Emergency food is simply defined as food that you store in your home in case of an emergency. It is food that can be quickly and easily cooked to make sure that you and your family is fed in case an emergency hits your home town.
In this day and age most of us live in urban areas where we are surrounded by other people and live in homes, condos, and apartments. We all rely on having the foods that we eat delivered from the farms where they are grown.
What many people don’t realize is just how fragile that delivery process is, or that most grocery stores have only 3 to 4 days of most foods on stock.
So if some type of disaster hits your town, the foods that you need can disapear of shelves pretty quickly. In most cases when the problems are short lived the shelves get restocked and we all go on our happy way.
But what would happen if the supply chain was disrupted for weeks or even months? Can you rely on disaster aid arriving in time to keep you and your family fed or would you prefer to take your families safety in your own hands and store some food in your home?
Survival Foods
When you start talking about disaster survival foods you are prepper food talking about foods that are easy to make and could be stored for long periods of time.
The best way to use these foods is to constantly use them and restock them so your family is used to their taste. The last thing that you want during a disaster is to start feeding your family foods that they are not used to eating.
Types Of Emergency Foods
There are numerous ways to create your stash of foods but here are some of the most common.
Freeze Dried Foods: These are food that have had the moisture removed from them. These foods can last for up to 30 years and you simply add water to reconstitute and cook them. The down side is that they are not something that you can do yourself and can be costly.
De-Hydrated Foods: You can de-hydrate your own foods which makes them must less costly than freeze-dried foods. Once dehydrated you can store these for ten years or more, then re-hydrate and cook. While the cost is less the variety is also less than freeze-dried.
Canned Foods: Canned foods that you buy in the stores and stock can be a quick and inexpensive way to start storing foods for an emergency. But they also have a much shorter shelf life, usually just a few years. You can get more shelf life by looking at the experation dates on the canned products that you buy and only purchase the ones that expire at later dates.
The Bottom Line
Any foods you store are going to be better then not having anything stored. You could start by adding a few extra cans of vegetables and meats every time you go to the store, then as finances allowed buying freeze-dried.