Food-time! Part 1 of Many

Any average American family, at least that I've seen, has an ample supply of food in their homes. Sure, you can look at your cupboards or fridge and proclaim that there's nothing to eat, but you're wrong. There's a lot of food there - you just have the luxury of being able to procure something you want more someplace else.

At a rough guess I'd say you probably already have at least 7 to 10 days worth of food to make reasonable enough meals. Beyond that you probably have another week's worth of meals like "canned beets with plain rice on the side" but that's still a meal.

The majority of situations that are likely to occur that would leave you stuck at home likely aren't going to keep you there for much longer than a few days. In the unlikely event that you're stuck at home for an extended period of time and there is no help coming then you might want to have a few extra things.

Don't pick up MRE's or a case of spam (unless you like spam), rather pick up canned foods that you eat normally. For less than fifty bucks you can buy several days to weeks worth of non-perishable food items that you normally use or could easily incorporate into your normal diet. This is important because when a year has passed and you haven't had to dive into your emergency supplies you'll want to rotate out these items so that your supplies are always fresh.

We have an area in our basement dedicated to extra food supplies. It's actually a buffet/hutch that we also store our large cooking tools that we don't frequently use (ie wok, cake pans, etc). This area is cool and dry year round.

MOST IMPORTANT ITEM TO STOCK: A freaking manual can-opener! Electronic can openers are not all the helpful if you don't have power. I suggest that every household should have two manual can openers. Sure you can open a can without a can opener, but why not go spend a couple of bucks and get the right tool to make the job easy?

In future entries regarding food I'll cover putting together meals, cooking without your stove, finding alternate food sources, and more!

Water, Water, Water

There's the rule of four - you can go four minutes without oxygen, four days without water, and four weeks without food. In my way of thinking, if there's an emergency that requires I supply my oxygen... well chances are I ain't gonna survive that anyway. Perhaps someday I'll be able to make preparations for that, but financially and space-wise that's a ways off. Food is a pretty large concern, so I'll address that in another blog. For now it's all about water!

The adult human needs about 1 liter of water daily to survive. To be comfortable you need a bit more water than that, figure about 3 liters. A young child of about 40 lbs needs about 1 liter. A cat should have about a 0.25 liters available. In my house there are 2 adults, 1 toddler, and 4 cats. Daily water consumption stands at about 8 liters a day. This factors in exercise, physical work, and/or illness. Hopefully this is entirely over-planning.

We have 5-gallon jugs of water delivered to our house. We have anywhere from 1 to 4 of this jugs at any given time. We have an old house that has a lead pipe for the water feed from the city. To minimize exposure to the lead in the water we mainly use bottled water. The fact that we have this water on hand is fine then because we use it regardless if there's an emergency going on so it stays fresh as we cycle the jugs out. Hypothetically something happens where the water supply is tainted - we have anywhere from 2+ to 9+ days of drinkable water. This should hold us out comfortably until the water supply can be cleaned or relief supplies arrive. If it's a situation where there isn't a likely water source coming, we can ration the water supply (2.5 liters/daily for humans and 0.5 liters/daily for cats). Rationing would give us anywhere from 6+ to 25 days worth of water. Figure in all the soda, juice, canned goods, and so on that you have around the house and you can last for a good long time.

Another thing to consider is that normally we get about 20% of our daily water through the food we eat. This will stretch your water supply by, you guessed it, 20%!

Even considering all of the above, we're increasing our water supply by ordering an extra jug of water. I will rotate this jug out with our normal cycle every few months so it too will stay nice and fresh.

For longer term concerns, you have to think about purifying water or finding alternative sources. I was going to talk about these here, but really there is so much to think and talk about regarding this that I won't be able to cover it all now.

Thanks for reading!