☢️ How The Experts Are Stocking Up For The Apocalypse

Lunchbox Envy

The hosts explore the history and mechanics of survival food, ranging from ancient pemmican to modern luxury bunkers. They delve into extrem

Key takeaways

• Pemmican is an incredibly calorie-dense survival food made from dried meat and fat, traditionally used by indigenous North Americans.
• During the 1870 Siege of Paris, residents progressed from eating horses and dogs to consuming zoo animals like elephants and kangaroos.

Main topics

• Survival food and pemmican
• Historical sieges and starvation tactics

Notable quotes

The world is ending... I'm really interested to know whether this episode is going to age very well or very poorly.

Conclusion

A fascinating exploration of how humanity manages extreme scarcity thr

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) This week on Lunchbox Envy, the American government once planned to feed nuclear war survivors six tiny portions of crackers a day. Speaker 2 (0:09) A Salvadorian fisherman once survived 14 months adrift at sea by drinking turtle blood. And the Germans call their Speaker 3 (0:17) panic port stockpiles hamster keufe, literally hamster purchases. Speaker 1 (0:23) It's survival food. Speaker 1 (0:37) Hello and welcome to Lunchbox Envy. I'm Manu and I'm here with my fellow QILs, Alex and Jack. How are we hanging on? Good. Welcome to the apocalypse. Speaker 2 (0:47) It feels like a good time to be doing this episode because the world is ending. I'm really interested to know whether this episode is going to age very well or very poorly. And if you're listening in a couple of years time in the wasteland that used to be the UK, roasting your rats around your campfire. Remain indoors. And you've got so many ears now, you don't know which ones to put the headphones in. Speaker 3 (1:10) God, you can listen to so many podcasts at Speaker 2 (1:11) once. Speaker 3 (1:11) All your mutations, yeah. Speaker 1 (1:13) I'd have like a true crime and then a funny one at the same time. Sorry, the Speaker 3 (1:17) world has ended and you're still listening to true crime. Yeah, why Speaker 2 (1:20) not? Speaker 3 (1:21) Survival food is a bit of a wide topic, but I will be covering large scale survival, you know, how populations survive and how besieged cities survive. Speaker 2 (1:31) Okay. I'm going to be talking about like individual survival stories, so like polar exp... Explorations and stuff. Speaker 1 (1:36) Nice. I love it. And I'm going to be looking at bunkers. Bunkers. We're going deep. Deep in the bunker. Speaker 2 (1:42) Awesome. Are you guys preppers? Do you prep? As in, obviously, I hope you prep for this episode and you've got lots of great facts. Speaker 1 (1:50) Wildly underprepped. Do you have Speaker 2 (1:50) food stocks? Do you have a basement full of food? No, I was actually quite embarrassed to realise I've probably got a week's worth of food. That's pretty good. Speaker 1 (1:59) That's quite good, Speaker 2 (1:59) isn't it? Because we've spoken in other episodes about how if you live somewhere like London, there's like two days worth of food in the system. So if everything sort of collapses, the shops are going to empty pretty quickly. Speaker 3 (2:10) I think Speaker 1 (2:11) a Speaker 3 (2:11) week's pretty good. I Speaker 2 (2:11) do Speaker 3 (2:11) have a lot of pasta. But the amount I eat, I'd have to really, you know, turn down the dial. A Speaker 2 (2:17) week's worth for a normal person is one meal for Jack. A week's worth of tour for my daughter, but like a day's worth for me. Jack's writing his like starvation diary. He's like, I only had three bowls of rice. Speaker 1 (2:28) How about you, Alex? Speaker 2 (2:29) I have actually, I've stocked Speaker 1 (2:30) up Speaker 2 (2:30) on a few bottles of water because I think that's the thing. that kind of you need the most urgently. One thing I do have is a large stack of fully stamped caffeinarial loyalty cards, which I was like, I don't have any cash, but if the cash system collapses, then, you know, I reckon that will actually be the new goal. Speaker 1 (2:48) I was actually raised a prepper. Speaker 2 (2:51) Really? Speaker 1 (2:52) Yeah, yeah. So my parents are part of a kind of very small community of Muslims, pretty hippie, also very superstitious. Where was this? So this was in... Wastonbury and it's quite a niche community and it attracts a lot of very creative, wavy people very into their conspiracy theories and one of the things they got really excited and scared about was The End of the World which was supposed to come I think it was like 2012 or 2014 Was Speaker 2 (3:21) it the Mayan thing? Well Speaker 1 (3:22) I was suspiciously around at that same time. Speaker 2 (3:26) Also there was a movie called 2012 that was about The End of the World did they just get confused and see the posters? We did Speaker 1 (3:30) watch that a lot as well. Speaker 2 (3:32) But Speaker 1 (3:33) people got really into prepping. So my parents, and they still have this, they have their whole food stock. I think it's at least like a month's worth of food in their garage, which they replenish regularly. And we were taught, like, growing up, it was suggested that I learn how to use a bow and arrow for Speaker 2 (3:50) the war. Speaker 1 (3:51) To go hunting? Speaker 2 (3:52) Yeah, no, no, for the war, Speaker 1 (3:53) to fight, like, all of this stuff. Speaker 2 (3:56) I actually can't imagine in a sort of end-of-the-world wasteland scenario, Manu will have just transformed like a Pokemon into this, like, Katniss Everdeen style. I Speaker 1 (4:05) can just picture you Speaker 2 (4:05) putting blood on your cheeks like that, like war cry. Like a war cry, yeah. Speaker 1 (4:09) But no, so I genuinely thought the world was going to end in 2014. That's Speaker 3 (4:12) crazy. Speaker 1 (4:12) Oh, that is Speaker 2 (4:13) quite worrying. Yeah. Speaker 3 (4:14) There's a thing called the preparedness paradox, whereby if you're well prepared for something like on a national scale, Speaker 2 (4:21) and Speaker 3 (4:21) then it doesn't happen, everyone's like, well, we don't need this anymore. So it's a bit like Y2K. Everyone was worried about the millennium bug in the late 90s and it like crashing the Speaker 2 (4:29) world's computers and Speaker 3 (4:30) planes would fall out Speaker 2 (4:31) of the sky. Because everything was running off computers, just about, because it was the end of the 90s. And then everyone was really worried that the computer clocks were going to tip over from 1999 to... Big computers didn't know what. I think the internal Speaker 3 (4:44) date format was only two digits for the year. So it would Speaker 2 (4:47) go Speaker 3 (4:47) from 99 to 00. So Speaker 2 (4:48) it Speaker 3 (4:48) would go Speaker 2 (4:48) from Speaker 3 (4:48) 99 back to 00. And there were a few situations that are quite humorous. Like there were a few Italian prisoners that had like 100 years added to their sentence. Oh, no. They'd been there since the year 1900. And I think there was some library fines that went up enormously because it suddenly looked like they'd sort of rented the book of Speaker 2 (5:08) the year 1900. Speaker 3 (5:08) Those are the two opposite ends of the Japanese spectrum there. That's true. Speaker 2 (5:12) If it were worth Speaker 1 (5:13) it, Speaker 2 (5:13) it was the prison library. And you're like, don't let your art teacher pay the fine after 150 years in prison. Anyway, but the point was that it didn't happen, but not because it was overblown. Exactly. It's Speaker 3 (5:23) because lots of computer programmers and IT technicians spent a lot of time making sure that nothing really serious went wrong. And Speaker 2 (5:30) when Speaker 3 (5:30) we look back on it, we're like, well, that was all a fuss over nothing. But it's actually because there Speaker 2 (5:35) were loads of dedicated engineers who worked very hard to make sure it wasn't a big problem. But do your parents still... prepare even though the world hasn't ended they Speaker 1 (5:43) still have a lot of beans in their garage like a lot of beans Speaker 2 (5:47) because like if anything does ever happen That is going to be the place to be. Well, that's the thing. Speaker 1 (5:51) Is there actual Speaker 2 (5:52) advice out there? Speaker 1 (5:53) Oh, there's so much advice. Is it all Speaker 2 (5:56) from crazy people in America, though? No, Speaker 1 (5:57) it's actually from the British government. I'm Speaker 2 (6:00) not following the government. I mean, the government told me it was a good idea to get a student loan. I'm not doing anything they tell me. Barely survived as it is on their instructions. So Speaker 1 (6:08) the UK government has recommended you get all sorts of kit together. So not necessarily just food items. There's things like batteries. Portable power banks. Of course, of course. Wind-up radios. And then food-wise, the first thing is water. Still on sparkling. Ooh, great question. Just one of them waiting. You know you're in a nice bunker when you have that approach. Still on sparkling. And then non-perishable food items. So stuff like... Tins Speaker 3 (6:32) and Speaker 1 (6:32) cans. Lots of tins and cans. Lots of dried foods. I don't have the space to Speaker 3 (6:36) prep. I'm a millennial who's buying... Yeah, where the hell are we Speaker 2 (6:39) going Speaker 3 (6:39) to keep this Speaker 2 (6:40) stuff? Speaker 3 (6:40) Get Speaker 2 (6:40) on the Speaker 3 (6:40) posse ladder in London. Let me Speaker 1 (6:41) get in a shiny flat. I think if you... go to Ikea they must have like prepping storage solutions for the like small city like a Speaker 3 (6:50) fold up cupboard yeah like a ceiling like Speaker 1 (6:52) Kaboom or something like in Speaker 3 (6:55) Sweden yeah Speaker 1 (6:56) another bit of professional advice Professor Sarah Bridle at the University of York she says buy foods you'd actually eat because I'm worried I'd do this I'd buy all of the kind of balanced nutritional like all of your 10 in a day or whatever. And then you just start eating the things that you like out of the storage. Yeah, you just eat all the frankfurters. And you've just got, like, lentils. But Speaker 2 (7:21) that would be what makes me survive because then I'm only going to eat that when I'm really hungry. Whereas if I buy loads of, like, I don't know, like, Muller fruit corners, then they'll be gone in a day. Speaker 1 (7:30) Okay. One bit of advice, which is in bold and was absolutely genius. Oh, Speaker 2 (7:35) okay. Tin Speaker 1 (7:37) opener. Speaker 2 (7:38) Oh, my God. Can you imagine if you lock the door? Guys, we've got years. Speaker 1 (7:46) So Speaker 2 (7:47) I actually looked up some other advice in case you do forget your tin opener. And apparently you can open a can with a spoon. What? Yeah. So the advice is I thought, I've got a can with me and I have Speaker 3 (8:01) a Speaker 2 (8:01) spoon with me. Apparently the way to do it is I'm rubbing the spoon. I know this probably sounds way more suggestive on my face. Yeah, you're kind of like wearing down the seam, I guess. I guess you are. No way. And it is kind of, I mean, it is making it. I'm not getting it. I think it would take a while. But look, it's wearing the metal out. The spoon's quite sharp now. You get a ship Speaker 1 (8:25) and some bees. Speaker 2 (8:26) Yeah, if you could, you'd have a tin opener, scrape the spoon against the tin until the spoon's really sharp and then you kill whoever else you're living with and you eat them instead. And Speaker 1 (8:34) then you eat them. Speaker 1 (8:41) OK, it is time for our first Lunchbox and today that is yours, Jack. Speaker 3 (8:45) I have brought you guys some indigenous North American pemmican. Speaker 3 (8:52) Pemmican is an ancient food native to North America. Although there's a theory that along with the North American population, it came over the Bering Strait. So it might have originated in Asia. But as far as we know, it's native to an indigenous American culture, thousands of years old. And it comes from a word meaning bone grease. Speaker 1 (9:13) Yeah, it looks like it. Good start. Speaker 3 (9:16) But basically, it's just dried meat preserved in fat. And because it's so carefully dried, the meat, and fat itself can last for a long time. It's traditionally like bison fat or chicken fat even or duck fat. It can last for decades. And so not only is it shelf stable, predates shells. I was going to say, do they have shells by then? Rock stable. But it's also one of the most efficient ways to get calories into... a bag basically it's