Is prepping stupid?

[nageov3t]

Most ramen goes bad after about five years or so. Ask me how I know. D:

that's interesting.

like rice, I'd assume dry, uncooked pasta would basically have a shelf life of infinity as long as it was properly stored and kept pest-free.

 

[blankslate]

Being prepared isn't stupid but if you're motivation is the zombie apocalypse, the upcoming race war, invasion by the U.S.S... erm China(?), or the U.N. black helicopter society... then you're a nutcase.

ok maybe not about the zombie apocalypse.

www.zombietools.net/tools

for when you have to cut up some bitches... and by bitches... we mean zombies.


-----

 

[madoka]

Last month I tried eating a package that had an expiration date of March 2008. I suppose it's technically "edible" but it certainly was not a good experience. It smelled really weird and that should have been the first tip off that the noodles went rancid.

I've had no problem eating ramen that expired a year or two ago. The soup base will no longer be a powder; instead it's one solid clump. The noodles taste fine though.

 

[preCRT]

Ramen noodles have a lot of oil, that causes them to turn rancid & nasty when stored too long.

 

[sourceninja]

Yea, the ramen thing was mostly a joke. But I seriously have 2 cases of MREs given to me by a friend who works as a Marine when I asked what MREs taste like. For the record...not too bad.

 

[BurnItDwn]

"preparing" for end of the world is stupid.
Having a small stash of supplies/being prepared for minor inconveniences is of course smart.

Somewhere in the middle, you cross the line into cuckoo territory.

 

[Doppel]

Ramen noodles have a lot of oil, that causes them to turn rancid & nasty when stored too long.

I didn't know they had oil but I guess that explains it. Shelf life of white rice is essentially infinity. Brown rice much less. Pasta is basically infinity also, though maybe only the white stuff.

I think it's good to just overbuy things you'll end to eat anyway like tuna. In cans they're good for many years and the price is only going to go up anyway. In a sad way it's like fighting inflation.

Honey has the longest shelf life of any food I think. It will crystalize within years, but can be liquefied again with heat and will not spoil, ever. This is applicable to most canned goods. They'll lose some nutrition over time, but effectively can be eaten decades later.

 

[PowerYoga]

When sandy happened, my folks were without power for about a month in the middle of winter. People were lining up for miles to get gas at certain gas stations (rationed to 1 gallon or $20 each) and a lot of basic necessities were in short supply, including water. But people adapted and carried on with their lives. They still went to work and whatnot.

 

[Legios]

I prepped for Hurricane sandy by buying batteries for my flashlights and a ginormus box of pop tarts, just in case. Even if though i didnt need to use my preps as it passed us by I had breakfast ready for the next few weeks.

 

[nageov3t]

When sandy happened, my folks were without power for about a month in the middle of winter. People were lining up for miles to get gas at certain gas stations (rationed to 1 gallon or $20 each) and a lot of basic necessities were in short supply, including water. But people adapted and carried on with their lives. They still went to work and whatnot.

Sandy happened in October.

it was cold for October, but even without heat, my house was more like "throw an extra blanket on top of the bed" than shivering and freezing... may have been a much different story if it happened in February and you had to deal with snow removal, ice, and all that on top of the power loss and gas shortages.

 

[Midwayman]

My sump always has at least a foot of water in it in my basement. High water table here, so I'm set for water if it comes to that. Of course you'd have to purify, etc but I'm not having to haul water back from miles away. Also tons of rabbits and squirrels, etc that I could take with my .22LR bolt. I can reliably hit something the size of a rabbit head 50yrds or so with it. Other non meat stuff if the problem, and in winter its freaking cold and even the fireplace is gas. Probably have to move into the basement and convert the water heater to a stove or something.

 

[irishScott]

You sound in good shape, but deer are irrelevant. Any game of any size would be hunted to extinction in no time at all if there was an end of society

Re. firestarters I have one of the swedish fire steel type things. Doesn't have magnesium shavings in a pile, but rather just a spark caused by running a knife down it. It is cool and very indestructible, but then a bunch of strike-anywhere matches kept water proof are probably better. Will last forever, and work on more materials than sparks.

Depends. Anything deadly enough to prompt an end to society will take a good chunk of humanity with it, and lot of whomever's left over would have no idea how to hunt, assuming they even had the materials to do so.

That said, I'd definitely make for the coast and find a good fishing spot. Fishing is a lot easier than hunting. In a good spot you'll get more calories/nutrition for a lot less effort.

 

[Legios]

Depends. Anything deadly enough to prompt an end to society will take a good chunk of humanity with it, and lot of whomever's left over would have no idea how to hunt, assuming they even had the materials to do so.

That said, I'd definitely make for the coast and find a good fishing spot. Fishing is a lot easier than hunting. In a good spot you'll get more calories/nutrition for a lot less effort.

I would say an EMP attack which is as likely to happen as anything else is a scenario where the majority is left alive to fend for itself.

 

[irishScott]

I would say an EMP attack which is as likely to happen as anything else is a scenario where the majority is left alive to fend for itself.

The effects of an EMP are temporary. All it essentially does is damage equipment and trip circuit breakers. Sure if the EMP was massive enough to take out our electrical backbone or something there would be serious complications, but society would recover within months.

Ending society would take something equivalent to a massive bird flu epidemic, asteroid hit, or the Yellowstone caldera erupting.

 

[sourceninja]

Depends. Anything deadly enough to prompt an end to society will take a good chunk of humanity with it, and lot of whomever's left over would have no idea how to hunt, assuming they even had the materials to do so.

That said, I'd definitely make for the coast and find a good fishing spot. Fishing is a lot easier than hunting. In a good spot you'll get more calories/nutrition for a lot less effort.

Worst case you can always use your guns to take the food of other humans. I mean we are talking worst case, survival of the fittest type situation.

 

[Train]

I would say an EMP attack which is as likely to happen as anything else is a scenario where the majority is left alive to fend for itself.

What's the max effective radius of an EMP blast? I've always thought an EMP could at most knock out a single city.

If so, someone attacking the USA would require thousands of EMP's spread across the country to do significant damage.

Seems more likely a solar flair would fry the grid.

 

[Doppel]

Sandy happened in October.

it was cold for October, but even without heat, my house was more like "throw an extra blanket on top of the bed" than shivering and freezing... may have been a much different story if it happened in February and you had to deal with snow removal, ice, and all that on top of the power loss and gas shortages.

Feb would have sucked, and it would also be different if the power outages had affected multiple large cities at the same time, then emergency response is spread out very thinly. Our reliance on the grid is sacrosanct and its upset causes immediate issues. Considering so many people think the grid is not terribly robust I think it is worth considering a real possibility of extended power outages affecting millions of people, and how to deal with it.

Fishing is a lot easier than hunting. In a good spot you'll get more calories/nutrition for a lot less effort.

Probably true. Problem with being on open water in such a scenario is you're extremely visible.

Ending society would take something equivalent to a massive bird flu epidemic, asteroid hit, or the Yellowstone caldera erupting.

Agree and I really have a hard time even seeing how a biological pandemic would take out humanity at this point. We can see from all the various outbreaks of various flus that CDC and equivalent are on it like a fat kid on smarties. If you really had some crazy The Stand type thing going out of control, the news would be hammering down 24/7 for people to stay in their homes, and quarantines I think would deal with the issue fairly effectively, while national guard or similar move around issuing food, so as to limit spread until those who have it die out and then we can all get back to life. Other than a fast-acting zombie plague (and it has to result in fast zombies, not the idiot walking dead kind, which pose zero threat), I think we're ok, and zombie plague seems unlikely

 

[Doppel]

What's the max effective radius of an EMP blast? I've always thought an EMP could at most knock out a single city.

If so, someone attacking the USA would require thousands of EMP's spread across the country to do significant damage.

Seems more likely a solar flair would fry the grid.

The gov has researched it and I recall perusing some white paper issued to congress by some US EMP group. My recollection is that it's really not a terribly huge concern. You'll be able to find some people who think that North Korea can now release an EMP that takes out the US electrical system, but it's total nonsense. I think that there was some record solar flare a hundred years ago (?) though that, if it happened today, is generally agreed it would cause substantial blackouts, and it has something like a 5% chance of happening in any given decade (i.e. pretty good odds, really). My memory is fuzzy, though, and probably a convolution of actual facts and also total rubbish I read online or see people spouting on doomsday preppers, so don't take my word as gospel.

 

[Legios]

What's the max effective radius of an EMP blast? I've always thought an EMP could at most knock out a single city.

If so, someone attacking the USA would require thousands of EMP's spread across the country to do significant damage.

Seems more likely a solar flair would fry the grid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_electromagnetic_pulse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_K_Project



The worst effects of a Soviet high altitude test were from the electromagnetic pulse of the nuclear test on 22 October 1962 (during the Cuban missile crisis). In that Operation K high altitude test, a 300 kiloton missile-warhead detonated west of Dzhezkazgan (also called Zhezqazghan) at an altitude of 290 km (180 mi).
The Soviet scientists instrumented a 570-kilometer (350 mi) section of telephone line in the area that they expected to be affected by the nuclear detonation in order to measure the electromagnetic pulse effects.[3] The electromagnetic pulse (EMP) fused all of the 570-kilometer monitored overhead telephone line with measured currents of 1500 to 3400 amperes during the 22 October 1962 test.[4] The monitored telephone line was divided into sub-lines of 40 to 80 kilometres (25 to 50 mi) in length, separated by repeaters. Each sub-line was protected by fuses and by gas-filled overvoltage protectors. The EMP from the 22 October (K-3) nuclear test caused all of the fuses to blow and all of the overvoltage protectors to fire in all of the sub-lines of the 570 km (350 mi) telephone line.[3] The EMP from the same test started a fire that burned down the Karaganda power plant, and shut down 1,000 km (620 mi) of shallow-buried power cables between Astana (then called Aqmola) and Almaty.[4]
The Partial Test Ban Treaty was passed the following year, ending atmospheric and exoatmospheric nuclear tests.

 

[Train]

Well shit, that's a lot bigger than I thought.

 

[ViviTheMage]

I already have guns and ammo, and if it's going to last longer then 1+ months...my water supply would be an issue.

If there was something going on, I would try to hit up the markets as fast as I could and purchase as much canned/long term food as I can.

 

[Doppel]

I already have guns and ammo, and if it's going to last longer then 1+ months...my water supply would be an issue.

If there was something going on, I would try to hit up the markets as fast as I could and purchase as much canned/long term food as I can.

Honestly that's like waiting for wild fires in the area to order fire insurance. Prepping, insurance, anything by the time you need it it's already too late to get it. A typical grocery store only has a few dozen to a few hundred items of a particular variety at any given time, and it can be exhausted quickly.

 

[nageov3t]

I've read two fictional books about life after an EMP... most of them seem to assume that the big danger will be the lack of cars/trucks leading to starvation and deaths.

 

[inf1nity]

funny story though, when my dad bought his first car he received a letter from the ministry of defense stating that his car had been "drafted" and in the event of war the car had to report to the nearest army base.

russia?

 

[clamum]

russia?

Pretty sure he's in Denmark.

To answer the OP's question, I'll agree with the posters that said the people who are prepping for a zombie-nuclear-bird-flu-apocalypse are nutters, but having say enough food/water/supplies for three weeks is very smart. Unfortunately I don't have a whole lot, though I do have a portable water filtration system (like this) and fire starter (similar to this) so at last I have *something*, haha. Guns and ammo I have as well for protection.