In an emergency preparedness situation, you want to either purchase a premade food supply kit or build your own do it yourself emergency food supply. While purchasing premade solutions sounds like a wonderful idea, eating nothing but MREs and flavorless survival food products gets old very quickly. One of the few luxuries you can extend yourself in a survival type situation is the ability to enjoy a flavorful and nutritious meal when you have the opportunity. Well in advance of needing it you want to begin to accumulate emergency food supplies, which means you are going to need to know a lot of specifics about you and your family’s particular situation. This means that in many cases, a prepackaged and pre-purchased solution is not the best answer. Besides, how do you know how long the packaged food in a premade kit has been there? Follow this Top 10 tips list to build your own emergency food supply now, and you will be properly prepared when you desperately need to be.
1 – First off, remember to think calories, and not servings. You are going to have to start to read product labels, and remember that if your emergency food storage space is limited, focus on purchasing those food items that pack the most calories in the smallest form factor. How many calories will you need? Read on.
2 – And before you rush out to your local grocer and begin purchasing food for your emergency preparedness plan, take a look at your family. Considering that life in a survival situation usually means burning many more calories than you are used to, figure anywhere between 2,200 and 2,800 calories per day for teenage and adult males. Teenage and adult females will require somewhere between 1,700 to 2,000 calories a day, with children under the age of 13 using anywhere from 1,100 to 1,400 calories in a 24 hour period. Look at your family, do the math, and you have a daily calorie number.
3 – Now you will simply plan on purchasing or growing emergency supply food items that provide your daily calorie target number, times the number of days you plan on needing food. Just like when planning calories per person, it is much smarter here to over-plan than to underestimate. And make sure to keep storage space in mind as you shop.
4 – When you build your own emergency food supply, you need to consider storage space. Designate a pantry, closet or unused room as your food supply area, and stock it in a way where everything is accessible without constantly moving some food items to reach others.
5 – It is also best to ensure that your emergency food supplies are not stored in a room which has a door or window to the outside world. You may protect your shelter to the best of your ability, but if you allow outside access to one of the most important aspects of your family’s survival, you are not planning properly.
6 – Your do it yourself emergency food supply list should include items you and your family are already used to eating. Another problem with premade survival food supplies is you do not know how your system will react to these foods when they make up the predominant part of your diet. You and your family should already know what food types you enjoy, as well as what foods your body processes easily, so focus on these products.
7 – And since water is the most important element of your survival and it is bulky to store, make sure a fundamental amount of your do it yourself emergency supply food items deliver some type of water content. Pretty straightforward here, but remember, water is much more important than food. Get water where you can.
8 – And don’t forget to equip yourself with the proper wood-burning or propane burning stoves, and enough fuel. There is no reason why, given enough storage space, you cannot create a diverse and enjoyable, flavorful and nutritional emergency food supply. But you have to be able to prepare it as well.
9 – As always, prepare for the worst case scenario. That means, assume you will have no electricity. Having ample food for a year’s supply for your family makes absolutely no sense if you do not take the time to purchase the appropriate stoves or food preparation items you will need.
10 – Create a food acquisition plan today. As mentioned on our homepage, some preppers simply purchase an additional $5 to $10 worth of long lasting, long shelf life food supplies every time they go grocery shopping. But as in every element of emergency preparedness planning, you need to begin today. There is no guarantee that tomorrow will not see TEOTWAWKI, so get started today and build your own emergency food supply. Simply starting puts you ahead of 90% of the population, and in the survival game, that means a lot.
Now that we’ve given you some things to think about for the do it yourself food kit, let’s take a look at what to buy for diy food supply list.