Between 1500 and 1800, it has been estimated that scurvy killed at least two million sailors.[20] Jonathan Lamb wrote: "In 1499, Vasco da Gama lost 116 of his crew of 170; In 1520, Magellan lost 208 out of 230;...all mainly to scurvy." - Wikipedia
Scurvy is a mean kiling machine. As most people know, the simple cure is vitamin C. What most people dont know is that Vitamin C is one of the most, if not the most, sensative nutriants. As preppers we take calories into account. Sailors basically did the same thing, and then died of scurvy.
With that said, what is a calorie? A calorie is also know as a kcal, or a measure of energy in the form of heat. It is used to measure how much energy is transfered into your body from the consumed food after digestion. Technically, you could measure joules in calories, but no one really does that any more. Here is the tricky part.
So if calories are simply the measurment of the energy, then what are you actually eating, and does it matter?
The main substances that provide calories are in this order, fats, ethanol, proteins, carbohydrates, organic acids, polyols (sugar, sweeteners), and fiber. So if you are prepping based on calories.... forget the beans with all the protein... get BOOZ! Just joking... obviously booz will not sustain you as well as beans. That is the point I am trying to make. Instead of focusing on calories, a measurement of energy, it is probably a better choice to break down the storage into nutrients. This way, you will have your vitamin C (which is not even counted in calories as it is so small) and other vitamins. Or... you can prep for calories and have a shelf full of ethanol, up to you, haha.
Back to the sailors. They had plenty of "calories" or energy conversion from food, but it was only in a few forms and had limited nutrients. Imagine putting gas in the tank but NEVER changing the oil.
I am sure there are plenty of people on here that are prepped for nutrients.
I am curious as to how everyone has prepped for this issue, and if they feel confident enough with their preps, though they live in Canada where vitamin C is much harder to find.
Dont get the SCURVY!!!
When talking about vitamin C in a SHTF scenario, this is when knowledge of wild foraging and food growing skills comes in. In a true SHTF situation, the citrus fruit isn't going to be rolling in on the trucks anymore. You have to know local sources of it. Rose hips are one. They are chalk FULL of vit C, more than citrus. Parsley is also loaded with it and also has a greater concentration than citrus. These are the things people need to know when the SHTF. Food, water, and supplies are great in the short term, but in the long term it is the skills that will save lives.
Don't forget Sauerkraut and other fermented veggies.
Most cold hardy crops have plenty of Vitamin C, kale, collards, cabbage, brussels sprouts. Most berries also have leaves rich in C.
In the dead of winter you can easily get enough from a tea of white cedar or pine needles, pour off the floating oils after steeping.
Most cold hardy crops have plenty of Vitamin C, kale, collards, cabbage, brussels sprouts. Most berries also have leaves rich in C.
In the dead of winter you can easily get enough from a tea of white cedar or pine needles, pour off the floating oils after steeping.
The pine needles are my favorite. Everyone once in a while I will make a nice pine tea from the tree outside of our home. I read online that chewing them is a great way to get direct vit C in the wild, instead of tea (as boiling kills much of the C). Dont do it! Tasted like sour hell and tongue eventually went numb, haha.
Im no nutritionist but you will get V-C from pretty much every fruit and veggie. As I suspect there will end up being a lot of unintended vegetarians suddenly realising their little garden plot is the only source of reliable food, V-C might not be a problem. There is still about 50 squashes left in the pantry. Now this gets a bit tricky for the Inuit up north that relied almost entirely on meat. They got their V-C through animal Livers. This was pretty normal for hunting tribes. When an animal was hunted, every one was pretty under nourished so as soon as the animal was killed, they would immediately cut out the liver and it would be eaten before anything else got done.
Worst case scenario, living underground off your stores in a nuclear waist land...brings you right back to beans. Sprouting them and most other seed provides , guess what? V-C. This is where I admit that I haven't had the best results sprouting beans in the winter so I have to keep experimenting to figure out what I am doing wrong. Its a good reminder for me to get back on that little problem tomorrow.
I have a Tactical Harness and I have a Tool Belt. The Tool Belt is more Useful.
A few tips about vitamin c...
1 naval orange has about 83 mg of vitamin c which has been touted as enough for 1 day.
Here are some other fruits and veggies, easily grown in our climate that have even more than that.
Green Pepper (1 cup chopped) - 120 mg
Red Pepper (1 cup chopped) - 190 mg
Broccoli (148 g serving) - 132 mg
Kale (2 cups chopped) - 160 mg
Cauliflower (4 inch head) - 127 mg
Strawberries (147 g serving) - 86 mg
Note - the body will not store vitamin c. it will expel whatever it does not use quickly, which is why daily doses are recommended.
Oh ya, vitamin c is also a mild diuretic.
I honestly don't know much about it. But I heard that in the Klondike gold rush lemons were HUGE. Does lemon juice count? I would stockpile concentrated lemon juice, and take a tablespoon of lemon juice a day during the winter. Does this make sense?
Well, you might get lucky with lemon juice, but the stuff I store to help boost acid levels for water bath canning is no good for vitamin c.
Read the label...many will say "not a significant source of..."
In the case of mine (Realemon) vitamin c is on that list.
My advice would be to grow some veggies or fruit high in vitamin c and dehydrate them after saving the seeds to grow more.
A few tips about vitamin c...
1 naval orange has about 83 mg of vitamin c which has been touted as enough for 1 day.
Here are some other fruits and veggies, easily grown in our climate that have even more than that.
Green Pepper (1 cup chopped) - 120 mg
Red Pepper (1 cup chopped) - 190 mg
Broccoli (148 g serving) - 132 mg
Kale (2 cups chopped) - 160 mg
Cauliflower (4 inch head) - 127 mg
Strawberries (147 g serving) - 86 mg
Note - the body will not store vitamin c. it will expel whatever it does not use quickly, which is why daily doses are recommended.
Oh ya, vitamin c is also a mild diuretic.
I was curious about this daily recommended dose of Vit C before so a couple of years ago I looked it up. We are one of the few mammals that do not make our own. The animals whose bodies do make it make thousands and even tens of thousands of mg per day, which is far off of the meager 83 mg recommended for humans. When I am on the ball with supplementing, I take 4000-5000 mg per day and have taken more than that with no ill effects. If you take too much, you will have some diarrhea, that is all, but you would have to take a LOT to get to that point. I fully believe I have been severely deficient in Vit C in the past and that many people most likely are on a daily basis.
I was curious about this daily recommended dose of Vit C before so a couple of years ago I looked it up. We are one of the few mammals that do not make our own. The animals whose bodies do make it make thousands and even tens of thousands of mg per day, which is far off of the meager 83 mg recommended for humans. When I am on the ball with supplementing, I take 4000-5000 mg per day and have taken more than that with no ill effects. If you take too much, you will have some diarrhea, that is all, but you would have to take a LOT to get to that point. I fully believe I have been severely deficient in Vit C in the past and that many people most likely are on a daily basis.
Interestingly enough; our genome actually has all of the genes needed to generate our own vitamin C. Somewhere in our evolution as a species the final gene in the chain to make vitamin C was turned off! There was obviously enough of the vitamin in our diets that there was an "advantage" in not generating our own. It is supposed that the energy required to keep up this redundant process was too great. You and I are caulk full of similar genes which were once vital to the species from which we evolved, but became redundant and were subsequently weeded out through natural selection.
Needs must when the devil drives.
I honestly don't know much about it. But I heard that in the Klondike gold rush lemons were HUGE. Does lemon juice count? I would stockpile concentrated lemon juice, and take a tablespoon of lemon juice a day during the winter. Does this make sense?
I'm wondering why you wouldn't stockpile a couple large bottles of multivitamins if you're going to store something. That way you get to know exactly what you're getting AND you get most of the vitamins and minerals you would need. You could probably stretch a little bit by taking one every other day or half a pill daily for example. Sounds to me like a better option that taking a spoonful of lips pucking lemon juice...
I honestly don't know much about it. But I heard that in the Klondike gold rush lemons were HUGE. Does lemon juice count? I would stockpile concentrated lemon juice, and take a tablespoon of lemon juice a day during the winter. Does this make sense?
I'm wondering why you wouldn't stockpile a couple large bottles of multivitamins if you're going to store something. That way you get to know exactly what you're getting AND you get most of the vitamins and minerals you would need. You could probably stretch a little bit by taking one every other day or half a pill daily for example. Sounds to me like a better option that taking a spoonful of lips pucking lemon juice...
I am not an expert on the topic of multivitamins, but if I recall correctly there were strong debats about the benefits, if any, of multivitamins. The argument was aimed at the extreme processing that took place during the manufacturing of the vitamins. As mentioned earlier in the posts, vitamins, especially C, are extremely sensitive to freezing, boiling, and processing of any kind. Having it stored with as little processing as possible is very important, if you are trying to preserve the C that is.
I'd think that any ISO certified companies that manufactures vitamins would have to prove hat the tablets contain at least what is advertised on the label. That would be through batch quality control. We're not talking about some obscure GNC type extract that may or may not help you lose weight, it's about basic vitamins and minerals in given volumes.
At the same time, I'm not hinting that I would rely on a multivitamins tablet as my sole source of nutrients, I would really prefer balanced nutrition, but if I was concerned about stockpiling something, that I would go for the pills instead of lemon juice as suggested.
I honestly don't know much about it. But I heard that in the Klondike gold rush lemons were HUGE. Does lemon juice count? I would stockpile concentrated lemon juice, and take a tablespoon of lemon juice a day during the winter. Does this make sense?
I'm wondering why you wouldn't stockpile a couple large bottles of multivitamins if you're going to store something. That way you get to know exactly what you're getting AND you get most of the vitamins and minerals you would need. You could probably stretch a little bit by taking one every other day or half a pill daily for example. Sounds to me like a better option that taking a spoonful of lips pucking lemon juice...
They are called vitamin supplements because they are meant to supplement the diet, not take the place of it. Yes, vitamin supplements are useful and do help us, but they cannot take the place of what we get from food (Helicopilot, I see you clarified that point in your later post). Having said that, it wouldn't hurt to have supplements stocked up for a few months, with the knowledge that if it's a long-term event, eventually those would run out. Either way, you would still need to find natural sources via your food.