The Thirty Day SHTF Test Diet: Day 14steemCreated with Sketch.

in #prepping6 years ago (edited)

Today was Day 14 for my test of Mountain House food packets as emergency food, The Thirty Day SHTF Test Diet. Lots of preppers recommend storing food for a disaster; this series tests it out. As detailed earlier, this diet has turned into a weight-loss diet too.

Either it's resuming the diet or the February blahs have finally gotten to me. My third day after the feast break has been challenging, not least because of insomnia. No physical symptoms to report, but I have been withdrawing into my shell somewhat. Can't say at this point whether it's the diet itself or some other difficulty.

Today's Meals

Continuing with the alternation cycle, the breakfast was the Granola with Blueberries and Milk:

Half a cup of cold water, some vigorous stirring, and it was ready:

As with all of them, the granola was moist, the blueberries were liquefied and there was excess fluid that looked like blueberry soup. One of the advantage of this pack is that you can pour the excess fluid right down your throat when the granola and blueberries are all-but gone.

The dinner, yet again, was the macaroni and cheese:

As noted more than once earlier, the 30-day box contained a lot more mac-and-cheese dinners than any other dinner. After the standard two cups of boiling water, multiple stirrings and less than ten minutes of cooldown and reconstitution, it came out as:

It tasted just like you'd expect, and again it was heavy on the salt. Despite me waiting a wee bit longer than usual, a few of the noodles were a little crunchy. That could have resulted from me not stirring thoroughly enough.

The Nutrition Facts for each meal, with the breakfast on the left, were:

Combined, both were a little less than 1,500 calories. Of note is the fact that the granola only supplied 6% of the daily recommended vitamin C and the noodles supplied none. I've been keeping an eye peeled for signs of vitamin C deficiency. So far none, but it is prudent to add multivitamins to any emergency food cache.

Effects, So Far:

As mentioned above, today was a low-energy day ridden with insomnia. This could be seasonal, the novelty of the diet wearing off and replaced with a low-calorie grind, or it could be the stress of going back on. If the second, one way to cope (as part of a weight-loss plan) is a two-weeks-on, one-week-off regimen. If the last, there seems to be no way except toughing it through.

I know I shouldn't rely on the scale for reassurance, as doing so is a fools' trap which eventually gets you hating both the scale and the diet. But today, the scale did provide some reassurance:

The rebound after my Hiatus Day was completely reversed.

Conclusion For Day 14

The higher energy I enjoyed early on in this diet is gone; it's been replaced by a low which might be seasonal. I'd actually like to blame the diet for my droops because it holds out hope that they'll be gone in seventeen days. :) But, the diet may not be the cause.

And anyway, it might be temporary; my spirits might perk back up to normal tomorrow. It might just be the two-day droops. :)

Thanks for reading.

And feel free to comment below!

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you are almost halfway, keep it up

So glad to see your toughing it through @nxtblg ! better you then me lol! if I took a break off , I couldnt go back ! hahaha It would have to be all or nothing for me lol! Keep up the great work , hope you start sleeping better soon ! and thanks for checking out my post to " dmania " Im still trying it out and have been busy with that , So far I tried 4 memes one a giphy , but still learning ! 👍👌💕😂

Do you crave other foods? I mean what is the mental toll so far on knowing this is your diet for a month, and how do you think you would feel if this diet was to be permanent or in the least steady for a prolonged period of time?

I don't crave any other foods per se...

To be honest, I don't think of this diet as permanent or long-term because it's pretty expensive. Were it to be so, I suppose I'd adjust but it would have to be supplemented with some caloric food.

If these packs are part of a real SHTF prep package, they'd better not be the only foodstuffs because of the calorie shortfall. Ideally, in the case of living in a bug-out location or #homesteading , they'd supplement whatever's grown, raised or caught. Less ideally, the calorie food could be something as basic as flour, beans, rice, basic pasta, etc: staples.

However, the calorie deficit would have to be made up for. As I am, I could get along for six month on these meals and these meals alone. That's because I'm borderline obese. After six months, though, I'd be normal weight or thereabouts - and at that point, the lack of calories would really begin to bite.

They're named "Emergency Food" for a good reason.


BTW: it's nice to see you again!

Just picked up my 5 pack of the new MH Thanksgiving meals. Haven't tried them yet.
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Good for you. It is best to try them out in advance.

My recommendation ... redo this test , but get yourself a food dehydrator and make your own dehydrated meals. My Excalibur is an AWESOME tool. I will make 10 pounds of jerky at once. You can survive off just that for a while. Or making things like pemmican which are super high in all the good things. Ill be doing some posts on dehydrating soon as well as canning my own foods which are paramount If SHTF. As well as making ciders , fermentation, distillation and more. Stay safe , if you feel like its being detrimental to your health stop asap.

Got it, although the discomfort does make for a psychological stress test. I'll be watching for your posts. I was thinking of a re-do anyways, although only on a test basis. To be honest, I've squirreled away a lot of regular food, though at the "Government cheese" level, and I've got multivitamins.

Supplies will run out fast. You would need thousands of $$ in stockpiled food to out wait the first wave of mass hysteria and starvation. Food preservation for winter time and forging for wild edibles will be paramount to survival until you can secure a safe stable place to farm. Almost sounds like i have thought of all this before eh ;) . Proficiency in hunting and fishing is also a necessity. If any vegan or vegetarian survives , they will surely give anything to eat some fish or meat. Survival bares no luxuries of of the entitled .

Well Done! You must be so sick of it by now, I can just imagine!

Be careful! I think you should stop if you are experiencing possible health issues. If you do want to keep going maybe you should supplement your diet with healthier foods like grass and maybe dirt for minerals. ;) lol If I had to eat that mac and cheese every day I probably would eat some grass for veggies. lol

Thanks for the warning.

I understand how permanent mac and cheese could drive someone to eat grass for relief. :) Thankfully, there are six different varieties.

And speaking of supplements: in a real SHTF plan, the packets would have to be supplemented with some other food. One possibility is an MRE per day extra; another (more affordable) is a cache of basic-level stored foods. The ideal situation, in the case of a complete collapse, would be a bug-out location wherein we grow or raise our own food. In this case, the Mountain House packs would act as supplements or emergency backups (for a poor harvest.)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Too bad they are loaded up with sodium. This reminds me of the McDonald's diet where the guy almost died. Fruits and veggies are underrated. lol

Hopefully your energy comes back soon. I am think 🤔 you have the double droops because of the diet and the season that’s why it’s so prevalent to you. It you where to do this diet say in the spring it might not be so prevalent to you because other things might have took your attention away from noticing it. Again be strong I still have faith that you can do this and will be happy that you did it in the long run. 😃👍✌️👏👏👏👏 steem on and push through to you are done great post!

Thanks a lot! I think you're right: it's the deep-winter effect and it's prolly temporary. Spring would help, as would distracting myself in other ways.

I'm glad you stopped by!

You nearly half way through, keep going :)

Thanks. In spite of my recent grumbling, I will. :)

Best of luck with your own healthy eating. Last I checked you were doing fine!

Yeah I'm still on track, its got to be done :)

Thank you very much helth trainer. Your writing really impressed me. Your creativity really surprised me also. Thank you very much for sharing this post with us.

Nice to see you again. Thanks for your kind words.

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