Today was Day 19 for my test of Mountain House food packets as emergency food, The Thirty Day SHTF Test Diet. Lots of preppers recommend storing food for a disaster; this series tests it out. As detailed earlier, this diet has turned into a weight-loss diet too.
Although it took a stretch of insomnia last night, I've managed to shake off the slump. It may have been seasonal, or stress due to me breaking away from the diet and then going back on, but I can rule out health effects from the diet itself. A big help was getting out and going to a meetup - which proved to have a really pleasant surprise. Overall, it looks like I got a case of the "February blahs" and needed new activities to shake myself out of it.
Today's Meals
The breakfast was the Scrambled Eggs with Ham and Peppers:
Confirming that yesterday's crunchy berries was an outlier, this one reconstituted normally after I followed the instructions.
Oddly enough, I ate it at 3 AM. Not being able to sleep, I front-loaded it into my stomach as a post-midnight snack. It did the trick. Up at a little after 11 AM, and a normal schedule.
The dinner was Rice and Chicken, one of the more common varieties:
As per all the dinners, two cups of boiling water, stirrings and less than ten minutes wait got it reconstituted:
The doughy consistency shows that the rice does absorb a lot of water. When you cook rice in a rice cooker, the water disappears in part because it's absorbed; only some boils off.
There weren't many chicken chunks, but the ones that were there were large. It was spicy, in part to cover up the salt.
Speaking of salt: the Nutrition Facts boxes for both, with the eggs on the left and rice on the right:
shows that both meals are on the high side for sodium content. Mid-high in calories, both comined had enough vitamin C to get by.
The nightly weighing shows:
that I've settled into another plateau. One that might last for a few more days.
Effects, So Far:
The plateauing combined with a recovery does add to the trade off narrative: no loss without discomfort. As already noted, I did bounce back to about normal; the only oddity was pushing forward the breakfast as a go-to-sleep snack. Since the troughing was both temporary and correlates well with other explanations, it seems that the diet itself isn't strict or restricted enough to cause any major upset.
Conclusion
The quality of the food itself was back to normal, suggesting that yesterday's observations were outliers. My weight is more-or-less steady, energy is coming back, and it does look like new activities - getting out and about, as we Canadians say - does diminish going-to-ground.
In the wee hours of the morning, I was tempted to eat more than just the eggs packet. What retained me in part was this series: in a way, it's making me accountable for any lapses.
So.......
Thanks for reading.
And feel free to comment below!
Day 0
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
Day 15
Day 16
Day 17
Day 18
Day 19
Day 20
Day 21
Day 22
Day 23
Day 24
Day 25
Day 26
that's funny, sodium seems to be the one nutrient it supplies the RDA of, which is really a minimum to avoid malnutrition, it should say "excellent source of sodium" on the packet. We take it for granted but sodium is an essential nutrient.
Too much fear of heart attacks, I'll bet.
I also got to wondering what someone with hypertension would do in a SHTF
While you brought the subject up, just imagine all those people on bug pills cut off from their supply. That'll make life unpredictable.
As for hypertension, prolly worse - though some folks might see their blood pressures drop because they're hunkered down and relieved of the responsibilities/aggravations that jacked their blood pressures up.
But in most cases, worse. Just imagine being cut off from the world. I can see a lot of younger people's BPs going sky-high as a result. Worry and stewing in one's own juice would jack up others'.
you've inspired me to at some point write my own prepping philosophy into a post.
Good! Go for it.
Good to see that the food went back to normal. No more crunchy berries.....🤦♀️😮😂😁😂😂 On a different note how did the meet up go did I miss your post on that? Great post keep it up and steem on...👍😂😂👏👏👏👏👏👏
Thanks once again for stopping in. :) Yep, things are back to normal.
As for the meetup, I posted about it here. Turns out, I had a surprise encounter that really had me appreciating what Steemit brings to the world.
Thanks as always @nxtblg, really interesting to see how this goes. Have you noticed it having any effect on you in terms of your energy? I know that when I don't eat much fruit I become quite exhausted for example, has anything like this happened to you?
It might have, but it's hard to tease apart from the novelty/boredom factor and seasonal influences. Suffice to say whatever difficulties I have are temporary: I bounce back from them, all the while on the same diet.
Thanks for your comment. Steem on!
Does taste good?
It was very simple and good quality, very useful.
Thanks for sharing.
Yes, it does. Thanks for asking.
Thank you too , very good.
The eggs actually look pretty good!
good experiment! i got like a month of reserve food. beans were ok but i didnt try other stuff yet
Reserving food is a good idea, in part because it not only protects you from a disaster but also from a "personal-finance disaster."
Myself, I've stored a lot of basic foodstuffs and eat them. The Mountain House food, I bought specifically for the test. Basic food, although sometimes blah-ey, is cheap and many kinds store well.
Beans make for a nice ingredient. I've added beans, canned vegetables, and a single cut-up wiener to cooked rice in a frying pan. With some butter and a bit of salt, it makes for a good meal.
Another way to use beans is "beans pizza."