Emergency rations

Our house is located in an area that apparently causes the phone and electric companies unusual difficulties with their underground wiring, and we have frequent outages, sometimes momentary, sometimes longer. This summer has been worse than usual, and in anticipation of autumn rains, during which the power is even more likely to go out, I am thinking of laying in a supply of emergency foods for these annoying periods.

Bearing in mind that when I have no lights, I also have no water (we're on a well system) and that I worry about opening the fridge when the power is out, that means I'm essentially looking for foods that are shelf-stable for a reasonable period, require little or no prep (messing with knives in the dark is no fun) and taste good. (It has to be good enough to keep us being tempted to give up go out somewhere instead of staying home to keep an eye on the sump.)

This is a little different from shelf-stable office food, although some of those things will work, because of the power and water issues. Any ideas?

There are several Food Desert recipes that meet your needs, and you might check the "Great Outdoors" thread, there are lots of foods we keep just for camping, which consider hauling water and prepping in difficult circumstances.. (Knowing you, I assume you aren't looking for a better version of canned food a la Chef Boyardee?)

One convenience food that isn't great, but isn't bad: precooked bags or tins of brown rice. If you check carefully, it's usually unseasoned, and easy to make into a brown rice salad as-is. Beware of "flavored" bagged cooked rice - not only is it not very good, it's excessively salty.

FWIW - your hot water heater should have a faucet on the side for draining it (which you're supposed to do once a year or so) You can use that water in an emergency, ours is 55 gallons, which is plenty for even a long blackout.

Don't know how close this is to what you're looking for, but I didn't see it mentioned in the other thread: pudding and fruit, in plastic cups or, for fruit, jars or cans, seem a good thing to have on hand in an emergency.

Mhays wrote:(Knowing you, I assume you aren't looking for a better version of canned food a la Chef Boyardee?)

Well, I'd be interested in anything anyone here liked. (But the concept of cold SpaghettiOs does not seem palatable.)

Mhays wrote:your hot water heater should have a faucet on the side for draining it (which you're supposed to do once a year or so) You can use that water in an emergency, ours is 55 gallons, which is plenty for even a long blackout.

Not if you need to use it for flushing the toilets.

Katie, you're right. I do need to get some in pull-top cans, though. Last time this came up, I could not find the can opener. (We do have the non-electric kind, at least; it just had been put away in the wrong place.)

By the way, I didn't mention that we have an electric stove, so any foods need to be edible at room temperature.

LAZ, if this is indeed a serious concern, you can buy MRE kits that contain everything you need. The meals don't require water to make, the kits have a heater, shelf life is a long, long time. Most is freeze-dried. They are not cheap, but they fit the bill.

Also, we have an inexpensive butane single-burner stove we love; you can get them at any Asian market for less than $20 and it seems to have enough fail-safes that it's no more dangerous than any other gas stove. I've never used it inside and would be very aware of ventilation, but they work like gangbusters. You might also want to invest in an LED rechargeable camping lantern for your kitchen (we keep buying them in the $25 range and regretting it; I think you need to spend about $40 for a good one)

little500 wrote:LAZ, if this is indeed a serious concern, you can buy MRE kits that contain everything you need. The meals don't require water to make, the kits have a heater, shelf life is a long, long time. Most is freeze-dried. They are not cheap, but they fit the bill.

Actually, a more palatable option are HEATER Meals, which include a pouch of chemicals with when activatied, actually heat the meal without an external heat source.

http://www.heatermeals.com/
http://heatermeals.blogspot.com/2010/05 ... -mres.html

I'll add - http://www.ready.gov/america/getakit/food.html - to the list.

or you couuld get a cell phone and a few delivery menus.

jlawrence01 wrote:

little500 wrote:LAZ, if this is indeed a serious concern, you can buy MRE kits that contain everything you need. The meals don't require water to make, the kits have a heater, shelf life is a long, long time. Most is freeze-dried. They are not cheap, but they fit the bill.

Actually, a more palatable option are HEATER Meals, which include a pouch of chemicals with when activatied, actually heat the meal without an external heat source.

http://www.heatermeals.com/
http://heatermeals.blogspot.com/2010/05 ... -mres.html

MREs and heater meals are virtually the same thing, and the heating component is identical. The difference is the food content.

Kennyz wrote:or you couuld get a cell phone and a few delivery menus.

Options for delivery in this neighborhood are pretty much limited to inferior pizza.

Thanks, folks, but I'm really just looking for ideas for regular foods I can keep on hand for these situations. Perhaps I should have phrased things a bit differently:

What tasty, ready-to-eat foods do you eat at room temperature?

Katie's mentioned canned fruit and pudding -- they're better chilled, but they're OK when tepid. I'd thought of dried fruit and nuts myself, but I'm looking for savory foods you can make a meal out of, maybe things you can eat with crackers or bread.

Are there canned spreads you've tried that were any good? (I'm not very fond of peanut butter, but that's the kind of thing I had in mind, rather than MREs or schemes to cook in the dark.)

Other canned or packaged foods?

Some small appliances may make things go better. A few years ago, we were without electricity for about 4 days. We were lucky enough to have a one burner heater for camping, with a couple of small tanks of propane. I'd suggest getting one of those. Camping on the kitchen table isn't so bad.

Likewise, an LED lantern will provide many hours of light on just a few batteries. I have an LED flashlight that has had much use over a 5 year period, and it is still on the first set of batteries. The LEDs are much preferable to candles (of which we had enough to last 4 days) because they don't leaves drops of wax all over the house.

As for food, I have a couple of boxes of crackers vacuum packed, and lots of peanut butter and jellies and marmalades and jams. Also several other nut butters, nuts in shells and dried fruits. I have several days worth of sardines and herring, and a few cans of canned chicken and ham. Had some packages of jerky, but those ended up as snacks after a year. Instant coffee can be made from cold water and vigorous stirring. Teas can easily be made from steeping in cold water. Jars of pickled vegetables will usually be just fine once opened and kept at room temperature, assuming they are very acidic.

I've got a 5 gallon gravity feed water purifier, and in a pinch, it strains rain water quite well. Needs some serious cleaning afterwords.

I have a well, sump pump, two fridges, furnace and other items. I installed a backup generator and throw over electrical distribution box.
We keep a supply of MRE's and other necessities.
If losing the power causes you that much concern, then take action to alleviate the concern.-Dick