Surviving The Bad Times – When the lights go out and your debit card doesn’t work…

By Nurse Mark

Our world is a restless and sometimes dangerous place – whether the disaster-de-jour is naturally-caused as in the earthquakes of Chile or Haiti or Turkey, the floods or tornadoes or hurricanes right here in our own country, or the man-made disasters that fill our daily news reports from around the world – terrorism, chemical spills, riots, strikes, social unrest, economic meltdowns, and all manner of other unpleasantness.

My point is that we need to be thinking: If Bad Things Happen and it’s up to me to look after the safety, health, and well-being of my family am I prepared to do so?

A brief excerpt from a recent article by author Barbara Simpson – the entire article can be found here: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=127205

Picture this: Your city is in virtual ruins because of a natural disaster. You’re trying to gather your family and stay with your belongings and what’s left of your home or business. You have no electricity, water or food. Your main goal is to stay safe, stay together and stay alive. Think Haiti. Chile. New Orleans. As hours pass, you realize there’s no police or firefighter protection for you, and there’s no military in sight.

And in another correspondence over the weekend:

Emergency tip from a friend in Chile:
“We’ve all came through the event okay, and we’re fine for now. Our only immediate issue is a shortage of cash! The earthquake instantly converted all of Chile to a ‘cash-only’ society!  Checks, and even credit cards, are currently worthless here and of absolutely no use.  Some items can be bartered, but, right now, cash is king!”

Have you thought about how you might manage? If power and phones are out for more than a few hours? If it is not safe to travel, even to the corner grocery? And if you can get to the corner grocery, and the power is out, what good is that? You’ll not be able to use your credit card or write a check… even if there is what you need available the stores will likely be locked since they will be without power too. And if the stores have been “opened” as many were in New Orleans during hurricane Katrina are they a safe or wise place for you to be?

Lets face it, there are times when it is best just to hunker down in our homes and ride out the storm.

Are you prepared to do that?

Do you have a week or two worth of non-perishable food on hand? Food that can be prepared without electricity or natural gas? Sure, you might have a sack of rice, or beans, or pasta – but without power or gas how will you boil them?

What about water? Will it be safe to drink municipal water (if it is still running) or do you have a backup supply? Do you have an emergency water purifier in case local water becomes contaminated?

Are there any medicines that you must have? What about your vitamins and supplements? Since food might be a bit of a problem, your vitamins become even more important! You can get along just fine for quite a while on reduced rations – as long as you are maintaining your nutritional status with vitamins, minerals, and micronutrients.

Here are a few random thoughts on this from me:

Protein: In terms of maintaining health through diet, protein is an essential nutrient. Carbohydrates, that is breads, pastas, beans, rice, and the like are not essential – they are just empty carbs and they are often expensive to prepare in terms of energy for boiling or baking. If food is short we’ll take what we can get – but health-preserving protein will be “golden.” Why not consider keeping a few containers of whey protein on hand? A couple of tasty servings of whey, simply mixed with water, will go a long way toward meeting your daily protein needs and keeping you fit and strong. While you are at it, add a serving of a fruit and vegetable drink like Red Alert or Greens First to your whey shake, and you’ll be getting the equivalent of 10 servings of fruits and vegetables! To really top it off, add some flax oil and a scoop of Maxi Fiber to make it a “full meal deal”! See our recipe for the Super Shake – if the power is out you may not have ice or your blender (unless you have a small generator – not a bad idea either!) but the Super Shake can be mixed up and shaken by hand in any jar or container with a snug-fitting lid.

Vitamins: Troubled times are NOT the time to “economize” and “cut back” on your vitamins and other supplements! Lets think about this for a moment – you take your vities to stay healthy and to make up for the missing nutrition in our food (see Vitaminless Vegetables) during the good times – so why would you cut back on these during lean times? More than ever you will need to ensure that your body has all the nutrition it needs in order to remain strong and fend off illness and infection! Here’s my suggested minimum: keep at least a full month, or better two months supply of Maxi Multi, Maxi Greens, and Maxi Marine fish oil on hand for each member of your family. Keep on hand the same amount of any other important supplements that you use as well.

You will also want to be sure you have a good supply of things such as Dr. Myatt’s B.A.M. to treat infections, activated charcoal and / or Enteraklenz for G.I upsets and charcoal poultices, Bromelain because it’s such a good anti-inflammatory, and cayenne lobelia tincture for shock, hemorrhage, and cardiovascular emergencies.

All of these things, like whey protein and Maxi Multis, will keep well in their containers – they do not need refrigeration or other special treatment – so they can be kept in stock for emergencies. Just remember to rotate your stock so that you always have the freshest possible stock on hand!

What else can you do? Well, there is plenty of advice out there for things to consider keeping on hand for emergencies: first aid kits, blankets, flashlights, generators, spare batteries, fuel, candles, warm clothing, a radio, some cash, a defensive firearm and ammunition if you are so disposed and it is legal for you to do so (be sure that you and all family members have received safety training and know how to use it!),  the list goes on and on. I am not a big fan of keeping gold or silver or jewelry as “emergency currency” – who will be able to “make change” for that gold coin when you go to spend it?  Personally, my tastes in “precious metals investments” run more to the “precious metals” brass and lead…

So in closing, let me offer my prayers for you and for all of us that our planning and preparation for such difficult times is unnecessary. But I would rather take a razzing and be called a “survivalist” during the good times than have to watch my family, friends, and neighbors suffer should, Heaven forbid, some disaster strike us and I had not given my 2 cents worth of free advice. Besides – I like the old Boy Scouts motto: Be Prepared!

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