Crisis Preparedness

This week the challenge is to make your own customized store of breakfast foods. The idea is to collect several breakfast foods and put them together in one food-storage bucket. Or if it works better for you, add them to a dedicated space on your food storage shelves. Choose shelf-stable breakfast items that your family likes to eat. This can includes cooked cereals, pancake mix or muffin mixes, dehydrated or freeze-dried eggs, and dried and canned fruit and fruit juices.

The preparedness challenge this week is to stock up on ready-to-eat entrées. A supply of these entrée meals will be indispensable as quick meals to use in an emergency. They require either very little or no preparation at all. There are several options for entrées: canned, frozen, dehydrated, and freeze-dried.

Sugar is an important food in a preparedness plan. Although sugar has a tarnished reputation, mainly because it is used in excess in modern society, a survival diet will rely much less on processed foods containing sugar. Children, especially, have high caloric needs for their weight and may be unable to get enough energy if their calories sources are limited.

Even if you normally try to maintain a low-fat diet, oil is important in a survival diet. Fats and oils contain a high ratio of calories to weight and are especially important in a crisis because extra exertion and stress will increase the demand for calories. Oil is also necessary ingredient in many baked goods, sauces, and dressings. It is important for sautéing and frying and most of all, it can make ordinary foods delicious—the deep-fried Bloomin’ Onion makes even the lowly onion into a favorite appetizer!

Preparedness Challenge Week 7 Thanks for joining the Preparedness Challenge for Week 7! The challenge this week is to add pasta to your food storage. Pasta makes a stand-alone meal—just add a sauce or cheese.