HS 16 – Very Real Possibilities of Famine and How To Prepare with Steve Shenk

Welcome to the Holistic Survival show with Jason Hartman. The economic storm brewing around the world is set to spill into all aspects of our lives. Are you prepared? Where are you going to turn for the critical life skills necessary to survive and prosper? The Holistic Survival show is your family's insurance for a better life. Jason will teach you to think independently, to understand threats and how to create the ultimate action plan. Sudden change or worst scenario, you'll be ready. Welcome to Holistic survival, your key resource for protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Ladies and gentlemen, your host, Jason Hartman.

Welcome to the Holistic Survival show, episode number 16. I'm your host, Jason Hartman. Thanks for joining me. Today we are going to talk about food supplies, food storage, emergency food supplies. But we're not going to talk about it like we have on prior shows where we talk about what you can do to assemble your own supply of emergency food and water. We had on this show a vendor and I just want you to know this show is not a commercial. Of course, we were not paid or anything like that to broadcast the show, but I just kind of liked what this vendor offered, so I decided to have them on the show. They did, and you'll hear it right on the show. Offer me a free sampler pack of their food, which I have not received yet, but I can't wait to get it and try it out. But I just kind of like their approach because it seems like, and I do not know this for sure yet, they've got a real nice quality product here and prices are very reasonable. And we talk about first, the problem with food supply and food storage and then secondly, what you can do about it. So again, this is just a short, quick interview, but the show of course is about the three pillars of holistic survival. Protecting the people, places and profits you care about. So again, this show, like the last one, focuses on the people. If you're concerned about the profit or money aspect, be sure you're listening to my various shows on the money topic. The Creating wealth show being the biggest one, 136 episodes so far, and the Creating wealth video show with about 45 episodes and the speed of money show with with 10 episodes up. So those are all free. You can find them on the web@jason hartman.com or on iTunes. Just type Jason Hartman and search my name and you'll find the different shows. We're also launching a new show very soon called the Jetsetter Travel show and you'll see that one appear as well very soon. All right, let's talk about food. It's one of those necessities, obviously. And here's an interview with, with an interesting food storage company, an emergency food company. Here we go. It's my pleasure to welcome Steve Schenk to the show. He is the director of E Foods Direct. And they make some very interesting products that can help you prepare for emergencies and make sure you are eating well and getting the proper nutrition in this kind of event. Steve, thanks for joining us today.

Hey, it's great to be with you, Jason.

Well, tell us a little bit about the potential problem and how you provide solutions and security for that problem.

Well, very simply, a lot of folks here in America don't realize it, but we're in the fourth year of a worldwide famine. And we also have circumstances, events and events with our economy and regard to our political positioning worldwide that are causing some real serious issues. We've got right now we're importing about 30 to 40% of our food in a country which back in 1959 was capable of producing the entire food supply for the world five times over.

Wow.

And we've got a situation where back a couple of years ago, a couple of springs ago now, the beekeepers opened up their hives and they had lost 70 to 80% of the bees, which are responsible for the vast majority of all of our food that's grown. And we've had circumstances politically here where a lot of the farmers, everybody's familiar with the bank bailout. And unfortunately, when the banks got all that money, they started shutting down loans to grocery stores, farmers and grocery chains, and pretty much a lot of the farmers were unable to get loans to harvest their crops. And now this coming spring, they're going to have difficulty in planting the crops because the loans that it takes to buy the seed, to buy the fuel, to run the tractors and all are being restricted. The other thing that occurred, everyone's familiar with the cap and trade that went through and created circumstances with trying to shut down some of the electrical plants that are coal fired with this silliness on the global warming, which is being proven pretty much every day to be more and more of a fiasco.

Gotta say, I couldn't agree more with you, by the way. That's such a fantasy to just control us, to tax us, to inhibit progress. Frankly, here we have, and I just gotta get off on this little tangent for a second. We've had the coldest month on record last month in the country. We have a very cool last decade yet. It's because of global warming somehow or another. I don't know where this logic comes from, but it's just crazy.

Well, it's even more insane. You and your folks there on your show are concerned with health, nutrition. And anybody with half a rock for a brain realizes that some CO2 is extremely important because plants breathe CO2 to generate their exhale of oxygen, which we desperately need. And the planet in the last three or four hundred years has dropped its percentage of oxygen content significantly as we as the great forests and things like that have been diminishing. And we don't want to get into the rainforest issue, but the fact is that food is a very important issue and it takes oxygen for us to, to metabolize it. And in order for us to get the oxygen we have to have CO2. And now that's a poisonous gas. Talk to me about how insane that is, Jason.

It makes no sense to me whatsoever. I'm not a scientist. But then again, neither is Al Gore or any of those people in Copenhagen. Probably I can't speak for all of them, but most of them are politicians, okay? And we all know that it's just a political issue. But yeah, what these global warming people keep seem to be saying is that we need to get rid of people. I mean that's really what they're saying. People exhale CO2, so we need to reduce the population. Now 50 years ago, 60 years ago, they would have started talking about Hitler and genocide if someone said that. And this is just a, this is just a veiled way to say that, in my opinion.

Well, I don't know if you're aware of it, but George Norrie yesterday evening on his show went through the fact that probably I don't remember the man's name, but he's the most prominent scientists predicting hurricanes in the country, the Air Force and the government agencies that are less political and more concerned with issues rely on him. And he came right out and said it's a worldwide conspiracy to justify this fiasco called global warming, which is the exact opposite of what's literally happening in the normal cycle of the planet. But you put all this together and Mr. Obama made the statement back when he was, prior to his election that he was going to make sure that it was going to be unprofitable for anybody to try and run a coal fired electrical plant.

I remember that he said, he basically said, I will bankrupt them, I will put them out of business.

That's correct. And in that same speech, most people don't remember this, but since I'm involved with food. I do, because it raised all sorts of interesting red flags to me. Here's what he said. He said, and farmers with their tractors and all, are creating more greenhouse gas than the entire transportation industry combined.

That's impossible.

And we have also had legislation and proposed legislation that wants to go and tax farmers. Now from here on in, Jason, the conversation is going to be about our ability as Americans to actually even get food, because we've had legislation proposed where farmers would be taxed on the gaseous emissions of cattle. $87 for a milk cow and somewhat less for a beef cow, because as they consume their food and the normal digestive process comes about, they emit methane gas, which ultimately becomes greenhouse gas. And so the farmers are going to have to pay a carbon tax to raise the cattle that you use for meat.

But let me guess, Steve, they can buy carbon credits from one of Al Gore's companies, right? Uh huh, I'm sure. How convenient.

Yeah, I mean it's absolutely, let me put it this way. Every civilization, when they went totalitarian, the means by which they controlled the population was with, guess what? The only necessity that people absolutely have to have food. And that's food. Most of the Christians right now are avidly reading the Book of Revelations where it talks about the mark that people will be required to have and they will not be able to buy or sell without that mark. Now, if you think about it, Jason, what is it that you would want to, that you would desperately need to buy or sell so badly that you are willing to take that identification mark in order to get it and go against your own religious beliefs which say woe unto those who take the mark. You think about it, the only thing that qualifies for that, the only thing that you would want to buy or have to buy that would require you to subject yourself to total domination would be food. So that's basically what we're about. We've been involved in creating food supplies for families. We call them food savings accounts, where people can put in basic foods. All of the things that we put out will store for 15, 20 years. They are foodstuffs that are dried, they're dehydrated. We desperately avoid freeze dried because they have so many additives and things that will make you glow in the dark, walk sideways and let one eye travel to the other side of your head.

Now let me ask you a question though. The distinction between a lot of people say get MREs, meals ready to eat, like the military uses, are those freeze dried. Are you saying that's bad. Freeze dried is not. Not good.

Well, MREs are not dried at all.

Okay?

They're actually canned goods in a pouch. And I'm sure that your, your listeners and I'm sure that your staff is fully aware that if you go buy a can of canned corn or peas or beans or whatever you want to buy canned, that it has lost 35 to 40% of its nutrition just in the process of being overcooked in order to kill all the enzymes. And most of the vitamins and minerals are pretty much indestructible. But very simply, the MREs are canned goods in a pouch. They put together these recipes, they are heavily laced with many of the things, hydrogenated oil, MSG, and now genetically altered foods and things like that. And on top of it now, I had a Marine Corps colonel that had done this is some time ago, three tours in Vietnam. And he called up and he was kind of a brash character and he said, are you Steve Shank? And I said, yeah. You run efoods direct? Yeah. You ship food out to people that are trying to store it and get prepared for when they can't get food? Yeah. He said, you got any MREs? And I said, oh, gee, no, I'm sorry, we don't carry them because we. And he stopped me right there and says, good. And I said, okay, there's gotta be a story behind that. And he said, yeah, when we went out on long range patrols, we were out for a couple weeks and when we came back in, they didn't drop us off at the barracks. They took us right to the infirmary and proceeded to clean out our plumbing for about three days so that we could start to function again. Because the food that they were feeding us had digestive retardants in them so that we didn't leave evidence of having been where we were. And so one of the things that we've had is a lot of the people that are being deployed will oftentimes contact us and have us ship some of our newer products, which are these seven day responders. It's a whole week worth of three good solid meals a day in a little box that's 1 foot square and 4 inches deep. That's one third of a cubic foot, has all the food, more food than the average person can eat in a seven day period. Three meals a day, plus snacks and everything.

Okay, Now, I've looked at your products on the website. I looked with a fair amount of depth. I saw the different packages. Just so we're clear, I want to make sure, we know what is the difference from your foods and why are they better than MREs or any other type of food, for example? Because they're fresh. What's the secret? What's the uniqueness of the way you're packing them or preserving them?

Well, first of all, they're all dried. They have a 12 to 15 to 20 year shelf life, depending on which ones you're talking about. And we specifically made these recipes with the intent of having food that is not going to hurt people. There is no MSG in this stuff. Now, you find me either commercially made food or any of these food storage companies that can make that claim. They just aren't. They aren't even addressing the issue. Now, the other thing that should be extremely important to you and your listeners is this genetically modified organism thing, gmo, where the foods literally are being modified from what they were and they aren't even recognizable, oftentimes by the body as food. If you have a chance, or I suggest to any of your listeners that you look up hydrogenated oil and what it does to the body. And a lot of people are sensitive to msg and they ask us about that and they're elated with the fact that we don't have any in the foods that we produce. But the fact is that hydrogenated oil makes MSG look like child's play compared to what it does. And we were able in all of these prepared foods to eliminate hydrogenated oil in any of them, msg, gmo. And on top of it, you add to that the fact that most of the companies right now that are hopping on the bandwagon of providing food for people to store away in case of emergencies, some of them call it food insurance or whatever, are telling people that one cup of food is a serving, but they also call that a meal. There's an outfit out there. There are several outfits out there that tell people that they can have a year's supply of food and they're charging them astronomical amounts for a year's supply of food. And that year's supply of food consists of 365 cups of food. In other words, an adult is supposed to live on one cup of food a day, and they call that a year's supply. I mean, there's so much shysterism right now, Jason, because people are afraid. We've got huge percentages of our population. Back in September, I believe September was roughly for those people who are following the true unemployment rates as opposed to the ones that are put out as propaganda, I believe that Mid September was when we surpassed the unemployment rate of the Great Depression.

Well, yeah, you're talking about. It's really the real rate when you include discouraged workers, people dropping off the rolls, and then of course the underemployed. It's about 26% or so, probably, right?

Yeah. I mean 10% thing is absolutely absurd. Of course it is, because they eliminate people who have been looking for work so long they actually gave up. They're not unemployed anymore because they're not trying to get work. So the whole objective of the food that Efoods Direct puts out is very simply that people have food that is plenty adequate. In other words, more. We put in one of these seven day responders, more food per day than the average person can eat. Now you get somebody that's 6 foot 7 and 300 pounds and eats 5,000 calories a meal. Yup, he's going to need two of them. But people got to use some sense.

But he shouldn't have two anyway, he should be on three.

And the quantity of food, I mean, one of these outfits is claiming that three meals a day for a child is three half cups of food. That's absolutely absurd. But let's get back to why we do what we do. The reason we do this. We've been involved with putting in supplies of food for about coming up on 28 years now. And the whole importance of food is the fact that if you have something to eat, no matter what happens, you can pretty much handle it. If these people that are unemployed had a food savings account just before they lost their jobs, that had a year's supply or a two year supply of food in, they very simply could handle pretty much all of the other problems and not be terribly distressed. The reason that we have people that are having such great difficulty with the economics of the times is now we can't even afford groceries. With the inflation rate on food as a result of the worldwide circumstances where other countries are coming in and buying our food from us because American dollars over there are very cheap and they can buy our food away from us, they can bid our food away from us, more and more American families are finding them in a situation where they literally can't afford to buy food. 35% of the population in this country has basically food anxiety. In other words, they are having difficulty affording food. And the other fact that US News came out with just the other day, Jason, is that one in six people in the United States of America has what they call food anxiety. In other words, they are destitute Enough so that every single day they are concerned about what they're going to eat that day. They're not worried about where they're going to stay. They're not worried about whether they have enough money to go to a movie. They are worried about whether they can get enough food for that day. One in six people in the United States of America. You got to ask yourself, what is wrong with that picture, Jason?

It is changing here so quickly. And I think it's just like you put the frog in the lukewarm water and turn up the heat slowly. And that's what our government is doing to us. And that's what just the general confluence of these forces going on around the world is doing to us. And things are changing fast. And it amazes me how many people, Steve, are so unaware and just consumed with stupid pop culture garbage rather than focusing on what is really going on out there. I mean, folks, you're listening to the show, so you're paying attention, but you got to tell other people to pay attention too, because if the crisis really hits the fan, those other people are going to be coming to you for your food. And you don't want that. You want everybody to be prepared. So the more we spread the word about this type of holistic survival thinking, the better off we will all be. But you're, you're absolutely right. Couldn't agree more.

Well, the interesting thing that we're dealing with, Jason, is that now if folks will get up on the Efoods Direct website, they'll have a lot of information. They'll be able to see what is possible. But the important thing is this is food now with these new recipes. It used to be that storable food, you know, like wheat, beans, rice, that type of thing was pretty basic and you had to be at one dickens of a scratch cook in order to make it work. Now with these new nutriversal foods that we have developed, they don't have any of the bad stuff in them. In fact, we have testimonials all over the place. We had a little gal that was absolutely allergic to genetically modified organisms in the food and she, you know, heard about us. She ordered out a couple of these seven day responders and they lived on them for a week and she had absolutely no reaction. Now she literally has come in and bought a couple years supply of it and put it away. It turns out to be significantly less expensive than groceries. You're talking about people Right now we've got a special on with our holiday pack and it turns out that people can put in a week's worth of food with that for $34. I mean, that's absolutely absurd.

That's fantastic. You have an interesting section on your website called Security for Fun. And I'm not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean just both things or are you suggesting when people order this, they eat it or eat it after a certain amount of time, just sort of rotate stock? Just wondering what you're getting to there.

Well, that particular page, actually, we're modifying that a little bit. We remodeled our website completely and that didn't come out quite the way we wanted to. It was supposed to be security was one issue with food, and fun is the other issue. But essentially what we do encourage people, or what we're finding people that are encouraging us to say is that this food is not only economical, it's not only easy to store, also not only takes very little space, but the fact is that grocery wise, the families that can't even afford groceries at the store can afford this. And they've got better quality food than they can possibly get at the store. At the same time, the formulations that we've put together, these recipes we've put together. Jason, I'm going to send you out a seven day just for you to mess around with it and cook it. Because when you taste this food, you cannot find a soup or you cannot find an entree in the finest restaurant in this country that has the flavor, that has the quality of food, and yet we're able to put it out at a price that the average family or families that are really challenged financially can afford. And they're eating better than people that have a lot of money to spend on their food. And it's also storable. So take your pick. What a lot of families are doing is they literally are putting in twice as much of this. They eat half of it and they store back half of it. Because can you imagine what it feels like to have a stack of these little responders in your garage or in your basement that represents six months worth of food if something happened where you literally couldn't leave your home. Now they're talking about this pandemic. The Patriot act indicates that if you're unable to take care of yourself, then you'll be required. You know, in a quarantine situation, if you don't have enough food and water and be able to take care of yourself, then you'll be required to go to a gathering center, which is very similar what happened to Katrina. You get a whole Bunch of people together in an epidemic and guess what happens?

Chaos.

Everybody gets sick.

Right? Yeah.

So the fact is that can you imagine if something happened where you had to stay in your home for a month or maybe two months, dare go out because of this pandemic that they're trying to create around the universe? If you had food that's better than you could possibly get at any restaurant, look at the psychological and security factor for families, wives and children and husbands that can sit around their table and have a good meal. In the center of. You know, the 23rd Psalm says, Thou hast placed a table for me in the presence of my enemies. What would that feel like to have the security of a family sitting down to the best meal that they'd ever had? And yet. Yet it was in a stupid little box. It was all dried up and looked like it wasn't really food at all.

Right, Right. Now let me ask you also in terms of preparation, does this require cooking? You said cooking. What about the preparation level? Are there varying levels in the products you sell?

Well, the neat thing about all the nutraversal products, and this is the seven day packages and those is that they're all designed in such a way that the nutritional level is extremely high. They start out dry. The only thing that you do for preparation is you add water, follow the directions, add water, simmer them for on average about 20 minutes and you're good to go. You've got a gourmet meal that you'd be proud of to serve and claim that you made it yourself.

Okay, good, good. Well, that's good to know. Well, Steve, thank you so much. I can't wait to try this 7 day responder pack that you're going to send out. So thank you for that. And you know what? I might be the best testimonial you have as a bachelor. I basically don't cook, so this may be the way I eat all the time.

From now on, Jason, we are going to save your life.

Yeah, okay. Sounds good to me. I appreciate it. What else would you like to say to just kind of in final here to just kind of wrap up this whole subject?

Well, you know, a lot of people look at people like us and they say, well, they're kind of goofy. And it was kind of like Noah in the ark. They used to think that he was kind of goofy, but he hammered and built and he kept on doing his thing. And the way you make decisions like this, whether your people decide to get up on efoodoods directly and look at what we're doing. Or they can also call some of our little gals that will answer the phone there and give them some information at 800-409-5633. That's 800-409-5633. If they get up on the website and take a look at it, make some decisions as to whether this is for them. The one thing I'd say to them, Jason, is you make those decisions based on can you afford to be wrong? If you put in a supply of food, nothing happens. The only thing you've done is bought groceries ahead of time. If you put in a supply of food and something happens, then you'll be gratified to be prepared for whatever happens and you can handle whatever the emergency is. If you choose to look at people like you and like me and say, gee whiz, these guys are a little bit dumb, I'm going to bet that nothing's going to happen. Can you afford to be wrong? If you're wrong in that situation, you could be dead wrong.

Yeah, well, that's a great point. You could be dead wrong. So don't be dead wrong. Folks, folks, efoodsdirect.com is the website. Steve Schenk, thank you so much for sharing this stuff with us today. We really appreciate it.

It's been great. Jason, hey, Al Rancell here. You know, with all the financial uncertainty, now is the time more than ever to be in touch with Jason Hartman. They have what's coming up we call the Masters Weekend. Now they're going to learn about the tried and true conservative investments that work in real life. For example, how to get the taxes back that you paid over the last five years. Imagine that. How to make up to 40% or more even in today's climate. It'll be at the Masters Weekend in Costa Mesa. How do you reserve? How do you find out information? Simple. Go online to jasonhartman.com also get your free educational podcasts. Do not miss the Masters Weekend.

Thank you for joining us today for the holistic survival show protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Be sure to listen to our Creating wealth show, which focuses on exploiting the financial and wealth creation opportunities in today's economy. Learn more at www.jason hartman.com or search Jason Hartman on itunes. This show is produced by the Hartman Media Company offering very general guidelines and information. Opinions of guests are their own and none of the content should be considered individual advice. If you require personalized advice, please consult an appropriate professional information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.