Today’s installment of paleo meals is oyster ceviche. I love, love, love oysters, and, as a side benefit, they are very good for you. So I bought a couple pounds of Appalachicola Bay oysters at the market and had the brilliant idea to make ceviche! Of course, since I got new batteries for my Flip, I took a video (or three):

• seafood
• lemon or lime
• garlic & onion
• tomatoes (optional)
• a bit of oil
• hot peppers
• cilantro (very important!)

As it turns out, I should have made more. My wife just about ate it all!

This may be a surprise to a few, but my whole life is not centered on primal prepping. One of my main other interests is business and economics. But sometimes the two areas serendipitously overlap.

Today’s case is an article I read over at The Economist. The article is about different groups protesting the new Italian prime minister’s decisions to break down some barriers in certain professions. While I won’t go off on a rant about how asinine all the people involved are, I did want to highlight a few sentences.

Truckers are also protesting against an omission from the liberalisation package, which contained no plans to cut motorway tolls. If they staged a five-day stoppage, it could cost the country as much as €1 billion ($1.4 billion), according to the business daily, Il Sole-24 Ore. Blockades have stopped production at car plants and caused widespread food shortages.

Trucking Protests

For the Italians, this is a real threat in the coming days. Can you imagine what would happen to our whole way of life if the trucks stopped rolling? Stores of all types are lean operations. They only carry a couple days’ worth of inventory on hand. They are re-supplied by trucks either every few days or every day. If the trucks stop rolling, that is over. Kaput. Done.

What will you do if there isn’t anything to buy in the store? In all the stores?

Some people dismiss this kind of talk as alarmist, but we can see from this Italian episode that it is a very real possibility. The causes may differ. In their case, it seems to be a political issue. In our case, it may just be that the price of gas makes trucking unprofitable for a time. Or perhaps some hare-brained politician gets some tax passed.

For our purposes, it doesn’t matter what causes a truck stoppage. What matters is if it happens, a lot of people will be SOL.

That’s why we prep. So we can weather storms like this if and when they come.

Food Shortages

To me, this is the biggie. The Italians are already seeing food shortages according to this report. As The Primal Prepper, food is obviously a large focus of mine.

In any sort of survival situation, you have to assess your five needs: food, water, shelter, energy, and security (h/t Jack Spirko). You need all of these things in order to survive.

Most people already have a place to sleep and keep the rain out, so shelter is somewhat taken care of.

In an economic situation like we are seeing in Italy, energy will mostly continue to be available.

Security is always an issue, but defensive measures are usually not used up (capital goods in economics terms).

Food and water though are things that we need to acquire new supplies of on a constant basis. This is why you must have a storage of food and water as well as a way to create more.

That’s why I am so big on aquaponics. That’s why I am going to be installing water capture systems. That’s why I am now and will continue to expand my efforts in raising micro- and small livestock like chickens, worms, guinea pigs, fish, bees, birds, squirrels, and insects.

These situations are real. Pretty much everyone who reads this blog is in America, the most affluent society in the world. But that wealth will not protect us forever. It is up to each and every individual to live his own life, and part of that is preparing for times when things aren’t as easy as they are right now.

Will you be ready?

As per Primal Law, I went climbing today at my local gym, Stone Summit (which happens to be the biggest in the country, so ~ ). On one of my last climbs of the day was very long and had several nooks and crannies to get around. Well, long story short, by the time I was at the top, my belay rope was all around me.

So when my climbing partner lowered me down, I got rope burn on the back of my arm. And it stings like fire.

Naturally I went home and put on some neosporin, but I discovered that I didn’t have any bandages big enough to cover the burned area. Putting on my shirt for work was no fun.

This made me realize how under-prepared I am, and probably many of you are, in the medical supplies area. It’s just good sense to have plenty of long shelf-life items stored away.

Here are some things I think I should have plenty of, in no particular order:

• bandages of all sizes
• gauze
• medical tape
• antiseptic cleaner
• medical cloths
• aspirin
• ibuprofen
• anti-histamine
• toothbrushes
• toothpaste
• dental floss
• deodorant (I use the salt crystal stuff that lasts 10 years anyways)
• heavy duty shears

Obviously this is not an exhaustive list. Write in the comments what you think should be added to this list!

A YouTube user asked where to get the siphon that I use in my gas siphon video. You can get it from Amazon at the Hopkins FloTool 10801 page. It’s a handy tool that keeps all your gas siphoning neat and in the tanks.

Just as a note, the Amazon links are affiliate links that pay me a few cents. But it doesn’t change your price either way.

You guys may notice the site going through changes recently. I’m experimenting with stuff, so if you have any particular comments or suggestions, let me know!

I’m on the road again today, and I realized another one of the many benefits of living and eating the primal way: the ability to fast intermittently.

Fasting is a large topic, which I don’t want to get into right now, but the short version is that predictably going without food for 10-16 hours does a body good.

But the flip side of it is that it enables you to go that time without food and not feel any particular discomfort.

I was on a Spirit Airlines flight this morning. Their deal is that they provide super cheap fares but cram you in like sardines and charge for everything else a la carte. So no free pretzels here (which I wouldn’t eat anyways).

As the stewardesses were going down the aisle offering snacks and drinks, I felt no urge to snack. And hey, I’m all for staying away from impulse buys, so in the case primal did my wallet good!

Sometimes you just need to go to the store and pick something quick and easy. That’s what happened to me today as I was out running errands.

I’m trying really hard to stay 100% primal to stop my backsliding that I’ve been going through recently, so I needed a primal snack. Inspiration struck. Nuts!

So I went to the snacks aisle and came across: Blue Diamond Almonds BOLD Habanero BBQ

I checked the stats, and there are 2 g of sugar for every 28 nuts or so. That seems like an acceptable carb count to me. The oils that are put are on the less put-a-stick-in-my-eye side: canola, safflower and/or sunflower. A trace amount of soybean oil in the liquid smoke. All in all, not too shabby for a grab-and-go sort of item.

And hey, they are tasty too!

In my last post on Going Big or Going Home, I mentioned that I would be uploading some videos. Wait no more! Here are a few videos going through my setup of the cheep-cheep kiddie pool which will serve as my fish tank:

I’ve had a lot going on recently, which has made for few updates here on The Primal Prepper.

The biggest thing is that I have moved into my very own suburban (1/2 acre) homestead. No more balcony gardening for me!

And, as you might expect, in addition to spending lots of time and money fixing up the house itself (I bought a foreclosure in need of some repair), I have been giving a lot of thought to what to do with the outside.

As luck would have it, I bought a property that has a good amount of slope to it and faces south. Well, some say luck, others say buying criteria. I have plans for all that sun and the free energy provided by gravity.

Which brings me to my current point: a new aquaponics system.

To date, all of my systems have been… small. Puny in fact. But now that I have some room and some sun, that is going to change.

Since I got a $50 gift card for Target as a Christmas present at my job, I decided to see what Target had to offer. It turns out, they have kiddie pools. And kiddie pools on clearance! After shipping and my gift card, a vinyl & steel pool that holds over 1700 gallons costs about $80. Sold!

So my next AP system will be a 1700 gallon one.

Stay tuned for pictures and updates!