My Year of Eating like the World Ended – Report 1 of 13

You don’t have to believe that any day now, we’ll face a global pandemic… or that we’ll be struck by an EMP and be sent back to the stone age… or that martial law will be declared… or that the zombie apocalypse is just around the corner… or any of the other popular world-ending “SHTF” scenarios to prep. 

All that is required is an understanding that life is messy. It’s chaotic and unpredictable, and sometimes, stuff just happens. Life throws you a curveball. When that happens (and it inevitably will), doesn’t it just make sense to have the resources at the ready to deal with it? 

A hundred and fifty years ago, if a tree branch fell in the middle of nowhere, no one would know or even notice.

Now, if a tree branch falls in the right part of the middle of nowhere, it can take out a power line and leave tens of millions of people without power. It has happened before. It will happen again. 

You know what else will happen? Hurricanes. Tornadoes. Fires. Floods.

When those things happen, it’s going to disrupt many, if not most of the critical services that make modern life possible. Wouldn’t it be great if stuff like that ever happened, you could carry on with your daily routine without missing a beat—because you had the foresight to do a bit of planning and preparation?

At the root, that’s what prepping is. 

Why I Began Prepping

Every person who preps is different, and as such, every person’s goals are different. There’s no such thing as a “one size fits all” prepping solution.

My own preparations have been shaped by my first winter in Appalachia. I moved to a sparsely populated part of Southwest Virginia from Myrtle Beach to realize my lifelong dream of living in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Coming from the beach, I knew less than nothing about life in the mountains. And in truth, I hadn’t seen snow in more than a decade.

I arrived at my new home on January 14, 2015, at a little past four in the morning in the middle of a snowstorm. You can imagine my surprise.

My surprise grew to shock when I woke the next morning to find that the only road off the mountain was impassable. It would remain so for the next four days.

It would be overselling it to say that if it hadn’t been for the kindness of my new neighbors, I would have died. Though my situation was nowhere near that dire, I can say that those first four days in my new home were cold and miserable.

Lesson learned. I vowed that I’d NEVER let anything like that happen again. Once the road reopened, I stocked up on food. A week’s supply in reserve at first, and then two. Then a full month. Then three. Then six. At that point, I stopped to reassess.

Obviously, there was no plausible scenario in which a simple winter storm would prevent me from getting to town for six full months. So, wasn’t that overkill?

For that specific scenario, it certainly was. But of course, snowstorms weren’t the only thing I had to worry about. I’m a freelance writer, so my income is unpredictable. Each week, it starts at zero, and there are no guarantees it’ll go higher. What if a deep recession hit and the work dried up for some time? How would I eat, much less keep the lights on?

My answer to that question was to prep, and I settled on a one-year stockpile of food, on the thinking that a year’s supply would give me more than enough time to make other plans and get a more permanent solution in place. With that thought in my head, I duly began building that stockpile.

Building My Stockpile

I didn’t really have a plan or a strategy beyond “one-year,” so as funds became available, I’d make a few additions. When I saw something on sale, I’d grab it. I made lots of trips to the local Dollar Store, raiding their frozen foods section. That kind of thing.

My efforts kicked into overdrive when one of our three big local retail chains announced they were going out of business. For two weeks I made the trip down the mountain to load up a cart and haul all sorts of goodies away from Magic Mart at 40% and 50% off. I felt like I had struck gold, and during that time, I basically transferred Magic Mart’s canned goods section to my house.

Then I chanced to find a special offer on freeze-dried foods from a company called Valley Food Storage. A one-year’s supply of subsistence-level food and a free 50-gallon rain barrel for about a thousand bucks. What was not to like about that? So of course, I made the purchase at once! (I admit – my decision to buy was based in no small part on the prospect of getting that spiffy rain barrel!)

At that point though, a disturbing thought occurred to me. 

I had all this food, but was it the right kind of food? Was it enough? If I suddenly found myself having to rely on it as my main (or only) source of food for a year, how well would it hold up? How well would I hold up, for that matter?

I realized I had answers to exactly none of those questions, which is how this experiment came to be. I wanted to know. I wanted to test it, and myself, so I resolved to do just that.

The Experiment

I made that decision on September 5, 2018, about an hour after I’d made the purchase from Valley Food Storage. With that thought in mind, I saw no reason to delay. Why not start the very next day, and just add the freeze-dried stuff to my stockpile when it arrived? So that’s exactly what I did.

Given that I recently turned fifty, building this “set and forget” supply will effectively last the rest of my life. If someone younger follows my blueprint, they can rotate it out in a couple of decades. They can eat on their stock for a year knowing that it’s already been field tested, and they won’t have any problems living off of it. The exact blueprint will be published as part of the last report in this series.

I have seen and heard about people living off of “emergency food” for a month. But to my knowledge, this is the first time someone has publicly documented trying it for a whole year.

Another of my hopes then is that anything learned by doing this will serve as an educational tool for anyone who’s interested in prepping, by giving them access to a firsthand account of practical, day to day hands-on living under conditions of (simulated) crisis and the longer-term impacts of using the supplies we’re all diligently building up.

The Rubber Meets the Road

The first thing I did then, was to establish some basic rules for myself. I decided to keep it simple:

So that’s it. I can trade for food, grow my own (very limited options here, since I’m currently renting), or hunt/fish/forage to supplement my stocks.

To that end, I brought my two nearest neighbors, Mike and “Granny” (no idea what Granny’s real name is – she’s just granny to everyone in the area) into the fold, outlining what I had in mind so they wouldn’t think I had lost my mind when I started approaching them with potential trade deals on food.

My health isn’t great, and I take blood pressure medication, so I gave myself permission to make monthly trips to the drug store to pick up more of that. But again, no food buying allowed—medication only.

I also resolved to keep monthly track of my weight and blood pressure. If my experiment started impacting my health, I decided that would be sufficient grounds to pull the plug on the experiment, rebuild the stock in a healthier configuration and try again.

Finally, I gave myself $100 to make any last-minute purchases to round out my stocks and stores, figuring that it would be fun at the end of the experiment to reassess and see what, if anything, I would have bought differently with that last bit of funds.

Armed with a set of rules and guiding principles, it occurred to me that the next thing I needed to do was to take a complete inventory. After all, how could I possibly make informed decisions about what I needed to buy with that hundred bucks if I didn’t know what I already had?

So, I grabbed a notebook and a pen and started cataloging every scrap of food I had in the house. I’m including that inventory here so you can see what I started with.

My Stockpile Inventory

Not long before the beginning of this experiment, I was bitten by three brown recluse spiders and am still feeling some residual effects (one of the three wounds went necrotic, and they had to flash-freeze it and cut some dead tissue away – OUCH!). So, I’ve got more real food on hand than I do under normal circumstances.

Freeze-Dried Food Inventory

I planned to inventory the freeze-dried food when it arrived. Although the experiment was underway by then, I’m including that inventory here before I dive into the day-to-day execution of the experiment. 

Here’s what I added when I unboxed my goodies from Valley Food Storage:

Grand Total: 750 Servings

Bearing in mind that the serving sizes are geared toward subsistence level living, I resolved to (mostly) double my serving sizes as I began to put these additions to use in the kitchen. When I post my daily menu, I’ll specify how many servings I consume.

A Few Shortcomings

Having taken a much closer look at the exact contents of my inventory, several shortcomings immediately became apparent. In no particular order, I reckoned those shortcomings to be:

So…there are challenges ahead, to be sure. That’s okay, that’s part of what I’m doing this for! I want to test not just my stocks, but my creativity, and from the look of things, I’ll need to be both clever and creative to get through the year. I’ve always considered myself to be fairly clever, and I’m not a picky eater – let’s put those things to the test!

Trading Supplies

The very first thing I did then, on the evening of September 5, before the experiment even officially began, was to propose my first trade deal.

My neighbor Mike builds furniture out of wood pallets. I offered him as-needed use of my table saw and other tools, plus my labor in ripping two pallets a month apart for him for raw materials in exchange for:

He agreed, and I felt as though I was off and running! One problem solved, but I was absolutely certain that as the experiment progressed, there would be many others.

That detail attended to, I went to bed and prepared for the beginning of the experiment. When I woke up on the morning of September 6, I’d start eating and acting as though the world had ended…

Daily Food Diary for September 2018

Here’s the daily menu and calorie counts for the (partial) month of September, along with observations about mood and health.

Note: I’m building in an estimated 300 calories a day for the two pots of coffee with milk/sugar that I drink. Yeah, I know – if I’ve got high blood pressure I should probably cut back, but – coffee is my writing go-juice. No coffee, no writing. No writing and bills don’t get paid. My fingers just freeze up and go on strike. Can’t have that.

A Short Review of Valley Food Storage

This is the first time I’d ever experimented with freeze-dried foods, and although I was game to try them out, my girlfriend was deeply skeptical. 

When the food arrived, she saw that they were made with all-natural ingredients and weren’t laden with nearly as much sodium as she feared. She felt a lot better about the experiment in general and is now more-or-less on-board with it. That’s a good thing because I did not want this experiment to cause problems in my personal life!

As to the food itself, at this point, I’ve tried:

I’ll make additional notes about the company’s products as I incorporate more of them into my menu, but for the moment, here are my impressions:

Taste and Preparation

It’s a great company with good tasting food. I’m a single guy and not much of a cook, barely able to do more than boil water, so this freeze-dried stuff is perfect for me because not even I can screw it up. It’s super easy to prepare, and I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by the taste.

I did learn rather quickly that the cooking instructions on the back of the packages are hit or miss. In most of the cases, they recommend adding too much water, which makes the food a bit on the runny side. In the case of the Cream of Wheat, the instructions call for far too little water, which gives it the consistency of concrete.

Nutritional Value

One question I’ve gotten from people who have been following the experiment day to day relates to the nutritional value of Valley’s products. I double checked, and surprisingly, as of this writing, the company does not list that information anywhere on their website. So, I’m taking a series of pictures of the nutritional labels of each of the meals I have from them and will include those pictures here, so you’ll have the information.

My Personal Rating

Of the foods I’ve tried so far, I give most of them four stars, with the Irish Pub soup getting a perfect five, and the Strawberry Cream of Wheat getting a two. It’s nasty, in my opinion. Concrete with a strawberry aftertaste.

Thankfully, I’ve only got a few bags of it, so I plan to eat it consistently over the early part of next month until it’s gone. This will give my taste buds something to look forward to afterwards.

Obviously, everyone’s tastes and preferences are different, and if you love Cream of Wheat, you might like it. As for me, I would rather repair a cracked retaining wall with the stuff. But since my rules stipulate no going to the store, and since neither of my neighbors want it, I’m going to grin and bear it, and choke it down.

Customer Service

The company has outstanding customer service, and they’re totally willing to work with you to customize your order to taste. Had I known that going in, I would have specifically asked for no Cream of Wheat and focused more on the things I knew I’d like. I also would have avoided getting any of the Coconut Lime Curry, since I’m mildly allergic to coconut, but I’m hoping I can trade some of that away. If not, I’ll load up on Benadryl, and live with the hives while I slog through the bags of that. We’ll see how it goes.

Multi-Grain Cereal

Where their multigrain cereal is concerned, my first experience with it (using their recommended amount of water) was a near disaster, but I was able to tweak it to be more to my liking, reducing the amount of water used and giving it the same basic consistency of oatmeal. 

I think the goal of the cooking instructions was to make it more like eating an actual bowl of cereal. But in my experience, it’s awful that way and tastes a bit like hot, runny Sugar Smacks.

As a kind of sweet oatmeal, it’s much better. If you’re going to follow the instructions on the bag, I’d recommend making it the night before and sticking it in the fridge till the morning you want to eat it.

Portioning

Also, and this is a minor complaint, but given the size of the bags, measuring out the portions is a pain. What I’ve gotten in the habit of doing is this:

For the breakfast stuff, I transfer it into a Tupperware bowl with a lid. Much easier to get my scoop in to measure out a serving. For the lunch and dinner stuff, I’ve just gotten into the habit of cooking the entire bag and portioning out the food after it’s cooked. It’s just less of a headache.

Helpful Hint! When you open a bag of freeze-dried food, you’ll see an oxygen absorber sitting near the top. These can be reused! I’ve gotten in the habit of transferring them straight to a Ziploc bag so I can reuse them down the road when canning/storing other foods. One less thing to source and buy!

Overall

Based on the foods I’ve tried so far then, I give Valley 4.5 out of 5 stars, although as I try more of the food, that score may change.

End of Month Summary

Since I didn’t start my experiment until the 6^th of this month, this first report is technically not a full month. Also, the last report in this series will be delayed until the first week in September next year.

So far, I have to say so good! My spirits are up, and I’m eating well…I haven’t actually missed not being able to go to the store yet, but that’s mostly because I still have tons of supplies, treats, and snacks. When I start running out of those kinds of things, I’m sure my mood will sour, but for now, it’s easy street.

I’m glad. This being the first month, I think it would have been highly discouraging if I’d run into major snags or problems. I’m sure they’re on the horizon, but at least I did get something of a Honeymoon period. So far, I’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t and am already beginning to formulate my “must have” list for the set and forget 1-year stockpile.

The biggest and most important thing I’ve learned at this stage is that living under simulated crisis conditions has made me much more mindful of my food supply. I’m thinking about everything I prepare, and everything I have remaining, and I didn’t before. 

I also learned some important lessons about improvising the preparation instructions on my freeze-dried food and would encourage anyone who has some as part of their own stockpiles to break out a few bags and cook with it to get a feel for it now, while times are good.

Then, if things go sideways, you already have experience on that front. Of course, if you know more about cooking than I do, you may not need to, so take that with a grain of salt.

I’ll end this month’s report with my weight and BP stats, and a picture of myself at the start of the experiment. It’ll be interesting to compare it to a picture of me after a year.

Update (02/19): The nutrition labels of the Valley Food Storage products can be found on the website. 

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