Freeze Dried Food, Meals for Emergency Preparedness
Are you prepared to survive in an disaster situation? You need food and an simple way to prepare it, as well as a source of water, fire or heat, and a shelter. These are key for survival: making sure you do not freeze and that you have nutritious food and hydration.
Before freeze dried foods and dehydrated meals the best choice for home emergencies was canned foods that did not require much time to prepare. These are still a good choice to have on hand for weather emergencies and power outages. You can also freeze food for short term survival needs at home. Cans with pull tabs and can openers that are hand operated mean food is easy to get ready. Keeping a supply of bottled water in your home prepares you for these same emergencies.
Camping presents a different set of circumstances for food planning. Campers are limited in how much they can physically carry to a camp site, often needing to put everything in a pack and carry it on their backs. A popular choice is to buy a commercially prepared meal, like the MREs that the military use. The entire meal is packaged together and takes up very little space. Freeze dried foods are available in many sized packages and are very light weight compared to canned goods. You may want to carry food in your vehicle any time you are making a trip.
Some people like to make their emergency foods at home. There are instructions and cookbooks that tell how to dry fruits and vegetables and make fruit leathers as well as jerky from various meats. The dehydration process and the seasoning helps to preserve the food and drying it makes it more compact to store. Heavy food quality plastic bags like freezer bags are excellent for dehydrated food that needs to be packed in a pack or even in a vehicle. At home storage for these foods can be arranged in recycled glass jars that other food has come in. Also suitable for food storage are plastic containers that food has come in and that has been thoroughly washed. Containers such as ice cream buckets and condiment containers will hold home prepared foods either packed individually in bags or loose, ready to package when the food is needed.
To reconstitute and rehydrate dried foods as well as for surviving emergencies, it is necessary to have a good source of water that is safe to drink. When pipes freeze it is good to have extra in gallons jugs or individual bottles stored in the home. If you are out on a camping trip it might be too hard to carry that much fresh water. That is when you must either have a purification kit or boil the water in a clean container. Of course if your water source happens to freeze you will need to heat it anyway. That is why many emergency kits have a way to start a fire, either waterproof matches or a flint and tinder or both. Having a heat and fire source is also important for drying out wet clothes, as well as making dried foods from gathered or caught foods.
Before freeze dried foods and dehydrated meals the best choice for home emergencies was canned foods that did not require much time to prepare. These are still a good choice to have on hand for weather emergencies and power outages. You can also freeze food for short term survival needs at home. Cans with pull tabs and can openers that are hand operated mean food is easy to get ready. Keeping a supply of bottled water in your home prepares you for these same emergencies.
Camping presents a different set of circumstances for food planning. Campers are limited in how much they can physically carry to a camp site, often needing to put everything in a pack and carry it on their backs. A popular choice is to buy a commercially prepared meal, like the MREs that the military use. The entire meal is packaged together and takes up very little space. Freeze dried foods are available in many sized packages and are very light weight compared to canned goods. You may want to carry food in your vehicle any time you are making a trip.
Some people like to make their emergency foods at home. There are instructions and cookbooks that tell how to dry fruits and vegetables and make fruit leathers as well as jerky from various meats. The dehydration process and the seasoning helps to preserve the food and drying it makes it more compact to store. Heavy food quality plastic bags like freezer bags are excellent for dehydrated food that needs to be packed in a pack or even in a vehicle. At home storage for these foods can be arranged in recycled glass jars that other food has come in. Also suitable for food storage are plastic containers that food has come in and that has been thoroughly washed. Containers such as ice cream buckets and condiment containers will hold home prepared foods either packed individually in bags or loose, ready to package when the food is needed.
To reconstitute and rehydrate dried foods as well as for surviving emergencies, it is necessary to have a good source of water that is safe to drink. When pipes freeze it is good to have extra in gallons jugs or individual bottles stored in the home. If you are out on a camping trip it might be too hard to carry that much fresh water. That is when you must either have a purification kit or boil the water in a clean container. Of course if your water source happens to freeze you will need to heat it anyway. That is why many emergency kits have a way to start a fire, either waterproof matches or a flint and tinder or both. Having a heat and fire source is also important for drying out wet clothes, as well as making dried foods from gathered or caught foods.