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Episode-1139- Women of Prepping Series Episode Three

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Paula Hradkowsky (rad cow ski) is a 60 year old semi retired former CPA that became a prepper only 5 years ago.  She was raised in a typical middle class household where self reliance was really considered something poor people did.

Here parents were both part of the WWII and Depression eras and had tough childhoods.  Like many such individuals they worked hard to make sure their kids had a better life then they did.

Fortunately for Paula the experiences of her parents childhood did get planted as a seed inside of her at an early age, though she never realized it until much later in life.  She listened to talk radio discuss problems for years, yet seldom discuss individualized solutions, only political banter.  In 2008 as a woman approaching retirement age she watched the financial recession do a ton of damage.  This woke her up and reconnected her with that seed planted in her by parents who had lived though it all before.

In the last five years she has flipped her spouse to the prepping lifestyle.  They now both have concealed carry permits, plenty of stored food and water, stored fuel, two generators and a small garden.  Paula has also been on a paleo style diet for 16 years now and it has been the only thing to help with a chronic health issue she has known as Lupus.

She joins us today as the third batter in our Woman of Prepping Series to discuss prepping from an woman’s view, with some amazing insights in how you can get your spouse on board.  Men the way she answers my final question is worth the entire episode three times over, tune in and get some wisdom on how to talk to your wife about prepping that will really hit home.

Resources for today’s show…

Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon. Also please enter our listener appreciation contest and help spread the word about our show. Also remember you can call in your questions and comments to 866-65-THINK and you might hear yourself on the air.

Comments

Episode-1139- Women of Prepping Series Episode Three — 21 Comments

  1. Great show Jack. Im proud to have someone like Paula living in my area and it was great to hear her insight. Thanks to both of you!

  2. I have a mother n law with the attitude that farming, gardening livestock, and anything like that is for the dirty low class people. It has really been a chore to deal with that.

    • Mike, Does your mother in law eat?? I am a farmer, gardener, and we also raise livestock. I am very proud of our occupation and our life style. We have raised 3 very level-headed and realistic children. Keep trying to make her see the light.

  3. I’m currently 17 min. And I agree with the comment on Glenn Beck. If it hadn’t been for Jack being on that show I wouldn’t know about this podcast. I’ve listened every day since then.

  4. I started listening to Jack a couple of years ago. Taking his advise I started buying a little extra each time I went shopping and more when cans of food was on sell. And buying produce in bulk and home canning it. In Jan. 2012 I was laid off, but I had the food I needed to get me through until I got my own business up and running. Thanks Jack. I really appreciate all you do for your podcast community.
    Dirk

  5. “Men the way she answers my final question is worth the entire episode three times over, tune in and get some wisdom on how to talk to your wife about prepping that will really hit home.”

    I wouldn’t be savvy enough for that answer to pop into my head without listening to the episode. I love it when something that simple and obvious in hindsight is the answer. One of those wakeup slaps you can appreciate.

    Enjoyed the show a lot, thanks for that one Jack and Paula

  6. Wonderful show, and a lovely guest. I got into prepping before my husband (and although he’s on board, I still manage 95% of our preps), but Paula’s advice at the end was spot-on. Telling your wife that you’re prepping so that you can take care of her and provide for her is probably the single best thing you can do!

    For you gentlemen that are trying to get your wives interested in prepping, pay attention to the way you talk about subjects that are unfamiliar to her (for all topics, not just prepping). For example, if you were teaching her about football, a helpful sentence would be “see the guy with the ball right now? He’s the quarterback. He’s going to run a play called the XYZ, which means that *blah blah blah*.” It would be unhelpful to say “did you see the QB pull that flea flicker?!” because it uses some jargon that might make her feel alienated. Apply the same logic to firearms, generators, et cetera. Don’t start talking about the custom upper in your AR if she isn’t quite sure where the magazine goes. Kindness, patience, and understanding go a long way with a reluctant spouse.

  7. A thoroughly enjoyable show! As the one “quietly putting things by” for “just in case”, there were many things discussed to which I could relate. It’s amazing how quickly one’s husband gets on board when motivated by a “That could be us!” moment.

  8. Great interview. I’m seriously digging this “women of prepping” series… I don’t care how un-PC it is to acknowledge it, I agree with Paula: Men and women tend to think differently. Which means the women preppers can introduce prepping from a frame of reference that us guys might not “get” right off the bat. You’re right… that last comment of hers was solid gold, and a serious “D’OH!!!” moment for a lot of us.

    I’d love to hear a female self-defense spokesperson. Someone like Colleene Barnett from “Keeping the Piece” would be awesome; someone who can give a woman’s point of view on handgun ownership/training and give solid advice to the menfolks on the right way to help our ladies and daughters on board.

  9. Really enjoyed the show. She gave me a few ideas for a couple things I could do better around my homestead as well. I am really enjoying the women of prepping series. It helps me to explain these ideas to my wife as well. When you bring it up from a perspective of wanting to take care of the family, it makes more sense to her tan “Jim wants to buy more stuff”. Keep up the good work!

  10. A++ Love hearing how other women do their thing. Great show. Just goes to show it’s never to late to make a change. I can totally get the only poor people grow their own food and such. Growing up my mom bought raw milk from the farm a few miles away. Baked bread from scratch made butter from the cream. She coked all our meals from scratch. Cereal was always oat meal or something like that. Sewed our clothes or hand me downs. Reupholstered our sofa. All these types of things

    Met my boyfriend (hubby) They would get new school clothes every year. Credit card shopping. That was my first experience with a CC. Most food was from a can or box. Oh yumm that soft wonder bread cap-n-crunch hamburger helper and such. I thought they were rich. They even had margarin in a tub!

    Ha now as an adult I realize hey when I was a kid we ate local organic & gourmet food. Now only poor people eat mac-n-cheese it the blue box. Boy times sure have changed.

    Thanks for sharing your story!

  11. I really loved this interview. You found a gem in Paula and I would love to hear an update from her at some point in the future.

  12. I really enjoyed this show.

    Paula reminds me a lot of my mom and grandma. Grandma grew up during the great depression, actually got sent away by her parents to a relative’s farm up north as her parents didn’t have the means to feed her or her sister during it, one of the reasons I am working my butt off right now is to get a new “family farm” in the near future.

    My grandma has been so thrilled that I have taken up gardening and growing food. Now every time I visit she has more plants for me from her garden, just got some high bush cranberries and a Rugosa Rose that’s been in our family since the late 1800’s.

    Great show, and a great series.

  14. Thanks for all the nice comments. Wow! I never realized how slowly I talk! It is so wonderful that we can have a community of like minded people. I have learned so much from so many here. For people interested in more natural food but who cannot raise a lot of it on their own, you might find http://www.eatwild.com. Enter your state and you will find small farmers and meat producers selling directly to the public. Many are near me in Pennsylvania – so it is helpful to me.

  16. Jack,

    Regarding your food preps, don’t you think that it might be a good idea to at least occasionally continue to eat things like grains so that if you were to need to dip into it it wouldn’t be a shock on yourself? At least in my view of the way the body works and what not, eating a diversity keeps you strong and capable of switching around food types. I could only imagine if one were to never eat wheat/grain products and then switch to eating alot, or a decent amount, could be a bad situation.

    It makes me think about vegetarians who all of a sudden eat meat, even a little bit, and all of a sudden they’re down for the count. (I really think living a vegan/vegetarian is a really really bad idea, but thats an entirely different topic).

    What are your thoughts on this? I know you’re not 100%, so I’m sure you’re completely fine, but what are your thoughts on this in general.

    Cheers

    • Hi The New Mike,
      That is a great question! There is a lot of debate on it. I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, so nothing I say should be taken as medical advice. That said, my opinion is that everyone should avoid gluten. It is bad for all mammals over the long term. Those without a health issue can tolerate it but that depends on the body’s resiliency. Those with gluten sensitivity must avoid it completely. Celiacs must absolutely stay away from it all the time, at all costs. The consequences of gluten exposure can stay around for 6 months and the risk of dying is elevated. Here are some details: http://undergroundwellness.com/top-5-things-you-didnt-know-about-gluten-sensitivity/
      I can’t even have a crumb and have to avoid many foods because of the possibility of cross-contamination. I used to eat gluten when I saw something I liked, but the consequences became worse and worse until I have no desire for anything with gluten. I just returned from a trip with pastries and crap and it was all garbage to me. I had no desire to partake and stayed gluten-free. I even found a paleo restaurant, but I wasn’t able to eat paleo 100% of the time. I am feeling ill from all the cafo, factory farmed food from the convention. It is just that I know how good I can feel when I eat right. A little speck of gluten will push me over into utter misery, though.

      I saw a Tim Ferriss video where he mentioned that Paleo was becoming popular in the Special Forces community. He said they challenge their systems intentionally, on a regular basis, with crackers.

      You might also find Jack’s interview with Lierre Keith of the Vegetarian Myth interesting as she at meat after years of being a vegan and felt instantly better.

      There are many vegetables that must be eaten in moderation and, fortunately, their seasons help to moderate.

      Hope this helps!

      • I definitely get the paleo thing. In general we hardly ever eat any gluton products. The wife has become quite the non-gluton free flour cook. Hell she even made regular ol’ chocolate chip cookies a few times now that you literally couldn’t tell the difference. (Lots of butter and chocolate chips tend to help… hehe).

        The issue I feel more is that if your body has become adapted to not eating a substance, particularly for a long enough amount of time, if you start eating that substance you’re body isn’t going to be well adapted to it. I would imagine its even more of an issue if you start eating ALOT of it. If you’re body can tolerate gluton, but you don’t really ever eat it, then all of a sudden you’re eating a HEAVY gluton free diet, more than even the average person does, that seems like a bad bad idea. Obviously I would imagine if you were in the situation where you needed to start dipping into your non-paleo preps, hopefully you’d do it in a way were you do a little bit at a time.

        I definitely listened to that podcast you mentioned. I trrrrrrry not to find things that just bolster my opinion and viewpoint, but that definitely did it. I completely disagree with a vegetarian/vegan diet. Its nonsense, its not being a better person, its being a very VERY confused person. In my mind it is a person who has been brainwashed into believing a human is something other than it is and feels it necessary to trick the body as best as possible to meet their ideals. Every vegetarian/vegan i have ever met is sick often, and yet they are “super healthy.” They do a ton of exercise and are very active people, yet they’re sick many many times a year. I work with one, and i was best friends with another. They are also extremely mature vegetarian/vegans where they don’t just eat soy burgers and pasta, but yet they’re never going to overcome the fact they’re simply not vegans and vegetarians. Its pushing against forces of nature, in my opinion. At least both of them are good guys, and aren’t doing it to save the planet hah..

  17. I am not Jack. But, if I regularly ate grains I would be crippled. I have lupus, and when I changed my way of eating 16 years ago – about 85% of my lupus symptoms went into remission by avoiding grains, processed foods, sugars and industrially produced fats and oils. Wheat, corn and soybeans especially have been perverted through genetic modification. When I “take a vacation” from my clean eating – say I take off a couple of days at the holidays – I pay for it big time. In fact, after I broke my addictions to foods made with those products I rarely had the desire to eat them because the cost FOR ME tremendously outweighed the little bit of derived pleasure. If you want an eye opener for how wheat has drastically changed in the past 200 years, read “Wheat Belly” by Dr. William Davis. I do not think I can adapt to grains, and I have learned to listen to my body. Everyone is different, of course 🙂

  18. Hi Paula, thank you for this great interview! One of the members of my prepper group also cured her Lupus with the Paleo diet and 80% of us are gluten-free/Paleo. Have you seen that inspiring TED Talk of a doctor who CURED her MS with the Paleo diet?It is a must see!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjgBLwH3Wc&feature=endscreen&NR=1

    I am about 80% through the podcast, to the point where you discuss cutting out sugar and it is so true! Everything tastes so much sweeter and my senses are sharpened! I make chocolate drinks with pure ground cocoa nibs.
    Ever try coffee with butter, coconut oil and/or MCT oil? Here is another great recipe: http://www.bulletproofexec.com/category/coffee-2/

    Also, for those interested, Lew Rockwell (linked at the TSP homepage) recently interviewed Dr. Davis in MP3 format as did BulletproofExec and UndergroundWellness.

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