After mentoring boys through Truth in Nature in the hills of North Georgia, Chris returns home with a deeper mission: to prepare real meals that matter. In this episode, he shares the launch of Primitive Camping Rations, why he's freeze-drying his own food, and how he's building a new YouTube channel: The Watchful Prepper to document the journey from scratch.
Last week, I wasn’t behind the mic—not because I was tired or lazy, but because I was out in the hills of North Georgia with a group of young men who needed more than content… they needed direction. I was serving with Truth in Nature, a ministry that mentors fatherless boys through outdoor experiences. We built birdhouses, swam in creeks, shot skeet and rifles, and I watched several of those boys give their life to Jesus and get baptized.
That kind of camp—that kind of real—is why I started all of this.
But while I was sleeping in a bunkhouse up there, something stirred in me. I realized I’d been chasing the wrong things: algorithms, TikTok trends, follower counts. Somewhere along the line, I forgot what this was about. So now I’m shifting gears.
In this episode, I talk about why I’m freeze drying my own camping meals. Not because it’s trendy, but because I got tired of overpriced, over-salted, chemical-loaded pouches that aren’t worth handing to a kid, let alone trusting in the woods.
I walk you through:
Why I bought a Harvest Right freeze dryer with my own cash
What led me to launch a new YouTube channel: The Watchful Prepper
Why I’m documenting every batch I make (and not posting until I have 20 videos filmed)
How I’ll be legally selling my meals through my restaurant, under the name Primitive Camping Rations
What it takes to prep, vacuum seal, and store real food that actually lasts
And how I’m tying it all into a bigger mission that includes my book, my coffee, fire kits, and now, rations.
This isn’t about emergency stockpiles or fear-based prepping.
It’s about faith.
It’s about being ready—for a camping trip, a discipleship moment, or a hard week at home.
So if you’re tired of freeze-dried food that just "makes a turd"...
This one’s for you.
(upbeat music)
Welcome to the Primitive
Camping and Bushcraft Podcast.
I'm your host, Chris Speir.
So here we're gonna talk about gear,
red and the kind of stories
you only get around the fire.
It's all about learning, adapting
and keeping your faith strong.
So whether you're a seasoned outdoorsman
or just looking to unplug and reconnect,
you're in the right place.
So pull up a chair by the
fire and let's get into it.
All right, everybody,
welcome back to the Primitive
Camping and Bushcraft Podcast.
So I missed last week's episode.
It wasn't from laziness.
It wasn't them burnout.
I just happened to be in North Georgia,
mentoring a group of young
men through Truth in Nature.
We shot arrows.
We built some bird
houses or bird feeders.
And we went fishing and swimming
and we shot some
rifles on the rifle range.
They had a competition on top shot
and we shot some skeet.
Shot a lot of skeet actually, you know?
And I got to see a lot of
boys give their life to Jesus.
And I got to see a lot
of boys get baptized.
And that's the kind of
camping that matters.
Was up there in North
Georgia doing some summer camp
with Truth in Nature doing their annual
summer camp up there.
They have two of them.
They got one in June,
they got one in July.
Truth in Nature has several chapters
throughout several states.
And they are a great organization
where they help mentor fatherless boys.
And I've been doing this.
This is my fourth year,
fifth year or something
to that effect.
And been doing it a while.
So, but, you know, while I was out there,
we got to sleep in these little cabins
and everything in the hills.
They got like a 650 acre,
I don't wanna say compound,
but it's more of a, it's a summer camp.
It's a 650 acre camp.
And it is out through
the hills of Georgia.
And I mean, they got waterfalls.
It's a beautiful place.
But while I was out there sleeping
in one of these little cabins, you know,
something stirred me.
I realized that I've
been getting caught up
in all the wrong stuff.
Like, you know,
follower counts and algorithms
and TikToks and trends.
And, you know, that's
not what this was ever,
ever supposed to be.
And, you know, it
finally got to the point
to where I was
chasing, I was chasing like,
the algorithm on all these platforms
to try to get the quote unquote,
and my fingers are up
in there, quote unquote,
all the views are all
the whatevers, you know?
And I didn't, that's not
what I started doing this for.
I started doing this because I enjoyed
doing outdoors content.
And so, you know, Spear
Outdoors started with a mission.
And that was to share what I know,
share what I love, and who I follow,
which is Jesus Christ.
You know, the mission doesn't need hype.
All it needs is just honesty.
So as I'm sitting out
here underneath the top,
I can't want the heck, I
am going to be talking today
about a shift, a change, a direction.
I know we did this a while
back, but this is part of it.
This is the grand scheme of things here.
And, you know, I'm
getting back to the roots.
And out of that came something new.
Out of the wanting to
get back to the roots
came something new.
So let me ask you, have
you ever eaten one of those
freeze-dried camping
meals from the store?
And we talked about that several times.
I talk about it in my book.
Excuse me, well, I grabbed my book.
I got it right here in my hands.
And there we go.
Got the pages all
flippity-floppity there.
And I talk about
freeze-dried foods, you know,
on page 194.
Freeze-dried food is easy.
It's freeze-dried food is easy to make
and convenient to carry from
scrambled eggs with biscuits
to beef stroganoff to hearty chili.
Unlike many other quick and simple
camping food options,
freeze-dried foods are
usually an entire meal
that can feed one
person or more if needed.
Making pre-packaged
freeze-dried camping meals
is a slightly
expensive endeavor up front.
But many folks find the
benefits is well worth the price.
And that, my friends, is what we're
talking about today.
So how many of you have spent 15 bucks
for a salty, chemical-laced pouch
of who knows what in the
world is inside that thing?
And it'll make a turd.
(laughs)
That's for sure.
It'll make a turd.
But is that really what we're going for?
Is that really what you want?
Do you really, do you
really want just something
that's gonna make a turd and go on?
You want something that's
gonna be healthy for you,
good for you, and
everything while you're out there,
you know?
So I thought, why am I paying for this
when I can make it better myself?
I can make better meals
that don't just fill my gut,
but they feed my body,
and they give me the energy,
they give me the spont
and everything that I need,
they give me all the
nutrition that I need.
Mills I'd hand to a
kid and feel proud of.
So,
(laughs)
I made a move.
I did something.
I did a little something, as they say.
So I made a move.
I bought myself a
Harvest Right Freeze Driver.
I paid for it out of my pocket.
I didn't have any sponsors.
I didn't have any affiliate deals, and
there's no gimmicks.
And so that way
there's no screens attached,
screens, strings attached.
And I don't have to worry
about putting that paid promotion
on all my videos and stuff like that.
So with this, I
started a new YouTube channel
called The Watchful Prepper.
All right?
And right now it's kinda empty and
there's nothing there.
And I'm not gonna post
anything until I filmed about
you know, 15 or 20 videos, solid videos.
Why?
Because I'm not rushing this.
This is, I'm going to build
it right from the ground up.
I'm not chasing algorithm and views.
I'm doing something.
I'm taking my dear sweet Jesus time.
And I'm going to build
this from the ground up.
Now, there's gonna be
some caveats to this.
There are freeze dryer, my
wife and I own a restaurant.
Oops, I bumped the table.
My wife and I own the restaurant,
so I'll be taking the
freeze dryer up to the restaurant
and preparing and doing
meals from the restaurant
in order for me to have
it done in a commercially
health department inspected location.
And these meals will be packaged
four-speared outdoors
by my restaurant and then
packaged and be lawfully
and legally available for sale.
So with that being said,
I'm gonna be doing a lot
of experiments with this
and I'm gonna be calling it
the primitive camping rations.
So every meal, every batch I'm gonna film
and I'm gonna show you what I'm making
and how I'm preparing,
selling, labeling and storing this.
And this ain't content.
This is in preparation for something.
I got something
coming up that's happening.
So I'm gonna call these
the primitive camping rations
to go along with the
primitive camping and bushcraft book,
to go along with the
primitive camping blend coffee,
making fire kits,
primitive camping fire kits
and fishing kits.
And now we have the
primitive camping rations.
So we have an entire
ecosystem of primitive camping
and bushcraft items.
So the first three meals that
we're gonna make out of this
are a real deal breakfast skillet.
These things have eggs,
sausage, peppers and potatoes.
These is good.
I've made a couple of
batches here at the house
to pass out for samples
and been giving them out
to several people to
get the honest feedback.
Then I made a beef stroganoff type dish.
I've gotten some mixed reviews on that
from the individuals
that I'll pass that out.
They like it, it's good and
it tastes fresh, they said,
but some of them are,
I'm not really being
a beef stroganoff fan.
So if you're not a fan, then, you know,
it's not really gonna
be that good for you.
But here's the kicker.
I'm going to be
making either a chili mac,
hearty chili mac with a
little spice to it, little kick,
or and, and not or,
and I'm gonna be making
some South
Mississippi red beans and rice.
This is gonna be done the right way.
And it's gonna be real
sausage, real smoked sausage.
And you ain't gonna get
that on the shelf at Walmart.
You're not, you're not
gonna get that on the shelf
at any of your camping stores.
But pretty soon, you're gonna
be able to get it right here
through Sphear Outdoors.
And so these items are
gonna be ready to go here soon.
And I'm gonna be starting,
I'm gonna be doing a street fair.
So each freeze dryer run takes about,
makes about 20 to 12 to 20 mils.
And this is where the next item
that I had to purchase comes in.
And these are some heavy duty items,
some expensive items.
So I've been saving up
for a while for this.
And the guy Woods Bound Outdoors,
he actually is
sponsored by Harvest Right.
And I purchased one through his code.
I saved $100 and gave
him some credit for it.
And he got a percentage off of the sale.
So, no, I thought that worked out.
Friends helping
friends out, stuff like that.
But I picked up a
chamber, a vacuum chamber.
And these, if you've never seen one of
these vacuum chambers,
dude, these things are cool.
Now I picked up the chamber sealer
and it's not one of these
cheap food saver type deals.
But this is the real
deal, Holyfield thing.
This is real, the real thing.
And this lets me vacuum seal stuff
with actual liquids in it.
Think of soups and stews
and even fresh fish fillets.
And speaking of that, the
other day I caught some catfish
in my pond, my wife and I went out there
and using a regular hook
because not to be confused
with the video I just
posted yesterday on YouTube
about the pull tab.
And, you know, so I
was just fixing to say,
I filmed myself trying
to use a soda can tab.
And here's the shocker.
If you haven't watched
that video, it did not work.
But I showed it
anyway, you know, camping,
bushcraft survival is not
about always all your successes.
You have to show your failures too.
And here lately I've been
showing a lot of failures
on a lot of my stuff
because it's time, it's real.
It's real.
You're not gonna go out into the woods
and successfully master the woods
just by walking into the woods.
It's not gonna happen.
You're gonna have upsets.
You're gonna have fails.
You're not gonna be able to start a fire
with a rubbing two sticks together,
a bow drill on your first attempt.
You know what I'm saying?
So I'm showing, not that
I've only done a bow drill
one time, I don't confuse
that with what I'm saying.
What I'm saying is that if you don't
practice these skills,
you're not gonna get anywhere with it.
So I failed.
I failed with the hook.
And I'm gonna try again
later in a different method
I put to be continued.
So we're gonna go back
and we're gonna revisit it
in different ways.
So this vacuum
chamber changed everything.
It lets me do it a lot cleaner.
It lets me vacuum it a lot tighter.
It looks more professional
and it is
professional grade, it's sealed.
And with the right
packaging and a couple of options
are an oxygen absorber,
most of these mills can last
long time, long time.
It depends.
Now, I'm not gonna be vacuum sealing
all of the freeze drive mills,
but these freeze drive
mills with an oxygen absorber
in there and certain ones,
could last up to 10 to 20 years, 25
years, stuff like that.
Now, I will tell you this.
I have made, I have put three dozen eggs
and scrambled them puppies down
and I freeze dried them
and I made powdered eggs
and these things
reconstitute like real eggs.
I mean, this is ridiculous.
If I had known this, I'd
have bought a freeze dryer
years ago, but I vacuum sealed the eggs,
because now those
eggs can sit on the shelf
for up to 25 years.
That's stupid.
That's stupid crazy.
25 years shelf life on an egg.
And all you gotta do is
add three tablespoons,
one tablespoon of egg to three
tablespoons of water
and you have a whole egg.
That's nuts.
I mean, 25 years.
So, like I was
saying, this vacuum chamber,
it changed everything.
It lets me do everything cleaner,
more professional looking.
And if I could get two to
five years out of a camping meal
instead of the 30 year shelf life,
but this is fresh food.
This is whole ingredients.
This is like three and
four ingredient foods.
This is not all your
preservatives and all that trash
that's no good for you in there.
So, I'm not chasing fame.
I'm doing this, I'm preparing my home.
I'm preparing my family
and preparing my heart.
I'm documenting how I prepare,
not out of fear, but out of faith.
This is gonna be for the days when you
need something solid
for the weekends in the woods,
for that young man at the
camp who needs a hot meal
and a little bit of direction.
This ain't about shelf life.
It's about a lifestyle
that I'd rather hand a dude
a five year red beans
and rice made with love
than a 30 year pouch of
preservatives as a salt.
So, I'd rather sell that.
And so, that was
where I'm going with this.
I'm gonna be doing a
street fair in November
here in the Peking, Mississippi area.
And I'm gonna be doing
the street fair there
and selling these
items at the street fair.
So, I'm gonna start
with a hundred of each.
I'm gonna have three meals.
I'm offering up three different meals
and I'm gonna have a hundred of each.
I'm gonna have a
hundred copies of the book.
I'm gonna have a hundred bags of coffee,
a hundred fire kits, a
hundred fishing kits,
and a hundred of each of the meals.
So, I'm gonna have a
pretty good substantial
amount of stuff there.
And I'm not here chasing
algorithms and fame no more.
I'm out here doing what I enjoy to do.
And this is one that I
am really, really going
to enjoy doing and
getting out into the woods
with a real meal and it being lighter.
So, I got a video coming up that I'm
working on right now.
And these meals are actually
gonna be part of this video
that I got a rucksack.
And I talked about it
here on the podcast before,
the Rothko rucksack,
European rucksack or whatever.
It's a 100% canvas rucksack.
Dude, I got this thing
down with a can of spam
and a 15 ounce can of roast beef.
Well, those are coming out.
So, right there it is, two pounds.
But I got this bag
down to just at 19 pounds
with everything I need to go
camping for a couple of days.
Everything.
My sleep systems, my
sheets or my blankets,
everything that I need, my
candling, my flashlights,
my compass, my knives, my fire starters,
my water filters, the whole nine yards,
everything that I need
to stay in the woods for,
let's see, I could stay in the woods
with that for a week or two.
The only thing that's
gonna be a hindrance
to that portion is gonna be food.
But if I'm going out
there with a fishing kit,
I intend to catch some fish.
And so, I'm only
gonna bring a day or two,
usually two or three days worth of food
if it's gonna be freeze dried.
But even then, you don't have to have a
meal every single day.
But anyway, that's near and there.
But this video coming up is
going to be about this sack.
It's gonna be about this
bag that's under 20 pounds
and it can support you for up to a week.
I mean, that's crazy.
Most people, you know, most
people going for a week hiking,
they got a 75 liter backpack.
And this is a 30 liter
backpack, by the way.
A 30 liter backpack.
And it's slammed, it's
not even completely full.
I mean, you can still
got room to fill it up,
but I was trying to go
for 20 pounds or less.
I was trying to go for
10% of my body weight,
which is 195 pounds.
And so, I was going for
19.5 pounds, 20 pounds or less.
And I hit the mark, it was at 18.14.
So, it was right at 19 pounds.
And dude, let me tell
you, this thing is amazing.
Like, it's the
lightest thing I ever put on
as far as a backpack.
And for me to take it out,
I'm gonna be taking
it out into the woods.
Now, mind you, it is hot.
It is almost August.
It is hot in South Mississippi.
So, it might wait till about October
before I go on the little one week trip
before it starts
cooling off a little bit.
But still, nonetheless,
tomorrow I'm heading out
on a kayaking trip, I'm going down river.
I got to change some batteries in a
in a deer cam, trail cam.
And boy, that little bird
just flew out of the cage.
Like, I'm sitting here like,
what, I gotta change batteries in?
And I got a trail cam out there.
I got to change the batteries in.
And I like, I have, I
put this up January 7th
and the batteries just
died this past Tuesday.
That's crazy.
They lasted almost seven months.
And I get pictures of big
old pigs and turkeys and ducks.
And I mean, all kinds
of the water flooded.
I had ducks up in there.
I had, I got hogs in there like crazy.
It's ridiculous.
But anyway, I feel like
I'm just like rambling on
and getting way, way off topic.
And I really didn't want
this to be off topic today.
But anyway, here's, you
know, here's the gist of it.
What I'm doing here,
what's coming down the line
is the new YouTube
channel, the Watchful Pepper.
And with this YouTube
channel, I don't think I'm gonna do
any kind of Facebook page.
I'm just gonna keep it simple.
And I'm just gonna do YouTube only.
I'm not gonna be doing anything with it
until I hit 20 videos.
And I want 20 videos filmed before I
start releasing them.
I'm gonna let 10 of them go all at once.
And then I will have 10
weeks worth of content
to release once a week.
You know, it's not gonna be hype.
This is just the foundation, you know,
and it's gonna be making
primitive camping rations.
Now the stuff on the video,
the stuff on the video that you see
is not gonna be the
stuff that I'm selling.
Okay, let's get that straight.
The stuff that you see
is what I'm gonna be making at my house.
The stuff that I'm gonna be selling
is stuff that I'm gonna
be making at my restaurant.
All right, so let's clear that mud up.
So if you're listening
to this and thinking,
"Man, I wanna do that,"
then here's my answer to you.
Do it.
Get out there and do it.
Don't wait for the perfect
gear or the perfect timing.
Just go ahead and start.
Make food that you can
eat, meals you trust,
and don't do it for the lights.
Do it for, you know,
because you enjoy doing it.
You know, do it
because you enjoy doing it.
So, but anyway, that's it for today.
You know, it was real quick.
You wanted to touch
on freeze-drive meals.
Got a lot of stuff coming out.
I'm gonna be talking a lot about
freeze-drive meals here
coming into the winter months
and the fall months of camping season.
And, you know, thanks
for sticking around.
If you wanna follow this journey,
you go ahead and follow
me on the Watchful Prepper
or whatnot, you know, on YouTube.
But like I said, it's gonna
be 20 videos before I drop any,
so we're looking at months down the road.
But this is, it's all about,
it's more than meals
that we're talking about.
It's about being ready.
It's about being in the field at home
and being ready in your faith as well.
Because you can mentor a young man
and bring one of these
meals along with you guys.
And you can have a
day out into the woods,
have something hearty to
eat, something wholesome to eat
while they're getting some
wholesome mentoring as well.
And having an example being poured into
their lives, you know.
So just remember, in all
your ways, acknowledge him.
And I'll see you in the next podcast.
God bless you.
Thanks for sitting
around the fire with me today.
If this episode gave you
something to think about,
if it helped you feel a
little bit more prepared
or it even stirred your faith a tiny bit,
go ahead and share it with someone else
who might need it as well.
We don't go camping
to run away from life.
We come out here to
slow down and recharge.
So grab another log,
throw it on the fire,
and remember this, in all
your ways, acknowledge him
and he will direct your path.
I'll see you next time.
God bless you.