Sir:
Thank you Mr. Rawles for your blog. The recent post about scouting from Louie in Ohio brought back a flood of memories for me and the scouting program of so many decades past. One such memory was from a wise Scoutmaster at the beginning of a 50 mile 6-day hike through Alpine wilderness . He stated that in 6 days we would walk out of these woods a different person than had walked in. Most of the twenty or so young men scoffed at hearing such counsel. Of course we ran out food on day four, we were responsible for allocating our food per day and we over-ate in the first two days. Yes our packs were lighter but that foolishness was soon evident.
For a group of young men in their mid teens to struggle on those last two days hungry, tired and our Scoutmaster driving us on those last 20 miles was a life changer for me. Yes we tried the ‘Living off the land approach.’ We caught plenty of those high lake Cutthroat trout. No matter how many we ate we were still famished. To this day I still carry a MRE packed with my First Aid kit when I travel.
This brings me to a key point. No matter how much food storage you think you have, you don’t have enough. I cringe when I watch on YouTube when people show off their “one year supply” of food. At best they have half of that. I use a very simple formula: people eat three pounds of food a day, some more some less. So at 365 days you need a minimum of 1,000 pounds of food per person per year. All food weight is calculated at the time of eating. So dehydrated food would weigh much more when re-hydrated. Please stock up now when food prices are so incredibly low. To prove my point I was standing in the check-out line in my favorite restaurant supply store last month and three young ladies were pushing those flat bed carts , each were heaping with food. I had to ask the one young lady with the clipboard who were they feeding? She stated they were feeding a Girl Scout camp of 150 girls and 20 staff members for one week. I was astonished, I stated there is no way a bunch of girls could eat that much food in one week. She laughed and smiled and said “Oh yes they can!” The food would easily weigh down two pick-up trucks. Please stock up now. We are about to enter a life changing experience, and no you don’t have enough food. – Matt in the Evergreen State