that won’t give you DTs if suddenly stopped. Yes, you may have to live with depression if medication is not available in a meltdown, but you won’t be dying from withdrawal. If, for medical reasons, you cannot stop the drugs, then you must ensure an adequate supply. I will discuss that in the chapter on stockpiling medications, but keep in mind that storing thyroid medications is easier to do than building up a stockpile of highly controlled substances that are closely monitored because they are subject to being diverted from real patients and sold in the street drug trade.
Coffee has many healthful effects, and caffeine in small doses has benefits to daily life and sports performance. But if you are a caffeine junkie who cannot go without that morning jolt and continue to jolt yourself through the day with sixteen cups of java – you might be laid low should your supply dry up. Slowly wean yourself down to one to two cups of coffee or caffeinated “power drinks” a day. A sudden withdrawal of caffeine will give you days to months of headaches and can precipitate severe constipation.
In sum, if you are addicted to anything – psychologically or physically, consider what would happen in an economic collapse when for three to six months you had no chance to obtain your substance of choice. I don’t really care what the addiction is – it could be Krispy Kreme donuts – although some substances are clearly more dangerous to stop precipitously than others. It is much better to wean yourself off these substances slowly before the meltdown. In a mass economic shutdown, keep in mind you will not be the only one involved, and medical facilities will quickly be overrun with people out of their medications and their addictive substances. If alcohol is your problem, if you smoke or chew, or you use any other addictive substance – deal with it now. Consult your physicianand/or support groups, such as Alcoholics Anonymous or the local smoking cessation organization.
I am always amused by people who smoke and take vitamins. I once gave a talk on health to a group of government workers. To make my point I showed a cartoon of a safe falling from a second-story window. In the cartoon, a man is walking down the street and is looking down at a wad of chewing gum, being very careful not to get it on his shoe, while above him a safe is hurtling down on his head. The gum was labeled “supplements,” and the safe was labeled “smoking.” I think you get the point. Before worrying about diet, exercise, or supplements, you must eliminate the problems that are really bad . Do it now.
8
DIET: WHAT SCIENCE REALLY TELLS US
T here is nothing more important to your health than a good, “clean” diet. A good diet – and I am going to define this clearly – will give you the best chance of surviving the medical meltdown. I don’t want you to need a doctor who isn’t there. In this chapter, after explaining all the reasons not to eat in certain ways, I will give you a summary of a “clean,” optimized diet. But my advice is to read it all. This is probably the most important prevention chapter in this book. The more you understand the reasons behind dietary recommendations, the more you will be psychologically invested in eating correctly.
You literally are what you eat. Eat crap, become crap. Unfortunately, what we think of as food in many cases is so artificial it bears no resemblance to real food. Would your great-grandmother have recognized boxed macaroni and cheese as something to eat? Leave a Twinkie open in your car for six months and it won’t look much different from the day you opened the package. Why? Because even bacteria don’t recognize it as food! In my home state of Iowa, we joke about the traditional meat-and-potatoes diet. But in the days when my ancestors homesteaded on the prairie, they ate nothing from boxes. They ate all sorts of meat, with its fat, vegetables fromthe garden, some corn, real milk from
Coffee has many healthful effects, and caffeine in small doses has benefits to daily life and sports performance. But if you are a caffeine junkie who cannot go without that morning jolt and continue to jolt yourself through the day with sixteen cups of java – you might be laid low should your supply dry up. Slowly wean yourself down to one to two cups of coffee or caffeinated “power drinks” a day. A sudden withdrawal of caffeine will give you days to months of headaches and can precipitate severe constipation.
In sum, if you are addicted to anything – psychologically or physically, consider what would happen in an economic collapse when for three to six months you had no chance to obtain your substance of choice. I don’t really care what the addiction is – it could be Krispy Kreme donuts – although some substances are clearly more dangerous to stop precipitously than others. It is much better to wean yourself off these substances slowly before the meltdown. In a mass economic shutdown, keep in mind you will not be the only one involved, and medical facilities will quickly be overrun with people out of their medications and their addictive substances. If alcohol is your problem, if you smoke or chew, or you use any other addictive substance – deal with it now. Consult your physicianand/or support groups, such as Alcoholics Anonymous or the local smoking cessation organization.
I am always amused by people who smoke and take vitamins. I once gave a talk on health to a group of government workers. To make my point I showed a cartoon of a safe falling from a second-story window. In the cartoon, a man is walking down the street and is looking down at a wad of chewing gum, being very careful not to get it on his shoe, while above him a safe is hurtling down on his head. The gum was labeled “supplements,” and the safe was labeled “smoking.” I think you get the point. Before worrying about diet, exercise, or supplements, you must eliminate the problems that are really bad . Do it now.
8
DIET: WHAT SCIENCE REALLY TELLS US
T here is nothing more important to your health than a good, “clean” diet. A good diet – and I am going to define this clearly – will give you the best chance of surviving the medical meltdown. I don’t want you to need a doctor who isn’t there. In this chapter, after explaining all the reasons not to eat in certain ways, I will give you a summary of a “clean,” optimized diet. But my advice is to read it all. This is probably the most important prevention chapter in this book. The more you understand the reasons behind dietary recommendations, the more you will be psychologically invested in eating correctly.
You literally are what you eat. Eat crap, become crap. Unfortunately, what we think of as food in many cases is so artificial it bears no resemblance to real food. Would your great-grandmother have recognized boxed macaroni and cheese as something to eat? Leave a Twinkie open in your car for six months and it won’t look much different from the day you opened the package. Why? Because even bacteria don’t recognize it as food! In my home state of Iowa, we joke about the traditional meat-and-potatoes diet. But in the days when my ancestors homesteaded on the prairie, they ate nothing from boxes. They ate all sorts of meat, with its fat, vegetables fromthe garden, some corn, real milk from
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