Food in the future what you might have to eat during an apocalypse

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During the Event of an apocalypse, many things will change. Life as we know it will cease to exist and forever be altered. The start to the apocalypse many say has already begun. With chaotic happenings going on around the world people are becoming increasingly violent and doing heinously absurd crimes. The food of the future will not be steaks and cheeseburgers. Most likely the food of the future will either be a complex protein that is scientifically engineered to have the balance of vitamins and nutrients and amino acids needed to promote daily health, or you will be eating insects. There are those now that are certain insects will be the food of the future and are getting prepared by starting to eat these creatures now. Crickets, for example, are supposed to be rather tasty when dry roasted and kind of like crunchy crispy rice from what I've been told. The future is supposed to hold many things and the food we eat today is not one of them. The planet is running out of water, and we will no longer be able to supply the animals we eat with the water they need in order to raise them for slaughter and food. It would make more sense for us to drink the water we would give them and eat the grain that we would give them to survive. This will change the human diet considerably, and we will have to find alternative sources of protein such as nuts and insects.

 

What has always amazed me is that most people fail to understand that wild edible plants outnumber humans by the tens of thousands. For every single person there are thousands of dandelions. The dandelion is a weed that most people simply walk over and ignore or pluck and throw away. What's sad is that most people fail to understand that you can do all sorts of things with that weed. You can eat its leaves in a salad. You can make a wine from it. You dry and roast the roots and you can make a crude coffee from it. Same thing with acorns. You can do all sorts of things from them too. When you walk to any public park, along any road, near any field or next to any waterway if you learn to identify thousands upon thousands of wild edible plants they will be just waiting for you to dine on them in a survival situation. You really do NOT have to go hungry if you have wild edible plants around and if you know what to look for in open areas. The key is knowledge so study up now while time is a luxury. Tomorrow may be too late.

 

It will be depended on what type of apocalypse. Yes, in some situations we will be able to get insects for food. While it is indeed gross for a lot of cultures, in some places such as Southeast Asia some species of insects are already the local delicacy. I have seen it on TV a few years ago, when a tourist went to Indonesia he bought BBQ spider (not exactly an insect, but you got the idea what they can eat in that part of the world as of right now).

As the matter of fact, I have learned it a long time ago that insects have much higher protein content than the typical animal products (such as beef, pork, chicken, fish) we eat. I guess it is only a smart choice to eat them when they are still available in a n apocalypse. I know I would if I am forced to. It might be hard to catch those flying, jumping insects though... not without an insect net or similar tools. Digging up earthworms can be much easier since they are literally everywhere underneath us.

I'd still take fishing over trying to catch insects if I can.

Anyway, in some types of apocalypse such as another ice age, or age of inferno, or nuclear winter etc, there might not even be a lot of insects available. So, fellow survivors, you should start to save up dried insects jerky when you still can.

 

Judging from what history tells us and from other countries where people must do whatever it takes to survive from day to day, people will eat anything they can find: dead people, snakes, rats — anything they can find or kill. That's why you have to be very careful and treat everyone as a potential threat because when people are starving, they could hunt other humans, you could be a target.

 

I think if you're hungry enough you'll eat anything and what we think we wouldn't want to eat now could possibly become just a normal part of our diets. There are a lot of things we eat now which when you think about it are pretty gross, I love pork scratchings which are just deep fried bits of pig skin.

 

As others have stated, people just don't realize what can be used as food most of the time. Humans were first hunters and gatherers. We foraged, scavenged and fought to maintain a balanced diet. If SHTF then we'd just have to return to that lifestyle. But we'd hopefully be better at it since we're smarter than cavemen (or so I hope).

Plus, now with agricultural advancements, growing your own food isn't that much of an issue. You could at least grow enough food for make a stash, and then from there use nature to your advantage. Of course, for people in areas where pavement is more prominent than trees and grass, they'd probably be hard-pressed to find natural sources of sustenance.

 

I think you would be right, but a vegan diet would be ideal. In this situation eating nut's beans and other vegetation makes sense. If we don't want to give what little water we have to animals give it to the plants. The thing about most vegetables is they supply some water and they have seeds that can be replanted. Lettuce leaves grow right back after you take them off and lettuce is made up of over 90% water. Nut's and beans are great protein also.

 

Good points, I eat a plant based diet but doubt I could maintain it in a crisis situation. Without the variety we currently have access to it may become necessary to incorporate some animal protein to guarantee a wide range of nutrients. Many native cultures ate insects, snails etc for this reason.

 

I do not think we are smarter than cavemen in the term of brainpower... at least not smarter than when the cavemen were already the "modern humans". On the other hand, we have some advantages and disadvantages compare to them. We have more accumulated knowledge from thousands years of human history. We can probably "upgrade" ourselves from hunters and gatherers to farmers when we have the chance. Cavemen did not have such knowledge. But they do have an edge on us in experience. At least they have more experience living in the wild than most of us. They are better hunters, and they can take much more hardship than most of us can ever dream of.

Vegan diet is hard to sustain a human unless you can somehow make your protein intake "complete".
There are 9 essential amino acid we humans can't produce. We have to get them from food sources. Any food source with all 9 of these essential amino acid is called "complete protein". All animal products have complete protein. While most plant based food are incomplete. The only complete protein from plant base food is soy beans, and quinoa. Sure, you might combine different "incomplete" protein into complete protein, such as when you put peanut butter on your whole wheat bread, but I doubt either will come by easy in an apocalypse situation. You certainly can't get your share of complete protein by eating lettuce or cucumber. It is much easier just to hunt some animals when you have the chance.

 

It is important to stock up on food now so that life will be easier after a disaster occurs. After your food source from your stock drains, you can hunt grow and gather food. You can find various roots, mushrooms, and berries to eat. It is important you study beforehand which ones are poisonous. Besides that, be prepared to hunt and fish for your food.

 

I will admit like most folks , I have become lazy and simply go to a store to purchase most of my food . However my entire life part of my and my families diet has been taken from the wild . Some periods of my life I have depended on wild forged food more than others . I just can not see myself being in such dire and desperate situation as to have to eat insects . I can simply forge wild food better than that .

 

For me, food is an easy thing. I will eat almost anything and like most of it. It helps a lot that I live in a place that has plenty of rain without being a constant problem. The winters here are mild and you can garden or just gather year around if you know what there is available that is eatable. If a large percentage of the population dies off the survivors here will have no problems feeding themselves. We are the top of the food chain, have fairly decent weather year around here and about the only danger we will have to face is other predatory humans.

 

Good morning TexDanm,

Do factor in "if a large percentage of the population dies off..." they must be rapidly buried or disease sets in. Key terms are epidemic and pandemic.

If predatory humans arrive on scene, they'd be infected and contagious. Virginia has a cache program for morgue trailers for the obvious reasons. The weak link is skilled personnel to work the trailers. Virginia is lacking a strong emergency response program because the public sector is already "infected" with the unskilled. Virginia is one of the better prepared states.

Don't mean to be too negative; only pragmatic in addressing the food scenario.

 

And this is the chicken and the egg problem. Fast burn event, huge die off -- Now who is going to be around to deal with the dead? Slow burn and it is a VZ event. Food water and shelter, driving force, disease will take a back stage and just sneak up on the survivors. As Lonewolf pointed out-- mass graves but who digs them and with what?

 

There will be a "nasty" period of time while the bodies are either gathered and disposed of or left to nature. The vultures and dogs will eat well for a while no doubt. The survivors will have many things better to do than deal with the dead other than their loved ones.

Once things settle I don't think that food will be much of an issue in most places. Without people, there will be little to control the numbers of animals. Some domestic critters like chickens won't do well without people to protect them but most of the cattle in Texas will do fine as will the goats. The wild animals will probably overpopulate for a while since people have killed most of the natural predators. It will take a while for a new balance and a new ecosystem to establish itself. I can envision dog packs being a problem until people calm that down by killing most of them. Dogs and cats could be the new meat in lots of urban areas. There just isn't a lot of wildlife in the suburbs.

 

Good morning TexDanm,

Actually, survivors dealing with the dead will be the primary survival issue governing all else to include nurishment and coffee breaks.

Currently, all wild mammals in eastern Virginia are deemed rabid. I'm sure this public health fiat doctrine used in other areas besides eastern Virginia. Once the rabid bats infect the roving dogs, ... then, yes, "dog packs being a problem".

We can either have a bake sale or chip in for a large Cat tractor to bury the dead or build a boat for a voyage to Devon, UK or the South Shetland Islands. Back to realistic matters: it is disease determining civilization so instead of financing a Cat earth-mover, shovels or even better: morgue and burial plans under guidance of public health authorities for disease prevention.

My commentary above is for natural SHTF matters. Nation-state conflicts with bio-warfare ?! I can either be content that I lived longer than Nelson Rockefeller or just plan to party. Pass the cricket gumbo and cinnamon rolls please..............