Do you keep emergency food supplies?

In light of the hurricane I have been thinking of emergency food supplies. Even though our area is not prone to natural disasters too much, there are times that we have power outages. Most last for a few hours or a day but some have lasted longer. I've gotten by because I stay at various friends houses and they have stayed with me. No real need for emergency food and since the outage is not that long, even the stuff in the freezer or fridge is still okay.

I do recall though that my mother kept a small pantry in the basement of various canned goods. This was down there due to the cold war when people believed they may have to live in the basements due to a nuclear threat. Now my pantry is upstairs. The contents are pretty similar. Canned tomatoes, tuna, rice, beans, pasta, a few cans of soup, some cans of baked beans. Also in the house at most times, a few loaves of bread, peanut butter, jams, potatoes, apples, etc. I do not generally keep drinking water. There is a refrigerator and freezer in the garage that is stocked with food and drink. Grills and a fireplace could be used to cook. I do not have a generator and do not intend to get one.

Do you have emergency supplies of food? How do you rotate the stock? Have you ever had to use them? Where are they stored?

We always have a lot of canned and dry things, though we don't think of them as "emergency." I imagine if I kept a special class of "emergency rations," then they'd always be expiring. Whereas, with what we normally keep and restock, we could survive for at least a few days: lots of dry and canned beans, crackers, chips, salsa, cereal, broth and concentrated base, onions/potatoes, juice, peanut/almond/cashew butter, preserves, all manner of grains, tinned sardines...

mrbarolo wrote:We always have a lot of canned and dry things, though we don't think of them as "emergency." I imagine if I kept a special class of "emergency rations," then they'd always be expiring. Whereas, with what we normally keep and restock, we could survive for at least a few days: lots of dry and canned beans, crackers, chips, salsa, cereal, broth and concentrated base, onions/potatoes, juice, peanut/almond/cashew butter, preserves, all manner of grains, tinned sardines...

That's me too.
I could go a good week, 10 days minumum with what I have on hand.
And that's just the dried, canned food. If I opened the freezed grabbed something and shut it real quick I bet it could limp along for at least 2 weeks before it all went bad.

I think I could last a couple weeks with the food on hand too. I did note that some people who had propane stoves were able to cook after Sandy. I recall many years ago my grandfather had a coleman stove he used to take with us on driving trips way back when there were not many restaurants. I do not know how this really differs from a charcoal grill that has a propane tank. I imagine between our grills and maybe fireplaces we could cook something. I think fireplace cooking is somewhat of an art but there are books on how it can safely be done. Also if you have a chafing dish or fondue pot with candles maybe you could heat up soup or a can of baked beans.

Good point about the cooking.

I have a huge gas grill and because I'm always worried I'll run out of gas I always have a backup full tank. I'd say I have about 1 1/2 tanks right now.
I have 2 Webber kettles and a good deal of charcoal as well.

Since our water tastes like crap (very old house, bad plumbing) we get water delivered. At any given time we typically have 6 - 8 full unopened 5 gallon jugs. If we're very careful that should last a little while, hopefully until the military cuts a swath through the zombie hoard to save us.

Its good to keep a brita or some kind of water purifying thing around. I doubt if we are likely to suffer water problems maybe if you have wells that operate with electricity. I wonder if you have lake mi water what would stop it from coming through the tap.

Who knows - pipe could burst, water could become contaminated, pumping station could blow up

Do pet iguanas count as emergency provisions?

If we get to The Night of the Iguana, I'm not sure I wouldn't prefer the zombie apocalypse. God knows we'll all be at the end of our rope by that point.

Yes if you like to eat your pets.

I do not have an emergency food storage or a plan for that matter. I guess that I tend to keep about six months of food on hand as I am always finding great specials and then never getting home to cook three nights a week.

However, if I was serious about doing an emergency food storage, I would head to the experts on food storage - the LDS Church:

http://www.lds.org/topics/food-storage


Whether you agree with the theology or not, the website is a treasure trove of food storage plans.

I only have emergency chocolate.

We do have generators, because we get power outages with a distressing frequency.
In fact we bought a new one (on wheels, with a bigger gas tank) this year, so we now have two!

we do keep some extra food on hand, and extra water-
and could probably eat out of the freezer, and pantry for a week to 10 days easily
although the milk and bread would run out first.

Food is no problem...I want electricity! I have a generator, but it is only good for the freezer and sump pump. I want one of those big generators (hooked up to my propane tank) that will power up the whole house. I'd also like a new furnace, all my windows replaced and a new hot water tank in case there are any sugar Santa Clause's out there!

And a pony.

We could go several weeks. I have lots of canned/dried food and a propane portable unit for my wok and a case of canisters. A few bags of hardwood charcoal, solar panels and many portable solar gadget chargers for campouts. each car has an emergency 12v battery, mine kept up with a couple of solar chargers in the back. Fema bought me a generator after the last flood, and I have not had to use it since. Water purifiers in the camping equipment.

The last flood we had here, power was out for several days. We blocked off the street and combined freezer stuff with the neighbors using one freezer per night on the propane and charcoal grills in the street. Here is one sad thing from that time. We and other neighbors had lots of baby stuff that was submerged in sewerage. There were a few vans going through and trying to go through the piles in the driveways. I had to pull out a weapon and have the police come out to stop a couple of vans from taking the children's stuff. They just saw resale cash, not that the kids might get sick. Nothing was going to get that stuff sterilized. I am sick to this day for being called a racist by the people in one van hauled away by the police because I was "protecting my trash".