What Is The Best Emergency Food Supply
The best emergency food supply is the one that is perfectly tailored to your specific household needs and location. But let’s dig a little deeper into what types of food and supplies are best to store for emergencies and how much you and your family are really going to need come disaster time.
What Foods And Supplies Should You Store For An Emergency?
Let’s face it: all those heavy canning jars full of your grandma’s preserves may sound, and even taste, awesome. They’re also extremely heavy, breakable, and don’t last long on the shelf when you’re waiting around for that sneaky little emergency to crop up. Don’t get us wrong—store those pickles and peaches if you’ve got them! A little variety never hurt anyone. But it’s time we got realistic about what kinds of food and supplies are going to work best for most families in this century.
Let’s break down what types of food and supplies your family should start storing today in case of an emergency.
Store Foods Your Family Will Enjoy
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again—emergencies suck, but your food shouldn’t! And honestly, if the emergency is bad enough, not many are going to whine about whatever kind of food they’re able to get their hands on. But we’re not here to settle for just any kind of survival food. Food insurance should provide more than simple calories to keep your brain and body working—you should store food that the people in your household are going to enjoy and even take comfort in during an emergency. And if you choose the right kind of food storage, that’s not a difficult task to accomplish.
For example, in Hibernate’s 2-week emergency food supply bucket (and all our food supply kits, really), your family will be able to feast on everything from maple brown sugar oatmeal and vanilla protein shakes to hearty vegetable soup and cheesy broccoli rice, with so much more between. Plus, you can augment those with extra buckets full of delicious things like black bean burgers and buttermilk pancake mix to really trick your family into thinking things are normal at your house...at least during mealtime.
Again, the idea of self-reliance and emergency food preparation isn’t just to scrape by. It’s to make sure your family has every possible benefit under your control during a time of uncertainty and fear. And you can provide that in large part with emergency food that doesn’t suck.
Store Foods That Are Nutritious
We’re not much for calorie counting on a regular basis, but the last thing your family should be worried about during an emergency is hunger or malnutrition. On top of foods that your family will actually like to eat, you need to make sure your emergency food supply list is not just full of empty calories from poorly prepared or non-nutritious foods.
Plenty of emergency food supply companies play number games with calories or offer filler packets like sugary drink mix, just to fill their buckets. But you need to pay close attention to calories, protein, and the variety of nutrients offered when creating the best emergency food supply for your family.
Look for high quality ingredients, plenty of fruits and vegetables, as well as top-notch preserving processes to ensure a long shelf life and that your emergency food retains as much nutritional value as possible.
Store Foods That Are Easy To Prepare
Look, during the emergency is really not the time to be learning new culinary skills. Your local fire evacuation is not time for Top Chef action! The best emergency food supply is one that is easy enough for anyone to prepare in a pinch.
Freeze-dried food, as well as your favorite canned and dry goods, are great because they’re simple. Some you can eat straight out of the pouch or can, while others just require a little hot water or heat to make the meal come to life
Along with your buckets of high quality freeze-dried food from Hibernate, consider adding easy-to-open cans of tuna, packets of dried jerky, and even some of your family’s favorite candies to really round out your emergency food supply. Just make sure you’re rotating and using those more perishable items regularly so you’re not stuck with expired food that could cause more harm than good during a disaster.
Store Foods You Don’t Need Power To Make
With big storms, wildfires, and downed power lines becoming so common, you’re likely not a stranger to making do when the power goes out for a few hours. But have you been without power for days at a time? Knowing how to prepare emergency food without power is key to your preparation.
Whether you choose to store a small gas stove or other safe heating device, make sure you practice using it before an emergency strikes! As the saying goes, don’t try to fix a leaky roof in a rainstorm. Likewise, make sure that the food storage you’ve got can be consumed either by using that device, or with absolutely nothing at all. And keep in mind that without power, you’ll also need to steer clear of food that has been in your freezer or refrigerator, as it will no longer be safe to eat after several hours.
That means storing a variety of non-perishable, easy-to-prepare emergency foods, as discussed above.
Store Enough Water For Drinking + Some For Cooking
Most people know that it is recommended to store at least a gallon of water per day, per person for drinking water, in case of an emergency. A two week supply of fresh, clean water for each person in your household is a great goal when putting together the best emergency food supply.
But you can’t forget the water it will take to rehydrate any freeze-dried emergency food you have in store! With Hibernate, you can count on needing about a cup of liquid per serving to prepare the meals. So, if you’ve got a 1-month emergency food supply, think about adding approximately 20 gallons of water to your safe storage in case you lose access to clean running water at home.
Store Other Necessary Emergency Supplies
Opinions vary from source to source about everything else required in your emergency supply, so you’d be wise to examine your own family’s needs based on personal circumstances and location. But there are a few common rules of thumb that you should consider keeping along with your emergency food supply.
- First aid kit
- Small tool set
- Basic medications
- Extra clothing
- Flashlights
- Extra batteries
- Solar phone charger
- Duct tape
- Food and water for family pets
Want To Stockpile Food For An Emergency? Try This...
If you’re ready to start storing food in case of an emergency—and, let’s face it, that should be all of us—then the first thing you have to do is take stock of who you’re preparing for and try to anticipate, as futile as that may seem, what type of emergency you are most likely to face in your area.
Let’s say you’re married with two tween children. You live in a rural area prone to summer wildfires and the occasional heavy-snow power outage in winter. Plus, you guys love wilderness hiking and always plan for a long fishing weekend in a neighboring state come fall.
Now that you’ve gotten your bearings, it’s time to look for clues as to what types of emergency food and how much you may need to stockpile in order to survive and thrive in any and all of these circumstances.
- Keep in mind that FEMA recommends no less than 2 weeks of the best emergency food supply for each member of your household.
- In your case, that’s 2 adults and 2 children for at least 2 weeks in order to promote self-reliance and peace of mind alongside your family’s food insurance.
- Since you’re close to a wildfire zone, you’ll need portable food storage that’s light and easy to transport at a moment’s notice in case of sudden evacuation orders.
- Winter power outages can mean needing to store and prepare food that can be made simply and with the use of a gas stove or other camp-like equipment. It would also be nice if some of that food was warm and comforting.
- Lightweight, freeze-dried emergency food can be a lifesaver (and back-saver!) when hiking, camping, and otherwise “playing” outdoors. Just-add-water type camping meals that actually taste good are a great way to make your time in the wild more enjoyable and even less stressful.
- Road trips are another place you can tap into some food storage. Think easy snacking and quick cleanup!
Now that you’ve practiced putting yourself in the place of this fictional family and their quest to create the best emergency food supply, do the same exercise for your family and see if you can come up with what types of and how much emergency food you should have in store for when the unexpected strikes.
And don’t limit yourself to the 2-week food supply recommendation! Store as much emergency food as makes you and your family confident in your ability to care for yourselves in whatever circumstances the future may hold.
How Much Emergency Food Supply Should You Have?
In order to figure out how much of an emergency food supply you should have, you’ll need to start with the exercise above—trust us, it will help build not only your awareness but your confidence in your ability to prepare in the best way possible for your family!
But let’s also get down to a few more technical details, shall we?
The average person consumes about 2,000 calories per day. We need high quality nutrition as well as plenty of protein and good carbohydrates to keep up energy levels, especially once we’ve entered emergency mode. That means that our fictional family from above will need to come up with a solid 112,000 calories for their family if they’re sticking to FEMA’s minimum 2-week food supply suggestion. But, because of their extra outdoorsy activities, they’d probably be wise to supplement their individual 2-week supplies with extra portions of fruits and vegetables, and maybe even a couple buckets of black bean burgers and powdered whole eggs for grilling and scrambling over the campfire.
So, where do you fall on the wide spectrum of how much emergency food to store? We don’t have the exact answer, but we hope we’ve helped you narrow it down for yourself. And we can submit this much: Hibernate offers the absolute best when it comes to high-quality, nutrient-rich, freeze-dried emergency food for you and your family. Whether you’re just starting to build the best emergency food supply for one or you’re ready to invest in a 6-month food supply for you and your kids, Hibernate is here to help ensure everyone in your family stays happy and healthy—emergency or not!
GET IT NOW: Try out our 2-week emergency food supply and we promise you’ll be surprised at how much your family loves our easy-to-prepare, unbelievably delicious emergency meals. We don’t doubt you’ll soon be back for more.