by Michael Totten

Created on: May 18, 2009   Last Updated: May 22, 2009

In case of emergency, you should be prepared to support yourself for a minimum of 3 days. If you live in an area prone to hurricanes, flooding, or earthquake, increase this minimum to one week. For the duration of the emergency, you should plan for not having running water, electricity, or other utilities.

The best emergency food supplies are dry and canned foods with high energy and nutritional value. Excellent choices include rice, pasta, beans, bouillon, cereals, dry or canned fruit, condensed or powdered milk, and fruit-nut bars. Root vegetables also keep well, but need to be rotated more frequently than prepared foods. Multivitamins will supplement any temporary nutritional gaps. Meals Ready to Eat (MREs), which were first developed for the space program, are complete emergency meals sterilized to have a shelf life of up to 5 years. Unlike dehydrated meals, MREs don't require adding water.

One thing you won't need to worry about during an emergency is calories. This is one case where high energy foods are better, to compensate for lack of sleep and extra physical labor. Familiar, comfort foods go a long way toward reducing stress and lifting morale. However, avoid empty calorie foods and salty foods, which will only increase thirst.

Adjust your emergency food supplies according to your ability to cook without electricity or gas. Fireplaces and wood stoves can be used for cooking. Barbecues and camp stoves can be used for cooking, but should only be used outside. Candles and fondue holders can't boil water, but can be used for warming food.

Plan at least one gallon of water per person per day for drinking and food preparation, more for children, nursing mothers, or during hot weather. Small quantities of water can be kept frozen until needed in clean plastic soft drink containers. Larger quantities can be bought commercially.

If the electricity goes off, keep your fridge and freezer doors shut as much as possible to keep in the cold air. With limited door opening, most fridge foods will remain good for a day, frozen foods for two days. So long as frozen foods contain ice crystals, they are safe to prepare. If the temperature outside is below freezing, transferring perishable foods into a cooler and placing it outside will preserve them longer.

Emergency food supplies for those who have special nutritional requirements, such as diabetics or the elderly, will take extra planning. You may need to add a separate store of soups, low-sugar

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>