NUTRITION AND Y2K FOOD

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Have there been any posts here about the nutritional deficiencies that will ensue by following a Y2K diet of canned goods and prepared snacks for longer than a few weeks?

I realize that if things are that bad that we go more than even a few days without normal commerce/supermarket shopping, we will have a lot more to be concerned about, but here are my thoughts on canned goods: They are very highly preserved, either with MSG, sugar, or nitrites and liquid smoke and salt.

All canned goods that are cooked(and I believe that is ALL of them) will have NO natural enzymes in them whatsoever--cooking even in a pot over 118F for longer than several minutes denatures these enzymes.These are required by the body to digest the food, and any deficit in the food must be made up by the pancreas working overtime to produce more lipase, disaccharidases, amylase, cellulase, and protease. This robs your body of energy! BTW, this is not theory. Recently, a study was released that showed that on autopsies on those that died of unrelated causes, there was an EXTREMELY high % that had pancreatic hypertrophy--that is enlargement of the pancreas over many years to over-produce the enzymes that our modern junk-food lifestyle does not provide! It is NOT a normal state.

Also, all prepared food, canned or otherwise is highly milled, refined, chemically-added,fried with partially hydrogenated oils, etc. Any goodness from the original RAW items that make it up are almost entirely gone. Yes, there will still be protein(canned meat), and fiber(vegetables), but there will also be no VITAMINS ! One way around this is to supplement the diet with vitamin/mineral supplements, available from health food stores.

Don't take this too lightly! There is almost NO Vitamin C in any prepared product you buy, and you need an absolute minimum of 30 mg/day to prevent scurvy, which is a dreadful wasting disease. I have no affiliation with any health food store(actually, you can also find a good selection nowadays in DRUG stores);this is for information only .

I myself will be using Vitamins A,B-complex, C,D,E,selenium, manganese, chromium, a multi-mineral, folic acid, biotin, garlic, and plant enzyme capsules. Not all of us live in a climate where we can have a garden, or keep chickens and raise cattle or pigs, so this is directed at the MAJORITY of those putting away food.

THE ABOVE INCLUDES HOME CANNED FOOD AS WELL.

Any thoughts on this?

-- profit of doom (doom@helltopay.ca), October 21, 1999

Answers

Yes I do have a thought. Why would you eat canned food when you will be able to go to the market and buy fresh? Tinfoils, gotta love em...

-- Y2K Pro (y2kpro1@hotmail.com), October 21, 1999.

i've thought a lot about this. i'm vegetarian and eat fresh and organic if possible. one way to mitigate the effects of a drastic change to a canned food and beans and brown rice diet is to sprout . i make them now occasionaly for my macaw and amazon. health food stores carry organic sprouting seeds in many varieties. fresh and raw are important for health. i've put away enough to add vital enzymes to our diet and that of our animal companions. vicki

-- vicki (vmozeleski@aol.com), October 21, 1999.

Y2k Cadet: yer a smart ass dip who makes assumptions based on your own blatherings. We may have food transportation problems due to a lack of oil imports.

In 1995, the TRANSPORTATION sector of our economy used 68% more oil than was produced in this country. 97% of the energy used in the transportation comes from oil.

Please go to the following URL for this and more information:

http://www.ott.doe.gov/facts/archives/fotw16.html

http://www.ott.doe.gov/facts/usage.html

-- Feller (feller@wanna.help), October 21, 1999.


Here is an excellent site concerning the subject www.chetday.com/2kmenu.html#Eating

-- (Bruce@eatwell.com), October 21, 1999.

Woops, Sorry - should be www.chetday.com/y2kmenu.html

-- (Bruce@eatwell.com), October 21, 1999.


True in re enzymes, overall. It just depends on when people are able to obtain fresh plant food again. Vitamins ARE a must. I have many bottles of calcium complex with magnesium, lots of C, b complex in the form of bee pollen, garlic, E, selenium, sulpher, and tons of herbs.

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), October 21, 1999.

Take vitamins, durnit. Take em even if Y2K isn't a big problem. A large bottle of multivitamins (to last several months) will set you back a mere $10-20.

-- mil (millenium@yahoo.com), October 22, 1999.

Here's a cheap, easy way to help keep you healthy! From today's Electronic Telegraph:

Lack of sleep is making us ill - and old before our time By Celia Hall, Medical Editor

DEMANDS of work and the lure of night life have reduced the average time spent asleep by one and a half hours during the century, with potentially damaging consequences for health, scientists say today.

While it is usually agreed that sleep is essential for a healthy brain, researchers have found that too little sleep can produce marked biological changes similar to premature ageing and diabetes. They found that the body works better with more than eight hours' sleep. Even fit young men restricted to four hours' sleep a night found that processing and storing carbohydrates and regulating hormones was affected by sleep deprivation.

Prof Eve Van Cauter and colleagues from the Department of Medicine, University of Chicago, say in The Lancet that people in developed countries had, on average, nine hour's sleep a night in 1910. This has fallen to 7.5 hours "to create maximum time for work and leisure activities".

She said: "We found that the metabolic and endocrine hormonal changes resulting from a significant sleep debt mimic many of the hallmarks of ageing. We suspect that chronic sleep loss may not only hasten the onset but could also increase the severity of age-related ailments such as diabetes, hypertension, high blood pressure, obesity and memory loss."

In the study 11 healthy men, aged 18 to 27, received eight hours' sleep for three nights; followed by four hours for six nights and 12 hours for seven nights. They ate the same diet. It was found that, when subjected to sleep deprivation, they took 40 per cent longer than normal to regulate their blood-sugar levels after a high carbohydrate meal. Their ability to secrete and process insulin also fell by about 30 per cent, a state similar to signs of early diabetes.

Sleep deprivation altered the production and action of other hormones, dampening the secretion of thyroid-stimulating hormones and increasing blood levels of the stress hormone cortisol, especially in the afternoon and evening.

Raised cortisol levels in the evening are typical of older people and are thought to be related to age-related health problems, including memory impairment. All these abnormalities disappeared during the recovery period, when the volunteers slept for 12 hours.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), October 22, 1999.


>> Why would you eat canned food when you will be able to go to the market and buy fresh? Tinfoils, gotta love em... <<

I know that Y2KPro is essentially trolling for a bunch of sputtering nyah-nyah-type answers that descend to the level of his own contribution. I also know that it is considered bad form to feed the trolls. Nevertheless, I think it is sometimes useful to give serious answers to even ill-meant questions.

Why would people eat canned food when they can go to the store and buy fresh?

Y2KPro, before you so smugly asked this question, did you stop and think that, if there were no rational answers to this question, the canned food industry would simply not exist. No one would ever buy canned goods. Y2K or no Y2K. Or, are there no canned foods on the planet where you live?

When a harvest happens, it often happens all at once, not doled out in daily increments, the way you seem to shop. Canning provides a way to capture a portion of the harvest that cannot be delivered fresh before it spoils. As such, cannerys can command lower prices for produce, because growers cannot afford to wait and sell their entire harvest to groceries for immediate resale. This results in canned goods being, in many cases (no pun) cheaper than fresh. To some families, this price advantage presents an obvious way to lower their food costs.

As they say in junior high schools -- Duh! But wait, there's more!

Canned goods provide convenience. For example, canned soups are very popular because they are both cheap and much simpler to make than fresh soup. While freshly made soup is also cheap, sometimes the convenience of opening a can makes them worth keeping around the house.

Or has this never occurred to you?

Furthermore, some canned goods are superior to ordinary fresh produce in some applications. A good example is canned tomatos. Ordinary supermarket "fresh" tomatos make an inferior tomato sauce. Canned tomato sauce, stewed tomatos and tomato paste all provide a superior base for a tomato sauce.

Of course, you don't cook, so you are ignorant of such matters.

Keeping fresh produce also requires either constant shopping or access to refrigeration. These are not always available. This is also the reason why fresh produce is a dismal "emergency" provision. In any situation where one's ability to refrigerate was interrupted for more than 2 days, fresh produce is unreliable. Believe it or not, this situation ACTUALLY HAPPENS!!!!

I can only assume that you haven't been paying attention, Y2KPro. Please be careful. That can be very dangerous to your health and well being.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), October 22, 1999.


1. stock up on canned beans/soups/veggies from your local health food store - maybe a bit more expensive, but you'll avoid the additives.

2. invest in some natural sauerkraut. (Cosmic Kraut or other brands.) Natural sauerkraut makes the supermarket type taste like limp cabbage. If we regress technologically to the middle ages, learn how to make sauerkraut from cabbage - it's loaded with vitamin C and enzymes. European peasants survived on it for centuries. The process involves salting the cabbage and letting it ferment.

-- kermit (colourmegreen@hotmail.com), October 22, 1999.



Listen to the guy who said to use sprouts. They are an incredible storehouse of nutrients.

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), October 22, 1999.

I agree on the absolute harm of long-term eating of canned foods. That's why I discover that nutritionally conscious friends prefer Alpine freeze-dried (not dehydrated). They don't add artificial chemicals, MSG, junks... My husband & kids like the taste. I don't own or sell any y2k products, but I hope this helps inquirers to keep healthy under the y2k storm. I found a place that carries top nutritional stuff at deep discount. I don't know whether they still offer 15% off Alpine. I do know their price on 55 gallon barrels is lowest I've seen, I thinkl $35-36? http://www.geocities.com/hotsprings/falls/9793. Tel: 650-634-0308 (not sure if it's the same). As a nurse, I stock up on Bioprotein A for infections too. Stress under Y2K can suppress our immune system. 4 packets of this stuff under the tongue will usually lick a cold.



-- May Ankerberg (mayank@healthy.com), October 22, 1999.

so buy enzymes? might not be as good as from veggies but its something. i already have a bunch. brain food. however, i love canned food. i can hardly wait. it will last about six months (if i don't get a chance to get to the store for any replacements) and after that we will eat weeds, etc. or maybe the stuff i plant in my garden. don't you think i can get by for that long without my pancreas going to pot? seems to me there might be bigger problems than low enzymes?

-- tt (cuddluppy@whatdoiknow.com), October 22, 1999.

If you do not have a source for Vitamin C, chew on a pine needle or steep some in water for tea. You're good to go on Vit C.

-- Careful (ScurvyIsNot@Fun.Stuff), October 22, 1999.

I wouldn't worry much about natural enzymes. Briefly a number of syndromes associated with malnutrion may be mentioned.

Marasmus: Total calorie deficieny, solution eat calories. Seen in "wasted" people, thin, cachectic as might be seen in concentration camp surviors.

Kwarshikors (African word meaning the disease the second child gets when its food is given to the first), protein deficiency. Seen in pictures of children with swollen bellies (w/o enough protein fluid leaks from vessels leading to swelling. Solution eat protein, good sources meat and fish, as vegetarians demonstrate certain combinations such as rice and beans comprise a complete (if less abundent) protein meal.

Scurcy: Vit C deficiency, breakdown of connective tissue (bleeding gums and worse) solution vitamin C, very abundent in citrus fruits. English Navy learning this began stocking lymes for long voyages hence "Limies".

Pellagra: Vitamin B2 (Niacin) deficiency. scourage of Reconstruction era South. The three D's, Diarrhea, Dermatitis, Dementia. Shown by Joseph Goldberger of the US Public Health Service to be a dietary deficiency alleviated by a diet with more fresh fruits and vegatables. After niacin isolated led to enriched(niacin enriched) white bread

Vit A defiency: Fat soluble vitamin, would take years to deplete, still, a leading cause of blindness worldwide. Carrots high in Vit A, good for night vision.

Let's hope and prey we don't have to be worrying about any of this. A good multivitamin should take care of the vitamin deficiencies. Even with a poor diet a vitamin or two a week should prevent any clinical symptoms. Protein and calories, well what are you stockpiling, cardboard.

-- PD (PaulDMaher@worldnet.att.com), October 22, 1999.



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