In this era of obesity epidemics, it seems a little strange to talk about potential food scarcity. But here's the hard truth: the abundance we enjoy is utterly dependent on a complex infrastructure of producers and distributors that has multiple stress points. If the trucks stop or can't get through, the shelves of most food stores will empty in less than a week. Government sources estimate that most homes have enough food on hand to get by for three to four days, but this is just sketchy enough that the same folks recommend that you have a three-day emergency supply. The good news is that with all the specially prepared canned and dried foods available these days, stocking up for the "Staying Put" option is fairly cheap and easy. The lighter "mobile" varieties are more pricey, but they've come down over the last few years -- and seen big improvements in taste and variety. Having a hefty supply of long-lived food on hand is one of the best kinds of insurance.
General Guidelines
-- Since caloric requirements vary widely among individuals the best estimate to work with is 1500 to 2000 calories per person/per day. Lord knows, many of us could lose a few pounds, so lower intakes for the short term wouldn't be so bad. Just be sure to keep essentials like vitamins and minerals in your diet. Actually, having to set aside food for a emergency is a great way to get an idea about just how much food -- by weight and volume -- most of us consume. Remember, most of our ancestors had to spend a large portion of their waking hours securing and preparing food; now may not be a bad time to look back with a little humility and awe.
-- You will want to optimize your storage efficiency in two ways. First, the general goal is to maximize the calories per unit area in order to get as much food energy as possible in the least amount of space (yes folks, now you can have the rarified experience of stashing away all the high calorie food you can handle). Second, you want to spend most of your money on food reserves with long shelf lives, both to minimize annoying stock rotation duties and to get the most bang for your buck Additionally, some portion of the food should be lightweight in case you need an evacuation cache. There are three basic types of preserved food to consider:
1) Traditional canned and sealed foods found on grocery store shelves (storage life variable, but assume 1 year max)
2) Specially prepared softpackaged foods like MRE's and backpacking meals (storage life: 5 to 7 years)
3) Freeze-dried, nitrogen packed foods in #10 heavy-duty lined cans (storage life 25 to 30 years).
-- These three groups offer an almost infinite variety of food and storage types to choose from and an almost equally limitless number of strategies. To help choose which types amd amounts to go with, ask yourself several questions:
1) How much space do you have for food storage?
2) How much variety do you need?
3) How much effort are you willing to put into preparing food?
4) What's your most likely emergency strategy -- will you stay or will you go?
If you live in a small space in a city or suburbs, your choices are much simpler, just as they are if you're in a rural setting with lots of room. The more difficult spot is for the rest of us somewhere in-between.
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If you have any questions or comments, send an email to technolithic@discovery.com.
PRELIMINARIES | WATER | FOOD | ENERGY
Technolithic Recommends:
STAYING PUT
If you have the space and a near zero likelihood of evacuation, by all means go with the long-life #10 cans. For very reasonable costs per meal you can have a wide range of pre-selected bulk mixed-food combinations, typically ranging from a 45-day supply to a full year. The leading producer of this type of canned food, Mountain House, offers a one-year supply consisting of 126 #10 cans in 21 cases that will provide three meals (with vegetables and desserts) for one person for 365 days. Freeze-drying locks in taste, texture, nutrients and vitamins. All you need to do is add water. Unopened, the food inside the cans will store for 30 years! As I write this, one online distributor is offering this one-year supply for around $2,500, a price that works out to be about $7.00 a day, a price that beats cheap fast-food! Using the same formula for a 45-day supply (around $425), the cost per day is still under $10.00.
So if you've got the right situation, this is the best way to go. Other approaches using longer-term canning methods fall short in both shelf-life (thus requiring rotation and replacement) and preparation requirements (having to mix ingredients and cook).
For short term situations, you could capitalize on the cheap bulk food prices at discount chains like Costco, SFW, or Wal-Mart. To get any significant shelf-life you'll have to get canned foods (although they may also have limited selections of packaged freeze-dried products) This won't give you much in the way of extended shelf-life, or space and weight efficiences, but this can work if you look for higher calorie canned foods. Most canned foods don't have much more than 200 calories per can (most of the weight is water), so a case of 12 provides just about a day or two's worth of food energy. Canned foods like stews, beans and condensed milk have the most calories. Add in your favorite canned fruits and vegetables for a little variety. Still, over a longer time-frame, you'll probably be short on calories because you're missing perishable bread products which typically provide us with a majority of our calories. In any case, if you don't eat these canned foods within a year you should toss them out or give them away (food bank donations are always welcome).
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Technolithic Recommends:
EVACUATION
Camping and war continue to be the two great inspirations for portable, concentrated food supplies. For that matter, these two demanding human undertakings are not too far removed from what you might have to go through during an evacuation. That being said, the good news is that recent advances in preservation techniques have produced even longer shelf-lives for survival foods. If you want to have just one type of emergency food supply these are what you need. They have a higher per meal cost than the long-life canned variety, but on average they're still less expensive than most prepared meals you buy every day.
MRE's: The U.S. military's "Meals, Ready to Eat" have been the standard field ration for soldiers since 1981. They have seen considerable improvement over the earlier issues which had nicknames like "Meals, Rarely Edible" or "Meals Rejected by the Enemy". Today there a number of commercially available MRE's, but most are still manufactured according to military specifications including a requirement that each "meal" supplies1,200 calories. MRE's contain a mix of dishes that are sealed in foil "retort pouches" (essentially a thin-skinned, flexible can) then boiled for cooking and sterilization. Longevity depends largely on storage temperature, but kept cool (under 70 degrees) MRE's should be good for at least five years. They're tasty (most of the time!), light-weight, easy to pack and easy to eat -- heating recommended but not required. They're usually sold in boxes of 12 costing around $65. To make them completely self-contained get the version that comes with portable chemical heaters. THIS IS THE BEST CHOICE FOR APARTMENT DWELLERS AND OTHERS WITH NO SAFE ALTERNATIVE HEATING OPTION.
Backpacking Meals: If you've hit the trails in the last decade or so, your're probably already familiar with this type of freeze-dried pouch food. There are hundreds of different dishes available, from main entrees, vegetable and starch sides to deserts and breakfasts. Unlike MRE's that contain several types of food in each unit, these backpacking meals have only one dish per pouch and they need to be prepared with hot water. On the other hand, freeze-drying means better tasting food. If you don't want to agonize over choices, buy one of the assortments. My favorite freeze-dried food company, Mountain House, makes a great variety of food pouches that are sold by distributors in a range of kit sizes, from a compact 72-hour size to a 90-day supply. Buy a month's worth and you'll have a first-rate supply of portable survival food for a small group.
Survival Food Bars: Less well known than MRE's, these are specially formulated "short-bread cookie" blocks with the highest concentrations of nutritional ingredients (carbs, protein and fat) found in survival food. Since they are produced under U.S. Coast Guard guidelines -- specifically for use as emergency life raft and ship rations -- they are non-thirst provoking and highly stable in extreme temperatures. They come in 2400 or 3600 calorie sealed packages, but each unit is tabletized and subpackaged for easier rationing. Most brands have a standard shelf-life of five years. In may ways this is the ultimate survival food, but you probably don't want to subsist on "cookies" for too long.
Handy Extras: For short-term emergencies you can keep a stock of other simple, common backbacking foods. Foods like snack bars don't have long shelf-lives, but if you switch them out on a regular basis (and seal them in zip-loc bags or airtight containers) they can serve as handy portable food sources. They're most useful when you're feeling hungry, but don't want to bother with preparing MRE's or food pouches There are lots to choose from, but my favorite is the Navy Seal's HOOAH! Bar, specially formulated to provide a steady energy boost during sustained field operations. Also good to have in a pinch is a stash of easily absorbed energy gels that provide almost immediate power boosts.
Questions or comments? Email me at technolithic@discovery.com.
PRELIMINARIES | WATER | FOOD | ENERGY