We’re all descended from preppers

“Prepper” is one of those words or phrases that has been poisoned. Like “conspiracy” or “right wing.”

Being a prepper isn’t crazy. It’s our heritage. The truth is unless your people are from the tropics you are descended from extraordinary people who were successful preppers.

Life in the northern climes has required long-term planning that would astonish, and probably kill, most modern people. Food supplies were unreliable. Bumper crops might be followed by complete crop failures. Droughts, late freezes, early freezes, war, pestilence, locusts, Moors, Mongols, lots of stuff caused calorie shortages.

Energy was a problem. Firewood, peat, coal, whale or other oils had to be laid up in advance of the harsh winter so a family could cook (Sterilize) the food they preserved perhaps imperfectly.

Canning technology wasn’t invented until the Napoleonic wars. Once that blessing was discovered, diligent people had to grow, prep, and can most of their plant based calories in the months June-September, anticipating all of their nutritional needs and meeting them in that short window of time.

Protein would come from eggs, fowl, and the four-legged animals, all of which require foresight from the husbandman to insure the family would have all it needed. Butchering of larger animals would be done in the late fall, using the cool weather to stretch out the time the family would have to preserve the bigger animals.

Building materials, fuel, food, clothing, everything took enormous amounts of preparation. Folkways and cuisine followed.

You are descended from VERY successful preppers.

This new “just-in-time” culture is not sustainable. The idea that you’ll go grocery shopping each week and get the food you need for the next seven days is great, until it isn’t.

The idea that you turn the tap and potable water comes out is great, until it isn’t.

The idea that heat appears in your home as you burn electricity or natural gas piped into you home as you need is great, until it isn’t.

The future belongs to preppers too. This just-in-time stuff will fail at some point. The preppers will just compost the non-preppers once that happens. Free fertility.

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