When you look at commercially prepared food, you’ve surely noticed that there are serving sizes indicated on the containers. You may also have noticed that those servings are often small. If you base your emergency food supply estimations on those serving sizes, you will run out of food faster than expected. Instead, base your stockpile on caloric needs. See the following table for suggested caloric needs. If you need 2,000 calories, your significant other needs 2,000 calories, and your child needs 1,200 calories, then you need to store at least 5,200 calories worth of food per day.
When planning your daily caloric needs, be sure to do so with one eye on your macronutrient needs to maintain proper nutrition. That sounds all well and good, but the term macronutrients sounds pretty complicated, right? It’s actually quite simple, though. Macronutrients are just the major nutrients that your body needs to function properly and thrive.
There are five categories of macronutrients: protein, fat, fiber, carbohydrate, and water, and you need them in certain ratios to remain healthy. Fiber and water are independent nutrients, but protein, fat, and carbs work together to keep you healthy. The table below shows the proper protein, fat, and carb intake percentages for your family.
You need to drink at least 64 ounces of water per day and include between 20 and 40 grams of fiber per day in your diet, as well. Kids need a little bit less water. Use the following good rule of thumb when determining how much water your body really needs: half of your body weight in ounces. In other words, if you weigh 180 pounds, half of that is 90. You should drink at least 90 ounces of water per day to preserve proper hydration. At a minimum, keep 1 gallon of water on hand per person, per day for both drinking and sanitation needs. Remember: you can live for up to three weeks without food. Without water, you’ll die in a matter of days. Water storage and purification will be covered in Chapter 3.
Although making your own emergency food based on the delicious recipes in this book is recommended—they are more flavorful and cheaper in the long run—you can begin building your supplies immediately with store-bought foods. Once you begin making your own canned and dehydrated foods, swap these items out. Note that many of the items in this list do not have a long shelf life. Check the best-by dates regularly (it’s recommended you do this every 3 months).
• Baking and pancake mixes
• Baking powder, yeast, and baking soda
• Bouillon cubes or powder
• Boxed potatoes
• Canned beans
• Canned fruits, fruit juices, and vegetables
• Canned meat, chili, and soup
• Canned nuts
• Crackers
• Dried beans
• Dried corn
• Dried fruit
• Dry pasta
• Evaporated milk
• Fruit juices and sports drinks
• Granola and sports bars
• Instant coffee, tea, and cocoa
• Jams and jellies
• Peanut butter
• Powdered milk
• Ready-to-eat cereals and uncooked instant cereals
• Salt and other spices
• Sugar, honey, or molasses
• Vegetable oil or shortening
• Vitamins and mineral supplements
• Wheat or other flour (for bread making)
• White rice
Use the following table to plan the meals and water you and your family will need for one week.
3
WATER STORAGE AND PURIFICATION
Regardless of what is going on around you, you won’t be able to survive for long without clean, potable water. In fact, after just 24 hours without water, your brain stops functioning properly, and within three days, your organs will start to fail. In less than a week, you’ll be dead. Water doesn’t just keep your tissues hydrated, it also:
• Carries waste and toxins out of your body
• Helps keep your body temperature normal and regular
• Keeps your joints lubricated
• Keeps your blood liquid so it can carry oxygen and nutrients throughout your body
• Aids with digestion
• Keeps your eyes lubricated and healthy
• Keeps your brain functioning properly
In a nutshell, water keeps you alive and you have to have it.
Finding and Gathering Safe Drinking Water
One of the first steps to emergency preparedness is finding a viable source of water. Unfortunately, after certain disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, or floods, sources of water that were once safe to drink may no longer be, so you need to have backup plans.
If you had to name five sources of fresh water within a five-mile radius, would you be able to do it? It seems easy, but many people struggle with it because they simply don’t take the time to familiarize themselves with their surroundings. Just knowing where to find water in an emergency situation is going to give you an advantage over many of your peers, and it can be quite enjoyable, too!
Field trips are always fun and are a great way to take your family out and learn about your surrounding area. Make it fun. If you have kids, do a scavenger hunt or go camping. If you don’t, make it a hiking trip or picnic with friends or significant others. Make a map with distances marked, because five minutes in a car is actually quite a distance when you’re on foot. Some of the best sources for fresh water include:
• Rivers
• Streams
• Retention ponds (Make sure it’s not a wastewater pond!)
• Lakes
• Springs
• Natural ponds
• Wells
It’s important to know the difference between fresh water, wastewater, brackish water, and salt water because only the freshwater is really useful as a water source. Wastewater is no good for drinking for obvious reasons, and brackish or salt water can actually kill you by dehydration because of the salt in it… although it may be okay for such things as flushing toilets.
Wells are actually great because they’re generally built over an underground stream or spring and are thus a self-replenishing source of water. As a matter of fact, it’s not a bad idea to have a well dug on your property, or make that something you look for when you’re searching properties.
Rainwater is another great source of potable water and can be captured in many different ways. Perhaps the easiest ways are to just use buckets or barrels, or to hang a tarp to capture it and then drain the tarp into your barrels. There are also capture systems that you can buy that actually purify water as it’s captured. As a matter of fact, you can use these systems for your home as a natural water source instead of depending upon your local water company to provide chemically treated water for a price.