A Survival Expert Discusses Preparedness During a Crisis

In this episode, Matthew speaks with Tim MacWelch.  He is the owner and instructor at Advanced Survival Training, a wilderness survival school in Virginia.  He is also the author of 7 books on the subjects of survival and preparedness, 3 or which are New York Times best sellers.  The discussion covers a wide range of topics such as how a person should prepare for natural and/or man-made disasters in the areas of mindset, skills, and supplies. 

For those that wish to hear the unedited, 2 hour version of the discussion, you can send an email request.  If enough requests are received, the full version will be uploaded. 

To learn more about Mr MacWelch's school or his books, go to:

Amazon page - amazon.com/author/tim.macwelch
Website www.AdvancedSurvivalTraining.com
Facebook @advancedsurvivaltraining
Twitter @timmacwelch
Instagram @advancedsurvivaltraining

Be sure to read and download the transcripts to this episode. Click on the tab above.

Check back often for more episodes pertaining to health and wellness and issues concerning the COVID-19 pandemic.

Please send your questions to goingviralpodcast@gmail.com

Website:  https://goingviral.buzzsprout.com/

Thanks for listening and please share this episode.

Transcript

spk_0:   0:05
Hello and welcome to the going viral podcast. I'm Matthew Zinder, a certified registered nurse anaesthetist. I'm in advance practice Nurse that specializes in the practice of anesthesia. Scope of this podcast will explore health and wellness from the broad to the specific. My aim is to educate while offering a unique perspective, Thank you for joining me today and let's get right to the show. So today we talked to Tim Mc Welsh. He is the owner and operator of Advanced Survival Training, which is a wilderness survival school in Virginia, and he's also the author of seven books on the subject, three of which are New York Times best sellers. I will put links to his school and his books in the show notes. I thought it might be interesting to speak with Tim about the concept or the subject of preparedness, since the CDC has predicted that we may see a resurgence of the Cove in 19 Pandemic in the fall that will coincide with the flu season. Uh, I thought it might be interesting to think about the concept of preparedness and speak to an expert on the subject. It is an interest area of mine after doing some disaster relief work, it put it into my mindset that one should be prepared for future man made or natural disasters. And even FEMA has lists of things that a person should have in their home. So I thought it might be an interesting subject to discuss. So a couple of the things about this episode, this is the first episode that I recorded over the phone. Tim was unable to do Skype, which is where I usually record the episode so you will notice that there is the sound of being on the phone, as one would hear on a regular radio show. But that's where the sound is a little bit different, little bit distorted. But I still think the sound quality is pretty good for my low quality cheap equipment. Eso. Hopefully, that won't be a problem. Also, this was a longer conversation than normal. Your average podcast should last between 30 and 45 minutes. That's where I've tried to keep the timing, but this one I edited down to an hour because our phone conversation was actually two hours a Zay said. I am interested in the subject, so we got into some very detailed discussions about certain topics for anyone who was interested in listening to the fairly unedited version or the to our version of the episode. Go ahead and email me at going viral podcast at gmail dot com. And if I get enough requests, I'll post the full version for those of you who were interested. Also, stay tuned, please. I finally did get a recorded stress management talk up and running, and I will be editing that for next week. So I look forward to uploading that for you. Eso without further delay. Here is my talk with Tim McVeigh. Welsh. Uh, Tim, thank you very much for joining me today. I really appreciate your time. You were the first person that I thought about when the subject was brought up, and what I usually do is ask people to give some sort of background on themselves or whatever you want to share with us. And then we can kind of get into a discussion.

spk_1:   3:39
That sounds great. Well, thank you. Thank you for reaching out to me mad. I'm excited to have a conversation with you. So my name's Tim a Quelch. I am a native of Virginia. I am, Ah, survival author, and I'm also survival instructor. I started teaching classes working with kids back in 1995 and then I started running adult classes on Survival Self Reliance, Outdoor Skills Preparedness in 1997. And so here we are, quite a few quite a few years later. But I'm still doing classes for the public as something that really am passionate about. It's something that I care a lot about, and over those years I've had some different opportunities pop up. I started doing some writing with Outdoor Life magazine and some other publications, and that led to an opportunity to do my first book about 10 years ago. Prepare for anything, and that was kind of, ah, surprise hit. I didn't I didn't know it was gonna take off like it did. That was a stepping stone to write several more books, so I've actually got a couple of new books coming out this year. I spent the last 12 months working on several different titles, and and so we've got a book coming out on not tying and a pandemic preparedness guide coming out in about two months and then Ah, look later on in the Sol about beating the odds in different survival scenarios. So about half of my time is spent working on different writing projects, books, articles, blog's and e mails for my students that I send out just informational emails that I like to send them and then the other half of my time is either getting ready for glasses or running classes. So So, yeah, that's that's me in a nutshell. Just, um, just a regular Joe who's got, ah, rabid obsession with all things survival.

spk_0:   5:36
So obviously I would think, Or maybe not obviously. But I would think that your skills and your mindset have lent a bit of possibly comfort in this current situation, because again, you're always thinking about what If I I believe I kind of have gotten that mind set from the disaster relief work I have done. I think that's probably where the switch went off. I mean, my background is E. M. S before it went into advanced practice nursing, and I did see a little bit there to ah, that made me want to jump into emergencies like this. But what really kind of changed my mindset was doing the disaster relief work where in one moment after a natural disaster, everything is gone and you have to. Your whole life has changed. So that put me into a what if scenario as you mentioned and how do I prepare for something like this? And because of that, I do have a little bit more comfort mindset then possibly your average person who wasn't preparing it all for it. Would you know, What are your thoughts on that? As far as how you have prepared for it or thought about this And ah, do you have a level of comfort based on how you live your own life and how you know what your kind of studies that you, ah engage in?

spk_1:   6:58
Absolutely, Absolutely. And I'm glad we're starting with this. I'm glad we're really gonna shine the importance on this particular topic. That level of comfort that that I and my family are currently enjoying it doesn't come easy. There's hard work to get there. There are investments. Get there. You know, you you don't build six months food supply for free, you know, and it doesn't happen. In one trip to the store. You you can. You can build this piece by piece box by box. You know, being by being in bag by bag and you can you can put together a two week food supply and then and then a one month food supply and then a two month food supply. And you just keep building it up, you know, as as the months and years go by. And if it's all long term food storage stuff, for example, Dehydrated, not dehydrated but freeze dried freeze dried mountain house meals. They just recently bumped the shelf life from 25 years up to 30 because they were taste testing stuff. They stay packaged 30 years ago, and it was still perfectly tasty and edible and nutritious, and it hadn't hadn't broken down. So the the auction absorbers and the free drying process and the super thick mile or bags those enable the food the last for several decades. And so, um, you know, over the years I've learned skills, I've acquired things, I've devised plans, and I've just got all this stuff in place and so you know, when it when when the pandemic first head and everybody's freaking out and go into the grocery store, you know, and then trying to buy whatever they can. And obviously there's only so much in each store. And when people panic buy, you know that sort of their retail therapy, they can't control the situation, but they can control what they're buying. So when people panic, buy and wipe the shelves out, their stuff, their stuff in my basement, and I don't have to worry about it so much. These are just a couple of dozens and dozens of different strategies that enable anyone to beam or self reliant. And, you know, just feel more more confident to feel some comfort, you know, in a situation that's completely out of control, where you really can't have much impact on the world around you. At least you can control what you're doing, and you can control the things that are going on to some extent in your household. And so you know, if I can if I can avoid one trip to the grocery store a month by growing more stuff at home by being more frugal with what we're using, then that's one less exposure per month for me getting sick and bringing it home to the family and making them sick on. So that's kind of what I'm what I'm, you know, thinking about and how it feels to to have have comfort in in you know what the what the media are calling, um, these uncertain times. Yeah, they're uncertain for, you know, they're uncertain. All right. Uh, some wood, Some would argue. They, uh, pretty rough.

spk_0:   10:17
I have kind of done the same thing again. Based on my experience from seeing what if what happens in in natural disaster situations. And I've got I had accumulated some supply on and have not touched it, because again, we can still get to the grocery store every once in a while. I try to only do it like once every two weeks. I'm also ah, beekeeper, just as a hobby. And I had one of the things that you could do with frames if you want to. If you want to preserve drawn out comb is you put them into a freezer. So I had had this locker freezer in the basement, literally just for beekeeping. And I looked at my wife and I said, You know what? We have to stock that freezer with everything that we can get to fill it with, you know, meat for his vegetables, whatever. When this all started because of that mindset and because of that mindset, I was able to get a good supply. Not not an unreasonable amount, but ah, good enough supply of like the toilet paper, paper towels. And before it all went off the shelves and and then the meat and the vegetables before they all went off the shows. I mean, I'm in a suburban area and if you go to any of the large grocery stores right now, all all of those shelves are empty still, and because of that mindset, I've got that little bit of a layer of comfort, which is which I appreciate now we could break it down a little bit and say, OK, we have a population of people out there right now who don't necessarily have the mindset and were, you know, caught unprepared. We may have ah, population of people out there who were prepared enough to go out and get some things that they needed so they didn't have to go to the grocery store. Or or maybe it was a person who does a lot of work. D I y work around the house and had one or two n 95 masks, and then we could get into what's comment. So what would you say to a person who was just unprepared like, Is there anything that they could do to mitigate that lack of preparedness at this point?

spk_1:   12:29
Yeah, yeah, and this was a great person to speak to. You know, these folks are probably feeling more stress then than anybody else. That person who was just really, honestly call with her pants down. You know, they may be Scott at Preppers and preparedness and survival, and, um, you know, just just thought it was silly. So there's there's probably people out there who had just laughed at it six months ago, um, or this people who never even thought about it enoughto laugh at it. You know, they just they didn't ever have it come across their radar. And so those folks are probably feeling more stress than anybody else because they're the floundering, you know, they didn't have a couple of weeks were the food in the pantry. They don't even have a pantry, especially the folks with limited states, limited income folks that are living in apartments and and living hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck. You know that that's not possible to build a stockpile of anything and do long term long term food storage for the folks. I would say it's never too late. It's never too late to take control of a situation. It's never too late toe. Have hope that you're going to get through it and you're gonna find a better way to move forward. There are three things that folks need toe need to think about, and you've already brought up one of them, and I'm glad you did mind yet. So mindset is something that doesn't cost you a dime. You can start working on it right now. I'm actually working now on article for Outdoor Life magazine. That's one of the publications that I write for, so I write a lot of content for their for their website, which is outdoor life dot com. Mindset is something I'm writing about today, and mindset is something that people can take advantage off, even if they're totally unprepared. So they're different facets of the survivor mentality or survival mindset. Whatever you wanna call it? You know this. This is your This is your self reliance toolkit. And it's not in a box or a bag. It's something inside you And there there are facets to this survivor mentality. Attitude is one of them. And this is something that we can we can look at we can focus on, we can try to control by having ah, more positive attitude in any situation. We're going to be able to have a better outcome. And let's put that into in contrast with a negative attitude. If you've got a negative pessimistic attitude, you think, Oh, man, in this pandemic world going to die, this sucks, you know, so miserable. I hate it. This is someone who is refusing to look for a silver lining. You know, they're just gonna wallow in in pity and misery and just feel bad and and not even try to better their situation. But if you can recognize that and stop it by having some kind of silver lining, you know something positive that you can grab onto. If you can start to pull yourself up out of the hole looking for the silver linings to to our our cloud of gloom and doom If people can think about the things that they do have. Okay, well, hey, at least I'm not sick right now. Anything that is that is positive that you can latch onto and then add to add more stuff to OK, at least I'm alive. I didn't get sick. And you know that stimulus check. You know, either I got it already or its in the pipeline. You know, it's it's supposed to be coming, so I may be out of work right now, but at least there's some money coming in, you know? And if we can just build on those little positive things that can change your attitude and your attitude can change your circumstances. So positive mental attitude is one of these pieces to the survivor mentality. Um, and this is something I teach in a lot of different glasses. Another facet to this survival mindset is adaptability, you know? Think, Matt, think about think about the ice Age. Think about the last ice age here. What was running around in these woods? Think about the megafauna. What did we have here? Like mammoths, right?

spk_0:   16:46
Number

spk_1:   16:46
two. But all that kind of stuff where they now

spk_0:   16:50
right

spk_1:   16:50
now, There bones in a museum they couldn't adapt. Whatever changed on on the cusp of the last ice age too. You know, the temperate, the temperate climate that we're in now something changed and they couldn't adapt and they died out. So adaptability is another crown jewel in the collection off survival skills and so adaptability. It's it's not really a skill that you learn is part of this this mental status, you know, it's part of that that mentality, the mindset and so adaptable people are able to change. That's what it boils down to. It's about being able to change. If you're so rigid and locked in and completely resistant to change, you're not gonna farewell. When times change, you're not gonna You're not gonna prosper if you're so locked in and worried about what used to be, You know how we're going to get back to normal. That's what allowed people who worried about How do I get back to normal? Well, you know what? Normal didn't work that well because now we've got a pandemic because of normal. And so how do we adapt? Well, okay, I'm not working right now. You're not working. I'm not working with a lot of people not working. So how do we adapt? How about we stop spending so much? How about we make cheaper food at home? How about we don't go through the drive thru because that's a point of contamination. And so maybe we don't go through the drive thru because that's expensive food restaurant mark ups or 3% 4% of what that food cost. And so maybe we eat cheaper and we eat less. And you know, that's just one little way to adapt is to adapt our diet. You know those mammoth? Maybe they ate something that only grew in the cold climate. And then when the weather warmed up, when the climate warmed up, their food supply dwindled. And maybe that's why we don't have mammoths anymore. So if we can change, we're gonna adapt to change. Then we can survive. And there's half a dozen other things that we could talk about that are part of this survival mindset. Um, if folks want to go to outdoor life dot com, that article will be up and it'll talk about some of the other facets of that, that survival mindset. But that's something that people can do right now is changed their mind change how they are thinking, changed how they're acting, change what they're doing. They don't need, Ah, a bunker full of bullets and beans. You know, Teoh to survive, they need to change their mindset. So they're really three things that I try to teach when when we do classes. Three. Memorable, right? I told you 57 things didn't remember 57 things, but but three things anybody can remember Three things. So money set is the first place that the things start to go right or start to go wrong. We need to cultivate a survival mindset. Second thing is skills. If we have some skills for self reliance, then we're better off in the person who doesn't. And there are a lot of different skills. It can be mind boggling. You know, it could be wilder, a person looking at all the different skills that they could learn. But think about the stuff that's the most impactful. I always get on my soapbox and rant and rave about first aid skills. You know, you you've got you've got your, um, you've got your medical background. You know, that's something that hopefully brings comfort to you and your family. You know that if somebody got hurt really badly, they got cut, you know? God forbid, you know, they're bleeding heavily. You know how to stop that bleed. If someone they're not breathing, you know how to do CPR. You understand? You know how this this bag of meat and bones, uh, functions? You understand how it works, and a lot of people don't. So I would say, learn some first aid skills right off the bat. Get him, get him through books, get him through videos, get him through whatever you can get him through because they're probably on a lot of classes right now. Yeah. I doubt the Red Cross is doing their normal first aid classes for the public right now.

spk_0:   20:55
You're right. You're right. I Actually, it's one of the I totally agree, because it's one of the things that I do teach. Ah, I am American Heart Association, CPR instructor and one of the things that one of the other things I teach through American Heart is first aid skills. So it's actually ah, lot of things. They're being moved online. But you're absolutely correct.

spk_1:   21:13
Yeah, And, you know, I've argued for years that first aid skills are the most likely survival skills you'll ever use in your entire lifetime. You know how many people really need to rub two sticks together?

spk_0:   21:26
But I love

spk_1:   21:26
it. I teach it every chance I get. How relevant is it? Rubbing two sticks together, going to stop you from getting the Corona virus are rubbing two sticks together, Going to, you know, um, grow food in a garden for you, you know? Is it is it gonna put meat on the table? No. It's just the most laborious way to make a fire ever. I like it. It's fun. You know, It's a piece of history. It shouldn't die out. But there are more important things to learn right now. And so the first aid skills and figuring out how to cook from scratch. That's a whole skill figuring out how to cook If the utilities went down in disaster preparedness, it's always smart to have different backup plans. And so, you know, for example, at my house we've got we've got a generator. So if the if the power goes out for any reason. A storm that's the most likely. You know. We just had the power out the other day, and so there's a lot of different reasons the power could go down or other utilities could go down. Not just, you know, some kind of terrorist attack Cyberattack learned how to cook from scratch. That's a whole skill all by itself. A good skill to learn. Learn how to cook without utilities, that's another one. So anybody familiar with camping they're gonna have some basic skills of cooking over a fire? Maybe just a little bit. I mean, if you've ever just toasted a marshmallow over a fire, you've got a foundation laid. You know, that's a really rudimentary skill. Food on a stick dangled over the fire. Now it's cooking, but there are a lot of different ways to cook, and so so that's something that should be considered. And so you're back up plans, and your backups for your backup could include a camping stove so you're camping. Stove can allow you to cook. He's the utilities air down. There's a lot of skills, long story, short map. There's a lot of skills people could learn. And I would recommend thinking about the most likely disasters that you would face in your area and in your lifetime and the thinking about the skills that would be really useful in those. And so, you know, here we are in a part of the world where we do get is out by hurricanes periodically, um, you know, we do have the occasional ice storm or or blizzard that would knock out the power in the winner. I think learning how to live without electrical power and the skills that are associated with that I think those are a great place to start. And then you can You can add in the other skills as you see fit as you see the need or as you have the interest. Maybe you couldn't care less about growing a garden. Maybe you just hate the idea of gardening. But you're all about hunting and fishing. So get better at that. You know, however, you can put calories on the table. Um, at the end of the day, it kind of doesn't matter. You know how you got him. You know, maybe you're raising chickens and rabbits in a in a little farm setting. You know, maybe you've got maybe you got a little aquaponics set up going where you're raising some fish and grow in some hydroponic plants off of the fish water. You know, that could even be done in a basement. If you had grow lights and stuff like that. Maybe you just want a hunting fish. And so that's part of your food supply. Oh, and you just regularly routinely dio and on finish so their their ways and means, you know, to get what you need And, uh, a diversified skill set eyes gonna make you feel better. You'll be more confident, and it's gonna give you these backup plans that we've talked about,

spk_0:   24:55
right? And it's such it's such an elaborate concept or subject because we could talk about the different settings that people live in between urban, suburban and rural. Your your mind set and your preparedness is going to be complete very different between living in a rural setting where you might have some land or live in the woods to some of these people that are stuck in their one room apartments in Manhattan.

spk_1:   25:22
Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, they're very different skill sets. You know, in the urban jungle, folks, we're gonna have to rely on situational awareness. You know, they don't have to worry about, ah, bear coming up and mauling him while they're, you know, they're feeding the chickens. It's very different skill set. So, you know, in, in, in, in an urban survival setting, we've got different ways to get food, different ways to get water, different threats to think about. And and and there are different benefits for being there to, you know, in a long term disaster, setting the city environment will be the last place of law and order. You know, it's gonna be rough in there. The more people you cram in, the more problems you have. But what we see in lots of different historical events is that law enforcement stops going out into the rural areas in the backwoods of the backwaters. You know, law enforcement stops going out in the middle of nowhere. Those people are on their own. And so, in a situation without rule of law being out, you know, in a farm in the middle of nowhere, it starts to lose some luster because Now you really over on your own you're you're in charge of of of defending yourself. You know, you can call 911 but they may not show up in certain settings, you know, And we see this in numerous historical events. And so I hate the first peoples bubble. You know, they think, Oh, man, I'm going to get off the grid. All these tapes in the middle of nowhere, You're not safe in the middle of nowhere. In some scenarios, you're more vulnerable. And so, you know, unless you got a big group of people and people are on guard, you know, you're you're not, as you know, the safest as you might have thought you would be.

spk_0:   27:12
That's a really interesting perspective, because it is normal. I think for most people, especially when they're thinking about this type of a subject, is while I wish I had 50 acres in West Virginia right now, that I could run to a cabin and live through this or wait it out in relative safety. And I don't think that it's on a person's thought process where that may be unsafe for different reasons.

spk_1:   27:40
Yeah, unsafe for different reasons. in a worst more long term disaster, setting the day to day like right now, man, if you had your little you know, your little homestead Golden, you know, you're you're doing great, you know, unless you know somebody just happens to come by and Robbia. But generally, if you're in the middle of nowhere and you got your homestead set up, you're doing the off the grid saying, Hey, there's never been a better time than right now to be off the grid. But, you know, let's stay. Let's say we had any MP and we're six months in. And, you know, more than half the country's population have have died of starvation, disease or or or violent crime. You know, now that that little farm in the middle of nowhere is one hell of a target, and so yeah, it's just it's important to think about these different things. I'm sorry we got dark. You

spk_0:   28:39
know, you got ugly

spk_1:   28:42
more conversations. Hopefully we can rescue it from the

spk_0:   28:46
from

spk_1:   28:47
the quagmire that fall

spk_0:   28:49
into. I get it. No, it zz to go that way, isn't it?

spk_1:   28:54
It can be. I really try to keep it from going there um, I try to talk people off the ledge,

spk_0:   29:01
right? Yeah, and that's that's important. To have that back to that mind set is it's great that you have that when you're teaching issue. No, it's easy to jump out on the ledge and be like, Well, I'm not prepared for this This It's all over and I like how you talked about Well, we need to start by thinking right and thinking positively, weaken. Think about what we're grateful for, and that's what I often go to is. Well, first of all, the grid is not down. As of as of yet, we have the the truck drivers are still running, which means the grocery stores are reasonably still stocked. We still have, Ah, you know, we still have food to go by. I know that they're worried about that changing with some of these plants going down. But it is something that we should think about speaking of preparedness, but lots to still be grateful for, even if you know I'm out of work. I know there are a lot of other people out of work, but it is, ah, situation where we can still live in reasonable comfort in our homes with electricity on things like that. So it is. Ah, it is good that you are trying to stay positive, especially with the people that you're teaching. Now. I know you had said three things. So mindset. Skill set. And then there was Ireland

spk_1:   30:17
skills. You are somebody's paying attention,

spk_0:   30:19
the

spk_1:   30:22
three piece meal. So it's mindset, it's skills and it's stuff stuff. What is the stuff you need? This stuff is whatever you need for that type of emergency. So across the board, everybody needs a good first aid kit. I don't care who you are, where you are, what scenario you're worried about. Everybody needs a good first aid kit. There is. There is never going to be a disaster that lasts for any amount of time that no one gets hurt at all. Like, you know, you're trying to learn how to cook for the first time, and you laid your hand open with that kitchen knife. You know, we're going to need some some, uh, some wound dressing skills, and we're gonna need this stuff to do it with. And so so stuff is an important part of the of the trifecta It's been argued that with mindset and skills, this stuff isn't important. Like you can make what you need, and and I I see the see the wisdom in that. But you and I have both been enough situations where we understand that sometimes you just need the right tool for the job.

spk_0:   31:31
Absolutely.

spk_1:   31:32
You could make a ventilator. You know, you see all these little YouTube videos like, here's how I made a ventilator with my Cordless drill, you know, and ah ah, a soda bottle and some two by four blocks and screws, you know? Yeah, you know, you could provide the tourniquet if someone's bleeding really bad. You know, you could you could grab, grab a maxi pad out of somebody's person and use that for bleeding control. Um, yeah, you can put a crackle thyroid airway in with your pen knife and put a drinking straw, you know, through their trade here. But nothing beats having the right tool for the job. And so sometimes you just need the right stuff. The right stuff saves time, and the right stuff eliminates room for error. You know, you try to make a tourniquet out of a belt it's too wide. You can't suck it down tight enough. You know, they're still bleeding. And now you've wasted time goofing around with a belt. If you just had a cat tourniquet in your first aid kit, you pull that sucker outside over the limb. Joe Crow down starts spinning that winless. Wham bam! Thank you, mam. 15 seconds have gone by and now the bleeding has stopped. Is the rightful for the right job. And so sometimes this stuff really is important. And there's another facet to stuff. Sometimes stuff can make up for a lack of Skittles, so maybe you don't know how to make a fire. Maybe you've never lit a campfire in your entire life. So the idea of cooking your dinner on a fire in the backyard I mean, I'm asking you to build a rocket ship. You know, it's it's just it's beyond where you're at right now, and that's okay. If you have purchased a camping stove, particularly one that's easy to use now, you don't have to have great fire making skills. All you need is, you know, the big lighter or a good stove is gonna have a little igniter yet turn on the gas and hit a button and then you've got fire under your control. And so sometimes you just need to stuff. Now we can talk about skills. Oh, yeah. I can garden and got great animal husbandry skills. You know, I can raise chickens and goats and rabbits and all that. That's great. How long does it take to grow that first vegetable? What's the fastest vegetable you could grow? Thank you. Might get something in 30 days. Like radishes. What's the calorie count on a radish?

spk_0:   33:58
Right.

spk_1:   33:59
That's been 10 calories each. Like you're gonna start to death trying to eat radishes. So time is an issue and skill is an issue. And and just all these different things can impact your results. So, you know, we could have skills to procure food. We could be a gardener and farmer and hunter and Fisher and all that stuff. But Donald takes time and all that is susceptible of failure. One good frost your gardens dead. You know, one hole in the fence a ground ball goes through and eats all your seedlings. You step on a twig and make some noise. All the deer disappear now you know your hunting trip is is a bust, so there's a lot of things that can go wrong when you're doing your skills. So by having the stuff in place, that's your safety net. That's the thing that is going to get you by. And so sometimes yeah, skills will get you where you need to be. Other times you need the stuff, too. And so by having that emergency food storage And like I mentioned earlier, you know some mountain house meals from the camping store those the last 30 years. It's something you can buy and shove in a closet. Forget about until you need it later. But there's a way cheaper way to, ah to build a food supply that mountain house food supply. If we had 2000 calories a day, that's generally going to be three big mountain house food pouches. And so those suckers air eight bucks a pop. Let's run the numbers. You're probably going to be spending 25 to $30 a day per person on freeze dried food when you buy it piece by piece. But the bulk of my food supply is just normal dry goods. You go to the store and you buy rice, pasta, beans, all that kind of stuff, and you pack it in real thick mile our bags with auction absorbers heat, seal the bag that goes in a bucket or some other container, and it'll draw a vacuum as the auction absorb pulls oxygen out of the atmosphere inside the bag so he actually vacuum. Pack your own food and the remaining air in the bag is just nitrogen because the oxygen got gobbled up by the packet. And so long story short for a small amount of money. You can start to create these long term food storage packages, and it could be like a five gallon bucket with the Mylar bag inside. And then you don't pay in your dry goods. Put in about 1500 to 2000 cc's of auction absorber packets, depending on how area the food is. Something really fluffy, like oatmeal. 2000 cc's something really dense. Ah, and not a lot of air space in between the pieces. You know, something like, let's say you had ah, bucket of rice, um, that you could get by with 1500 cc's of auction absorber packets and eat seal. That's Tucker, and it'll draw a vacuum in the next couple of days, and as long as it stays sucked in, you can see the vacuum sucking on the bag. It's it's good for decades. Um,

spk_0:   37:03
so even the homemade stuff is good for that long as well.

spk_1:   37:06
Yeah, yeah. If you use the right, my lord bags really sick, like multi layer mile our bags. And if you use it ah ah, If you use enough oxygen's or bors, I mean you can go overboard. I mean, they're just gonna suck out what oxygen is there. It's 20% of the atmosphere. So once 20% of the air in that bag is gone, it can't draw down anymore. The oxygen is gone, and it's just nitrogen in there, but but, yeah, a lot of my food storage. I've prepared myself and I just check on it every once in a while. As long as the bags are sucked in, I know there's no hole in the bag, there's no oxygen getting in there, and any decomposition is halted.

spk_0:   37:46
So, so far what you've what you've mentioned as faras things as far as the stuff when it comes to tools and, uh, essentials. You first aid kit? Definitely for everybody. Long term food storage. Whether you make it yourself or purchase it, as far as I'm concerned, that can be either urban or rural preparedness when it comes to a list. Definitely. Uh, do you start when you start to get into Maurer of the list of what people should have? Do you ever see a divergence of what you might wanna have? Depending on what? Setting urine?

spk_1:   38:23
Honestly, not so much. Um, the divergence can come with real estate if you've got land someplace where you could grow some stuff Now we need to start thinking about, you know, if we're doing a long term plan, you know, how could I be suffer life for a longer period of time? One month, three months, six months, you know, whatever. Then we started thinking about growing crops. Maybe we think about some livestock a little bit, things like that. So So, in an urban survival setting, you can only are going to be growing a lot of stuff. You could grow a little bit of stuff in a rooftop garden if you had access to over the top.

spk_0:   39:08
It's interesting. It's interesting, though, because now you're able to get thes shelves. The shelving systems with these grow lights on them, and you can. If you are in a Manhattan apartment, you could have every shelf growing something. So that is, that would be a possible way to go as far as growing

spk_1:   39:25
it is now. It's tremendous power drain. You're your electric bill. Your electric bill is going to be through the roof. That's how our friends in law enforcement find. You know, the marijuana, Gretel

spk_0:   39:38
houses and

spk_1:   39:39
stuff. You know, they're burning so much electricity that it's it's just unbelievable. And so that, um, I don't know if you've ever heard this book, Matt. It's It's ah, it's quite the cautionary tale. It's called the $63 Tomato, and it's just this book This guy wrote about him trying to learn how to garden. And he spent so much money on supplies and equipment and tools and all this other stuff. The few tomatoes he got out of the garden, um, they averaged to cost him, like, 60 bucks each. And so I'm like, Yeah, that is a good cautionary tale, you know, because I've been that guy I've spent, you know, thousands of dollars on on stuff that that just didn't pay me back. You know, it didn't pan out. And so, you know, we really have to think about that. I've been quite miserly with my family during the past month. Um, you know, certain things have been requested, and I have I have denied them. Um, you know, some folks have wanted certain gardening things, and I'm like, Yeah, but you know what? Why don't I have to go buy backs a dirt you got there? It's on the ground, you know, Just use that dirt. You know, um, you know, certain certain things that have been brought up a zoo would not be good to have that. I'm like, Yeah, I would, But we can't afford it right now. So

spk_0:   41:02
sure

spk_1:   41:03
if if if we're, you know, for if we're looking at a to bottom line, and so a lot of times, you know it's gonna be years before you pay. Pay off that equipment, so there's a point where there's a payoff for doing it yourself. If there's a point where you're kind of wasting time and money,

spk_0:   41:24
unless you get, unless you think a little bit about Well, this is something that's keeping my mind busy. And it's a hobby, right? If it's if it's helping you in other ways, that definitely still it might be worth the extra. But I definitely know understand where you're coming from.

spk_1:   41:38
Yeah, no. Your point is your point is right on target because there is more value than just dollar value. The enjoyment from me now that is a value. But But if we're trying to be frugal in these trying times of uncertainty, because every TV commercial I want you guys to listen for that, that's the buzzword. Uncertainty. It's probably like a $10 billion word like, I don't know how many marketing agencies got paid to think of a scary word that's not too scary so that people could explain why you should buy their product right now, but not be super scared. But that's that's the word I keep hearing over and over and over again. Is uncertainty in these uncertain times.

spk_0:   42:19
Yes,

spk_1:   42:20
and so, yeah, I guess uncertainty. It is alarming, but not like panic inducing. But yeah, they certainly are certain times to be t here I totally forgot my point. Now

spk_0:   42:34
I would be really Well, we were on were on the list of stuff we're talking about the we started first aid kit than, uh, the long shelf life food. And then we kind of started to talk about the difference between a world preparedness Teoh Urban prepared us when it comes to long term storage food. Uh, what would be some other things that you might throw on that list when it comes? Teoh the stuff list.

spk_1:   43:01
So I've got a lot. I've gotten a lot of heat on this. Um, people have have kind of pooh poohed me a little bit. I don't care. They're wrong.

spk_0:   43:09
Um, water, water, uh,

spk_1:   43:12
water, all that, all that other stuff. You know, first date is critical, and food is important, but you've gotta have water now. People are sambal. Well, I won't lose water because of a pandemic. You don't know that. What if everybody down at the water treatment facility didn't go into work? You know what happens to your municipal water supply? Those plants don't run automated with robots and stuff. You know there's people at the water treatment facility. So what if the water stopped flowing or was unsafe,

spk_0:   43:46
right? I'm surprised that you've gotten heat for that, because that is, that's on the FEMA list. And there is no more conservative preparedness list than the FEMA list.

spk_1:   43:57
You know, you gotta have water. I mean, water is more important than food. I could last a whole lot longer if I had water and no food than a whole bunch of food and no water unless I'm sucking the juice out of peach cans. You know, um, I don't have any water, you know, unless I've got wet pack food and I'm just stealing the moisture. It's all dry stuff. And so water's got to be considered in all emergency planning. I don't care if you wilderness survival or disaster preparedness. I don't care what it is. You've got to think about water. So there's two different approaches to water. One is to have water on hand that is safe and ready to drink, and so this can be done in lots of different ways. You could bottle your own. You can buy big containers, the aqua blocks, containers, you know, like six gallons five gallon jugs with speak its and you can just package your own from your from your tap at home. You can buy water already bottled and treated for storage. So I like the five gallon water cooler jugs.

spk_0:   44:59
Yes,

spk_1:   45:00
they're not super expensive. They're heavy, but they're not so heavy that you know when adult couldn't carry it. Um, you know, maybe an older adult or somebody with some physical limitations would have a hard time carrying that that, you know, 40 £40 that £40 jug of water. But but, you know, someone who could carry 40 £50 physically, you know, it is mobile. You could carry that water cooler jug. So Part one is having water ready to drink on hand. I don't have to go anywhere. He did anything. I don't have to disinfect anything. It's ready to go. The other part of the puzzle is a resupply strategy. How am I going to get more water when my water runs out? Now people aren't worried about water so much that should be. Most Americans are getting their water from a well on their property and guess what? That well runs off electricity. So if the electricity goes out, your ability to pump water out of the ground is gone, at least going through electrical pumping. Now they're they're way. That means to get that water out of the well. One of those is a well sleeved. This is something that certain prepared this company's still, you can make it yourself from from little parts and pieces at Home Depot. But it's a cylinder that you slide down into the well and it will fill with water, and then you pull it back up on on the ropes that your lower it down with, but you know, just something like that. But think of a backup plan, you know, And if you've got camping equipment, you probably have a water filter of some kind. The prices have really come down on water filters over the years. We can get a safe, effective water filter these days for $2030 on. It's going to screen out bacteria, parasitic worms, everything but viruses. And of course, that's what we're worried about right now. But you know the chance of Corona virus being in a stream in the woods kind of low. It's not zero. It's never gonna be zero, but, you know, from here on out, but it's it's pretty low now. If you're worried about viruses, you can have A You can spend a little more money or a lot more money and get a water filter that actually has a disinfecting element to it. Sometimes it's silver. Sometimes it's some iodine type of chemical in there in the water filter. Sometimes it's just super effective, like activated charcoal kind of filtration. But they're different things that will pull those things out of the water. So they're different filters on the market that will take care of viruses to.

spk_0:   47:38
And that might be the only choice for a person who stuck in an apartment in an urban setting is the filter right?

spk_1:   47:44
You have something small, um, something small, something that doesn't require power so filters can can these days, filters or gravity said. So there's plenty of things like that, and of course there's boiling. If you've got a camping stove or or you know the ability to have a fire somewhere, you could blow the water, and that's going to kill. The virus is the bacteria that produce a lot of the parasitic worms will die with just a five minute boil. So that's that's another option for everybody.

spk_0:   48:10
When it comes when it comes to things like, whenever I'm trying to think about you know what? How How do you even start when you wanna think about preparedness or what I should get? Or, you know, as faras equipment of tools, things like that I kind of go rial to the simply or to the simple, the four elements food, water, fire, shelter. And then I kind of branch out from there s so so far, we've got the, you know, the food and the water and the first aid. Uh, what else do you think? I mean, I guess a good set of tools for because as we as we kind of already touched on and then, um, anything else that your average person may not think about, depending on what kind of setting they're living in?

spk_1:   48:54
Well, the type of disaster is gonna have bearing on this next bracket of stuff, but signaling and communication, this is something that a lot of folks don't think about until they really need it. So, in a wilderness, survival setting, signaling and communication can be things like signal whistles like an emergency whistle. So you're lost in the woods. You start blowing the whistle that helps search and rescue to find you. So in that setting, it's noisemakers like whistles and Claxton's and air horns and its visual stuff like flares, signal mirrors, signal flags, signal panels, different things that could be seen by search and rescue crew. Now in the signal communication arena for a disaster. Now we kind of have some different needs. We have. We have some different tools, and so getting information could be vital. That could be the difference between life and death. And one of the ways that people can get information is with a little portable weather radio. So something that has the n o a. A weather bands, a little radio that has those weather bands, those air, your emergency broadcast channels and their automated with messages, and they just run all the time, and they tell you the time and the tide and the temperature and all kinds of different things like that. But if there's a disaster, then emergency information is going to go out over those channels, and so you can't get that on your car. Radio. The weather bands are frequencies that you're gonna have toe pick up on a weather radio. You know, let's say the powers down. So you're not watching TV, and you don't know what the next sucker punch is gonna be, But but that weather radio is gonna provide information, Um, and just small radios inside the household. Ideally, battery operated in a perfect world. Everything you have runs off the same batteries. You know, this is like the old West, um, you think about like the sheriffs in the Cowboys and even even the desperados. Some of those folks would have the same caliber bullets for their rifles and for their pistols. And so if everything in your kid runs the same batteries, that's a big win, you know, then you only need the one kind of battery, and you can pull them out of one device and shovel meant another. So if your weather radio and your flashlight and your headlamp and you know your other saying if they all run off of Double A's great, it's not. Just make sure you have plenty of all the different kinds of batteries that you need, but I'd like to have it all match, but communication is something that is often overlooked. So first aid, food, water, communication tools and this shelter. Normally your house is your shelter. But what happens if you're not in your house? So there are situations where all your best laid plans get compromised. And this is what a lot of folks talk about in the dugout scenario. If you had to evacuate, if you had to flee, what would you do? What would you have? So the bug out bag is kind of like the prepper fantasy. Um, it's not a fancy. I mean, it's really but a lot of people put it into the fantasy realm. And so your book out back is just basic camping supplies. It's your ability to provide shelter when you aren't using your home as a shelter. So it might be a tiny little ultralight tent. Ah, seasonally appropriate sleeping bag. You don't need a summer bag in the winter. You don't need a winner bag in the summer. Just a seasonally appropriate sleeping bag, maybe a change of clothes, some food, some water, just some basic tools. Basic first aid. Basically, it's it's what you take on the backpacking trip that's who you should model your bug out bag after is long distance hikers, Backpackers You know, the people hiking the Appalachian Trail. She was really got it down to a science that's who can live out of a bag and not be miserable. The typical prepper bug out bag is it's too many bullets, too many beans, too much Bs. So you broke out bag. If you had to leave your home for any number of reasons, it could be 100 different reasons. But having all that stuff in one place ready to go, you know, you grab it and run out the door. And so that's something to consider some kind of evacuation plan and the stuff to go with it.

spk_0:   53:32
It is. It's such an elaborate thing to think about, like, what are our needs when we're trying to prepare for all kinds of different scenarios? And then one of those scenarios actually happens, which is even unbelievable to the people that were prepared for it, and it's it's still surreal. It's still an odd time to live in, but there is a certain level of comfort when you, when you work, thinking about it ahead of time, but at the same time, it's it's still just crazy. And and then when you're starting to think about well, how do I prepare for other things if they hit one top of this like the grid going down? Or is the hurricane gonna hit me on top of this? I mean, look at the tornadoes that have been hitting the Midwest, one top of them having to shelter in place, and it is just it's it gets to being an all encompassing thought process. I know that you know, from everything that we have talked about, whether you are already prepared for it or you aren't. But you want to get to that point or start working on it now. They are predicting a resurgence in the fall, and they're also predicting that it could be worse because it's going to coincide with the flu season. Anything in general that you could recommend that we haven't already talked about two people that want to try toe figure out a way to be a least a little bit prepared for that scenario.

spk_1:   55:02
Well, that's a That's a great question. Um, it's scary question, you know, it's this has been bad enough. And to think about a second wave may be interspersed with another disease that has similar symptoms. You know, we don't know if somebody's got kurono or flu or no allergies or a cold, or we don't what they've got or maybe even something new. Um, you know, who knows? So, yeah, it's a little scary. Um, I think I think it would be a great thing Gift by the fall, people had, you know, at least a couple weeks worth of long term food storage. Obviously as you can get, it starts squirreling away the toilet paper. The rule is one roll per person per week. And so if you're gonna have a six month food supply, you better have a six month TP supply toe. Wipe up your blood after eating all that food. Um,

spk_0:   55:59
so the run on toilet paper probably wasn't the worst thing in the world for the masses to go after.

spk_1:   56:04
It was weird on, but it's not the first. I was researching a little bit. Johnny Carson created a toilet paper run as a joke inadvertently in the 19 seventies. So during during, um, you know, a time of financial trouble, Um, during the gas crisis and, you know, people are lined up. He made some joke about, according to all the paper and people did it, and they want the stores out. But, you know, if you think about food people buy and you think about the real estate in a grocery store, it's just proportionate. They really should have more toilet paper for the volume of food they're selling

spk_0:   56:43
as true.

spk_1:   56:44
Don't, um and so part of that is an issue. And then, for whatever reason, like that was the thing people zeroed in on, you know, I guess I guess so many people eat fast food these days and eat at restaurants. And, you know, they don't recognize how much food they require because they're getting it from outside sources. So they don't know what a full pantry looks like anymore, But they know how much they go to the bathroom. And so I think, between the disproportionate real estate in a grocery store, uh, not offering enough toilet paper to cover the needs of the food consumed in the store and people you know used to eating out, but pooping at home. Just retail therapy. You know people were panic buying, but they didn't know what to buy. Everybody needs toilet paper that that you could at least understand.

spk_0:   57:37
There's a definitely a skill set out there over the generations that has been lost, and my hat's off to you for trying to re teach it.

spk_1:   57:48
Well, thank you. I appreciate you for trying to get people excited about it and let them know I'm here and let them know how many resource is they have.

spk_0:   57:59
Well, I definitely I definitely will put your information in the show notes. And like I said, I really appreciate the time that you have given to this. It's an interest area of mine. I'm always interested in having conversations like this. So I enjoyed this very much on I can tell you that it's it's always something. Like I said, it's a very elaborate subject. So I always like to get different perspectives, especially from an expert like yourself. Now, is there any final thought or any anything else that you would want to convey to listeners?

spk_1:   58:37
Yeah, yeah, I appreciate I appreciate this opportunity across the board, Matt Toe, You know, be able tow to take this time and and reach out to folks who may be in our feeling super confident. They're not sure what to do next. They're not sure. Um, you know what they should have done. But I would I would encourage people to think about their ancestors for just a moment. Think about all those nameless, faceless people that we'll never get to meet. But they survived all kinds of horrible things. They survive some of the some of the worst times in the world, you know, think about the people who made it through the black death in Europe. You know, any anybody that's got European ancestry, you know, those are the Those are the descendants of the survivors of the black plague. And this is this is, you know, something that wiped out half of Europe's population over over a short span of time. You know, think about the people who came to a new world internationally. We're against their will. And, you know, they survived. That would survive horrible situations and were able to make it, you know, at least long enough, toe have little people of their own and create a chain where we are their descendants. So we come from some really tough people. We really do. We have, ah gift we don't often think about or pay attention to, but we're wired up for survival. That's something that we have as a gift from our ancestors. They survived terrible hardships and really tough times, not just for decades, but for thousands of years. All across this planet. They survived throughout and they survived. They survived diseases and they survived warfare, and they survived all these different things. And so we were were coming from some pretty sturdy stock. We come from some pretty tough people, and we have a lot of gifts from our ancestors. Now, with your medical background, you understand the physiology that we've been gifted with. If you get a cut. There are many things in your body that stop the bleeding like there are all kinds of different things that just kick in automatically. You don't have to think about it or say the magic word or hit a button. Your body's built stop bleeding. If we don't get enough water, your body is built to stopped water loss. It automatically does all these things for survival, So those are just a couple of the things that your body is doing, and you're not even aware of it. But there's there's more here in the package than just physiology, as we've discussed about that, that survivor mindset, you know, that creativity, the adaptability, all the different things that we've inherited from our ancestors. These are at our disposal, these air gift that they have given us. You know, we're coming from the best and the brightest. And they made it with less supplies, less knowledge and Cirillo Internet.

spk_0:   1:2:04
So if they

spk_1:   1:2:04
made it, we can make it to.

spk_0:   1:2:07
That is an excellent final thought. Well, again, I truly appreciate the time that you have put into this. Thank you very much for lending us your expertise.

spk_1:   1:2:18
Well, it's my pleasure. And I appreciate you working with me toe. Find a format where we can make this call happen. I'm kind of a lot. I don't do technology very well. And you, uh, you went above and beyond. Thank you, sir.

spk_0:   1:2:32
Thank you. So that'll do it for this episode. I hope to see you with the next one. This is Matthew's ender and the going viral podcast. Please stay safe and stay well