Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Prepare: Emergency Food Supplies

Take a look at your food situation at home. What sort of shape are you in?

The average home has food in the refrigerator and freezer, the cupboard and maybe in a closet type pantry.

This same average home emergency food supplies consist of whatever is on hand in these locations. Now, how long can those supplies last in a real emergency? I am not talking about a 8 hour power outage but real emergencies like a biological or nuclear attack, pandemic, or massive and widespread civil unrest.

Now how long can the average home's food supplies last? A few days? Maybe a week?

For real preparedness, you have to start thinking about your home's food supplies and what you and your family will do in a real emergency.

To start, break down your food supplies into a "consume order" plan. For instance, foods which are perishable in the refrigerator will go first, followed by foods from the freezer.

Next, foods which do not require refrigeration or freezing, but have a shelf life all the same.

Finally, ling term food supplies will be consumed when augmented with other food sources.

So to get started on your emergency food supplies and your plan.

Take an inventory of your shelf stable food supplies such as canned and dry goods, macaroni and pasta. How many days will those foods last? Your goal should be to have at least three months of those types of foods on hand for your entire family and with some available for others. Better yet, because these foods last longer, shoot for six months or a year if possible.

Next, concentrate on your long term emergency food supplies such as sugar, flour, rice, dried beans, cooking oil, honey, corn starch, baking powder, dried fruits and vegetables and jerky.
Attempt to store at least one year supply of these basics.

Finally, consider long term storage foods like those available from specialty retailers like Emergency Essentials, Provident Pantry, etc. Some people like to store military Meals Ready to Eat (MRE), but I have mixed thoughts about those.

The goal behind your emergency food supplies is to have a long term stored food plan in place before a real emergency takes place. Remember, the day IT happens will be the day it is is too late to do anything about it.

2 comments:

Paul said...

Meals Ready to Eat are an excellent way to go for an emergency. While they are a bit more expensive than stores of grain or beans, they are complete meals that require no fuss.

JD said...

Paul

Thanks for joining in here. My problem with MRE is they are large. A case only holds 12 meals. Sure they are big meals for a 9 year old, but then are only one meal.
MRE sound good to the single guy who is bugging out in his 4X4 and plans on holding out alone on the road.
For a family, MRE are fine in a pinch, but that same sized case of MRE could hold 6 number 10 sized cans of other foods. These would serve several meals per can per person and make more sense, "long term", than MRE.

But that is my opinion and everyone has theirs the last time I checked! :).

Thanks for reading and I hope to see you hear again.

Tag and Bookmark

Disclaimer - This blog from time to time reviews products on this blog. Some, but not all, of the products reviewed are affiliate market products and do provide compensation to the blog operator. This blog does receive revenue from advertising on this blog and from the sale of products highlighted on the outside columns and frame of this blog.
This blog is for informational and entertainment purposes only. For legal, medical, financial or any other professional advice, consult with a licensed professional.
We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.

Copyright - all content property of survivalism.blogspot.com 2005 -2011 all rights reserved. Content scrapers and copyright violators will be prosecuted.
storable food, dehydrated food, fod, dry food, food storage, food insurance, freeze dried food, survival food, food sale prices, food sale, bulk food, collapse food, food shortage, survival seeds, non hybrid, non-hybrid, emergency food, dehydrated vegetables, dehydrated mixes, dried produce, spices, whole food, mountain house food, mountain house freeze dried food, alpine aire, alpine aire freeze dried food, alpine air, mountainhouse, richmoor, survival food storage, bird flu, emergency survival, emergency preparation, dehydrated storable food, emergency preparedness, long term food storage, long term water storage, long term storable food, camping food, emergency food storage, food reserves, long term food reserves, storage, long term, long-term, dehydrated, gourmet reserves, long shelf life, no cooking required, food storage systems, non perishable food, non-perishable, no cooking food, non cook food, non-cook food, no cook food, basic needs, basic food storage, dry, dry storable, storage, preparedness, personal preparedness, food supply, supplies, seeds, sprouts, food supplier, survival review, collapse food storage, world food shortage, american food shortage

x

Tripbase Travel Reviews