It's not here yet, but the sky is getting darker and darker (and not just because it's getting later). Some reports say 12 inches, some say 18, some say 24 inches, but they all say snow. I am NOT moving my car. Hopefully we get a snow day tomorrow, as non-profit workers we don't get days off like the students do. If it's a state emergency and government offices close, then we close. The students are off if the public schools close (and they seem to close if it even thinks about snowing).
So remember my resolutions? Right. One of them was about being better prepared. Our pantry isn't usually exactly stocked, and a whole lot of snow could be a problem if it caused a week of stores being shut down or something extreme like that. Fortunately for me this time around we're pretty well off right now. I've got meat in the freezer, jars and jars of whole grains, pickles, apple sauce, and jelly, and I got my box of veggies and fruits today. If the electricity goes we've got a gas grill, and if we lack water we can always warm up the snow...or maybe I'll just put some in a few jugs just in case.
BUT. If this was a long term problem, how long would my food last me? How many days of emergency rations should I have? I found one site that says 3 days. Another says 7-14 days. A blog I follow says 3 months, and the Mormon guidelines are 1 year. They've actually got a pretty cool calculator online that will tell you in pounds how much you need of everything (only thing is, I'm not sure what I'd make with the ingredients listed...).
So I vote for over-prepared, but not obsessive. For me, for now, that's 3 months. If I need food for a time period longer than 3 months I'd better get the h@ll out of Boston and figure out how to grow my own food.
Here's my initial plan on food:
Enough stuff to make bread once a week for 3 months
4 dozen frozen eggs (whip together than freeze in ice cube trays, pop them out and put in ziplock bags, each cube is an egg)
Stuff to make noodles
Enough meat to have one meat dish a week (24 individual servings?, maybe too much!?)
Emergency back up milk (H milk in Germany)
Yogurt starter! (to use with H milk to continue to make yogurt :)
Canned spaghetti sauce, vegetables, broth, beans, soup, etc. (ideally home canned)
Oatmeal, rice, potatoes, lentils/beans, whole grains
Frozen vegetables
Dried fruits/nuts (no walnuts!) for snacking
Frequently used spices (powdered or frozen)
Oil
Okay, probably incomplete or unrealistic, but it's a start, especially for someone who goes grocery shopping every other day because there's nothing in the kitchen to eat...
What are your thoughts on emergency food stocks?
2 comments:
I tend to overbuy and overstock our fridge and pantry. I am not even worried about losing power for months on end, or having to live off my own supplies for any long period of time though. Maybe I'm too comfortable with civilization, but when the metro area thinks that 1" is a huge amount of snow and getting more than 6 is a once-in-a-decade kind kind of event, its just not that big of a deal. And though large parts of our metro area did lose power for an extended period of time (almost a week, about 4 years ago), our house is apparently close enough to the power lines that our lights only blinked once and stayed on. We hosted several families of friends at the time as we had air conditioning and it was late summer.
I am just a sucker for a bargain and think I can do way more stuff with my free time than I really can (like bake my own bread...hah...like I have 3 hours at home when I'm not asleep...).
I've been consciously trying to reduce the amount of food we keep on hand. To actually use what is in our deep freezer and make it to the bottom of the flour cannister on a regular basis. And to stop buying large batches of things that we won't eat in large batches.
The problem with keeping too much food on hand is that it doesn't last forever, and it doesn't do me any good to have 3 years worth of flour that I have to toss because its gone sour. Plus, I run out of pantry space speedy-quick :)
Well, so far the blizzard hasn't been as bad as projected (which is pretty standard) but we did get a foot of snow in a couple of hours. Our electric grid is a little more sensitive on the east coast than what I've been familiar with in the past. Remember the grid shortages in 2004-2005? Well, it's not much better. Of course, that would argue AGAINST keeping too much meat in the freezer.
I probably come across as paranoid, and I'm really trying not to be. We're just the opposite type of food shopper as you. There are days when we have to go to the store just to figure out what we'll cook for dinner, and then have to do that again the next day. Or, at least I thought that was our style.
I did a quick inventory of the freezer and I probably have enough meat to last me a few months anyway. We tend to buy meat at local farms, and stock up while there. Since we joined a grain CSA we've got enough grain for the year, although trying to use it has been...different. I need a dehydrator and a better mill, but that's for another post.
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