Crypto-anarchism is a political ideology that advocates the use of cryptography and other technologies to protect individual privacy, freedom, and autonomy from state interference. Crypto-anarchists believe that by encrypting their communications and transactions, we can create a decentralized and voluntary society that is immune to censorship, surveillance, and taxation. The term crypto-anarchism was coined by Timothy C. May in his 1988 "Crypto Anarchist Manifesto", where he declared: "Crypto Anarchy is the cyberspatial realization of anarchism, transcending national boundaries and freeing individuals to make the economic arrangements they wish, consensually." May was one of the founders of the cypherpunk movement, a group of activists and hackers who promoted the use of cryptography and digital currencies to challenge the authority of governments and corporations. The cypherpunks were influenced by libertarian and anarchist thinkers such as Murray Rothbard, David
How much should I store?
Let’s start off with this basic question. The answer is…it depends. What it depends on is a number of factors, several of which should hopefully be obvious. Are there special health considerations to consider, i.e. a diabetic or celiac conditions? How many people am I storing for and what are their ages? Age is an especially important point to consider. A growing child will need about as much nourishment as an fairly active man would, if not more. Similarly, older people, especially those less active, need less.
Now, something to consider though is that, depending on the situation your activity levels may not be typical. In addition to that, your storage space needs to be considered. If you have the space to store more, then great, you can. A minimum though would be enough for one calorically dense meal per day, per person. And when I say calorically dense I’m talking somewhere in the area of 1200-1300 calories on the low end. That should be enough that, through supplementing somehow to keep people going. Again, this will vary slightly depending on activity expected. And, while speaking of activity that leads us to…
This is another question with a variable answer depending on the particulars of your situation. The point of prepping is to be ready for anything. Well, sometimes that everything is just a blizzard that keeps you cooped up in your house for a week or so. Not really a get out of Dodge scenario at the end of it. Sometimes though, that scenario is wide spread chaos and destruction. In that scenario, you may want to get the hell out of where you’re currently at (though, if we’re being honest part of your prepping plan should be to have yourself in a situation where you don’t feel the need to flee, regardless of the scenario).
Am I hunkering down, or hitting the road?
This is another question with a variable answer depending on the particulars of your situation. The point of prepping is to be ready for anything. Well, sometimes that everything is just a blizzard that keeps you cooped up in your house for a week or so. Not really a get out of Dodge scenario at the end of it. Sometimes though, that scenario is wide spread chaos and destruction. In that scenario, you may want to get the hell out of where you’re currently at (though, if we’re being honest part of your prepping plan should be to have yourself in a situation where you don’t feel the need to flee, regardless of the scenario).
Now, if you’re thinking you might have to leave, well then storing far more supplies than you can carry with you is counter productive so you need to consider how much room you’ll have to bring some with you (and you’ll want to bring some at least) and plan around that. This does become a very difficult question to consider since, depending on the emergency that causes you to dip in to your stores, the reaction could be quite different. And obviously prepping multiple times is redundant. So, to that end, I suggest going to the old standby for the prepper. Prep like you were prepping for the zombie apocalypse. If you’re ready for that, you’re ready for anything after all…quite literally.
What should I store though?
Okay, now we’re to the real meat of the issue, literally and figuratively. Now, I’m not going to suggest any specific products for this simple reason, there’s too damn many options! And isn’t that a wonderful problem to have though? What I am going to discuss here is the basics. So let’s get in to that in some depth.
Nutrition
When making any form of food plan, whether it’s a food plan for daily use or emergency use, nutrition should be your first consideration. After all, if you load up on cheap shit but become malnourished and ill from it, does it matter if you’ve got a shit load of it? Not really. So, as with most things, a balance of sorts is a good thing here.
Additionally, unless you have an underlying health condition preventing it, toss most alternate diets out the window. If it’s a do or die time, you can’t be too picky about eating carbs or vegetables or whatever you’ve cut out of your diet. Now, if you have been without certain things for a long time you’ll want to be careful about reintroducing them, at least for the short term. Gut flora will need time to readjust to the different intake. I also say having some variety will be good for you on the micro nutrition level.
The downside to most long term storage methods, especially shelf stable methods, is the degradation of vitamin content, mineral content largely remains unaffected. Especially when you consider that the water soluble (and thus heat sensitive) vitamins are largely concerned with the immune system, body system repair & energy usage - they’re pretty damn important to not become deficient in. For that reason, if nothing else, a more balanced diet becomes useful.
Additionally, the high concentrations of carbohydrates (another food product commonly removed from a person’s diet) are useful for two reasons. First, the very reason many people cut them out becomes very useful in a long-term survival situation, they convert easily to stored fat giving your body a readily accessible energy supply in time of want. Secondly, the ease of digestion of carbohydrates gives a more immediate energy boost, useful in a trying time. So those are all things to consider when building your stockpile.
Now, with all of that said, I do still suggest building your stockpile in the following way on a macronutrient level, focus on fats, with a then even split between carbs and proteins. That can be more difficult to do with shelf stable items, but it is still doable. And this is becomes even easier if you can at home or dehydrate things yourself, etc. There are recipes out there for home canned items and, as time goes on, I’ll be exploring more of that myself with a focus on higher energy items (while still maintaining a taste quality I hope you’ve come to expect from my recipes).
This piece was excerpted from the agorist cooking blog, The Stateless Cook. Read the full article here and follow the author on Twitter here.
This piece was excerpted from the agorist cooking blog, The Stateless Cook. Read the full article here and follow the author on Twitter here.
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