Building Tangible Margin: Staying Put, Part I

Staying put is preferable during many emergencies. If you don’t have to evacuate, don’t. Your home is familiar to you and, with some forethought and preparation, can be made a refuge against many storms, both natural and manmade. Even a studio apartment can hold infinitely more resources and shelter value than anything you could hope to fit in a “Bugout” or “Get Out of Dodge” bag. That said, you can only improvise to a certain extent, so having some things in place before they’re needed will make weathering the storms much easier. In this post, we’ll look at Water & Food.

Water is your priority. While electricity and water may continue to flow during an emergency, it should not be assumed. You should store at least one gallon per person per day, half for drinking and half for sanitation. Hot weather or strenuous activity will necessitate more like two gallons per person per day.

There are many ways to store water, but the typical “milk jug” style containers are prone to leaks, as are the collapsible water storage jugs in my experience. Two liter soda bottles are more durable and seal well, just make sure you clean them. I use Coleman’s hard plastic five gallon jugs—good volume of storage but not so heavy they can’t be moved or tossed (well, lifted gently) into a trunk if needed. Better but somewhat pricier options are the Aqua- and Water-Paks. Fifty-five gallon drums are great but water weighs eight pounds per gallon (that’s 440+ pounds!). Unless you’re in a basement or garden apartment or built your home yourself and know the load limits of your flooring, I wouldn’t try it.

In the event of many emergencies, it is a very good idea to fill your bathtub and as many pots and pitchers as possible with water. The typical bathtub holds 40 gallons or more. Just doing this can double or triple your water supply and allow you much greater freedom for hydration and sanitation, assuming you treat it properly.

There is some debate about treating tap water. Apparently if you’re a city dweller with treated water, you don’t need to treat stored water. Just rotate it every six months. If you have well water or otherwise untreated water, treating with a small amount of bleach will keep bacteria growth at bay. We will look at treating and filtering found or otherwise questionable water in a future installment of Building Tangible Margin.

Food is not necessary. I repeat, for the time period we’re looking at (one week), food is not necessary. Most healthy people can live three weeks without food. You’ll have serious hunger pangs for a few days, but those eventually subside. Still, you won’t be at your physical best without nourishment, and the psychological benefits of maintaining some sense of normalcy during a crisis are immeasurable. If you have a spouse or family, this is especially important. Even if you think you can “tough it out,” don’t put your loved ones through that.

The amount of food you store is not as vital as the amount of water. If you have the funds and space to tuck away three squares per person per day, that is great and will be much appreciated. If you can do one square hot meal (particularly in cold weather) and supplement it with other food each day, you should be good and can build up to more as you are able.

Canned and boxed foods are the easiest and cheapest to come by. Watch the sales at your local grocery store or stock up at Sam’s Club or Costco. Most everything in cans can be eaten straight from the can or heated, if you prefer. (Don’t forget can openers!) Canned food generally has a shelf-life of 1-5 years while boxed foods are limited to about a year. (Some examples—Y2K Kitchen - Canned Food Code and Shelf Life Information). Eat foods as they near expiration and replace.

Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) are a good option for preparedness food. They are relatively lightweight, offer a square meal in each, self-heating (with flameless meal heaters) and have a long shelf-life if stored properly. They are tasty, too, in my opinion. Their only downside is price. Post-Katrina, cases of 12 MREs will run you anywhere from $60-90 plus shipping. Read “Tasty! An MRE Review” for more specifics.

Freeze-dried food may be a good option for you. It is more expensive than everything but MREs, generally, but the shelf-life can be as long as 30 years if you opt for the #10 cans offered by manufacturers like Mountain House. Their only downside, other than cost, is that they require water--cold if necessary but hot ideally.

Emergency ration bars are also available. Mainstay and Datrex are a couple of the most popular offerings and are high-energy, compact, long shelf-life bars. They are both divided up into 200-400 calorie portions for easy rationing and provide much of the calories and nutrition one needs, at least for a period of time. Though hardly comfort foods, they can be a good supplement to MREs and/or canned food. Their compact size and low weight make them ideal, as well, for car kits, evacuation bags, etc.

If you have children, you should include some comfort food—snacks they’re familiar with that have a decent shelf life. Also be sure to consider caffeine for those addicted and special diets for diabetics and those with food allergies. Some infants require formula, but this generally has a short shelf-life, so check the dates and rotate regularly.

Cooking is generally not necessary with emergency foods, but having the ability to cook will allow you to fully utilize your stores of food, particularly foods like pasta and rice, and can be used to treat water. Fireplaces and wood-burning stoves are fixtures in some homes and serve this purpose extremely well. For those whose heat and cooking abilities are tied to the availability of natural gas and electricity, everything from pocket Esbit stoves up to charcoal and propane grills can serve you well. Just be sure to store extra fuel and cook with care.

Finally, make sure you have water to drink if you’re going to eat. If you’re extremely low on water, the energy and water needed to digest food may leave you dehydrated.

In the next installment of Building Tangible Margin, we will continue looking at staying put, specifically Tools & Materials.

Tasty! An MRE Review

Because I’ve collected a few MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) and recommend them as a good preparedness item, I thought I should actually try one. For this review I flipped through my MREs and selected one which I thought would be missed the least in the event of an emergency. I chose “Veggie Burger in BBQ Sauce.” Given my co-reviewer’s response to the entrée, I chose correctly. She’s a toddler with very discriminating tastes.

The MRE pouch is water and airtight. It weighs about 1½ lbs. and measures roughly 12x7x2.5 inches. Inside is a whole host of treasure. Here’s what I found:

1. Bag of Sliced Cranberries—A generous portion and tasty. My daughter and I both enjoyed these. Very similar to Craisins with enough to take with you for later.

2. Packet of Iced Tea Drink Mix-Lemon—This drink mix makes 6oz. of very drinkable tea. Good lemon flavor and not overly sweet. Toddler-approved, though I couldn’t tell if it had much caffeine. Coffee would have been preferable on that count.

3. Brownie with Chocolate Chips—The most caloric item in the MRE, the brownie was delicious. No icing, no nuts, just a good-size chocolate patty. Enjoyed by both of us, particularly in light of its pre-entrée spot in the lineup.

4. Vegetable Patty in Barbecue Sauce—I heated this using the included Flameless Ration Heater in about 10 minutes. I am an omnivore and enjoy both veggie burgers and BBQ. This hybrid was passable. My daughter wouldn’t even try it. The burger itself tasted like some of the poorer frozen veggie burgers available out there. The sauce was inoffensive—neither too sweet nor too spicy—but nothing special. The combination would be delicious in an emergency but not something I’d ever crave.

5. Two slices of Wheat Snack Bread—Though I used these to make a sandwich with the veggie burger, my daughter tried it on its own and liked it. If you’re expected soft, fluffy whole wheat bread, you’ll be disappointed, but it’s actually pretty good for what it is. These slices have a similar texture to Pop Tarts but are a little softer, thicker and with more wheat taste. They make for an oddly rigid sandwich but serve their purpose.

6. Flameless Ration Heater (FRH)—These are water activated and simple to use, once you’ve read the directions. Though the warning about flammable hydrogen gas being produced was disconcerting, I had no such problems. They take very little water and only about 10-15 minutes to heat your meal.

7. Spoon—This is your only implement but is sturdy and long-handled. Adequate to get to the bottom of any of the food pouches should you choose to eat them this way.

8. Moist Towelette—Makes sense with the BBQ but I think these are standard in all the MREs.

9. Toilet Paper—What I initially thought was a short stack of small napkins is actually several squares of TP. Anyway, it’s paper, slightly absorbent and has no idea what it’s being used to wipe. Very considerate addition.

10. Packet of Salt—Also works as a shaker type instrument, as my daughter discovered.

11. Bottle of Tabasco—Tiniest bottle I’ve ever seen. I didn’t use it, but I imagine it would be good on a few things and might be a good barter item for real “hot saucers”—you know who you are.

12. Gum—Two Chiclet-type pieces, mint.

13. Book of Matches—For an after-meal smoke, I suppose. Or maybe it goes with the TP. Either way, it was a nice surprise.

Overall, I found this meal to be surprisingly tasty and filling, as did my daughter. The only exception was the entrée, and I suspect most entrée options will be more palatable. This meal had 1200-1300 calories with a good balance of protein, fat, fiber and nutrients. In an emergency, one of these per day would be sufficient to live on for quite awhile. Two a day would be almost luxurious. Though I allowed my daughter to help me with this review, it is good to know that kids would eat an MRE, too, if they needed to.

Military MREs are generally not available to the public but two of the three contracted MRE makers produce civilian versions that are very similar to military issue. They can generally be purchased in cases of 12 and cost anywhere from about $60-90. Shipping can be a bit steep due to weight.

Wherever you buy from, be sure to check the dates. They will generally have a Packed Date and an Inspection Date. The Inspection Date is three years after the Packed Date, but MREs stored in a cool spot should last 5 years. Some stored as long as 10 years and beyond have been found to be perfectly edible but may start to lose some of their nutritional value. Don’t eat them if the pouches are swollen or otherwise suspect.

MREs may not be the most cost-effective way to create “tangible margin” in your life, but they do offer many benefits: 1) Long shelf-life. 2) May be eaten without any prep. 3) Lighter than cans. 4) Good nutritional and caloric value. 5) Variety in each meal. 6) More similar to one’s usual diet than other options, which can be comforting both psychologically and gastrointestinally in times of crisis.

If you can do it, I recommend picking up sufficient MREs for 4-7 days with 1-2 meals per person per day. Just be sure to store them in a cool dry spot, inspect them seasonally and rotate them out as needed (Feast Days!).

For a lower-cost but less flavorful option, you might also try Mainstay Food Ration bars. They are lemon-flavored squares with 400 calories and lots of nutrients each. They come in packs of 3, 6 and 9 and also have a 5-year shelf-life. Though not as appealing as MREs, their compact size makes them great for stowing in a survival kit, glove box, etc.