The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Week 1 Review - Ration or Ruin w/ IC, NBC Guy, FD & Bankster Breaker

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

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So, we got Ben, the breaker of Banksters. We got future Dan and we got the intrepid commander all waiting to tell you how their week was. So, let's start with future Dan. Future Dan, are you there? I'm here, Dave. I'm here and I'm surviving.

I have had a good week. I would say. Oh, a good week. Okay. I was not sure we get that kind of report. Uh, you want to, do you want to start with just telling us how you feel? I feel pretty good. Uh, the first weekend without food was a shock.

Cause I have not been fasting. I have not been on a low calorie diet. I have not been on a sugar-free fat-free diet by any means. And I gotta be honest, I went cold Turkey and the first two days were a little bit tough, but then I ate my first bit of ready hour on Monday, had it again on Wednesday and I have not eaten yet today, but I have right here in my hands. You can hear it. Creamy chicken flavored rice for almost 2000 calories ready for tonight. I'm doing well and pudding. I still have the pudding. Okay. So, uh, you talked about a little bit of a stomach pain and, uh, was that,

was that, uh, because of gas, diarrhea, what? No, just hunger pang really. And that was about half hour ago. It lasted for about 10 minutes. Uh, uncomfortable, but it was a good meal. the I can deal with it. I'm coping I'm not sure if it's Friday evening. It's uh May 9th. It's Friday like 630 Eastern had a long long week of work and just grinding it out. I even went

for a long run yesterday and I would say in terms of like physical energy and mental clarity, I feel about the same as always now from a morale standpoint, I'm down a little bit because I find some fish or forage a little bit tomorrow and Sunday. There's no reprieve. So this last five days hasn't been that bad I'm feeling pretty good right now, but next couple of days. Let's just say I better catch some fish Yeah, so yours is more Psychological than physical so you're you're yeah, you're looking at the weekend as

yikes Yeah, no rest for tacos. That's really what's getting me but I can power through that for sure. Yeah. Yeah, you've done fasting with that. Yeah, you've done fasting in the past. You're accustomed to this. And your biggest hurdle is psychological

rather than physical. Right now, but as you said, week three, week four might really catch up. I've done fasting for five and a half days as long as I've ever gone. I've only done that once, but I've done two or three day fasts for like 10, 15 times before.

But after that week of fasting or so, then I reward myself a little bit, not with donuts or candy or something, but with good meals, good times, whatever. I still got three more weeks of this going ahead, but I'm trying to power through that. I think I will power through it. So that's where I'm at right now.

Okay. Well, let's go to the intrepid commander who is very familiar with fasting and he also has the added benefit of being in a different category. Uh, what is it? The, uh, cultivator cultivator. Yes. And that is the main reason why. Cultivator days, cultivator days feel like cheating for sure.

But you guys are doing way better than I'm doing. And I even cheated on Tuesday. I mean, you guys sound like you're not even having hardly any issues. That's phenomenal. I've been, I mean, the calorie I guess has been the same but obviously the nutrients are different because I get to eat real food on the Monday, Wednesday, Friday. You know what I mean? Yeah, but you also have a workout routine that you did not limit whatsoever.

Oh, I killed myself today. Yeah. did not limit whatsoever. Oh, I killed myself today. Yeah. Everybody was gone. I killed myself today. And I wouldn't stop. And I knew I was going to pay for it. And that is what's killing me the most.

What's killing me the most is that because I get these waves of tired, like not tired, like, oh, I'm a little tired. I need to go to bed you know what i mean that kind of thing it happened to me wednesday actually wednesday night i had work to do wednesday night i had a writing job i had to finish and i worked out with my wife and if anybody wants when i say workout with my wife i try to reiterate this all the time. Check out Sydney Cummings Tabata workout. I did that with a 60 pound kettlebell and I felt decent and in about two hours I was leveled.

My body was like, you're done for today, Bubba Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh my gosh. Things are catching up with me for sure. But other than that, you know, it's not not been the worst. We struck out we fished my son and I fished two spots we'd never fished before over the weekend came away with one bluegill that was so small. I told him to cut it up and use it for bait. So that was a surprise. That was not how I expected that day to go. You know what I mean? Might be different this weekend. Well Targon with the Intrepid Commander, the lesson learned here is, PBN family, if you have to ration something, ration work as opposed to food or calories. So he's working way, way. I mean, he did not tune

down his workouts or anything like that. And he's powering through. So his fatigue level is going to be way harder. So let's go. So future Dan set out some attributes Let's go to future Dan with his attributes of the products themselves When you got to eat How was it? Yeah, yeah, so we went over this introduced it last Tuesday on Patriot Power hour, so I'm not gonna get into what the scales mean I refer you back to our podcast where the scales mean. I'll refer you back

to our podcast where we kind of introduce these 10 attributes and Ben and I gave our preliminary report card on these 10 for the ready our product longevity to me is still this stuff is obviously has the longevity. I know no reason to think that it wouldn't match the 25 or 30 year shelf life that's advertised. Nutritionally, low on protein. It definitely, you know, low protein amounts. And as I said before this began, I'm supplementing with, personally, I'm supplementing with mussel milk 160 calorie size one one serving containers and I'm averaging three to four of those a day every day Oh, okay. Yeah, so nutritionally I'm supplementing for the protein because cuz ready our my opinion. It's there's not enough there Um, I think the variety has been decent. I haven't had to eat a repeat of anything and

you know, decent variety in this two week stash. The question is, if you only had this product after 30 days after eating several of the types of meals repeatedly, would the variety be enough for, you know, to prevent food fatigue? Uh, I don't know. That's, that's sort of scoring a five on a 10, 10 points. Yeah. That's exactly what I was jumping into because I have to tell the PBN family that watching you has been comedy central for me. watching you has been comedy central for me. This has been comedy gold, preparing these foods and getting them ready to eat. Now the end product looks pretty good, you know, when I get the pictures of the end product, but tell me about preparation.

Oh, you saw the videos I posted in our back. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard. It's hard to film while you're cooking with one hand with a can. Your hand. Yeah. Yeah. I was messing stuff. I was spilling stuff. Uh, it put me in front of a stove whisking and simmering more than I typically do in the kitchen. So there's work there. Nothing you can't adjust to. It's not ready to eat food, but the preparation is tolerable for what you're getting.

I think on the dimension of cost, this ready hour seems pretty cost effective. Now we're going to compare it in future weeks to three other alternatives. Mountain House, XMRE, and you made you forget. So in terms of cost, this looks like it's, it's an effective cost. So probably six or seven on that scale. Packaging, the packaging solid. I have no doubt it would maintain the longevity The portioning is perfect for a family of four for one guy doing this now I'm in the you know measuring and measuring carefully and Right, if you don't measure carefully with the water and the and the powder. It's a challenge But I think I've mastered that Storage wise we talked about Tuesday, you know these these ready our products come in It's a challenge. Uh, but I think I've mastered that, uh, storage wise.

We talked about Tuesday, you know, these, these ready our products come in, uh, you know, buckets, very storable. So definitely. Yeah. Well, now I did notice that you have an induction stove. Did you, did you think for a second, Hey, if I had to make a fire and put this in a canteen cup, did you picture yourself doing that?

What I pictured is that would be some trial and error. And you gotta be prepared with any of these powdered ready emergency foods to be able to cook like that. And I think until you mastered it and anybody that was hungry enough and dedicated enough would figure it out. But in the meantime, there's gonna be waste

and poorly prepared food. And if you don't get this with the right amount of water and cook it for the right amount of time, it's still food, still edible. It's gonna be as easy to eat. Yeah. Okay. Let's go to Ben, the breaker of Banksters. Do you have anything different than Dan? What did you experience differently? Not much that is different that can really pop out. I feel like I might have rated the taste a little higher

than he did on a couple of them, but we both agreed that we did not like the strawberry cream of wheat, which you can see right here. We did agree though that just like the pictures show, strawberries not included, mint leaf not included, whatever, cranberries not included. If you did have a very small amount of cultivator or forage to include in the oatmeal include

in the rice, right? Yeah, we make a lot better. So I did not cheat or supplement or add anything to it. But I know that ever essentially everything that I had would have tasted a lot better with some non-storable food mixed in. So just something to keep in mind. I see ready hour as yeah sure if stuff's hitting the fan and you haven't had electricity for months and months and this is all you got it'll work out but it actually could work just as nicely for, Hey, I want every other meal to be ready hour because I lost my job a couple months ago, but I still have some real food I could supplement with. And that might help with the nutrition as well as the fatigue factor. So that really hit me between the eyes is, Ah, I could make this so

much better. But I'm, you know, because of the rules is, ah, I could make this so much better. But I'm, you know, because of the rules of the game, I'm not right. And that's something I want to bring up here because I called out James in the back channel because he, he sent a picture and I'm like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, wait a minute here. There was a, what was it? The chicken flavored rice or something? I said flavored rice exactly. It's not rice and chicken. There's no chicken actually in it. It's right

It's rice flavored broth or chicken flavored broth thickened with rice. Okay now tell me about your cultivator Because when I saw that picture I'm like whoa whoa whoa wait a minute. Yeah I mean all I did was just I think I poached up an egg or two and put arugula and turnip greens and and I think I might even have put some radish tops in that thing also. It all just kind of ripped up and torn in there and yeah that was it. It was delish. It wasn't bad. Well yeah and PBN family you gotta know that he's a trained chef. So when he sends me a

picture I'm like wait a minute I think you're cheating here he actually wasn't it just looks weird it does feel like that though I'll tell you when I in my quiet moments after I've eaten my eggs in the morning and I'm thinking of Dan and I'm thinking of Ben it does feel like cheating you know like oh man yeah but you're only cultivating on the days that you're gonna eat this stuff anyways, right? Yeah, exactly So so I think between that and the workout routine and everything. I think you guys are on the same Level there. I think there's just different lessons being learned There's definitely lessons being learned I'll tell you the big one and go ahead and if it's my turn

I don't want to cut into Ben you know, no, it's your turn. It's your turn We're up to you and the cultivator go well at the at the beginning of this thing PB and family and listen to this because there's two things here that I think are Incredibly important, particularly if you're not currently on a homestead that's producing a bunch of food. Ben said, and I don't want to opsec you or anything, but he said he had supplements and he had lots. And I thought that was a good idea. I don't have the amount that he has. And I was like, yeah, the supplementing I think is a good call Dan brought up the protein so I I got the protein also and I've been supplementing but what and And we can talk about that too. If you want to know exactly what's nothing revolutionary But what I think is if you're gonna depend on this stuff

In particular like the well if you're gonna depend on on this type of food that we're gonna go through I think all of it except maybe Mountain well I don't know the MREs look pretty good too in terms of protein I think having the powdered protein is and just after a week of this is a necessity like I think that's a prep necessity for anybody I'm talking anybody anybody who's listening. That's a prepper. That's thinking We're gonna bug in we're gonna eat food storage and that's how we're gonna weather this storm because to Dan's point There ain't there's just no protein in the food, you know, right when I eat the you're getting a little bit from dairy in the soups You're getting a little bit from dairy in the soups. You're getting a little bit from lentils in the traveler's stew.

There's nothing. So immediately, if you've got any work to do at all, you're going to be cannibalizing muscle. And then you're just going to wither away. And if you get into conflict with anyone who's been eating meat or anything, you're going to have problems obviously so I think that that was one of the big takeaways for me right off the bat was

protein powder more supplements because this stuff yeah this stuff ain't cutting it if you're depending on just that so when I say secure your protein there you go you're really really are right. Yeah. This is coming from a guy who most of the time gets more eggs than I even know what to do. So I'm not hurting for protein, but it's still to me, it still says that the ease of making a protein shake, how it tastes, I don't, I don't, I never really take protein like that but the ease of making the shakes and the ease of and the taste of having them is like it's a prep worth having and it's powdered you know I think it gets like well you would

know Ben how long does your did your protein powder get? Did you get five years on that or something? Yeah so I think there's a few ways to look at it with for the muscle milk the actual I think that's a few ways to look at it. For the muscle milk, I think that weighs so much and it expires in like six to eight months. Yeah, the pre-made I wouldn't do. I wouldn't either, however, I would have that as kind of my normal pantry or I would have that normally and I would rotate it out and so the first month or so

while stuff hits the fan and that's available to me, then I'd be moving to massive amounts of powder, like a year's worth. And of course you have the whey protein, but what I was experimenting with is peanut flour, peanut protein. If you're looking at it here, it has 14 grams of protein, a little bit of fat, but not much.

And fiber though, look at the fiber, five grams of fiber is a lot. So the protein is a huge gap in that storable food, but the fiber is really a big gap. So I absolutely agree. Even more than ever that protein is needed to be stored. And by the way though, I have been supplementing some with cod liver and I will next week with some canned tuna, canned fish. I think that stuff lasts years and years.

That's a great way to secure your protein if you're trying to do it without a freezer or, you know, that next level. Yeah. So the picture that you sent in the back channel for the PBN family was powdered, I think it was peanut butter, right? Yep. Powdered peanut flour. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, we have that on the shelf here at the Jones-Holmstead and you can mix

that up with water and add it to just about anything and it increases your, your protein for whatever you're drinking. Increases your your protein for whatever you're drinking. So before we end this week's Check in or whatever. We're gonna call this This does anybody have anything else that they want to say about the first week that could be a lesson learned for PB and family I Cooked the ready hours traveler stew. Yes. At the same time that I made. What did I make on Wednesday?

Something with rock, rock, cheesy broccoli, cheesy broccoli. I remember that because it accounted for the total 2000 calories. Yeah. A little bit shy 2000 that I was aiming for that day. Right. Yeah. A little bit shy 2000 that I was aiming for that day. Right? Yeah. Yeah. But because I fasted for two days, eight on Monday, fasted again on Tuesday with the exception of the Muslim milk

supplements. So not complete fasting, but no solid foods for three out of those first five days. I cooked too much and then I was full. And then the travelers to set. And I was thinking, well, I need these. I'll just see you later tonight. And did it turn into paste? Couldn't do it. Couldn't. Yeah. And among the attributes taste is to me of lesser importance. You gotta remember this is a survival

food, right? Right. But truth is, you got to cook it when you need it. And you got to want to eat it when you make it because the type of stuff that sits around and gets better in a dish. Yeah. So, so your stomach actually shrunk and you got fuller quicker because you had fasted those three days and, and your, your mind was saying, Hey, cook this and eat this, but you couldn't do it. Uh, you know, I could have eaten, but I could not have eaten the traveler's stew from ready are under those circumstances.

So in a survival situation and we're exercising a scenario, well, one of two things has happened. Uh, the first scenario is you have been on emergency supply food for a period of time and you're running short and now it's time to ration or ruin that that's a common scenario. The other one I could envision is a very, very, very severe calamity has struck planet earth. Yeah. You take a look at the impact and say, I'm gonna need to start off rationing. Just from the beginning,

we should not be eating full courses every single day. I don't have enough. I didn't plan for this that deeply. And now we're gonna be on limited calories because it's prudent, right? Right either scenario that you're exercising In rash, you know, whatever the scenario is it would lead up to doing an exercise like ration or ruin my takeaway this week is Only cook what you need when you need it Otherwise you cannot afford wastage and that's what happened to me with the

Travelers too. I cooked it. I thought I was going to eat it. My stomach had shrunk and ended up it went to waste. Yeah. Okay. That's a great lesson. Anybody else? else? Real quick, if I could, I think the last year where I did some keto and I cleaned up my diet, generally speaking, allows me to deal with more volatility and more, you know, going without food and also having a whole bunch of carbs and salt all at once going from one extreme to the other. Being in better physical shape, I think, will allow you to deal with that shock. If you have diabetes or pre-diabetes or you're overweight or have other health problems going into the apocalypse, you're not going to get healthier. So that's just, you know, as an example, get healthy now so that when you eat this crap, if you have to, you won't be having a heart attack or a stroke within a week or two.

That's definitely something that I definitely am glad I did. And also I go into future Dan's point, fasting or the way he put it is rationing, but I see it as fasting in between. That is gonna be my default from now on. If I ever get in a situation where I have to worry about my food supply, I'm gonna start rationing immediately with a slight calorie deficit on the days I eat,

and then the days I don't eat, I'll have a pretty big calorie deficit. I'll say this, that's if it's a pretty sedentary. If I'm doing 10 mile hikes, I don't think I'll be doing any fasting days or, you know, minimal. But it depends if I'm bugged in or bugged out, if stuff's blowing up all outside and I'm stuck inside for a month or so, or this big pandemic, who knows what, I will immediately start on, on rations and, and, and, and, and, and intermediate, intermediate, what is it? Intermediate fasting. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's, that's what we do here at the Jones Homestead normally is the intermediate fasting. And we've done several, several days of fasting, you know, like every quarter. And this has been for the past, I don't know,

maybe two, three years, something like that. So your experience level with fasting helped you understand what you can do and what you can't do. It did, it understood my body a little bit more, gave me more confidence that I'd be able to push through some of those hunger pangs that future Dan talked about. And he's able to power through them too. And we could all power through, but it's knowing you can, you can get through and that energy will return. And, and just that mental, you know, it's mostly mental at this stage. If you haven't eaten for months, maybe it's more physical, but it's mental right now. the side of things and also on the murdering side of things. I know what you're going to say. Go ahead.

I learned lessons on all three of those because I fish all the time. You know what I mean? Been fishing my whole life. One thing that happens when you go fishing after a big rain is it's usually tough and it was tough on us the day that we went out over the weekend. I think that had a lot to do with it. But normally you have a bad day of fishing, you go home, who gives a shit? You know, it was good to get out. So what really changed in that moment in my head was like, oh this is eat or not eat. So it's not just a rough day, you know? And on the foraging side of things, well, here's the other thing, though, too, also. And the guys made a good point about this to me because I was kind of griping about it in the back channel. No, I was griping about it on a podcast.

And it was like, if I didn't have to work for a living, then I could go fishing every day. You know what I mean? Like, I could just spend the mornings fishing instead of writing, doing podcasts. But they made a good point about, you know, you're probably not going to run out to the fishing hole with everybody in an SHTF scenario, you might wind up getting, you know, taken advantage of. So yeah, that was a good thing to wrap my head around. But anyhow, what really paid off for me, man, and it's funny because the most calories that I got from foraging this week all came from a tree at the end of the freaking, yeah, a tree at the end of the freaking road that we always eat off of all the time. And what it taught me was have those, have those like predetermined foraging spot.

I don't know if a lot of people have these, but like if it were June, if it were ended June, early July, I'd know exactly where I'd be. I'd be at a couple different spots that have blackberries because it's easy, there's a ton of them. This happened to be mulberries. And we went down there almost every other night that you know that we were foraging even on nights when we weren't and uh yeah we went out we went out right after the rain

during the week my neighbor even texted me and said i found some what looked like oyster mushrooms popping and i said oh i'm gonna go in and into the woods by our house and we're gonna look because the we didn't find Jack. Yeah, then on the walk back, I'm thinking, how many calories did I just burn? Right. And did I replace anything? You know? Yeah. So and that goes back, don't go ahead. Yeah. Well, I mean, that goes back to the saying that I always have. Hope is not a strategy. You know, yeah, there you go. A lot. These people that think they're going to go out and forage or hunt or trap or fish. That's hope. Okay. So if you're counting on that, you can't count on it. And it's different, different times of the year. That's awesome.

They in a lot for me to come away empty handed, even though it was a new place, even though it was after rain, I mean I caught fish but they were tiny. I could have swallowed them. I wound up putting a tiny hook on, a tiny bait and a bobber and was just pulling these tiny bluegill and I was like, I'm not even bringing these home. But to your point, it wouldn't have done a hell of a lot of good either way, if we were working on a family's food. So Dave, I hope that Ben and I catch some fish tomorrow because we're going fishing. Okay.

Well, we'll be anxious to hear how you made out maybe Tuesday night on Patriot power hour, or maybe next week when we do another update. Yeah, I like it. That's a plan. Okay guys, take care and PBN family stay tuned to PBN to get all this information that you won't get anywhere else. These guys are suffering so you don't have to.

Take care and prep on.