The Work It Actually Takes To Make A Homemade Chicken Sandwich (VIDEO)
Our world of convenience has caused most Americans to lose touch with the work involved in food. Self-reliance
takes a lot more than throwing some seeds on a patch of dirt and then
magically being fed for a year. Grabbing a “quick” sandwich or bowl of
cereal belies what it actually takes to procure those ingredients.
We take a lot for granted. We don’t
think about life without things like specialized supply purveyors,
large-scale agriculture, cheap labor, machines for manufacturing, and
the transportation system. Very few people can imagine life without the
accessibility provided to us by grocery stores and processed food. Even
in the circles of those who stick closely to a non-processed diet, few
go all the way.
A video from Andy George, of the awesome show How to Make Everything,
explores what it really takes to make a homemade chicken sandwich. The
video blogger spent 6 months, $1500, and countless hours in pursuit of a
meal that most of us would consider fairly simple. (Warning for the squeamish: an animal is butchered for meat in this video.)
In an interview
after he made the video George said, “”I respect that I can go into the
store and buy this ready-made stuff so I don’t have to do it, but also
enjoy the do-it-yourself experience and respect the people who want to
make it on their own.”
Here’s what it takes to make a sandwich without the conveniences of stores and market transportation systems:
- Plant the wheat and vegetables.
- Tend your crops.
- Harvest your crops.
- Mill your wheat.
- Grind the wheat to turn it into flour.
- Go to the ocean and get salt water.
- Distill it to make salt.
- Raise a chicken.
- Kill the chicken.
- Clean and butcher the chicken.
- Bake bread.
- Cook chicken.
- Make the sandwich.
How this sandwich relates to preparedness and self-reliance
From a preparedness point of view, George’s video is pretty enlightening. I’ve written a lot about the production of food and the unsustainability of our current diets
should a disaster strike that renders the transportation system
obsolete. If you had to provide every single bite of your food, from
nurturing the animals, planting the seeds, butchering, harvesting, and
processing, you’d have time for little else.
Many folks who have never raised more than a small vegetable garden seem to believe that when disaster strikes, they’ll be able to live off the land.
Their survival plan includes growing crops, raising livestock, and
hunting. But have they really considered what it takes to do all of
this? In today’s convenience-based society, even the more self-reliant
among us have lived a very pampered life.
It starts locally
It can be done, though. We can all move
towards a lifestyle that is more self-sufficient by focusing on what we
can grow ourselves or acquire locally. To do this, we must not only learn to grow food, but to preserve it for times of the year when nothing is growing or when your garden flops.
In her beautifully written book, Animal,Vegetable, Miracle,
best-selling author Barbara Kingsolver documented the year her family
spent eating only food that had been produced on her own farm or nearby.
Kingsolver and her family had recently moved away from their home in
the desert to resurrect an old family farm, so they weren’t lifelong
producers of food. It’s a must-read for anyone considering embarking on
the quest for a self-sufficient lifestyle.
Let’s use this as food for thought. What
would it take for you to continue eating the foods you eat now? What
can you produce entirely on your own? Share your answers in the comments
below.
Recommended Reading
- Animal,Vegetable, Miracle
- Surviving the Apocalypse in the Suburbs: The Thrivalist’s Guide to Life Without Oil
- The Pantry Primer: A Prepper’s Guide to Whole Food on a Half-Price Budget
- Storey’s Guide to Raising Miniature Livestock
- The Complete Guide to Saving Seeds: 322 Vegetables, Herbs, Fruits, Flowers, Trees, and Shrubs
- Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & Vegetables
- The Organic Canner
- The Locavore Way
- The Backyard Homestead
- The Encyclopedia of Country Living, 40th Anniversary Edition: The Original Manual of Living Off the Land & Doing It Yourself
Daisy Luther is a
freelance writer and editor who lives in a small village in the Pacific
Northwestern area of the United States. She is the author ofThe Pantry Primer: How to Build a One Year Food Supply in Three Months. On her website, The Organic Prepper,
Daisy writes about healthy prepping, homesteading adventures, and the
pursuit of liberty and food freedom. Daisy is a co-founder of the
website Nutritional Anarchy,
which focuses on resistance through food self-sufficiency. Daisy’s
articles are widely republished throughout alternative media. You can
follow her on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter, and you can email her at daisy@theorganicprepper.ca
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