Week 2 Review - Ration or Ruin w/ IC, FD & Bankster Breaker

[00:00:00] The Head Table Seat, so I appreciate that. I am hosting tonight. I already made a mistake and hit live late, so we literally just went live. But for a recap of everybody, this is the Week 2 Ration or Ruin review. As you can tell, my mental clarity is falling apart now. I'm doing okay. We will go through, I have a spreadsheet we'll review, but we're going to review Mountain House. We're going to review how, a couple stories from the week.

[00:00:27] So we got Peacher Dan, we got Intrepid Commander, we got myself. Back to you, Intrepid Commander. I already started off wrong, but we're back. We're live. This is live radio, baby. Don't worry about it. Yeah, we had, you know, we've had a lot of experience in our household with Mountain House food, so I was pretty excited. I only came, somehow I only came away with two bags. I don't know what happened, but no big deal.

[00:00:56] I'm in the cultivator class, so substitution wasn't that big a deal for me. Mountain House is, I think, and those style packages where you can cook the food within the Mylar are just, you know, they're clearly a superior product from a preparation standpoint and a superior product from a, you know, something you're going to take on the go.

[00:01:23] I will say, though, I will say that, and I talked about this before we got started, the ease of, the ease of production compared to the 20 minutes simmering of ready hour did have me on the fence about cooking up some of the ready hour that I had leftover from week one, because I did have some leftovers.

[00:01:49] I had the, what'd I have, the beef lasagna, which by the time I had the beef lasagna, which was Wednesday, was it Wednesday? Yesterday was Wednesday. What day is it? Friday. Yeah, Wednesday. Had the beef lasagna Wednesday and, you know, because it was coming off a Tuesday, it was wonderful.

[00:02:12] You know what I mean? Like it was wonderful. So I, I had no qualms with it whatsoever. I, the problem with Mountain House for me and for my family is we don't store a bunch of it because expensive as hell. And that, you know, that's, that's kind of my rating on, on the deal. Like the, the taste is, is about the best you're going to get, I think, for this kind of freeze dried food that's rehydrated.

[00:02:38] And, you know, the, like cooking the food up, being able to just pour hot for those of you out there who've never had a Mountain House, that fundamental difference is you're simmering survival rations from places like ready wise, ready hour, legacy food storage, you know, emergency essentials, all these guys, you got to cook, literally cook the food.

[00:02:59] Uh, which becomes a big consideration if you're low on fuel out of electricity, whatever the situation is trying to run a fire, especially if you don't have experience, you know, with a fire. Whereas, you know, I've had Mountain House food on the side of a mountain, like with a jet boil and a metal steel cup, you know what I mean? Just water in the steel cup, bring it to a boil, drop it in the Mountain House pouch and wait 15 minutes and you're eating.

[00:03:29] So the only tip I'd give is the key with the good Mountain House is, and, and subsequent meals like it is, uh, you got to get that first stir. That first stir has to be like neurotic. If you can, if you can, if you can be neurotic on that initial stir, you'll really enjoy. If you're lazy on that first stir, you're going to wind up getting into some globs of stuff at the bottom. But yeah, don't be lazy. That happened to me. That, that happened. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:03:57] That's one of those Mountain House tips, but I got lucky. I got really lucky. My dogs wind up tearing into a poor raccoon in the back of the chicken coop. And, uh, that guy had no chance in hell. So I, I was in the rain getting eaten by mosquitoes in the rain. I guess that was Wednesday night. Yeah. Getting eaten by mosquitoes in the rain Wednesday night, butchering this raccoon.

[00:04:24] Um, it was the first raccoon I've ever butchered, but for those of you who butcher, you know, the deal, we're all kind of the same. So it doesn't, it's not really that different no matter what it is, if it's a mammalian. Um, and yeah, we got him in there and I salted that thing overnight because I don't know. I just felt like if there's anything wacky going on with it, the salt will kill it, you know? So I salted the whole carcass overnight.

[00:04:52] I removed the front arms completely and just left the back legs in the tenderloin. And then, uh, slow, just kind of, kind of slow cooked it. I think I cooked it a little too long and, and turned it into kind of this seasoned up raccoon jerky, which was actually really good. And I probably could have hung it and left it outside and it probably would have been fine to eat the next day. But, you know, between me and the dog, I felt the dogs deserve the ration for their hard work.

[00:05:21] And, uh, I did a bit of mushroom. Well, I did a bit of mushroom looking, but the foraging aspect was not happening. I didn't find anything edible. I found some, some weird stuff, but nothing I could eat. I have, I did think, I thought possibly I found like a young wine cap mushroom, which is pretty easy to discern except because the wine cap has like this weird spiky skirt around it.

[00:05:48] For those of you out there who bought the go forth and forge book, all the hosts got the go forth and forge book. So you guys can double check it, but, um, it has like this spiny skirt, this weird spiky kind of skirt underneath the main, um, head of the mushroom. And this one had like a big frilly skirt. So I didn't, I didn't mess with it. I figured better to stay hungry, better to go back to the mulberry tree. The mulberry tree has been the, the, the big hit for me.

[00:06:15] I mean, I've eaten more mulberries than anything in this whole foraging expedition. But that's pretty much been my week, man. I am noticing in a, in a, it's bad. The only thing that's bad is my mental situation. Like my kids are telling me that they said things to me that I have no recollection of them saying and, uh, weird stuff like that. You know what I mean?

[00:06:45] And I'm yeah. So that, that's a little concerning, but other than that, and, oh, and you know what else has happened a lot? And after about, I'd say probably four 30 this week, I took like two naps, which is a weird time for me to even lay down, let alone nap. But like, just legitimately, like I gotta go lay down type of thing. Yeah. Yeah. That's rare for me.

[00:07:11] So this could be the, just the amount of days being under nourished. You know what I mean? Cause I don't even know, to be honest with you, I don't even know if the eating days with the cultivator privilege, if I'm eating, I know I'm not eating what I normally eat. You know what I mean? Right. Right. I think it's, it's just undernourished altogether, but yeah, that's been my week pretty much. Not bad. Adds up over time. That's one of the big things here. It's not just a week.

[00:07:41] It's an entire month. Shout out to Jay Ferg and Firewolf Forge. Oh man. The crew in chat. Welcome guys. Yeah. All right. Jay Ferg says, I definitely brine it with regard to raccoon or probably any of that type of game. Kill off anything inside. Uh, Firewolf Forge down to half a jar of peanut butter left. Firewolf Forge says, so tired in the afternoon. I haven't slept much.

[00:08:09] I haven't slept this much in a while. So sleeping a lot more is actually more. Yeah. I'm noticing that myself. That's, that's definitely a symptom. There you go. Future Dan, you got the scoring for mountain house here. Uh, run us through the different categories. We've of course talked about the categories themselves at length, but a little refresher on those categories.

[00:08:35] But more importantly, mountain house scores from one to 10. Go for it. So I think longevity matches ready hour. I'm giving it an eight. On the nutrition dimension. It's higher. It's getting a seven from me. It's got a lot of protein that ready house did not have on taste. Better. It is better. I'm giving it a six variety. I didn't have to.

[00:09:06] Yeah. I think that the variety in the largest kits, we didn't procure one for ration or ruin, but it looks about the same. So it's high from, for me, for, for what I can, you know, tolerate for eating foods repetitively. I'm not too worried about food fatigue. But I think among emergency kits out there, the variety is high. I give it an eight. I give it an eight. Preparation. James talked about in detail. I agree. I'm giving it a six.

[00:09:36] James mentioned the cost. Yeah. It's scoring low for me. I think it's a three on a 10 point scale. It's expensive. This is clearly a case of you get, you're getting what you're paying for packaging. Very good. It, you know, it aids in the preparation. As James said, it's a, it's an eight. The portioning. I like it. I like it a lot. I'm giving it a nine.

[00:10:00] Most of these are individual, possibly a two person serving to one or two persons per serving. So there's a convenience factor for that. And it, you know, from a rationing point of view, it's easier when the products in individual or, or maybe, maybe double individual servings. So portioning, I'm giving it a nine. Storage. It was just, you know, the, the box that came in, you know, not the packaging of the food. Right.

[00:10:30] But the, the, the storage box was just a cardboard crate. So nothing, you know, carton, nothing special. Giving it a six. Not bad. They would stack up. You can keep them away from moisture. They'd be, they'd be fine for that longevity and additives a little bit lower score.

[00:10:46] It, you know, in so far as I could taste additives, but I gotta say it, you know, some of these meals have had a, you know, that just that good for 30 year aftertaste to them. Right. They're not, they're not normal food. Right. You know, normal food can't last 30 years. So something's there.

[00:11:11] So that just was not as powerful a taste as, as ready hour, but it's still there. So that's my ratings on mountain house. Next week we're doing XMRE. So it's going to be interesting to see how it matches up. What's, what's your perspective on those, Ben? All right. All right. For mountain house, very similar to you, but I did identify a couple differences. So let's see the nutrition. I still will knock.

[00:11:39] I think you gave a nutrition a seven. I would still give it like a five because you'll get by with it for a long time, even months, but the actual healthy fats and a lot of other nutrition is not great. And something that Jay Ferg points out is what's the sodium and sugar on those in particular sodium is huge. So nutrition five, um, the taste, I guess it's, you gave it a six.

[00:12:08] I would almost give it higher, but I, you know, am I classifying this compared to, you know, a nice restaurant? No. So if we're comparing it to fresh, good food, yeah, it's a six or lower, but compared to other storable food, it's gotta be as high as possible. There's a ceiling almost, uh, the one thing I would argue against a little bit is the portioning. You gave it a nine.

[00:12:35] I'd give it like a seven better than ready hour for the reasons you pointed out, but a little bit small still. Like each package was 500 to 600 calories, which, Hey, that's better than them being 1500 calories, which is too much for one person for sure. But I felt like after I ate one of them, like, Oh man, I barely even hardly ate anything. Now I was just coming off of like 30 hours of fasting practically.

[00:13:03] So, you know, and, uh, so the portion, I would give like a seven or maybe an eight. Um, so, but otherwise pretty much what you said. And, uh, I was, I think mountain house versus XMRE will be very interesting matchup. We're going to do, you know, I kind of previewed this on Patriot power hour. I'll do a cost analysis kind of cost per calorie of these three options.

[00:13:30] The ready hour versus the mountain house versus the XMRE, which will be next week. Mountain house, you know, if, if mountain house and ready hour were the exact same price, mountain house wins easily. But mountain house has got to be at least twice as expensive, but if you match up mountain house versus XMRE, they're a little bit more in the same weight class for lack of a better term in terms of cost. So next week I'm excited for the XMREs.

[00:13:59] They look good. They were thought I'd say like, I'm super excited for, for MREs, but I am. Cause these look like high quality, but anyway, mountain house. Great. I didn't have any problems with it. I just wanted a little bit more, I guess, but that's just how it goes when you're rationing. It's going to be nice to have that MRE variety in a meal. Yeah.

[00:14:22] I know that one, one of the things that I notice is that something like a ration or ruin, um, some days it feels a lot like just a diet to me. And one of the things that I noticed is it prevents me from like going and grabbing things that make the day variety, like give you that daily variety. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I'm definitely missing that variety. I'm used to like open up the pantry, grab this middle of the day type thing.

[00:14:53] So I'm kind of looking forward to some cracker and some, you know, instead of just one thing in the meal. Right. Great point. Not like it's going to be a five course meal, but it won't be just beef stroganoff. For example, anybody else had anything else on mountain house? Wanted to cover otherwise, uh, go ahead, go ahead. Yeah.

[00:15:16] Well, just the second week of, of ration or ruin for me, the, um, the, the, the calories of mountain house, the packages were smaller. So, so there was less of it. And, and as James mentioned, he's in the, the cultivator class supplementing from the homestead, but you and I aren't. And I, I just went with less calories. I didn't even get close to 6,000 calories.

[00:15:44] I I'm supplementing with protein shakes. Yes. I did have more of them, but they're not a lot of calories, 160 each. So I'm maybe. Uh, you know, four or 500, but still, I was a big deficit from 6,000 calories as we had originally planned. And I just stuck with it. And I can tell you last night, laid down to go to bed. I've been sleeping more and I feel like the sleep is more restful as a matter of fact, but, uh, had to lay there.

[00:16:14] I was tired enough that I eventually fell asleep, but my, my stomach was growling like serious. Like I, I've not experienced my stomach growling like that for that long. Maybe not since I was a kid. Right. So definitely biological changes happened for me. Firewolf force, uh, forge is talking about losing 10 pounds. I think I'm, I've lost 12 in two weeks. Wow. That's great, man. You said you lost 12 pounds in two weeks. I have.

[00:16:43] Yeah. Dude, that's phenomenal. Now next week with XMREs, I think the form factor allows you to kind of, you know, eat a little bit at a time all day long. So this rhythm that we've been in with, right. You know, feast or it's literally feast or famine, right. Yeah. Yeah. Is, is going to change up a little bit.

[00:17:05] And that last week with Dave's freeze dried, but you know, things like raw eggs and other stews. They're going to, that's going to take some cooking. So I'm just trying to project, you know, we're, we're halfway there, right. Halfway through ration or ruin this month, 16th of May, 2025 started on third. We're ending, ending it on 31st.

[00:17:30] And I think I'm going to make it on the same regime with the same, you know, schedule of, of, of not eating solid food. But, uh, the, the hunger symptoms are growing stronger. Has it hasn't been, hasn't been, you know, an impairment in my daily life yet, but. You know, uh, subconsciously I know it's there. I was, uh, driving to or fro this evening and need gasoline.

[00:17:59] So I went to a gas station and I happened to be on the phone doing business. And as I was pulling into the gas station, distracted by the call, I drove right past the gas pump and up to the convenience store. It was like, I'm getting food. Damn it. It was like my subconscious was, I was in a habit that, you know, just last month, I probably would have had something to eat if I was hungry.

[00:18:23] And today it was like, all right, I'm going to pick up a protein shake and, uh, get the gas I came here for. So they're under the surface of what I'm logically controlling. There's a, there's a subconscious that is increasingly saying you're very hungry now. Yeah.

[00:18:43] I think there is something to be said about the effect it's having probably on you guys too, on the sort of like fluffy, happy, go lucky man that is created by a life full of carbohydrates. You know what I mean? Like I've like my wife and kids are already like, just eat something because you're being a dick. You know what I mean?

[00:19:07] I don't know if you guys are experiencing that at all, but like, you know, it's typical like hangry behavior, but I feel, I feel it in, in many different ways. It's just, and what's really, what's, what I've been really aware of lately is like maybe a lot of the changes that men have experienced over these years have to do with literally being full. You know, like instead of being such savages, it's sheer fact that we've made it to a point where we can fill our bellies every day.

[00:19:36] Cause it does feel a little different. We're bread and circus every day. Exactly. We got some questions in the chat, Ben. Yeah. Before I forget this thought, cause I probably will on Patriot power hour. We talked about the scale from zero to 10. And if you're too low or too high on your energy levels, for example, example, but also temperament.

[00:20:03] Well, early this week when I had all the energy in the world, but no food, I was very aggressive. Wanted to fight people. It was just like hyper, but I was getting things done at least, but I was just like almost savage. Yeah. Rude a few times, but by the end of the week, I was on the other end of it, more apathetic. Like, oh my gosh, I don't care anymore. Do whatever you want. Like in my head.

[00:20:32] Now I still powered through and got a lot of stuff done at work today, but I was just like almost the opposite of what I was on Monday. So my mental clarity is decent. It's not the greatest, but honestly, I don't usually don't do radio on Friday because by Friday I'm shot anyway.

[00:20:48] So I, uh, I've had more tired Fridays with full calories than I did today, but it was today was, you know, uh, one of the lower energy and motivation Fridays I've had in quite a while. So that was just kind of my, my thoughts there on these questions. Let's see. Uh, fire with forge says it's kind of like a diet for him as well. Wife's freaking out a bit, you know, on the mountain house prices at price. Well, is it worth it?

[00:21:18] I'm going to do that analysis. Yeah. We can find out. I wanted to mention that, you know, I really appreciate you doing that and I want to help you. So let me know because you're going to be comparing apples to oranges across the board. You know, when you go to a grocery store or any kind of store that sells, you know, stuff by the pound and you look at it, you know, none of the stickers allow you to do a proper crop, you know, comparison. The unit of measures are different. Yeah.

[00:21:47] It's, it's not made to be easy, right? Right. You're doing, you're going to be doing that because I didn't see any total calorie or, uh, yeah, there's some variables that are going to be, you know, tricky. If you buy a bucket worth of ready are how many actual calories are in it, you're not going to, you're going to have to add it up or estimate because it's, it's, it's, it's not advertised as such, but after we, so that's why just heads up.

[00:22:15] This analysis might be, you know, parameters and not exact to answer preliminary answer. I think the firewall forges, you said times two, I'm guessing it's more like three times the price, Ben. I can see it that way. I believe it. Yeah, definitely.

[00:22:35] I would say for the, for the cost analysis, um, I'm, I'm remembering, I think on the ready hour website itself, I'd say try to do some research before you reinvent the wheel, because I think on the ready hour website itself, they have a breakdown of calories and calories per.

[00:23:03] Or price per calorie, something along those lines. And it's kind of like their way of, you know, it's a marketing thing, but you can look at it. I want to say it's a four tier and there are three other companies listed that they're putting their product up against. So you might be able to glean a lot of information from that. And you may even plug, plug whatever your metric is going to be into Google and then put prepper in front of it or behind it. And you might get it.

[00:23:32] Some crazy prepper who's done it already, at least the data, you know what I mean? Or at least gets you halfway there, you know, cause there's a lot of people who have written food storage review articles and did food storage review videos and that kind of stuff. Makes sense. It'll be kind of a range. So it'll be a little bit of a, I guess, the mation, but you know, that's one of my favorite things to do.

[00:23:56] I hate accounting because everything has to add up perfectly. I like what numbers sort of kind of add up, but you can kind of do some analysis on thoughts on that. But a fireball forces, how much money y'all saving by not eating out? Well, I used to only eat out about once a week. My favorite part. Yeah. I've literally my favorite part right now. How much you think?

[00:24:18] Well, so one of the things I've had to do a couple of times is to take my kids, you know, out to grab food after dinner between sports, whatever the situation is. And I just really like not having to spend money on myself because, you know, nowadays if you, if you do a Chick-fil-A or something like that, it's, you know, you're a $15 entity. So you take that out of the overall price and it's like, yeah, I like my kids.

[00:24:45] I'm sure they're probably enjoying it because I'm less, less compelled to say no. You know, like a lot of times I'm like, ah, come on. I don't feel like dropping $60 at the, at the Qdoba or whatever. But when it's just them two eating or them two and my wife, see, my wife won't eat when I don't eat. So she didn't, she's getting pretty pissy about that too. And I don't blame her, but I get it. Halfway there.

[00:25:09] So if we go, we go out and eat, she's like, you know, but yeah, I love that part about it. That's nice. The other thing that this is probably going to wind up doing for me on that subject is, uh, I'll probably do a lot less fast food. Not that I won't eat, but I think I won't go like, all right, well, we're going to, you know, McDonald's or whatever.

[00:25:34] So I'll get a soda and a fry and a burger. You know what I mean? Like probably be just fun when you're not eating at all. It feels like, well, it'd be really nice just to have a, just the burger. You know what I mean? So maybe that's the way to go save money, save calories, save whatever the hell, you know, else is going into your body with McDonald's, that kind of stuff. The fries and the soda are definitely the worst part. So there you go. Are they really? They're my favorite. They gotta be the worst part. Well, we get a milkshake too.

[00:26:06] Future Dan, how much, uh, you know, how, how much you think you're saving or what's your thoughts on going out to eat? And when you end ration or ruin, are you going to go back to eating food or is this going to be a new lifestyle? I'm actually, I'm, I'm going to make a purchase based upon this analysis. This, this exercise this month has, you know, primary and secondary purposes.

[00:26:31] And one of my personal secondary purposes is to learn about these foods. And I'm not sure I'll have sampled enough products to make that decision. So I might continue with, uh, at least a, uh, rhythm, a cadence of eating survival food on alternating days going forward.

[00:27:00] And maybe two or three more products. So there might be like a, you know, ration or ruin, you know, post post event kind of continuation for me. Um, because I just want to make the best purchase possible. I want, I want the longevity and I don't want to overpay and I want to, you know, I want to shop. That's what I'm doing. I'm shopping.

[00:27:24] So, um, but definitely I'm not keeping, you know, myself under 6,000 calories a week going into June. It's, it's gonna, it's gonna go back and regain the energy. Like I said, uh, I haven't felt the energy loss yet, but the subconscious is pulling hard in that direction. I'll tell you one thing, man. I think if you guys didn't do the, if you guys didn't bring the protein shakes and the, um,

[00:27:53] supplements to the game, I would have been, I might've been done already. It's honestly, I might've been like, I think I'm, I think I'm done. Cause I think I would have been way, way worse off already just cause I work out, you know what I mean? And I know that's like gotta be the worst right now for my body to recover.

[00:28:17] So without that, if it was legitimately like, cause you're not doing any of that stuff or you're doing supplements, right? Um, Ben. I am, I am supplementing some, but some days I do a full on fast. This is actually probably a good time to look at my spreadsheet super quick. Yeah. Let's take a look at that. I think I got it all squared away. Let me know if you guys see it. Wow. All right.

[00:28:46] So that out, man, that thing looks nice. Yeah. Don't tell my boss to do this during the day instead of work. Um, so, uh, each bar is a day and it shows red. If it's a negative or a calorie deficit and green, if it's a positive calorie day, that last bar ever get a positive calorie day.

[00:29:11] Well, because I do supplement a little bit, but when I was eating some of those ready hours and stuff, you know, those are 2000 plus calories. They were like four, if you ate the whole thing. Yeah. I mean, yes. One of them was like 1900 calories for like eight servings. And if I have some and I can go through it too, but I would have a couple of protein shakes, one or two.

[00:29:35] I'd have maybe, uh, some fish oil or a couple hundred calories worth of coconut oil just to get some fresh oil. So supplementation for sure. Uh, that last one is actually today's. I haven't eaten it yet, but I planned out already. So I'm actually, I ran out of mountain house, but I'm eating about 1500 calories or 1400 of Mac and cheese ready hour, as well as, uh, some, uh, some other supplementation.

[00:30:05] So anyway, a couple of days I am getting, I wonder if that Mac and cheese will be a standout item for ready hour. We're going to find out. Uh, I'd like to know your thought. I'm sure I'll get your thoughts, but I'd like to know your thoughts. I'm not super excited for it, but I am pretty hungry. So I, on the other hand, I am excited for it. So a big supplementation I've been doing is a protein powder, but from peanuts.

[00:30:33] So peanut butter powder or a chocolate peanut butter powders. It stores for a couple of years. I've also, I'm not going to call it cheated, but a couple of packs of beef jerky. I'm like, ah, beef jerky lasts a couple of years. Like I had a pack on days that I went on a few mile hike. So that little blue dotted line is the moving average of the last five days.

[00:30:55] So when you smooth it all out, I've been, you know, currently I'm only at about a 500 to 600 calorie a day, but I was below a thousand early on this weekend though. Tomorrow and Sunday, I'm going to have no calories and I'm not planning to supplement either day. Now I'm not going to go fishing, but it's easy. I could have two huge red bars and bring everything down. So there we go. There's that.

[00:31:22] Maybe a little harder to see here, but here's my weight, my check-ins, the orange dots, again, of moving average over time. Smooths it out a little. That's my evening weight. So I was at about like 226 on the average. Now I'm down to about 223. So a few pounds, you know, I don't want to lose more than a pound a week, honestly. So I'm okay with that. And in a real prep situation, you don't want to lose any weight, honestly. Again, though, I'm supplementing. So here's my energy.

[00:31:52] So let's just look at the dotted lines are the moving average. And my energy has certainly gone down. I'll say at the very beginning on the left-hand side, it's because I was, you know, I was eating great. I had some wine. I had a great weekend. And then, so I was feeling top of my game and it's gone downhill slightly. And look at today. I gave today some of the worst ratings. So I don't know.

[00:32:20] With no calories facing this weekend, I might fall off a cliff on energy. I hope not. But yeah, we'll see. Last one, protein intake. Again, I've been supplementing more lately. As you can see, the black bar is the protein each day. This one's a busy chart. Green is where I would normally aim for every single day when I was eating. There's a few blank spots because I had zero grams of protein. So those blank spots are where I did not supplement at all.

[00:32:50] And this, for example, this is all supplementation. And I got, you know, like 70 grams of, so like two protein shakes essentially. So yeah, I've been, I'm not going to say cheating the last few days, but I've kind of been kicking my calories up. I'm going to really clamp down this weekend unless I catch some fish. So that's my goal. We'll see. There you go, gentlemen. And peanuts for the win, says Fire O'Forge.

[00:33:23] James, in the pre-show, we talked about how to smoke some catfish. You mind running that recipe past us one more time? Yeah, definitely. Like I said, if you're going to do anything with catfish, it would be, and this is for the listeners. I know I'm going to have fit your guys' schedule, but, and I'm sure Jay Fergie, if she's in chat, Phoenix will have some say so on this, but it's, I've always did at least, you know,

[00:33:48] a few hours, eight hours, sometimes even overnight in milk, soaked in milk overnight. Typically I'm frying catfish, not smoking it. But you said you're going to be catching fish in the, you know, 12 to 18 inch range. So I imagine you're going to be, you know, left with some pretty, pretty small fillets in terms of like, it's not something you're going to be able to throw on the grill. But the idea is to smoke them.

[00:34:15] So I think what you could do there, what I would do is, you know, get the, get the hot smoker going. You have sort of a barrel style hot smoker. So get the hot smoker going. I'd either put them on a sheet pan or put them a thin sheet pan or put them on some kind of aluminum foil and move the whole thing in one piece. You know what I mean? So lay all your fillets out on there, season them up, salt and pepper. I wouldn't do much else other than salt and pepper, unless you want to do some kind of

[00:34:44] like, you know, something goofy, like Cajun seasoning or something like that. But, and I'd say probably 10, 15 minutes on a nice hot smoker. And those thin fillets are going to be pretty much good to go. Delicious. Now, if you get into some big boys, you might have to, you know, might have to smoke them a little longer, but you're just looking for the meat to start flaking, get all opaque and it'll be good eating, man.

[00:35:11] Especially since, you know, what you guys have been existing on thus far. I'm sure that smoked catfish will be amazing. I haven't had any meat fresh frozen. Well, I mean, obviously the freeze dried meat. I don't really consider that even though that is kind of like beef and it has some protein. I haven't had actual meat in two weeks. So catfish meat sounds awesome to me. I can't, I, all I had was the raccoon in terms of like something fresh cooked and,

[00:35:41] you know, by my hand and, and like, it was, it wasn't bad. It wasn't bad. I would love a grill. I'll tell you one of the things that I would love most, probably something we should do each week too, right? There are two things that I, I would love and that's anything grilled, even like a boring grilled chicken breast with garlic and herbs just is something I want so bad. Um, and the other thing I've been really craving hard, and this is a weird one, but it's like

[00:36:09] just spaghetti with garlic and red chili flake and a lots of olive oil and oregano, fresh oregano. Like if I had a bowl of that right now, dude, it would be, I wouldn't even use a fork. Nice. Nice. Oh man. Now you're making me real hungry. I got some, but I was a real Italian food was a red wine, but, uh, yeah, maybe in a couple of weeks, I guess in a couple of weeks, speaking of which we're going to have a ration of ruin

[00:36:37] kind of main event, uh, at the very end of two weeks from tomorrow, I'm sure we'll be doing some content for that. Looking forward to it guys. Anything else you wanted to really talk about either? Yeah. I've said my piece. I showed my really cool nerdy spreadsheet, but, uh, anything you guys wanted to hit on before we get out of here and I go make some Mac and cheese. Well, weather and, uh, external factors dependent, but you know, tentative. Let's try to do a joint fishing adventure next Saturday.

[00:37:07] What do you guys say? Yeah, that sounds like fun. I'm in Memorial day weekend. Then Holy cow. Time is flying. All right. Hey, what about the caffeine withdrawals? What about the caffeine? Jay Fergie is asking. I can't drink coffee the whole time. Yeah, no, I, I, I went cold Turkey on the caffeine. That's impressive. Headaches have eased up.

[00:37:31] Um, I know I'm not as alert as I would like to be, but I'm not doing the caffeine this month and I don't feel withdrawals. I just feel the absence of the alertness. So physically I'm not having a negative reaction, but I, I wish I would have it. My, my problem is I, I, I would drink coffee, but I don't like it without cream and sugar. So I'm not doing it. Okay. Oh yeah. I've been doing black coffee.

[00:38:00] I mean, that's the only way I drink coffee, but I've been doing it midday as like between coffee and seltzer water that those two things are my treats in the middle of the day when you're like, you know, when you're usually reaching for the chips, it's like, Oh, I'll take a bubbly water to get me through. Yeah. Those are my go-tos when I like my normal diet or when I'm trying not to gain a bunch of weight, uh, for ration or ruin for coffee. I've only been using instant coffee.

[00:38:29] So I haven't been using my coffee machine. So powdered coffee, but I got a certain type that's black instant coffee. And then, uh, actually to treat myself today, I used a couple packs included milk and creamer. Cause I'm like, you know what? It's Friday. I deserve 50 calories of, uh, cream and sugar in my coffee, which I'm drinking literally right now. So I was like, I had to for the show. Otherwise though, it's only been black coffee, not much.

[00:38:57] And only essentially part of my preps is my point. I'm not using electricity except for to get the water hot to mix it up in. But, uh, I'm too cowardly to give up caffeine. Like I got it. I got it. I got a job. I'm too addicted. Yeah. Like, so no sugar, no, uh, cream for sure. But I've been in green, but I will say I have a lot more green tea or like half coffee,

[00:39:25] half green tea through the day rather than all coffee. Like I used to do a year or two ago and my whole life before that. So, um, maybe next, uh, Oz or Highland, I'll give up coffee and that'll be my only thing I do. That'll be tough enough for an entire challenge by itself. Now we were thinking maybe next year, how about no power for an entire week? I'd have to take the week off work, but that would be a hell of a challenge. But honestly, this ration of ruin has been a real tough challenge because it's a marathon, not a sprint.

[00:39:55] Definitely a marathon. About halfway there. But this next half is going to be twice as hard as the first half, I think. Or we're just going to adapt to it. It won't be that bad. I think it's going to be equal or worse than the first half. But what do you guys think? It's uphill. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's going to get better. I think it might get better. I think we're going to be able to, we're going to be able to eat in a different way with the,

[00:40:22] with the MREs than we have been able to, you know? And I think mentally that's going to do a lot for us. You know what I mean? In terms of being able to snack throughout the day, rather than just be like, well, here's my lump sum of calories and then I'm done. And I got to think about it all day. You know, you can spread those, those foods out and that'll be big on morale. The other thing is we don't really know exactly what the Dave Jones situation is in terms of calories.

[00:40:50] And I can tell you right now, it's going to be the most nutritionally dense food we've had in week. So I think that's going to be a big bump. Also, I also think that you guys, if you get out and do some fishing, a couple of weeks, you know, maybe you have fish, maybe you have fish to take home. Who knows? But so, yeah, I, it may, it may be a risky, it may be a risky one, but I think we might,

[00:41:17] we might turn a little bit of a corner here on the, with the MREs and the Dave Jones food. Cause I'll be honest with you. I got ready hour food, um, that I didn't eat from week one. And I thought for sure I'd eat it week two and I didn't. So that's where we were on week one in terms of what we were eating. You know, we definitely started with the one we thought would not be maybe the, uh, the best. That was a good move. I'm glad we didn't end with ready hour.

[00:41:47] Make it tougher. Future Dan, anything else you want to hit on? Yeah. Great spreadsheet, Ben. Just like, yeah, man. Bring yourself down to that level. I can't wait to see what it looks like next week. Yeah. Well, I got to get a updated version over to Firewolf Forge. And, uh, I got a lightning wallet, by the way. Firewolf. Oh God. I don't want any donations right now, but maybe I'll see. He's going to come to your house if you don't give him that damn lightning wallet. I got one. I got one, but I'm not going to give it to him now.

[00:42:15] Maybe a Patriot Power Hour next week. All right. I need to go make some mac and cheese. I'm starting to like get itchy. Like I'm like feeding for a cigarette, but it's just mac and cheese. All right, guys. Anything else? Have a good weekend. Any other thoughts? Getting a lot more water. Jay Fergie. A lot more water. Good luck with the catfish. I may call one of you guys and talk about rigging bait and stuff. To help you out with that. If you, if you want the help. Yeah. Yeah. That would be helpful. Thank you. No problem.

[00:42:45] All right. I'll talk to you. All right, guys. Enjoy the weekend. We'll talk to you this time next week for week three review. See ya. Bye.