Our Emergency Preparedness Plan Should Include Survival Food and Potable Water

Many people today are quite simply accustomed to, more to the point, entirely dependent on all their hi-tech gadgetry to keep them on top of what is going on. Awakening to a power outage, no phone service or worse yet no cable TV and internet connection suddenly find themselves at a loss. How anyone to know what is going on in the world, what happened or what he or she should do at times like these? Become difficult questions to answer when our iPhone or android phone battery dies, we get one of those all circuits are busy messages, or there is no cell phone service. Adding credence to the proverb, failing to plan is planning to fail.

I believe we all agree, charging or replacing a dead cell phone battery is easy enough. However, phone lines down and no cell phone service leaves us with a whole other set of challenges. For instance, with our just in time way of doing things, we have no food. No potable drinking water and the house is in the dark. We are in for a world of hurt. Without a way to communicate, at least a way to find out what is going on and where to get the survival supplies we need.

What is potable water?  Potable water is clean water suitable for cooking or drinking.

At a minimum, we should keep on hand.

1. Portable NOAA weather radio my best pick, the Oregon Scientific WR602 weather radio

2. Tactical flashlight, my absolute best Pick is the Surefire E2D Defender with extra batteries, expensive yes, and worth every penny.

3. Handheld portable scanner, my best pick, the Uniden BC72XLT

4. Portable handheld CB radio, my best pick, the Cobra HHROADTRIP 40 channel CB radio.

Food and good clean drinking water I believe we will all agree is extremely important things we must have. Think about this for a moment. The rule of three, which is to say, in an extreme survival situation, a healthy human being can survive for three minutes without breathable air, three days without drinkable water and three weeks without food before we die.

I do not know about you, personally, I would rather not test that rule of three. Actually, I do not much like fasting for twelve hours before having lab work done my Dr. insists is for my own good. Tell you what lets discuss survival foods we should keep on hand in case of an emergency and forget about not breathing, doing without water or starving to death.

Many vegetable gardeners today, can food at its peak freshness locking in all the fresh harvested goodness. These foods are great survival foods and do not require freezing or refrigeration for long-term storage, say 12 or so months. Packed in boiled water killing any bacteria that would make someone sick, canned foods such as tomatoes, green beans or sweet corn for that matter provide nutritious food and provide water for cooking. Think of can food as a good way to rehydrate, and replenish nutrients loss due to exertion and the stresses of an emergency or natural disaster.

On the other hand, many of us do not can our own foods. However, our local neighborhood grocery store keeps a wide variety of canned food. Complementing canned vegetables, let us not forget about canned meat and fish. Spam, tuna fish, salmon and mackerel or sardines are great shelf stable foods that make great survival food.

Sure, there are several types of dehydrated, vacuum-packed foods, MREs come to mind that are a favorite of many survivalist. The thing to keep in mind, when the kids or a meticulous eater does not like it, they absolutely will not eat the stuff adding to the stresses, and anxieties, I believe we all agree is a bad thing. Please whatever you do, do yourself and family a huge favor; do not get something no one will want to eat. Remember, sooner or later someone will want to have a good hot meal, and a full belly is a happy belly.      

All too frequently, people who live in rural areas during severe weather events find themselves cut off from the rest of the civilized world. Roads closed due to flooding, winter weather with icy roads, drifting snow and power outages. Has a way of making modern day country folks, forced to return to the ole timey ways of living. As you can imagine no electric power-to-power lights, water heater, and no working landline phones make live a bit more challenging. Shoot on the best days, the internet, satellite TV, and cell phone service is iffy at best. During and after bad weather, these modern conveniences are always down for several hours, days or even weeks.

Sure peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and eating all the leftover mac and cheese in the fridge are good for the short-term hunger pains for the kiddos. However eventually we all need to cook something, boil water for cleaning or simply bathing and brushing ones teeth is important. Forget about using the microwave, electric stove shoot even the new gas cooktops will not work without electric power.

What will work when the power is out, running out to the local fast-food restaurant is not an option and the family needs a hot meal? Sure, the BBQ grill will work for grilling meats, fish and vegetables but boiling water for cleaning not so much. The better option, an LP gas cooker, one like the camp chef explorer series EX-60 two burner will work well for boiling water, cooking soups and stews or with the optional griddle make fixing pan cakes or grilled cheese sandwiches quick and easy.