I came across the Emergency Survival Food Supply 275 Meal Pack the other day and it got me to thinking about all manner of things. Self sufficiency is one thing but I wonder what would happen if there was no access to the shops for a few weeks. Maybe some form of a backup plan is on order.
Here is the link to the product in question
Emergency Survival Food Supply 275 Meal Pack
As you can see it is pretty cheap, actually a lot cheaper than I would have imagined. The product itself is a bucket full of food that needs to be re-hydrated to eat. There is a fair bit of variety in the meals although it does appear from the reviews and comments that it may not be the tastiest food in the world. But we are talking about survival here not gourmet dining.
Do We Need To Have Emergency Food
I am in somewhat of a quandary about the issue to be honest. I am not one to get too concerned about world events if I am honest, but some things are a bit of a worry. Rioting in the UK, the US in dire financial straits, and all manner of problems make you wonder about what would happen in the future.
It seems that the simplest thing can turn in to a major event that disrupts people’s lives and turns what were once respectable people in to mobs that think going out and shoplifting a big bag of rice is perfectly acceptable, and has a point, I might add.
So, should we buy a big bucket of dried food just in case the world suddenly goes bonkers?
I honestly don’t know.
If I think about what we have in the cupboards then I know that we would be fine for a few weeks but we don’t really have enough tinned and canned goods to last for more than that.
Storing Food
To store enough food to take care of a family for weeks or months would be no easy thing. The amount of tins and jars would be nightmarish and take up a huge amount of space. Dried food is obviously not going to take up anywhere near as much space and is certainly an easy option.
The emergency survival food supply I came across does seem like a good idea if you want to be ready for the worst and be able to eat, albeit not the tastiest food. But if it stops you from starving while the Zombies are out attacking anything that breathes then I guess fine dining is not going to be at the fore in your mind.
Trying to figure out how to get the axe out of the shed will probably be first in your mind!
I really am in two minds about the whole thing. There are so many survivalist sites out there talking about the impending collapse of the Western world which I simply do not buy into.
But the other half of me thinks that a simple bucket full of grub for an emergency such as an earthquake, hurricane, other natural disaster, the rise of the Zombies or the breakdown of the monetary system itself may not be a half bad idea.
Bucket of dried Cacciatore anyone?
I have no idea what that is by the way 😉
What do you think?
I totally agree with you. Mostly about the not knowing thing.
On one hand, I would love to think that I can take care of my family for weeks or months with the food we have stored and canned.
On the other hand, I just don’t see how I can make the logistics of it work out.
Mostly I fear for monetary collapse which will make food very expensive and in that case I try to get better at growing our own food and saving the seeds for the next year, but even that is a stretch.
I don’t think i’m ready for a bucket o’ freeze dried yummies just yet!!
Lindsey,
lol. Don’t know if I am either. It seems like a good idea but it is also like admitting you might need it to. We are having a great year growing veggies. Last year was awful. We have hundreds of tomatoes hanging up that store for months and months, it is a great feeling having fresh tomatoes all through the winter.
I like the idea, and I’m more worried about natural disasters than social unrest. We were isolated for a week during floods last January and we were fine as had a freezer full of meat and a garden full of veges. The main worry was having enough grain to feed the chickens. However, if we had been unlucky and lost power, then it would have been a different story – all that meat would have been wasted and we would have started to run out of food. Until we are self-sufficient for power, the dried food is a good back-up, as long as you have water (but that’s a bigger problem in itself!). And the 20 year shelf-life means you can just put it away and feel safe in knowing that you have food it you need it, even if you can last a few weeks without using it!
Liz,
Spot on. I thought about the water issue after I wrote the post. You would definitely need to have a good supply of water yourself or store it just in case what comes out the tap is not suitable. I guess that is going to take up a serious amount of room. We get all our water from a local spring as we are not on the mains and even a car full of 5 litre bottles does not last long at all.
This has been preying on my mind for some time time now. We have decided that it is quite likely that a two week period may arise where it will be difficult to obtain food may occur sometime in the future. Maybe in the event of a euro breakup, banks may be forced to limit the amount of money you can withdraw, or something similar. Several of our friends here are of the same mind.
We have about two weeks of pulses, pasta and flour stashed away in case food becomes difficult to obtain. We have amplified our veg patches, and as we have our own well, we are OK for water.
We have about 20 hens/cockerels so eggs and meat should not be a problem either.
My only concern could be the lack of wine…
Chris,
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!
We must do all that we can to ensure the supply of wine is never tampered with 😉
I am with you on this one – have pressed grapes this year as an experiment – now have 20 litres of something fermenting away.
Maybe wine, maybe vinegar – only time will tell.
I’m glad to hear that Casa Dirty Boots is thriving and not merely surviving.:-)
I think I would rather eat our local wildlife, most of which seems to have forgotten it should be frightened of humans.
I suspect if things got so bad that you’d actually need this bucket, then you would find yourself obliged to share it with those who had less foresight. Worse, you would have to fight for it.
I’ve always thought there is a dangerous, if not pschopathic, undercurrent of thought among many survivalists which I do not care for.
Human survival on this planet lies in, as it has always done, our ability to form civilised communities which protect their most vulnerable members. The Transition Towns movement strives to provide a blueprint for this. I think also, although not at all religious myself, that religious commumities would as well. As is, in fact, the case already in many parts of the world where governments fail to provide for their populations.
It would be nice to think that when the lights go out we could all calmly pick up our hoes and spades and carry on. I’d drink to that!
Goo – I love your sentiments, but am scared that when something does go wrong, things will simply “melt down”. It makes me very glad (in a very selfish way) that we don’t live in an urban environment where that melt down would be very dangerous to experience. Hopefully we can hide somewhere out of sight!
Being prepared for the potential zombie invasion is perhaps not a healthy attitude at all as it will cause even more problems of deciding who can share in your good fortune.
Back to pickling something I think…
As with most forms of insurance in the end the cost of not having it when the disaster strikes far outweighs the cost of having it.
Yes the survivalists and nihilists can represent a darker side of human survival drive. But as the past few years have shown society and the civillisation that supports the masses’ TV dinners walks a tightrope every day.
Not many of the collective “us” have a clue what end of a spade to hold and expect nanny state to keep on handing out.
Expect the best, prepare for the worst.
I think having a nice supply of dried food is always beneficial, if not for an impending disaster, but for impulse snacks. Nuts, dried fruits, and beans are all staples in my cabinet. What I haven’t figured out is what about water? or electricity? Come impending disaster, at some point, there will be some things an emergency bucket can’t cover. I also wonder about having an emergency wine supply :).
Emergency wine – can’t believe MrDB hadn’t thought of that – I am sure he will start stock piling any second!
Hi to all you fellow survivalists, I live in a van caravan, make all my own power and have done so for the last 5yrs, I would like to know if anybody has a place for one man and his cat!
I’m a very practical green living person, survival techniques my forty, wanting quit and scenery
Roy Harkins
Let us know if you have any takers Roy!
Hi Roy,
do you fancy spending some time in a beautiful valley in Aragon, Spain? We could do with some help and advice to get our place up and running.
regards
Maria
Calorie estimate per serving is 128, taken from “Brendan Anthony”‘s Amazon.com review. With 275 total servings, and presuming 3,000 calories a day while I’m on the move, I’d expect to lose weight while this bucket fed just me for 11 days. So, I’ve got a range of 700 miles, given enough water and only foot travel; and that’s my optimistic view of the worst case scenario.
Well, we live in a small apartment – a family of four (two parents and two children) – and we have 6-12 months worth of food in the house, other than milk and eggs, which we get fresh each week. I would hardly call it “nightmarish”. LOL We buy local and seasonal, preserve it, and then eat from our food storage all winter. And we eat far, far better than “dried cacciatore”. Tonight we had spaghetti in roasted tomato/red pepper sauce with meatballs (I made the sauce and canned the meatballs in it this summer) and homemade mozzarella.
Self-sufficiency doesn’t mean, in my opinion, buying freeze-dried “good for twenty years” food in a bucket from some factory. 🙂