It may not be glamorous, but the most importantconcern anyone living in a disaster area for an extended period of time will have to deal with is getting a bite to eat. During the Hurricane Katrina Crisis, news cameras regularly taped mobs looting grocery stores in a desperate attempt to get enough food to eat. Having a well established stockpile of the right kinds of food can save your life even better than a gun.
Especially if you live in an urban area, where foraging for food is next to impossible without stealing from someone else, stockpiling on food is absolutely vital. Even in a nuclear war, most American cities will not be targeted, and many will remain habitable after the barrage is over. However,whether it is a nuclear war, natural disaster, or a single EMP device detonated at high altitude, your urban center may no longer enjoy a steady stream of food supplies from the countryside and overseas. Add to this the loss of electrical power and much of the existing food supplies will quickly spoil, leaving a small amount of food and a lot of
hungry mouths. To make sure you and your loved ones have meals even in the worst of times, prepare a cache of non-perishable food items and potable water. It is a good idea not just to stock your house, but to be ready with a few meals in your bug-out bag, just in case holding down the fort isn’t an option. Also keep in mind that this isn’t a once-and-done purchase. Even the longest lasting foods eventually go bad so continuously use the items you stockpile even when there isn’t acrisis. Just remember to replace what you use!
There are a nearly infinite number of non-perishable food items to select, but not all are created equal. Family Guy may have been right about twinkies lasting forever, but if you try and live off just those for too long, you will die an excruciatingly painful death of malnutrition and vitamin deficiencies. Frankly, if I were to survive a nuclear war, it would be downright embarrassing to die from Scurvy shortly thereafter. Junk food is certainly better than no food, but there are plenty of foods available that can keep you as healthy as ever, if you know what to look for.
Before we get started on your grocery list, we
out your foods so that they will last as long as
possible. After all, it doesn’t matter if all your food
lasts for ten years if you only have enough of it to
last six months. Purchase with a strategy in mind
and then eat to that strategy. Set up a system in
which you regularly purchase, use, and replenish
items that spoil quickly, those that last a few months,
and those that last years. I was living in a town just
north of Houston when Hurricane Rita struck. A
botched evacuation effort, combined with flooding,
jammed up all the major roads and electricity was
unavailable to many areas for over a month, even in
the city limits of Houston. Disaster had struck, but we
didn’t immediately break out the emergency rations.
We broke out ice cream. It was going to melt anyway.
We also broke out a chicken and grilled it outside. We
were cut off from civilization and didn’t know if some of
our loved ones were safe, but it sure helped to raise our
spirits to enjoy a fresh chicken and ice cream at a time
like that.
In determining which food items belong in
which category there are a few pieces of
information you need to be able to understand. One is the “expiration date”.
When a food item reaches this date, even
if it has been well stored, it may no longer
be good to eat, but keep in mind that the
real world does not have very many absolutes
in it. Milk has an expiration date, and on a
personal note I can say that taking a big gulp
of sour milk is on my top five list of bad
childhood memories, but just because that
date has been reached does not guarantee
that the food is inedible, where yesterday it
was fine. This date is a caution sign, nothing more.
Smell the milk to tell if it is good or bad, or
take a small bite of whatever else may have
expired and taste for yourself. A second bit
of information is the “sell by date”. These two
dates may look the same, but they are giving
you two totally different pieces of information.
The sell by date is not saying that food will go
bad beyond this time, but that it will no longer
be at its prime. Companies sell their food products successfully when consumers
think they taste good, so it is better to not
sell an item that is past its prime than it
would be to get a reputation for mediocre
food. Consistency and quality are critically
important to these companies,
but just because an item is past its
prime does not mean it should be
thrown out, especially when new food is
going to be hard to come by. There
are many ways to phrase the sell by date.
Companies may use, “best if used by dates”, “guaranteed fresh by dates”, or even “use by dates”. They all express basically the same idea that peak quality will decline after this date. It isn’t saying anything about whether it is still safe to eat. One of the most important examples of this is bottled water. Many states require either a sell by or expiration date to be printed on all food products, and many bottling companies also volunteer a sell by date on their water because water that has been stored in plastic for an extended period of time gets a bad taste. You will not be long for this world if you turn your nose up at potable water just because it isn’t as crisp and fresh as the label suggests. Water, even when stored in plastic, lasts forever. It might taste like a tire after a while, but it is safe, it will keep you alive, and you’d be a fool to toss it out. It may be playing Russian roulette with your taste buds, but there is really no substitute for determining the edibility of a product with your own nose and tongue.
With this information
in mind, an ideal stockpile can
be split into four categories:
perishable items, non-perishable items that last for a period of
months, non-perishable items
that last for a period of years,
and non-perishable items that
can be conveniently carried if
holing up at home isn’t an option.
The common perishable foods like
fruits and vegetables, raw meats,
bread, and dairy products is really
nothing more than what you should
be using regularly anyway.
At the risk of sounding like a cartoon public
service announcement,
there is something to be
said for developing good
eating habits while there
is no disaster, because there
is no denying that a healthy
person will be far more capable
of coping with hardship than a
fat slob with a Doritos addiction.
If you do find yourself in the
aftermath of a hurricane,
nuclear war, or zombie apocalypse, plan out your meals to
minimize waste. Feast like a
king on all your refrigerated
foods and perishable items,
because they won’t last for long.
You can break out the Granola later.
Speaking of, Granola is an excellent medium duration food item. In bar form it can last for years and as a cereal it lasts for months if you don’t open the package before you’re ready to use it. It is an excellent source of energy and is a good provider of protein, fiber, and fat. Other good things to have are other cereals, jerky for protein, varieties of trail mix, prepackaged cookies and crackers for carbohydrates and that tasty fat, and pasta. Canned pasta sauces last for years, but actual pasta such as ziti cannot last as long. Given their culinary dependency I’d make an exception to our general rule about saving the longest lasting foods until last in this case. You’re doing pretty well for yourself if you are able to enjoy spaghetti after two months without a grocery store or other means of resupplying yourself.
