I Owe an Explanation

So you may be wondering whatever happened to my little life experiment. I promised an explanation and here it is. I'm not dead and I didn't finish the bucket. Most of the food is sitting in the storage unit underneath the apartment awaiting the end of the world. There's a reason I'm no longer eating from the bucket and it's because of the bucket.

When I started eating from the bucket, I took careful note of all the nutritional value of everything I was eating. There really wasn't much to be honest. The real effect was that I also looked at the nutritional value of all the non-bucket related foods as well. I soon found out that most processed foods are disgusting, packed with fat and calories and sodium. I haven't had a microwaved burrito, frozen pizza, or can of ravioli since May. I don't really plan on eating them in the near future either.

In addition to becoming more and more aware of what I was eating, I also started paying more attention to how I was treating my body. To be honest, I wasn't the best caregiver. However, I started exercising and playing tennis on a regular basis. To be honest, I play a crazy amount of tennis. I'm currently healing from a fall I took last week that took off the skin on my knee, shoulder and elbow. Physical activity puts more demands on caloric intake and I soon realized that I'd have to either give up my bucket or give up tennis.

You'd just have to feel the callouses on my hand to know which one I stuck with and which one I gave up. I remember providing a disclaimer at the start of this experiment that I might stop before it was over. I did and it doesn't surprise me. Normally, my crazy life experiments last a week at most. I'm not sure I'll come back to his particular life experiment, but I have become much more interested in my own health and well being because of it. Thanks for reading and I hope I've been somewhat entertaining in the process.

Meals 24 and 25: Am I really still doing this?

Yes... I really am still doing this. Right now, there are only three meals I find remotely edible: barley vegetable, western noodle and potato bakon. The rest I'd just like to forget about. Today I ate barley vegetable. I've worked out a system where I just eat 2.5 servings for a meal. That is still only 200-400 calories, so I of course eat other things. After each meal I must brush my teeth. The reason being because some of the left over soup package mix sticks to my teeth and leaves a very gritty feeling. Imagine eating a sandcastle for dinner and that's roughly how it feels for my poor teeth after any of these meals. I suppose I didn't really notice that effect the first few times since I mixed rice in with the emergency rations.

I also went grocery shopping today and decided to look at the nutritional content of some burritos I used to eat: 300 calories per burrito. I remember I would eat 4 of those for a meal plus sour cream. I really want to appologize to my body for all the crap I made it process. No wonder my appendix ruptured last fall. It was tired of all the abuse.

Meal 23: Oatmeal, Holidays, Candy

Click the title for the podcast.

Meal 22: Calorie Counter

I've haven't eaten meal 22 yet. I don't want to actually. I know that corn chowder is what I have in the refrigerator and my body says meh to that. I'll probably suck it up and heat up a bowl of the awful stuff.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I've become one of those people who counts calories in everything. I finally bothered to look up the caloric and fat content of McDonalds foods and it's rather horrifying. A double cheeseburger is roughly 500 calories. Considering that I used to eat two double cheeseburgers and an order of fries on a quasi-regular basis in college scares me. Throw in a drink to the mix and I've just gorged myself on a 1500 calorie meal. That's 3/4 of my daily caloric intake.

The problem doesn't stop at the fast food counter. I took a gander at a Chef Boyardee can of ravioli and noticed that a single can had 500 calories as well. All in all, there's a very simple reason America has an obesity problem, all of our foods are stuffed with empty calories. It's something that I've heard time and time again from many sources, but until I acutally took the time to analzye the nutrional value/non-value myself, I guess I didn't really notice it.

The frozen food section is pretty much impossible to shop in anymore. Anything from a can is a damned death trap as well. Anne Marie told me that now I know what women face all the time. Honestly, I kind of wish I had taken the blue pill. Ignorance is bliss after all. Well, I suppose the alternative is to increase my physical activity to match a 4000 calorie a day diet. I've started to become more active as the summer unfolds, but I'm a long way off from 4000 a day.

Meal 21: To be determined

Click on the title to hear the podcast.

Another podcast. When I say that vegetarians are pretentious, I mainly mean the ones who are only vegetarians so they can say they are vegetarians.

Meal 20: Late Night Podcast

To hear the podcast, click on the title of this post.

Ok, so I pulled out the mic and decided to podcast today's post. It's nothing fantastic and you'll have to ignore every time I aspirate a sound. (It means I put out a puff of air when I say words like penguin.) Most everyone does it in their speech, but I'm still trying to figure out how not to do it or not have it show up on the audio recording. Perhaps holding a piece of paper would work or being further away from the mic.

Meal 19: Western Noodle

Western Noodle, chicken noodle. Nothing new under the sun. Today I ate Western Noodle soup for lunch along with an avocado. I know, it's an odd pairing, but a 90 calorie lunch just isn't going to cut it. After reading some of the horrible effects of drinking just beer for a week, I don't think I'll ever be trying that. I may try to fast for three days and see if I attain enlightenment. The longest period I can remember not eating was when I had my appendix taken out. I went a little more than 48 hours without having anything to eat. That experience knocked me down in weight by about 20 pounds.

Maybe this year I'll also try following the dietary restrictions of Ramadan along with my students. My Muslim students looked tired during that time. I never really knew how appropriate it was to ask how the fasting was going. I mean, is it a polite inquiry? Sometimes my students would tell me about the dinner they ate after sundown and it sounded amazing.

Were I not teaching, I'd like to travel around the world eating strange and exotic foods. I could be one of those snarky hosts on the TLC or discovery channel or food network. Too bad I mainly have a face for podcasting/radio.

Hmm, is it ironic that I'm eating Western Noodle and talking about Muslim holidays?

Meal 18: Soup Silt and Beer Diet

Western Noodle again. It's more or less like eating chicken noodle soup. The disturbing part with eating any of these meals has to do with the sediment of soup mix that is left in the pot after you're done eating. It's got the consistency of sand and I imagine the same health benefits. Of course, by not eating it, I probably lose out on a few calories. Every calories counts!

I've thought off another interesting experiment. I wonder what it would be like to try to live on beer and lager for an entire week. Now, I know that probably isn't very healthy, but one pint of Guinness has more calories in it then a serving of any of the meals I eat. My body would probably hold up just fine in the long run, but I'm sure the short term effects would be pretty harsh. I know in the ye olden days that beer was the beverage of choice because water would spoil. If it's good enough for the Monks, the Pilgrims, and Kings, then it's good enough for me. If I blogged about the event, I doubt I'd have a very lucid record. I'm sure it would be highly entertaining to read though.

Meal 17:

Another post-apocalyptic journal entry to break up the monotony.

May 13, 2023


Summer approaches. The lurchers are much more active. Hard to predict their movements in the summer. They're erratic and out at all hours of the night. Can't afford to sleep on the ground any more. Must take shelter in abandoned cars and trees.

I saw a dog today. Didn't look like he had turned yet. A rare thing these days. Thought about shooting it. Decided to save the ammo for things that might eat me. Plus Bill always sighted my rifle for me. You would think I could do it myself, but I hate the horrid gun.

Haven't had meat in over two months so that tempted me a little. I couldn't tell you what animal it was I ate last. The dog was pitiful, missing an ear and limping in pain, a dead giveaway that it wasn't feral. Lurching animals or people don't feel pain. If you have the time, one shot is all you need to kill them. Their blood doesn't clot well, so they bleed out pretty quick. But blood attracts them in hordes. Best to just run away. Always best to run away. They don't run of course. Shuffle shuffle, the lurcher shuffle.

Tried eating one of the rations dry. Nearly chocked and my stomach is rolling in knots. I need to find a car to lie down in. One day the lurchers will learn how to open doors and then I'll be screwed. Until then, cars are always safe.

Dead.

That's about all I can say for sure about it.

I'm taking the long road to Kansas City.

Meal 16: Nothing to it

Potato soup and deviled eggs. Nothing exciting for dinner, but I'm full. One of the nice things about this diet is that I don't really have to think much about what I'm going to cook. I boil water, drop the soup mix in and in 25 minutes I'm getting my sodium overload. I refuse to believe that these meals were designed as anything but a sodium delivery system. The calories are just an unintended side effect of the process.

This morning I ate oatmeal again. I tried eating it with sugar but I find myself preferring a spicier start. It got to that point where I knew I wasn't full yet, but my stomach balked at eating more. It reminded of watching babies eat food from jars. Eventually they get to a point where you spoon a glob of mashed green beans into their mouth and they just spit it out all over their chin and bib. However, you know that they aren't really full because it's only the third bite. That's kind of what I was feeling like this morning while eating oatmeal. I like it, but a huge bowl of it causes the stomach to say "no more!"

Let's call this an Easter Egg post. I'm not going to link it on anything except for maybe twitter. I don't feel as if it's really up to my normal writing standards. Then again, I'm writing about eating food out of a damn bucket for weeks on end so I don't know if I really have any room to talk about standards.

Meal 15: No Whey No How

I finally took the plunge and drank a small glass of whey milk. It's not terrible and in a pinch I'd probably drink it, but it's not the milk I'm used to drinking. I figure if I'm going to suffer through the bucket of food, then I shouldn't have to suffer through fake milk. It's hard to describe whey milk. It's somewhat sweet and has a very distinct smell. I think it might be ok in cereal but on its on, I'll pass. A million times pass. I'll go ahead and keep the extra whey milk, but I don't plan on drinking it as part of this continued adventure.



Tonight I settled on potato bakon soup. It's my favorite meal from the pack and I added some broccoli, croutons, and cheddar cheese. It tastes pretty good when it's all tarted up like that. The added food does a nice job of bolstering my calorie and nutritional needs for the day. I really should just call this experiment, the soup experiment since that's my primary source of nourishment.

For breakfast I had a nice big bowl of oatmeal. Honestly, it surprises me that this survival pack doesn't include oatmeal as one of the meals. It's cheap and nutritional. It also cooks in under a minute. I would recommend oatmeal as part of any camping list or survival kit. Since I'm kind of strange (or haven't you noticed?) I like to add a dash of hot sauce to my oatmeal. Oatmeal is rather bland by itself and hot sauce varies the dish. I'm really trying to eat breakfast on a more regular basis. It's simply healthier for me and there's no excuse to ignore the most important meal of the day simply because I'm lazy.

Meal 11, 12, 13, 14: AKA Crash DIEt

So Saturday and Sunday I committed myself to only eating food from the bucket. I may have cheated and had a cookie but that was it. Instead of eating a single serving, I tend to eat 2.5 servings a meal. In doing this, I am not getting enough calories with this diet. Trying to eat only food from the bucket on an extended basis would be insane. On Friday night I weighed 149 pounds. Today, I weigh 144 pounds. That's a swing of 5 pounds. Some of that has to be water weight, but I'm still not sure how I lost that much weight in one weekend. Of course, yesterday and today I probably averaged 800 calories a day. Right now I'm starving. Then again, I've been hungry all weekend. For some reason, I've been watching cooking shows online. Zero calories!

Since starting this crazy experiment, I've been checking the nutritional levels at the grocery store and pretty much all of the soups have comparable calorie and sodium levels. In fact, any food that's been processed at all tends to have high sodium levels. It's made me very leery about buying anything packaged and processed. My meat intake is also extremely low. The only meat I have in my apartment right now would be the eggs in the refrigerator.

So very hungry. I'm thinking about going to McDonalds or some other awful restaurant to feel full again.

Meal 10: End of the World and Lentil Soup

Ok, here's something completely different. Instead of reflecting on what I ate, I wrote a short diary imagining a scenario where I'd have to eat these rations for real. I may do this from time to time depending on the response. (Oh, I ate lentil soup as well. Very bland.)


May 9th, 2023


Lurchers ate Bill. I suppose that is worth mentioning.

Not much else to say about the incident. When you've seen one man devoured alive, you've seen them all. The lurchers got spooked and left mid meal. No idea why and I didn't bother climbing down from the water tower to ask. I took Bill's Geiger Counter watch but half the time it doesn't work. At least, I hope it's not working. If it is, then I stepped into a world of radiation.

Not very hungry, but am forcing self to eat. We came across a mess of emergency rations from a basement we mined out. Nothing left of the house, but the foundation was still intact. Water purifiers, a dollhouse, and a bucket of dehydrated food in foil pouches for our efforts.

The food is a few years past expiration, but still edible. I don't like dehydrated food. It takes too long to cook. I rather risk the stomach rollers and eat from a tin, but tins are hard to find. Most tins are spoiled too. Sometimes you find a tin and it's dog food. You eat it anyway, because it's food. Dried food is safer to eat, but dangerous to cook. I will never be a chef. Fear and food are too closely linked in the brain. Risky having a fire going for too long. It attracts the lurchers and other scavengers. Only start fire in the middle of the day. Fires at night are suicide. To cook, I get the fire going and bury the coals in a hole, then drop a jimmy-rigged tin of dehydrated food mixed with water. After an hour, I come back and eat. Sometimes the charcoal falls into the tin, but that's ok. Bill said charcoal absorbs radiation and poison. It may also improve the flavor.

Sigh. I hate this food. Maybe I'll find twinkie sticks tomorrow. The map tells me that there used to be a small town in this area. Small towns are best. The big towns are either bombed out or picked over. Lurchers hide in the medium sized towns. Small towns are nice and spaced out and you'll never be cornered by a lurcher. Too slow lurchy McGee!

I thought about shooting myself today, but possibility of twinkie sticks keeps me going. Stupid Bill had to get eaten. Stupid, lucky Bill. I hate him. Then lurchers ate him. Ha Ha Ha. I am so damn poetic.

Meal 9: Corn Chowder AKA Buckshot Soup

The corn chowder (chow-duh) can best be described as buckshot soup. Don't get me wrong, it tastes pretty good, but trying to eat the kernels of corn is reminiscent of biting down on a shotgun shell. If you do manage to chew the kernel at all, it wrecks your enamel and gums up your teeth. It's all the fun of a Butterfingers without the great taste and hypertension.

Since starting this diet, I've been craving things I don't normally crave. Surprisingly, salt is not one of them. Until I added the black beans into the diet, I had nightly cravings for protein, usually in the form of peanut butter. To remedy this, I would take the minimalist PB and J sandwich approach and just eat a large spoonful of peanut butter. That actually seemed to work pretty well. Another thing I've noticed is that my normally dormant sweet tooth is aching after every meal. The meals themselves are pretty bland which could explain why I'm craving all those processed sugars.

Since today's my birthday, there's not much chance that I'll be eating anything from the bucket. Full disclosure, I had the corn chowder as a snack last night. Since there are only 160 calories in a serving, it didn't seem like that big of a deal. Tomorrow I'll start eating strictly from the bucket. No outside food. I plan to do this for the entire weekend and may carry it on for a few days over the week. The most difficult part will be stopping myself from snacking. I'm not a huge impulse shopper when it comes to food, but if the snacks are present, I will eat them. I'll still be drinking whatever I deem fit, so orange juice and milk are still on the table.

The emergency bucket comes with whey milk so I might try some of that. I'm actually most frightened by the prospect of drinking the milk than I am of anything else from the bucket. I'm a 2% milk guy and I can taste the difference between whole, 2%, and 1% pretty easily. Anything less than 2% tastes like water; anything more tastes like a melted stick of butter. I've never been a fan of soy milk or goats milks so I don't have high hopes for whey milk.

I may be whey over my head at this point.

Two things

This weekend I'll only eat food from the bucket, no supplements. God help me. My friends are trying to kill me.

Secondly: Really, the hadron collider is going to cause the end of the world? I won't even be able to use the emergency bucket if that's how the world ends.