I had the pleasure of shooting the shit about prepping with Mike Ritland before we filmed Shawn Ryan Show Episode #005. If you haven’t watched Episode #005 yet, get on it.
Mike Ritland is a former Navy SEAL, an expert K9 trainer and three time New York Times Best Selling Author. It was pretty awesome to have the opportunity to hear his thoughts on the staples of prepping.
-Shawn Ryan
5 Things to Consider When Prepping From Mike Ritland
Mike is known for being unfiltered and bold. It was no surprise that his approach to prepping was similar. Practical and to the point.
Food
Ritland recommends packing large freezers full of meat instead of stocking up on carb heavy survival food. He explained that on the carnivore diet he is the healthiest that he has ever been.
The nutrient density from just meat can keep a person going and healthy for a long time.
Carb heavy options like rice and canned food are often large and take up valuable storage space. It will also likely be easier to come by vegetables in the wild in a survival situation.
Mike suggests talking with local farmers and buying beef by the side. Split it with a neighbor if practical. Hundreds of pounds of meat is a sustainable solution.
Water
The discussion with Ritland moved from food supply to water supply. He recommends identifying access to water supplies and focusing on purification instead of storage.
His personal setup is a water distilling purification system that can run 36 gallons of water a day. This is much more sustainable than stockpiling bottled water. For a few hundred dollars the distilling water purification systems are a win and I’ve personally been looking into them on his recommendation.
Power
Ritland recommends getting a solar power setup or generator that can power the freezers and also communication devices. Your backup power source doesn’t need to be able to sustain the entire house but does need to be able to power your essential survival staples.
Weapons
This category is always the immediate fixation with our audience but was not the crux of this conversation. Ritland said that defense capabilities should coincide with user competency. Understanding how to use it is more important than a large arsenal.
I 100% agree with his outlook as I think people focus far too much on defense and far too little on other important facets of survival.
He recommends a shotgun, rifle with optic and a good pistol. For ammo, he says a couple thousand rounds for each platform probably isn’t a bad idea.
Dog
Having a good dog is the last thing on the list of staples. A good dog can serve as a solid layer of security from notification to defense. If you have the resources to support having a dog, it is a worthwhile consideration when prepping. As the saying goes, 95 percent of criminals will avoid a house with a dog. Trikos dogs are for the other 5 percent.
