Appetite Fatigue

I am still enjoying the last two days of a family reunion so I am borrowing a post for today from Karen at: http://kneadfulthingsnow.com/preventingappetitefatigue.aspx . If you still haven’t checked out her site and are serious about food storage, you should. She speaks about appetite fatigue and I think it is a subject we need to seriously consider in our planning. If you are following the stocking of our General Store you have this covered but if you are new or if you are still dealing with those who believe food storage means dehydrated foods or beans, rice and wheat then you need to read this.

We have spoken before of studies that show that children and the elderly will die before they eat foods they do not like. I have witnessed this for myself when caring for an elderly family member in my home. Appetite fatigue is also a cause for this shut down by those too young or too “tired” to care. Appetite fatigue occurs when we eat the same foods over and over again. I remember loving certain foods when I began college and after four years I could hardly look at those same, cheap foods. We have all experienced this. Appetite fatigue during a pandemic could be deadly.

The other night I was speaking to my seventy year old father, who is “Just a kid”, about appetite fatigue. He responded with something very interesting. He reminded me that even the Children of Israel tired of the manna that the Lord provided for them while they were wandering in the wilderness. I thought, “Holy cow you’re right!”

In the Book of Numbers 21:5 we read:

And the people spake against God and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread.

The light bread they spoke of was manna which, by the way, had been keeping them from starving to death. At first the Israelites sound whiney and ungrateful, a judgement that is easy to make 4000 years later from the comfort of my home. On second thought, can we really blame them for being tired of it? After all, they ate it for forty years!

The way to prevent appetite fatigue is obvious.

#1 Store a greater variety of food and learn how to produce a greater variety of menu options from what you store. That means that instead of storing wheat, you store wheat, oats, rye, corn, millet, barley, and rice as well as other grains, and a multitude of legumes.

Keep track of what you learn and begin to build a broad index of recipes to pull from. Move farther away from store bought premade foods and closer to homemade food that you have created from the food you have on hand.

#2 Store foods that you would not typically think of for food storage. We get so caught up in the idea that we have to have wheat and powdered milk that we don’t always consider chocolate chips, or maple syrup. There is no law chisled in stone that says that food storage has to be boring and taste like cardboard. What your food storage tastes like it up to you.

#3 Don’t be afraid to be creative. Pancakes are just pancakes until you add chocolate chips, or nuts, or smother them in tart homemade applesauce and cinnamon. Pancakes become the foundation of a new breakfast with different flavors and textures.

#4 Start introducing new even unusual items to your family now. Unless new items are introduced to your family regularly, they may not be so willing to give something new a try when it really counts. I remember the first time I fed my children millet. Before they had even tasted it they rolled up their noses at it. It was unlike any grain they had seen before. I  told them it was power pellets that would give them super energy. They gobbled it up and requested power pellets for breakfast for years. I am tooo sly.

#5 Get and keep family members involved in the kitchen. Talk to your children about the food they are cooking with. Children are always more willing to eat their own inventions because they have invested in it personally.

One Response to “Appetite Fatigue”

1. free mcdonalds coupons says:

   September 14, 2009 at 2:50 am

   Thank you very much for this awesome entry.