I know it sounds gross, but a resourceful person examines everything in a survival situation. Preppers are prepping for just that. Survival.
As a soy replacement for your poultry food, it is a safer, free alternative. (And by free I mean making your poultry food a self sustaining part of your homestead, always the ultimate) A quick word on soy according to Mother Earth News, a site I hope you all know. To produce one pound of soy, it requires over 240 gallons of water, 17 square feet of land, and releases 0.86 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere. Also 90 percent of soy grown in the U.S. Is genetically modified and needs large amounts of herbicides to sustain it, mostly fossil fuel based. To me this is unacceptably inefficient, and a very good example of a reason to be self reliant. Then we have control over the output of our own lives.
According to my freeze dried meal worm container, meal worms have 50 percent crude protein and 25 percent crude fat at the minimum. Also a 5.6 percent fiber content, that's really hard to beat. Combine that with garden clippings and kitchen scraps that could be the answer to your monthly feed bills.
But what about survival food for you? The thought of it may make you want to vomit now, but if you get into a pinch in a hard situation it could be the thing that makes a difference.
Growing your own meat is a big endeavor, one I have thought about a lot. But meat is not very sustainable for a small farm or urban homestead. Rabbits are a good choice, but where I'm living they can't be outside because of a illness in the area. But even rabbits don't have that much fat and live off of a apple and food scrapes every now and then. I could eat my quail, but they need to be incubated and I would need more indoor space for hatching and more electricity. Those are the two highest producers that I know for a urban homestead.
There are a lot of articles out there stating that meal worms are the future of sustainable protein and fat production for the world. On a micro level they should be commonplace for the prepper and homesteader. Even the urban homesteader can grow their own quail feed, and if its already growing it can be a good backup for shtf situation. People all over the world eat bugs, so some of you reading this wont think its a big deal. Eating meal worms. But for some of us it is culturally not accepted.
I understand the aversion. I was living in the woods for a month with two botanist and a group of four of us tagging along for the class. We lived off of a lot of wild edibles, as many as we could collect which accounted for much of our food. One of the group was always talking about bugs as a food source. I was given the chance to examine my own bug eating aversions, and came to the conclusion it was not a stigma that served me, or my quest to learn survival techniques. So we collected a bunch of grasshoppers (they were plaguing the area, the reason for the discussion in the first place) and roasted them over the fire (you must treat all of your bugs like pork, always cook thoroughly. Ants are the only exception, and can be eaten raw). Tasted remarkably like shrimp (when I got home I looked it up and found out that shrimp are grasshoppers close relative).
I ask you to challenge your first reaction when I proposed eating a bug. Maybe to look at my article on making a meal worm factory and give it a try. If you are into survival cook one up, decide what you think out of experience. What have you got to lose? In a real survival situation you don't want to have to try things for the first time while being stressed out. Its nice to know what your in for when your mind is trying to juggle a bunch of angles and just charge through. Survival is very dependent on a good mental state.
Thank you for reading. Here is a picture of a flower to get the taste of bug out of your mouth.
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