The best way is to first ask 'What are you planning for?' Is it a blizzard, earthquake, tornado or maybe the loss of a job? All these things are equally important to plan for. Are you planning on the food being mobile or are you planning on being at home?
While we plan we should plan to cover as many situations as we can by having tools or options which can cover multiple situations. Options which give us flexibility and the ability to adapt to anything we face. Some of these things we can easily do with food but some situations or specifically your situation might need specialized answers to what you face.
“One more meal.” We need to focus on feeding ourselves and loved ones one meal at a time; this will bring what could be an overwhelming task down to a manageable level. Where to start? The simplest way to start is to buy more of what your family already eats. Buy two of what your family already eats.
Take cereal for the kids, they eat one box a week? If you have the money buy two boxes instead of the one. Now your kids have cereal for two weeks. The next week you buy two again, now your kids have cereal for a month!!!! This is an easy way to start and I would strongly suggest everyone start with this method. What if we do not have the money? We need to still be able to supply our family with just “One more meal.” Let’s look at some options.
We can buy cases of MREs, dehydrated food or maybe bulk cases of food? Each has a benefit and a limitation. The first for all of these is cost. It can cost a lot to buy enough of any of these items to feed your family and I would suggest we start on the cheap!
Serving size is also a major issue when you start discussing food for a bad day. Now some folks need more and some need less. Let’s be honest, some people need a lot less but when a bad day comes is not the time to suddenly ‘get healthy’! You will have enough to worry about and adding a sudden drop to your calorie intake is not a good idea. In fact you might find yourself needing to burn more calories during an incident then what you are used to!!! You might have to shovel snow, cut up a downed tree or a host of other demanding tasks.
Top Ramen can be bought by the pack of six at the dollar store. That is six meals you can provide your family for a dollar!!!! it is cheap and easy to make. As some of you already know you can live on Top Ramen if you have to!! The trick here is to realize one package of Top Ramen is enough to feed one person for one meal. If stored properly Top Ramen will last a very long time.
Another item which will last a long time if stored properly is canned soups, chili and other canned items. These will last well beyond their best by date. Now depending on your family make up and needs a simple can of chili can count as a meal for one person or one meal for two people. You can also buy an assortment of items stored in cans. Everything from soups, meat and vegetables can be bought canned. An entire meal can be had out of what you can buy canned.
You can also purchase MREs and Dehydrated foods to fit the bill for your emergency needs. These are more expensive than what you can get at the grocery store when buying dry goods or canned goods. An obvious benefit with these two options is they are easier to carry around if you have to go and in this case the meals are already prepared. Usually water is the only item you need to add.
One MRE can have enough calories to carry you through a day. That is if you are not doing much physical activity during the day. Sure you might be hungry but if you spread out the time between eating each item in the MREs you can live off one a day. They also have the benefits of being highly mobile, an assortment of dishes and a large amount of items packed into one package. The downside, the are expensive, might not cover any special needs and give people a false sense of having found the answer to the problem. Like all the other options here the MRE does not cover every situation you might face and simply stuffing your closet full of them is not the best answer. (little side note; I can tell you from experience even with the assortment of meal types MREs get tiresome day after day!)
Dehydrated meals are another option people use for the answer to their planning needs. Most of these types of meals are made for hikers or camping, they are portable and need little else besides water to prepare. A major issue with these is there serving size. In most cases the serving size is listed as ‘one cup’.
For most of us one cup might not be enough to satisfy our hunger. Sure you can do the math and say this item has the recommended amount of calories but have you seen how much food really comes in a cup? This becomes a major issue if you have growing kids to feed! I have yet to meet a healthy teenage boy who does not try to eat everything in the fridge and now you are going to try and feed him one cup of something? Odds are you will be adding to your problems if you try to do this!!! What if you have a pregnant wife to feed? Are you really going to sit her down in front of a cup size serving? Good luck with that!
I would suggest tackling the food needs of your family from multiple directions. The first direction being, buy more of what you already eat. Fill up your pantry or cup boards with what your family eats every week. This way should something happen your family has extra food for a day, week or month and they will still have a sense of normalcy during a trying time.
Next angle would be to buy dry goods you can use to make meals of any size you need. Buy some pasta, dry milk, beans and dry bakery mixes to give your family some options. While you are at the store pick up some canned goods. Get whatever is on sell to start, than focus on buying canned items to give you a varied selection and once you start looking you might be surprised at what you can find in a can.
After you have a few weeks of food on hand from these categories go to the nearest camping store and see what kind of dehydrated food they have on sale. Remember to shop around and again you might be surprised at what you can find that is dehydrated! A little time spent on the internet will also allow you to add MREs to what you have on hand by watching for a sale.
Next thing you know you will have enough on hand to last your family a week or more, give you enough to make serving sizes you need and give you the portability you might also need! Mixing an item from your cupboard with something from your can goods, tossing in something from your dry goods and heating up something from your dehydrated items might just be the thing you need to serve your family a healthy and filling meal just when they need one!!!!
As always;
Stay Safe!!!
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