Some things to think about before a hurricane

Prepare now for what could be an active hurricane season.  If we had a direct hit, we could be without power and without grocery stores for 7 days or longer.  (Think worst case scenario like Katrina.) 

Ask yourselves:

Do we have alternative lighting, and batteries?

Do we have alternative ways to cook food?

Do we have enough water stored or ways to purify water?

Do we have cash on hand if there are no ATMs?

Do we keep at least a 1/2 tank of gas in our cars at all times?

Do we have easily prepared meals which do not need refrigeration? (These are called "shelf stable" meals.)

Do we have a non-electric can opener?

Do we own several weeks worth of baby formula, diapers, food, toiletries, and prescriptions?

Do we have a battery powered radio?


Can we save some clean sodapop and juice bottles to store more water in the back of closets?  This could be used to flush toilets.

Can we fit more canned goods under the bed?

Can we buy some solar powered yard lights? (These work great as indoor lighting when the power is off.)

Can we get another 20 lb. propane tank to use with our grill?

Can we buy an alternative recharger for our cell phones?

Do we have a paper copy of the phone numbers of friends and family, if our cell phone is dead?

If the GPS is dead, do we have a paper map to help us evacuate?

Can we buy a generator, or at the minimum, a small solar battery charger and rechargeable batteries?

My Experience Doing the No Fridge challenge: Monday

(This is a continuation of my report of doing the Shelf Stable challenge in my ward.  I had to live without a fridge or freezer for 2 1/2 days.)

Monday breakfast for 1 adult

  I wanted cold cereal but couldn’t deal with putting warm powdered milk on it.  Instead, I made hot cereal,  so the warm powdered milk didn’t bother me.

1 banana

2 packages of Maple and Brown Sugar instant oatmeal

1 tsp. powdered milk

boiling water

Monday lunch for 2 adults

I made one box of Hamburger Helper.   

1 box Hamburger Helper

a little powdered milk

tapwater

1 pint canned ground beef (I canned this last year.)

Ingredients for Turkey and Dressing Casserole (substituting chicken)

Monday Supper for 1 adult 

I made Turkey and Dressing Casserole, but substituted canned chicken.  (There was about 3/4 of this left over.)

Sauce:

1 can chicken

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 Tablespoon powdered milk and 1/4 cup water.

1 can peas.

Dressing:

Water

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil instead of butter

1 box Stovetop stuffing

 I realized that I could only make a small meal each time, we couldn’t open more cans than we could consume since there is no refrigeration.

I am accustomed to making more than we can eat, and putting the rest in the fridge, and eating it for leftovers the next day.

I might rethink buying large cans.  Small cans would be quicker to consume before they spoil from lack of refrigeration.

Monday night snack for 1 adult

I craved sweets so I made a little amount of buttercream frosting (powdered sugar, powdered margarine, powdered milk, water), stirred it until it was the right consistency, and ate it on graham crackers.

(To be continued)

My Experience doing the No Fridge challenge: Sunday

I was out of town for both weekends that our ward was doing the Shelf Stable challenge.  The rules were to tape your fridge and freezer shut from Sunday after church until Wednesday breakfast.  Don't use anything from the fridge or freezer during that time.  Don't use any ice.  See if you have enough shelf stable food in your house to make nourishing meals for those 2 1/2 days.

On Sunday Aug. 26 after church, I surprised my husband and 18 year old son by taping shut the fridge and freezer and telling them we were going to participate in the challenge.  (It was a week late, but I say, Better late than never.)

My son never really went along with it.  He cheated and kept getting the milk out.  My husband is on Nutrisystem so he was eating separately.

I was a little stricter on myself than I had required in the rules of the challenge.   I decided not to go shopping at all, so I could see what I would run out of.  I also decided to leave food out, since in a disaster you couldn’t put leftovers away in the fridge to keep them fresh.

I kept notes of what I ate.  Here is the list:

Sunday after church:

Luckily I had just baked bread and made cookies the night before, so we had plenty for the first day.  

When I came home from church, I noticed we had very little butter in our butter dish (which we don't refrigerate).  That was gone within the first day.

Sunday Lunch, for 1 adult.  

Half a can of Beef Barley soup.

One slice bread.

some Doritoes

Half an apple.

Tap water to drink.

Because I was pretending the power was out, I left the rest of the soup out of the fridge.

Sunday afternoon snack for 1 adult.

The other half of the soup.  (I didn't want it to spoil.)

Some fritos.

Sunday supper for  7 adults, 2 babies.

Some of our married kids and grandkids came over. I made BBQ Pork sandwiches, it was a good supper.

1 quart canned pork (I canned this last year.)

BBQ sauce.

6 hamburger buns  (that was all we had.)

3 pieces of bread

1 can green beans

1 can pears

1 can baked beans

some Tostitoes

8 cookies (now the cookies are gone.) 

tap water to drink.

We pretty much ate everything, so there were no leftovers to spoil without power.

(To be continued)

Reminder: Today is your second chance to start the challenge

2012: A Year of Preparedness

Our August Challenge is:  Eat no food from the fridge or freezer for 3 days , while imagining it is a widespread power outage. Did you do the challenge yet?

Rules:

Choose 3 consecutive days, and during that time, make all your meals out of shelf stable ingredients.  

Tape your fridge and freezer shut from Sunday after church until Wednesday breakfast. (Start today!)

Using all other electricity is OKAY during this challenge. Using city water is also okay.

No using ice or ice chests.  We are practicing how it will be after power is out for several days, with no ice available.

If you have leftovers, you can store them in the fridge, but you can’t get them back out until Wednesday.

You are not restricted from shopping, but you can’t use anything refrigerated or frozen.

Goals:

Learn to cook with some substitutions.  Do you own powdered milk, powdered eggs, powdered butter, powdered sour cream, etc.?  If you haven’t used them before, buy one can of powdered milk and one can of powdered eggs, and begin using them in baking to rotate them.

Email Amy to tell her what you learned!

Organizing Three Month's Supply in boxes

A person named RS95 wrote the following post about packing all of her Three-Month Supply in boxes. She gave permission for it to be reposted.   I thought it sounded like a good idea.

"In my food storage, I have taken the boxes from the cannery that hold 6 #10 cans, and I put a week's worth of dinners in one box, repeating 13 times, to get a 3 month supply of dinners. I did the same for breakfast and lunch. 

I took a box of each meal to my (food storage) class, and unpacked them, talking about what I chose and why.

For example, I packed this into a dinner box. I don't have it in front of me, so I may be forgetting some things that round it out better. 

*2 meals of what we call Spanish Rice...rice, tomato sauce, a packet of seasonings including dried onion, pinto beans, etc. Those ingredients are stored in a gallon ziploc, in the boxes.

*2 meals of pasta and sauce, complete with parmesan cheese and canned veggies.

*Chicken helper with canned chicken.

*Canned chili and cornbread mix.

*A boxed meal, one pot kind of thing by Stauffers. They are really high in sodium and fat, but it would keep us alive if we had nothing else to eat.

*Spaghetti O's and canned veggies to fill in for the kids, if they don't want to eat something one night.

There are also some odds and ends that I included because of extra space, like a box of Stove Top stuffing mix, candies and gum, etc.

My approach is somewhat unique though. I have those meals safely stored, they are completely shelf stable, somewhat well thought out nutritionally, and will last about a year. The dates of packaging are clearly marked on the outside. I'm not rotating through them on a monthly basis, as many people do. But I don't feed my family shelf stable meals usually. They are not as healthy as what we usually eat. We eat way too much produce and other short term items to make it realistic for us to store a 3 month supply of what we usually eat, but it will be a great variety if we need to live off of it.

The sisters responded well to my display, as I explained clearly that I have 13 boxes of each meal stacked in my garage. I described my method for coming up with a list of things to buy, by planning out a week's worth of meals and including every ingredient needed. Then I multiply the ingredient list by 13, and pack complete meals together, a week's worth at a time.

After losing 3 freezers and 2 refrigerators worth of food in January's 4 day power outage (Western Washington), I refuse to count my freezers as part of my three month supply. We lost hundreds of dollars worth of meat and fruit, not to mention the other odds and ends. 

Shelf stable. Not as nutritious as produce, but it would do in a pinch. My goal was to get the food on the shelves, and as I rotate through it (donate what we don't eat to the food bank before it expires) I'll be able to replace more nutritious foods for some of the less nutritious stuff I already have. It works for us! It's insurance.

I have to add...we have a LOT more stored in our pantry and on a storage unit of "every day foods" that we pull from. Canned beans, canned veggies, bags of oats, pasta, jam, peanut butter, canned meats, etc. Really, I'd say we have an 8 month supply of every day foods stored for our family of 5, because I did our official 3 month supply in handy, movable boxes. I guess the box idea came to me for an "official" way to know we had that food storage, organized into complete meals."

----RS95

Reminder: Start your Shelf Stable Foods challenge today!

2012: A Year of Preparedness

Our August Challenge is:  Eat no food from the fridge or freezer for 3 days , while imagining it is a widespread power outage..

Rules:

Choose 3 consecutive days, and during that time, make all your meals out of shelf stable ingredients.  

Tape your fridge and freezer shut from Sunday after church until Wednesday breakfast. (Suggested starting dates:  today or next Sunday Aug. 19)

Using all other electricity is OKAY during this challenge. Using city water is also okay.

No using ice or ice chests.  We are practicing how it will be after power is out for several days, with no ice available.

If you have leftovers, you can store them in the fridge, but you can’t get them back out until Wednesday.

You are not restricted from shopping, but you can’t use anything refrigerated or frozen.

Goals:

Learn whether you have all the ingredients necessary for making the food you want to eat.  Are the meals nourishing?

Become aware of some unpleasant things you may have to endure.  For instance, you may have to eat cold cereal with room temperature powdered milk.  How will your children handle this?

Consider non-electric methods for cooling food, and plan to buy items which will help you for a future disaster situation.

Please email Amy and tell her what you've learned!

Simple meals for tight times

http://thesurvivalmom.com/2011/08/08/simple-food-storage-meals-for-tight-times-stock-up-on-three-months-worth-fast/

August Challenge: Tape your fridge and freezer shut for 3 days

August:  Eat no food from the fridge or freezer for 3 days.

Rules:

Choose 3 consecutive days, and during that time, make all your meals out of shelf stable ingredients.  

Tape your fridge and freezer shut from Sunday after church until Wednesday breakfast. (Suggested dates:  Aug. 12-15 or Aug. 19-22.)

Using all other electricity is OKAY during this challenge. Using city water is also okay.

No using ice or ice chests.  We are practicing how it will be after power is out for several days, with no ice available.

If you have leftovers, you can store them in the fridge, but you can’t get them back out until Wednesday.

You are not restricted from shopping, but you can’t use anything refrigerated or frozen.

Goals:

Learn whether you have all the ingredients necessary for making the food you want to eat.  Are the meals nourishing?

Learn to cook with some substitutions.  Do you own powdered milk, powdered eggs, powdered butter, powdered sour cream, etc.?  If you haven’t used them before, buy one can of powdered milk and one can of powdered eggs, and begin using them in baking to rotate them.

Become aware of some unpleasant things you may have to endure.  For instance, you may have to eat cold cereal with room temperature powdered milk.  How will your children handle this?

Consider non-electric methods for cooling food, and plan to buy items which will help you for a future disaster situation.

Research shelf-stable menus, and collect the ingredients for them.

Find out how your children cope with this challenge.

“While it is sincerely hoped that members do not get caught up in any hysteria or obsessive preparations for disasters, the Church continues its long-standing practice of encouraging members to be self-reliant and reasonably prepared.” (Bishop H. David Burton, Presiding Bishop, “Conversation,” Ensign, Sept. 1999, 78.)

"Acquire and store a reserve of food and supplies that will sustain life. Obtain clothing and build a savings account on a sensible, well-planned basis that can serve well in times of emergency. As long as I can remember, we have been taught to prepare for the future and to obtain a year's supply of necessities. I would guess that the years of plenty have almost universally caused us to set aside this counsel. I believe the time to disregard this counsel is over. With events in the world today, it must be considered with all seriousness" (L. Tom Perry, "If Ye Are Prepared Ye Shall Not Fear," Ensign, Nov. 1995, 36).

Shelf Stable Meal: Dinty Moore stew

Picture your family without power. None of the grocery stores are open.

Wouldn't it be great to have a week or two of completely shelf stable meals like this one on the shelf.  All you would need to do is get out the camping stove and warm up the Dinty Moore stew mixed with some extra corn, and eat it with crackers.

Just remember to test out all the ingredients ahead of time, so you know if this is enough to feed your family.  During the test you might find out that you need 2 cans of stew, or that you would like to have green beans or canned potatoes instead of corn mixed with it.

I know that some of you cook a lot more sophisticated than this, but for an emergency, you can lower your standards a little and get some easy to fix food that would keep without power.

"Shelf Stable" challenge reminder

I'm sorry I haven't done more publicity about getting your shelf stable meals for the challenge this month.  I have been busy with youth conference (costume committee).

 "Shelf stable" means not needing refrigeration.

In August, we are going to tape the fridge and freezer shut for 3 days and see if you can eat 3 good meals a day without using anything other than shelf stable foods.  It should be a really good learning experience, and teach you what food storage items you need to get, for when the power is out for a week and all your fridge and freezer food is gone.

Look on the right side of this blog, and click on the labels "shelf stable food" and "shelf stable foods" (sorry, there are two different titles, I should combine those),  and all the posts I have written on that subject will come up.

One Method for Organizing Your 3 Month's Supply

Here is a great article about one woman's method for making sure she has a 3-month's supply of shelf-stable food.  She showed them off during a Relief Society class.

("Shelf-stable" means it doesn't need refrigeration.)

In my food storage, I have taken the boxes from the cannery that hold 6 #10 cans, and I put a week's worth of dinners in one box, repeating 13 times, to get a 3 month supply of dinners. I did the same for breakfast and lunch. I took a box of each meal to my class, and unpacked them, talking about what I chose and why. For example, I packed this into a dinner box. I don't have it in front of me, so I may be forgetting some things that round it out better. *2 meals of what we call Spanish Rice...rice, tomato sauce, a packet of seasonings including dried onion, pinto beans, etc. Those ingredients are stored in a gallon ziploc, in the boxes. *2 meals of pasta and sauce, complete with parmesan cheese and canned veggies. *Chicken helper with canned chicken. *Canned chili and cornbread mix. *A boxed meal, one pot kind of thing by Stauffers. They are really high in sodium and fat, but it would keep us alive if we had nothing else to eat. *Spaghetti O's and canned veggies to fill in for the kids, if they don't want to eat something one night. There are also some odds and ends that I included because of extra space, like a box of Stove Top stuffing mix, candies and gum, etc. My approach is somewhat unique though. I have those meals safely stored, they are completely shelf stable, somewhat well thought out nutritionally, and will last about a year. The dates of packaging are clearly marked on the outside. I'm not rotating through them on a monthly basis, as many people do. But I don't feed my family shelf stable meals usually. They are not as healthy as what we usually eat. We eat way too much produce and other short term items to make it realistic for us to store a 3 month supply of what we usually eat, but it will be a great variety if we need to live off of it. The sisters responded well to my display, as I explained clearly that I have 13 boxes of each meal stacked in my garage. I described my method for coming up with a list of things to buy, by planning out a week's worth of meals and including every ingredient needed. Then I multiply the ingredient list by 13, and pack complete meals together, a week's worth at a time. After losing 3 freezers and 2 refrigerators worth of food in January's 4 day power outage (Western Washington), I refuse to count my freezers as part of my three month supply. We lost hundreds of dollars worth of meat and fruit, not to mention the other odds and ends.  Shelf stable. Not as nutritious as produce, but it would do in a pinch.  My goal was to get the food on the shelves, and as I rotate through it (donate what we don't eat to the food bank before it expires) I'll be able to replace more nutritious foods for some of the less nutritious stuff I already have. It works for us! It's insurance. I have to add...we have a LOT more stored in our pantry and on a storage unit of "every day foods" that we pull from. Canned beans, canned veggies, bags of oats, pasta, jam, peanut butter, canned meats, etc. Really, I'd say we have an 8 month supply of every day foods stored for our family of 5, because I did our official 3 month supply in handy, movable boxes. I guess the box idea came to me for an "official" way to know we had that food storage, organized into complete meals.

Shelf Stable Dessert: Brownies

During an emergency, remember to plan for some comfort foods.

My family LOVES brownies.  Although I could make them from scratch, it will be much easier to use a box.  Here are all the shelf stable ingredients you need to make this box of brownies.

If we were without power, and if the stores were closed, we would soon be out of fresh eggs.
I think powdered whole eggs are one of the greatest inventions in food storage.  Just use 1 Tablespoon of powdered egg and 2 Tablespoons of water to equal 1 egg.

The only trouble I have ever had with powdered eggs, is that there are sometimes little lumps that are hard to mix in.

So I always add the powdered egg to the brownie or cake mix, and smash out all the little lumps first, before adding the liquids.

Then I add the water with whatever oil or liquid is called for in the recipe.

Shelf Stable Meal: Chili

Here are the ingredients to make chili beans for my family.   Every ingredient is shelf stable, so I consider this one of my Three-Month Supply meals.

I pressure can ground beef, so it is always available whether or not I have a freezer.

I'm sorry I don't have a precise recipe, I just add the cumin, chili powder and onions until it tastes right.

Ground beef, browned or canned.  1 pound

Kidney beans- 3   15 oz. cans

tomato sauce-  1  29 oz. can

chili powder to taste

cumin to taste

onions, dehydrated minced (a few tablespoons dry onions, they rehydrate in the mixture)

Warm it up together, and serve with crackers.

July Challenge: Obtain Shelf Stable Meals

July 2012 Picture a long-term power outage. Plan at least 7 breakfasts, lunches, and dinners using only shelf stable ingredients.   (Shelf stable means it doesn’t need refrigeration.)

Goal:  Obtain shelf stable food during July.  You will be using these shelf stable foods during our August challenge.

Ask yourself:

How will you feed your family without a fridge?

Can you make the regular foods your family likes?

Do too many of your recipes rely on milk, butter, eggs, fresh produce and other perishables?

What ingredients can you buy to substitute for some of those perishables?

Consider buying:

Ready made mixes which only need water added.

Canned soups, canned chicken or tuna.

Powdered milk and powdered eggs.

Dehydrated and freeze dried items.

Any foods which are good for camping would also be good for this.

Buy any ingredients you don’t have.  Set everything aside in a designated spot to use during August.  Fill more water containers.

Easy food for Two Weeks

As part of your Three-Month's supply, you might want to have two weeks of VERY EASY TO PREPARE  foods.

We are very vulnerable to hurricanes and ice storms in this area. For the first 3 days or 4 days after a major disaster you will be totally on your own, and probably without electricity. Either evacuating to somewhere else, or sheltering in place.

Prepare to have every necessity of life, especially water. Plan to do no cooking or minimal cooking. (And remember, without power you will probably be warming up these foods over a campstove.)

We are so blessed to have grocery stores filled with convenience foods.  I recommend the same types of food my sons take on a backpacking or camping trip, or that my husband takes as a lunch to work. These will cost some money, but you don’t want to be messing with lots of ingredients and preparations when dealing with a disaster.

All of these items are SHELF STABLE, which means they do not need refrigeration.  (You probably won't have any refrigerator or freezer during a disaster.)

 The "Annie Chun" noodle bowl was on sale for $2.

 These Hormel main dishes were on sale for $1.85 each.

The Dinty Moore Stew was about $3.85.

(As you can see, I have stored some other ingredients which will make the meals more complete.)

You could argue that these convenience foods are highly processed, and aren't as healthy as homemade.  Oh, well, in times of emergency they will definitely keep you alive. 

I also have lots of lemonade and koolaid and chocolate milk to make the stored water or powdered milk taste better.

These foods would be counted in with your three month's supply.  They are definitely not something that would store for many years, you are going to have to rotate them quite frequently.