Your Neighbor’s Vitamins after the Crash

Last month's blog posts Maintaining Nutritional Adequacy during a Prolonged Food Crisis and Nutritional Deficiencies in a Prolonged Food Crisis generated quite a few comments.  Michael recommended stocking vitamins to help the neighbors, his reasoning being that vitamin-deficient, malnourished neighbors pose the real risk of becoming a biohazard to the health of your own family.  And you know, that’s entirely plausible.  And vitamins don’t cost that much.  I even went to the pharmacy one morning last week where the mine employees and family members can purchase OTC meds, prescriptions, and supplements at cost.  We can get a year’s supply of most single vitamins for just a dollar or two, or a multi-vitamin for about $5.  That’s really pretty reasonable.

But then I got to thinking, do I really want to stock up on vitamins for the whole street?  That might be forty people.  Sure, we’d do it for Al and his wife in a heartbeat.  Al maintains our private road year-round.  But that California couple that refuses to contribute to the road fund, has nothing nice to say about our little community, and wishes they’d never left their beloved Golden State?  Well, ….

And then what about the next street over?  I’m not sure I want to go down that rabbit hole.  Especially when there are vitamins growing all around us.  The above-mentioned blog posts got me to wondering whether we could satisfy our dietary needs for vitamins and minerals using just the plants that are native here.  And so I went searching the blog archives using the search bar at the right.  I was really pleased by what I discovered.

So what are the best non-traditional sources of essential vitamins and minerals?

Vitamin A—dandelion, dill, lamb’s quarter, cayenne peppers, mallow, passion fruit, raspberry leaves

Vitamin B1—arrowroot, lamb’s quarter, raspberry leaves

Vitamin B2—chokecherries, lamb’s quarter, passion fruit, raspberry leaves

Vitamin B3—arrowroot, dill, lamb’s quarter, passion fruit, raspberry leaves

Vitamin B9—arrowroot, milk thistle

Vitamin B12—hard to get from plants 

Vitamin C—currants, gooseberries, pine needle tea, rose hips, dandelions, elderberries, juniper needles, lamb’s quarter, nasturtiums, parsley, passion fruit, purslane, raspberry leaves, viburnum berries, wheatgrass

Vitamin D—people gotta get in the sun.  End of story.

Calcium—arrowroot, dandelion, dill, lamb’s quarter, Mormon tea, nasturtiums, passion fruit, raspberry leaves, Russian thistle

Iodine—dandelion

Iron—cayenne peppers, chrysanthemum leaves, dandelion, lamb’s quarter, dock, nasturtiums, passion fruit, raspberry leaves, willow leaves

Magnesium—arrowroot, dandelion, dill, nasturtiums, purslane, raspberry leaves, Russian thistle, sunflower seeds, wheatgrass, Epsom salts

Potassium—arrowroot, dandelion, dill, nasturtiums, raspberry leaves

Zinc—dandelion, nasturtiums, raspberry leaves

I’m really glad I did this little exercise.  What did I learn?  Getting vitamin B9 from the wild around here may be a little problematic.  We do have milk thistles growing, but not a lot.  People will need to be sure to grow cole crops and leafy green veggies.  As dandelion is the only source for iodine, stocking iodized salt and povidone-iodine may be prudent.  Vitamin B12 has no good sources among plants in the wild.  Healthy people usually have a year’s supply stored in their bodies, but if you’ve got any elderly individuals or people using stomach acid medications, you may want to store B12 supplements for them.  Did you see that dandelions cover all essential mineral needs?  And did you see that raspberry leaves alone will take care of most other essential vitamin and mineral needs?  (Well, except for vitamin D.  However, we’ve got the sun for that.)  Mind-blowing. 

Of course, getting our nutrients from regular food that we’ve stored and grown is the ideal.  Being well-prepared is always the ideal.  In addition, it’s in our best interest to be well-prepared to help neighbors, if not with actual supplies, at the very least with actionable information they can use to meet their needs when the just-in-time system no longer does.

Links to related posts:

Dietary Deficiency and Consequences--Vitamin A
                                                                Vitamin B1
                                                                Vitamin B2
                                                                Vitamin B3
                                                                Vitamin B5, B6, B7
                                                               Vitamin B9
                                                                Vitamin B12
                                                                Vitamin C  
                                                                Vitamin D
                                                                Calcium  
                                                                Iodine  
                                                                Iron
                                                                Magnesium
                                                                Potassium  
                                                                Zinc