Surviving the winter

[Brother in Arms]

This idea goes back to the 18th century and of course,having grown up in the Northern part of the United states. It's something I grew up hearing about.

A common old time disease is scurvy and I think you would see it coming back during the twilight war. And as most people know its caused by a deficiency of vitamin C. luckily in the north we have spruce trees and these have more vitamin C than the infamous Orange.

Soldiers and Sailors brewed spruce beer using spruce tips,molasses and a little yeast. I think old idea like this would come back quickly after things start going to hell.

Here is the easiest recipe I have ever found for it creation.

A couple of dozen spruce tips, about 10-15 centimeters long. Try to get the year’s fresh growth at the very end of the limb. The black spruce is the preferred species but black and white spruce can be used with equal results
One liter of molasses
A ten-liter food grade plastic pail
Five plastic two-liter pop bottles with caps cleaned and dried
A packet of baker’s yeast
Preparation

Bring all ten liters of water to a boil and toss in the spruce tips. Let them boil for 40 minutes minimum. With experience, you will know how long to boil the tips to suit your taste – longer boiling times make stronger-tasting beer.
Carefully strain the liquid through a clean cloth into your pail, over the molasses, and mix thoroughly.
Once the mixture cools to blood temperature, stir in the baker’s yeast. After it starts frothing steadily, cover with another cloth and tie a string around it to keep out the dust.
After three-four days, pour the beer through a cloth-covered funnel into the pop bottles and screw the caps on tight. Wait a week before tasting. The flavor is unique: a smoky spruce and quite pleasant.

Brother in Arms

[Targan]

I bet we could collectively compile an excellent recipe book right here of dozens of those sorts of beer recipes from around the world. Beer was an important food for thousands of years of human history.

[mikeo80]

I think you would find a lot of diseases that would re-ignite after TDM. Obviously, scurvy is a problem. Things like TB, Plague, Cholera, Typhoid, Measles, Mumps, Chicken Pox, tetanus, rabies, flu, and others would all be issues that would face the survivors.

Any one with a damaged immune system would quickly perish. Diabetes, MS, severe allergies would all take a toll within the first six months or so.

My $0.02

Mike

[Webstral]

Thanks, BIA, for teasing me so mercilessly. The spruce is not native in my neck of the woods.

[stormlion1]

Beer was usually cleaner than the water, which is why its one of the first things people usually start making!

[CDAT]

Beer was usually cleaner than the water, which is why its one of the first things people usually start making!

Not disagreeing but wondering how much that had to do with they did not know much if anything about purification of water?

[mikeo80]

Not disagreeing but wondering how much that had to do with they did not know much if anything about purification of water?

That is probably true. But people are not stupid. They would notice that if you drink beer or wine or other alcohol, you do not get things like cholera, typhoid.

Even if you water down the wine or what have you, the effect is still the same. Hence you read of children being given wine.

Until early 20th century USA, alcohol consumption was incredible. Heck, Sam Adams, one of the "firebrands" of the American Revolution was a brewer by trade!

My $0.02

Mike

[stormlion1]

Back in the day, rain barrels were the common way of gathering water near a house if you didn't want to wander on down to the well or stream or didn't have either. So water purification may have been as simple as straining the water through a cloth or boiling it, if even that. So yes, Beer and Wine made sense as they were cleaner than drinking from the tap at that point.

[WallShadow]

An easily-overlooked source of Vitamin C is the powdered kid's drink--Kool-Aid. Of course, it would take an entire pack's worth of drink (one-half gallon/2 liters) to provide one person with anything near a Minimum Daily Requirement of Vitamin C, but it would be a good way of supplementing a winter diet to at least stave off the effects of scurvy. It actually makes a good _hot_ drink, by itself or flavoring a cup of tea.

To get some benefit out of dry stores, sprouting beans and/or seeds (alfalfa, etc) will provide several B-vitamins and a good portion of Vitamin C.

[stormlion1]

Isn't there a Vitamin C mix for water bottles? You would think someone would have come up with one.