500 calories a day to survive
I am not sure why I am attracted to catastrophic scenarios, but I have to follow my intuition, my inner voice anyway – so be it, I really believe in the disastrous future of our civilization and I am so mad, that I believe it’s not so far, it will be fast and unexpected by majority – the never ending old model of collapse of the big civilizations will play its role again. We have a great opportunity in these days to learn a lot of things about the history, enough to educate us what the ancient civilizations did wrong, so we don’t need to repeat the same mistakes – but you know it better than me, we learn nothing, we go in the same steps of the destruction.
Yes, I have joined the “doom & gloom” group of weird people, that are so attacked by “The Secret” type of groups – but I still believe in optimistic thinking – but for me, the blind optimism is very dangerous – optimism together with rational thinking and proper action is my best choice. I believe in the constrained resources – fossil fuels, water and most important of all – quality soil.
I have written this little summarization of my core beliefs only for the reason to explain my apocalyptic interests at this blog.
Here’s very interesting article describing the 1990 famine in the North Korea, after the fall of the Soviet Union, that was the main food provider for the Korea.
After poor harvests in the mid-1990s, the North Korean government was forced to reduce the food ration that its people relied on. This amounted to 700-900 calories per person per day supplied by the government. This was supplemented by what could be grown in home gardens or purchased elsewhere.
There was a natural progression that saw disease attack the most vulnerable, which were the children under five. Next were the aged; those over 70 followed by the 60-year olds and the 50-somethings. Death then stalked the people in the prime of life. Men, because they had less body fat, went next. The strong and athletic were especially vulnerable because their metabolisms burned more calories.
We need 500 calories per day, on average, to survive. Eating only food foraged in a temperate forest; you could expect to live no more than three months.
Tags: civilization, famine