiled in water, leaves from trees. We ate different kind of meat, pigeon for sure, and I am quite positive cat meat once, and rat meat once probably.
How did you extend food to make it feed more people?
Over time, it gets important to have some food, or in other words to have your belly “full” of something so easiest solutions were to water food down, or to mix it with plants.
In other words, we ate a lot of “soups.” For example, if we had a small amount of meat and rice, but we have water and some plants, we would make a big pot of soup.
In some cases it looked more like tea (a lot of hot water with a small amount of food inside) but it solved the problem of how to make something big out of small amounts of something.
When a situation is hard – when it is hard and demanding on both psychological and physical way – you cannot really ration yourself. You need to eat something, because of the simple fact that you can not operate if you are not fed. So we ate a lot of very low quality food, and yes we were always more or less hungry.
How did you cook food without power?
We cooked with fire, a stove that used wood, and often an open fire in the yard. It was a constant equation of heating and cooking with low wood resources.
For example if we needed to get a fire for heating it was used at the same time for cooking. (See Selco’s article on staying warm during a long-term SHTF scenario.)
A small open fire on the yard was used in weather when there was no need for heating.
Was there a black market for food?
Of course, and it was matter that changed all the time based what was available in the city at a given moment.
For example if food drops that week were good you could find MREs cheaper. Other times, all you could find was suspicious-looking meat cans without manufacture or expiration dates on them.
Nothing was fixed and for sure on black market, not even fact that you gonna survive the trade not to mention other things. (See Selco’s article on the dangers of barter and trade)
Again, it was a matter of levels, so there were people who “owned” the black market (people with strong organizations, firepower, and connections). Sometimes they dictated the “pricing” of food in the city, and sometimes there were common folks who could offered you few cans of meat or two MREs from their stash.
Sometimes you could run into a man who was offering you “powdered eggs” but in a dark, not secure environment (you are trading with unknown armed people for example), you needed to be sure it is not some useless powder.
There were scams and you needed to be sure who you were trading with, how secure the place was, and what you were actually trading for.
How much of your time was taken up with acquiring and preparing food?
It was a matter of economic thinking. It was not about making it delicious because we had scarce resources like wood for fire. and simply because often it was impossible to make it delicious.
It was brought down to the level of getting your stomach full of something so you can continue to operate one more day.
Things to know about eating when the SHTF
There are options of foraging for edible plants and hunting or trapping some animals in the city when the SHTF, but do not count on that as the main resource for your food, not in the long run.
Acquiring food in urban settings comes down to the idea of taking food from other people – either people that are not there anymore (empty houses) or people that are still there (through the trade or attack).
All of the above options (just like lot of other prepper activities when SHTF) usually are not fancy and romantic/friendly.
When scavenging through deserted places, you can get injured and that injury can get complicated when there is no medical care. During a trade, you can get scammed, ripped off, or simply attacked and injured or killed because of the resources you possess in that moment or due to a lack of careful planning.
By attacking other people to get food (if you find yourself that desperate or if you wish to go that way) you are risking, of course, being killed.
In the end, it comes again to the idea that you need to be prepared very well for SHTF with your stash of food or your small garden where you are gonna choose what to have and how to use it in the most efficient way. You should minimize the need to go out and scavenge, at least until, you figure out some things.
About the Author
Selco survived the Balkan war of the 90s in a city under siege, without electricity, running water, or food distribution. In his online works, he gives an inside view of the reality of survival under the harshest conditions. He reviews what works and what doesn’t, tells you the hard lessons he learned, and shares how he prepares today. He never stopped learning about survival and preparedness since the war. Regardless what happens, chances are you will never experience extreme situations like Selco did. But you have the chance to learn from him and how he faced death for months. Real survival is not romantic or idealistic. It is brutal, hard and unfair. Let Selco take you into that world. Read more of Selco’s articles here: https://shtfschool.com/blog/ And take advantage of a deep and profound insight into his knowledge and advice by signing up for the outstanding and unrivaled online course. More details here: https://shtfschool.com/survival-boot-camp/
Please feel free to share any information from this article in part or in full, giving credit to the author and including a link to The Organic Prepper and the following bio.
Daisy Luther is the author of The Pantry Primer: A Prepper’s Guide To Whole Food on a Half Price Budget. Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at [email protected]</e
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My takeaway….
Dont live in or near an urban area
Nail,
I very strongly agree.
Somehow we survive in the most remote
place on earth,
Defined as farthest away from a continent
which is what Hawaii is.
The biggest population I deal with
is miles away.
Thats good! From my retreat the nearest town of any significance is 75 miles away. I doubt that they would head my direction as there isn’t an abundance of water (unless you know where it is). And there are a lot of mormons who will be hitting the churches up for food (they tell the flock to bring there preps to the church for redistribution). Most people are armed but the Elmer Fudd types that can’t shoot for shit. I am getting to know a group of preppers that have a place there. The leader is cool and a good ol boy, some of his co-horts are kinda stupid. But hey, it’s a start and I’m glad to have them….
That’s interesting. No canabalism to speak of. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
I think people should look into ways to hide food. During the holodomor, forced famine in Ukraine, the people were robbed by government workers. Survivors were those whose hidden food was not discovered and confiscated.
A person could probably make a business out of helping people hide their food, or teaching people successful methods for hiding food.
False walls, hiding whole rooms, closets with two or three false walls, waterproof boxes that can be buried under dirt, cement covered stashes, buildings or sheds built over a stash. I suppose there is no limit to how a person could hide and or protect a food or valuables stash.
If you are a home builder, you could offer at an additional price perhaps, perks of secret hiding places. I remember how special it was when I discovered a secret hiding space that had been built into a room. Kids love that stuff.
_
Read the book; The 900 days, The Siege of Leningrad.
This book had a profound affect
on how I view war, governments,
and prepping.
B from CA, yep lol. I’m like a kid and I have done several of those things! I did have to destroy an underground bunker/stash place because the walls/ cieling were caving in. I tore down the shed on top of it and had a friend with a backhoe come over to demolish it. Before we tore it down I showed it too him. His jaw dropped and said “God Damn, this is COOL!” So learn from my mistakes, NEVER build a cellar/bunker out of wood. I used 3×7 glue lam beam frame and 1.25 inch rated plywood shell with foundation coating and wrapped with 30lb roofing felt and it lasted 8 years before giving in. USE concrete block or solid foundation if you want it to last!
Seems drainage is the big problem with any method?
if yer in calipornia, peanut butter is on sale for 99c for 15.9 ounces this week at food4less….it’s a great shtf food, and i haven’t seen it that cheap in a long time.
Ya-was on duty in Vincenza IT when airdrops out of there! Remember white cargo plane which had been shot – there in 1994. NATO base. Good luck,be safe.
There will be at first a large number of roving packs of dogs and other domestic animals abandoned or just lost. Same as with local wildlife. But, it will not be long before both will be virtually gone. I hate to tell those in rural areas; but, you won’t be playing at homesteading much should a massive collapse occur. I’d recommend saving those seeds and doing your best to preserving what livestock you may have for at least a year. No one will be inviolate. You can say, “I’ll shoot the poor fool who tries to….”. Go ahead. Believe that. It’ll just make it easier for those intent on getting what they want to include you as well. Band together best you can.
Heart: I agree. Folks will definitely need to “come together” and I think that will be a bit of a problem in and of it’s self unfortunately for various reasons. Just 1 guy will not make it too long under poor and dangerous conditions. No matter what, I will make damn sure to always save 1 round for myself – if it really comes to that…as I will die at my own hand over some savages doing god knows what to me….Good times, get ready boys and girls.
Mres kick ass they are expensive unfortunately. They are worth having imo. Get a few boxes they aren’t meant to live on. Collect those little packages of salt pepper ketchup from Burger King subway has oil and vinegar ones and Chinese restaurants have the hot sauce and duck sauce get lots of sugar ones too keep them in a bag in cool dark place. You can use them for when you have to eat rodents. I don’t know about you but hot sauce on rat makes it much better. Salt and pepper on snake works wonders. Oil and vinegar on wild plants will taste more like salad. Remember if it’s free it’s for me. Those little packages of sauces could be used to make your own mres the food saver vacuum packer could be used to seal up some kind of entree. Make your own mres as needed. Going on a camping trip make enough for your mission. I don’t need to preach about the foodsaver.
i buy barbeque sauce when it’s 48c a bottle, for the long-pig we will be eating after the bell rings. and an added benefit is to add a fifth of a bottle to your pork and beans or baked beans to make a whole new flavor.
Funnel some ,split peas ,beans , lentils, macaroni ,powdered ,milk cooking oil, coffee, into 5 gallon plastic gas cans ,and bury them?
i buy 5 gallon buckets from doughnut shops for 1.75$. a lady here in so cal sells them by the dozens. they have a chain of stores.
For you guys with 30-06 s, who might one day only be able to get military 308? They make a thing called a chamber changer? It’s an insert that changes chamber size from 30-06 to 308 . The problem is the insert must be glued? In there good ,so it dosent stick to the case and get pulled out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzGdDqWJcFU
One of the most hilarious comedies ever…. and in a left-handed sort of way, the country folks attitude made sense.
Thanks for the memories, JS.
BTW, Mr. Haney will survive the apocalypse just fine!
I used to sort of dismiss Selco and read on. I now more or less believe he is the real deal. By the way, I was wondering if ketchup on demand is still around. I would like to read his journal of the aftermath in P.R. Anyone know how to find it?
What if this Chinese space station had an EMP weapon on it?
If you store food, make sure it is done right.
We did some rice once. We didn’t do it correctly. And learned from it fast.
Storing it in the regular bags with nothing and in a five gallon container was a big no no. We opened it up to find only greenish dust.
So we got a vacume sealer, sealed it with a oxygen asorber and a couple of basil leaves. That kept It perfect.
Seems many food contain little moths that will turn you food into powder. If you see moths flying around the inside of your house, they are eating your foods.
For example, spaghetti in the unopened box.. ( I will put the spagettti In the freezer till I can get to It.) and oatmeal also will have the bugs too. It doesn’t even have to be unopened. They are already in the food. Check it out before you store it.It will save surprises that you dont need when you are wanting to cook it.
Also I see many are storing in glass jars. Protect them by putting something inbetween them so if there are any vibrations, they wont break. Socks , wood sections or Styrofoam help. And don’t stack them high So they don’t fall.
Canned goods. Salt water air or even humidity will corrode cans. Been there, done that. Make sure they are marked well enough to know what they are and dip them in wax. This will help the cans from deterioration. It doesn’t take long at all for them to turn to rust or powder.
This has been my experience on some things.
The vacuum sealed way is good and food will keep.
I was having a network error, so I don’t know if the first sent. So I will send this again.
putting anything in the freezer for 24 hours kills a lot of the bugs. i live in the desert, and we don’t have as much of a bug problem here, so i get away with storing stuff in buckets, in origonal package, USUALLY. i bought cornmeal a while back, and opened it, then put in several jars…..weeks later SOME had weevils in them, and many didn’t….there’s always eggs in there, so sometimes it’s just luck, unless you spend a bunch of money on mylar and iron oxide. thanks for posting/helping!
rda…. Dry canning pasta, flour and such eliminates storage issues.
we buy bags of rice, cook it then dehydrate it.(homemade minute rice) then we dry can it in quart jars. The heat of dry canning kills any bugs, the jars are sealed tp prevent spoilage and glass doesn’t rust and is rodent proof. This is for dry goods only and not for foods that must be pressure canned. We also make huge batches of beans and can them in pint jars (pressure can). same with potatoes, carrots etc. There was even a recipe to dry can real butter in Countryside magazine a while back. Once canned it no longer requires refrigeration.
good stuff! thank you for posting.
I have to wonder how many of you idiots voted for the traitors who created this mess???
Very few here voted for the Clintons.
You guys are still morons. 10 years later. I’ll stop back by in another 10 years. Maybe.
Where were you keeping your cans that they’d get rusty? I’ve had cans of soup in my basement last for 10 years without an iota of rust. Last year we ate up expired (in 2008) cans of that soup and it was fine.
Keep in mind that canned goods have an expiration date only because the bureaucrats require it. Canned food lasts decades. When I was a boy, I bought Korean war C rations at the Army surplus store for camping.
Never had a bad can.
180* is important to remember, it kills MOST foodborne illnesses. tomato and fruit cocktail are the only cans i have seen spoil….and they were over 6 years old…..make sure that top dint POP before you open cans!
My cans were just in a house pantry a few years ago.
First time it happened was on a sailboat in a hold where you can store your goods. It even had carpeting in it. And sealed.
Everytime you opened it I assume moisture got in some. But the cans turned to rust in Just a few months, around four I’d say..
Also, on canning glass jars, don’t forget the rings will also rust. I have seen this.
Where we live at today, the humidity isn’t really bad. I’d say about average.
And we even had a ac unit in the next open room.
My point was to keep an eye on your reserves to see how they are doing instead of waiting until they are needing to be used. You may get a surprise.
The symptoms of food poisoning are shared by gastrointestinal diseases/disorders. Food poisoning can be very serious even fatal. Before any SHTF event, you need to understand the impact that certain foods have on you so that you can differentiate between the two. That way, if the symptoms develop and you have avoided the foods that trigger the symptoms, you know it is probably food poisoning. The triggering foods are called FODMAPS (acronym for a lot of medical terms). Following a low FODMAP diet and experimenting by adding high FODMAP foods one at a time allows you to identify the triggering foods. Of course, you have to keep track of the foods you eat and the reactions. This will change the foods you store for SHTF. There are books on low FODMAP diets or search the web.
If you live with someone who has gotten serious training in first aid, count yourself blessed. If you are alone, you have to be more careful in what you eat, the way you eat(small bites and don’t wolf your food), and the chances you take (no one to take care of you if you are injured). Good luck!
The USA ruses to feed the victims of war, and has been doing it forever. What country will be dropping MRE’s to us when the USG fails? Exactly, no one.
Make a plan, stick to it.
Precisely, now I know where the USDA free cheese and mystery meat went.
Seventy percent of the world’s population is lactose intolerant and we’re giving out free cheese. No wonder we’re hated all over the world.
Buy In Bulk
Just buying in bulk makes an enormous difference in food stash. We used to go ‘grocery’ shopping every week…spend all our money for one week of food. It took a few months, but we switched to bulk purchasing. Now we spend a less every week and have WAY more food. Yes, you need to spend $22 for 25 lbs of rice. But if you buy 2 lbs at a time, you will spend $75.00 for the same amount. It requires planning and discipline, but now we have at least 30 days of regular consumption…probably 90 days if we really skimped.