Category: Health and Fitness

Preparing Your Body and Mind, by Michael P.

The Body There are two primary tools used to in every situation ever encountered; the mind and the body. Despite the body being such a crucial aspect of survivability, preparing the body for the unknown remains one of the least addressed topics in survival books and on-line forums. It is also one of the areas of survival that necessitates the most maintenance, and requires the most amount of dedication and consistency. Though most survival manuals fail to address the importance of preparing the body, the fact remains that there are no military units in the world that do not have …


The Bugs No One Talks About, by J.T.

Parasites effect a vast number of the world’s population, and they are seen as directly decreasing the productivity of people, and increasing the morbidity/mortality of affected persons.  I have witnessed numerous children afflicted with taeniasis (tapeworm), ascariasis (roundworm), and giardiasis while on a medical mission trip to a remote region in Peru.  The burden of parasitic infections in these children was immense and contributed to stunted growth, fatigue, and likely cognitive delays.  Though in North America we typically do not worry about parasitic diseases, this is only a recent phenomenon that has occurred in the past 60 to 80 years.  …


Letter Re: Gluten Free Foods at COSTCO

Dear Mr. Rawles, I follow you via RSS and have purchases your past archives from Amazon. Following the advice in your blog, I just got done on COSTCO.com purchasing some gluten free meal kits. I find it amazing they have these for people with food allergies and yet at rock bottom prices (even with the non-member surcharge.) I will sleep much better at night for my wife, 17 month old daughter and myself. God Bless you and thank you for your wealth of resources! Thanks! – Andy P. JWR Replies: As I highlighted in the Rawles Gets You Ready Preparedness …


Letter Re: You’ll Need a Fine-Tooth Comb

Hello James, One item that is often overlooked in preparing for a collapse situation – where hair and beards can grow long and so can the interval between showers, is the humble nit and lice comb. So take a look at the Shantys nit and lice comb, and watch their video. (I have no connection whatsoever with this company)   Best Regards, – Andre D. JWR Replies: Reviewing the history of the 20th Century, one could summarize: “War is hell, but it is also lousy.” Whenever people live in close confines, the spread of lice increases dramatically. Just imagine your …


The Constipated Hordes at TEOTWAWKI: A Pharmacologic Strategy, by Anon, M.D.

In a situation that will be characterized by, among other things, gutted pharmacies and unmanned hospitals, the remaining population at TEOTWAWKI will be required to provide their own medical care and to meet their own pharmacologic needs.  While there have been numerous helpful articles outlining the importance of antibiotics in the context of TEOTWAWKI there has been very little addressing the importance of an overall pharmacologic strategy. Some of you—especially those who take daily prescription medication—have likely considered this problem before.  But perhaps you are young and healthy, unburdened by any medical diagnosis.  There should still be a pharmacologic component …


Letter Re: Faraday Caging a Bed?

Mr. Rawles, My child is sick. I need to build a Faraday cage to surround my child’s bed. We are in a second floor apartment. Can I use wood and chicken wire? To create a ground [for the cage], can I: Take an extension cord, tear out the double prong but leave the ground post, cut off the opposite end attach the wires to the wire cage. Would that work? Thank You, – M.R. JWR Replies: I will pray for you and your child. Faraday cages have no positive health effects for humans unless for some very unlikely reason that …


850 Miles in 27 Weeks: Experience With Long Distance Walking, by Erik M.

Do you plan to walk to your retreat?  Then read this first. For those who like me, are nearing or over 50 years old and out of shape after years of working a desk and who think that walking or biking to a retreat is an option for them, let me tell you about the last 27 weeks and the 850 miles I’ve covered by walking and biking. In doing so I’m hoping that I can convince you to start now rather then waiting for a situation that forces you to do so. After all, if my retreat were 260 …


Prepping For Seniors, by Retired Rev.

I became aware of the need for prepping too late to have the advantages associated with youth.  Seniors are already dealing with issues of declining physical prowess, declining health and a growing sense of mortality.  To add prepping to the list of concerns seemed more than a bit overwhelming but given the realities of our day, prepping slowly became an unavoidable necessity as I began to understand that the economic path on which our nation is traveling is clearly becoming unsustainable and is getting worse, not better. There was also the additional concern – shared by preppers of any age …


Health, Self-Improvement and Self-Mastery: Survive to Thrive, by A.P.S.

   This article intends to uncover mechanisms to assist the reader in self-help, self-mastery, and self- improvement.  The topics covered are meant to provide discovery of self- improvement ideas, identification of some techniques to improve your life, and give the reader further tools to pursue a deeper dive into the subject.  The reader will come out of this article with an awareness of the many topics to improve their thoughts, feelings, emotions, physiology, and performance.  The article pulls from sports medicine, psychology, martial arts, health and fitness, and self-help guides.  To really master some of these topics, it is highly …


Fats and Rancidity: A Food Storage Problem, by L. Joseph Mountain

Many of the dehydrated “food storage units” available these days specify that you need a certain amount of fats or oils to supplement their unit. You probably know these units, they generally sell as “1 person, 1 year” type of packages and they contain a variety of grains, legumes, fruits and other essentials. They are generally put together with the help of nutritionists that try to deliver a certain amount of calories and essential nutrients per day. You might wonder why they don’t just include a container of oil to complete their units. Or even why we need them. Fats …


How Will We Deal with Five Epidemics at TEOTWAWKI?, by Philip J. Goscienski, M.D.

In One Second After, William Forstchen describes a cataclysmic scenario, a widespread EMP effect that is only slightly less devastating than nuclear near-annihilation. The protagonists in JWR‘s novel Patriots fare better temporarily because the physical infrastructure remains relatively intact for a few weeks after the nation’s economic collapse. In either scenario the five epidemics that are already under way in the United States give new relevance to TEOTWAWKI. Epidemic (from the Greek: among the people): prevalent and spreading rapidly among many individuals within a community at the same time; widespread. The five epidemics:             Obesity             Type 2 diabetes             …


Block Training for the Greatest Depression by JLee

The term "The Greatest Depression" comes from Gerald Celente, an economic trends forecaster.  I heard him use this term a few years ago in an interview he did on the Alex Jones Show.  Essentially, there never has been an economic recovery, but there has been a lot of unemployment and many former workers have fallen completely off of the map and are no longer counted in the Federal Unemployment Statistics.  TRILLIONS of dollars have been printed since the Economic Downturn of 2008 in which the housing bubble went bust. This write-up is predicated on the fact that over $16 Trillion …


Three Letters Re: Losing Weight, Prepper Style

Dear Sirs, I would like to address something in the recent article, Losing Weight, Prepper Style, by Caleb E. that I hope will provide some further information to your readers.   The author of the article describes an approach based largely on the theory that calorie intake/outtake is the root cause of modern health and obesity problems. This is an extension of the classic food pyramid we were all taught since the 70s. This is not necessarily a wrong approach, but its important to know that there is growing evidence that the underlying theory is deeply flawed; that calories aren’t the problem, but rather the types of calories.  There …


Losing Weight, Prepper Style, by Caleb E.

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional, I am not a dietician, I am not a nutritionist. I am an average, overweight guy, who happens to be a prepper and believes that, after trying numerous ways to lose weight and a great deal of reading, research, trial and error, he may have a solution to wading through the sea of dietary B.S. that many people get lost in. All those who take this advice, do so at their own risk and are encouraged to seek the advice of a medical professional first. Many of us, including survival/self-sufficiency minded people, have …


Letter Re: Warning on Canola Oil

Mr. Rawles; Yesterday I was in my local Costco store doing some shopping for my prepper pantry, and I noticed something new that Costco is selling, a vegetable oil blend. It’s labeled as “Mediterranean Blend” and is a mixture of canola, olive, and grapeseed oil. It may be attractive to value-conscious preppers, because the cost per liter is low; $2.97 a liter vs. Kirkland (Costco’s house brand) olive oil for $5.97 a liter.  Beware of this oil. According to Mary Enig, Ph.D., who is the current world authority on trans–fatty acids, Canola Oil is actually derived from the rapeseed, a …