Take Time Now To Prepare Your Emergency Food Supply

Making sure that your household will be able to survive during a disaster should be one of your highest priorities. While there are many factors that contribute to survival supplies, one of the most important is emergency food. During a widespread and serious disaster, it is likely that electricity, water, heat, and possibly transportation will be affected. Unless you have provided a food supply, you and your family could go hungry. Non-perishable food is a must – food that needs to be refrigerated will rapidly become unsafe to consume. Fortunately, there are several ways to stock your emergency food pantry.

Emergency food bars are designed to be eaten ‘as is’; they need no preparation of any kind, and will really be helpful in providing needed calories and energy when there are no means of cooking available. These bars are formulated so that they will not make you thirsty when you eat them, are available in a variety of sizes, and have a shelf life of 5 years.

Longer term emergency food supplies are probably best built by using MREs (meals-ready-to-eat). These generally consist of sealed pouches that contain a complete meal, such as chili or beef stroganoff. The meals have been freeze-dried and/or dehydrated after preparation so that the flavor and texture of the food will be the same when they have been rehydrated. MREs are available in a good variety of dishes, so that it is unlikely that ‘food boredom’ will set in when using these.

Unlike the trouble that would have to be taken to make a meal from scratch, MREs only need a bit of hot water to prepare, which will be an important consideration when cooking and clean up might be difficult otherwise. Besides the convenience of preparation, MREs have a very long shelf life if they are stored properly (cool and away from light). Once your supply of MREs has been established, you will not have to worry about rotation as this emergency food has a shelf life of 20 to 25 years.