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After seeing Ted Koppel on several news shows, promoting his book about how it's inevitable that hackers will cause massive power outages, and how most Mormons have 3-6 months of food stockpiled, I want to do that, as well.
Amazon has all kinds of MRE (meals ready to eat), but I have no idea which would be best. So, the following questions:
1. What 3-month/person MRE's do you recommend;
2. How do you store water; and
3. What other items?
I can think of toilet paper, medications, cat food, litter, toiletries. . .? Also, batteries, light/heat sources, radio.
I don't really recommend MREs - they taste awful. But maybe what you mean are just freeze-dried foods. Those are better, but I don't even recommend those. All you need to do is when you're shopping, just pick up extra's of canned goods, bagged rice, oatmeal, and whatever you likr to eat.
Water for drinking can be bought in gallon bottles at the supermarket. But you'll need more than water just for drinking. Washing will use the bulk of it, and that doesn't need to be quite as sterile. Pick up a few black plastic 32-gallon trash cans, and fill them with a hose. Garage is a good place to keep them.
TP, meds, pet food, and grooming supplies can all be bought at grocery stores or drug stores.
When it comes to cooking, lighting, and toilet functions, just think "camping". Look on youtube for vids about bug-out bags for other ideas. Too numerous to mention here, and there are already threads here that have gone over it in more detail. Good luck!
People here are generally not fans of the MRE diet. There was a recent thread on the topic that you'll find if you scrolll down a bit. Most of us stockpile canned goods. They have long shelf lives; they stay safe forever, but they can lose taste, nutritional value, and color when they are out too far past the expiration date. I've found that tomato products are the worst offenders. You can, however, buy tomato powder on Amazon.
If you don't have a cistern you can buy storage vessels of various sizes along with siphons. You will need a lot of water. I buy bottled water in half liters for drinking, but you'll need a great deal more for household use
Quote:
Originally Posted by happypants 3235
...I can think of toilet paper, medications, cat food, litter, toiletries. . .? Also, batteries, light/heat sources, radio.
These are all important. I have over 1200 lbs. of cat litter for my cat along with about eighteen months worth of food. There's an added benefit to this. Should there be a recall the food covered in the recall won't yet have been used. Cats are obligate carnivores so have a good supply of good wet food. The dry food has poor nutritional value and doesn't keep well as the oils become rancid. It's good to have extra as many animals are lost or abandoned in disasters. You may find yourself with additional family members.
Your first book should be the LDS Preparedness Manual. It contains very little religion but plenty of good information as the Mormons have been doing this for a long time. It's a free download; be sure to print a hard copy.
Buy a kerosene heater or heaters. You can safely store kerosene in your home. Have kerosene lights as well. You can easily convert Coleman gas lanterns to kerosene. I've appended an outstanding series of books on nonelectric lighting as well as a video by the same author on the lantern conversion.
Invest in blackout curtains; you don't want people to know that you have light when they don't.
Let us know whether you are urban, suburban, small town, or rural so that we may make more suggestions. Let us know what your climate is as well.
Discuss medications with your physician and veterinarian; maintain at least a six month supply. Figure out what you need in the way of toiletries, cleaning products, and the rest. Just determine how much you use in a given period.
Have some basic tools. ou don't need to be Mr. Handy, but you do need to unscrew things, etc. Note that the open end wrench is critical in the video; an adjustable wrench may be too bulky.
West Texas, medium size town near state university.
You're in a decent spot. A nearby university doesn't thrill me as students are very unlikely to have much in the way of stored foods and they will be hungry.
You will need to consider how to defend your stores in the event that hungry people begin to rampage. Don't tell anyone what you are doing and keep your food hidden. I've seen storage cabinets designed to fit under beds. There are several threads on survival guns here so do take a look. Feel free to ask questions. If you need to buy guns, buy them only from private sellers. Any medium size town in Texas should have gun shows within a reasonable distance.
Keep cash on hand so you have money without ATM availability. Gold and silver are very comforting. Be thankful that you aren't near a big city; those will be death traps.
Location: When you take flak it means you are on target
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1,200 lbs of cat litter? Why not let the cat go outside?
I like cats...
BBQ'd.
I'm JUST KIDDING Happy. I love kitties, I really do.
Re MRE's I haven't had any in years. You can't get the good real military anymore. Most of those were pretty tasty back in the day. Better than the left over Korean war C rats we got in the 80's...
Last time I did mres was when I spent four days in the Grand Canyon. That is a trip for ultra light food and gear. Our cooking pot was a sierra cup and a plastic spoon. I agree with cans.
I bought some ex military MRE's awhile back, to say I wasn't impressed is putting it mildly.
I store a few packs of camping food, bought at most good camping shops, can be eaten cold straight out of the pack if necessary but can also be boiled, taste much better.
most of my food stores are standard food cans bought in a supermarket.
If you really want MREs, just ask any US servicemember [active or retired] to buy you some on-base.
I don't do MREs. MREs are designed for 18 to 24 year old kids on the move. Those kids need 4,000 calories/day. I do not need that many calories.
Battalions do not want every solder to be using the latrine 4 times a day, so MREs have no fiber. Does not fit you?
A kid can live on that kind of a diet for a while [weeks or months] without undue harm. But for a child from 3 to 15, or a mature adult that kind of diet long-term will do harm.
Eat what you store, store what you eat, produce what you eat. It is not anymore complicated than that.
What do you eat now? Are you producing it? Are you storing it?
I have a few boxes of MREs. I use them when I go hunting and when you're anywhere from 7-12 miles from camp it's easy and light to carry, eat and then bring back to dispose of. I don't know if I want it as a every day diet.
We have some stored food but its canned and jars. I mainly have it if some earthquake happens. I don't plan on keeping years of food anyway. If a world ending disaster happens I'm in such a largely populated area that I'm gonna be fighting like a madman or will be dead from the zombie infection.
And eventually if you're the only guy not losing weight everyone is gonna come either looking for your food or are gonna make YOU the food.
There are camping supply stores that sell decent dehydrated foods. Not MREs, but packages of foods that would serve as a "main course", or maybe breakfast (dehydrated scrambled eggs and bacon, for example). Mountain House makes dehydrated foods that are better than edible, they're really tasty. As others have said, though, using canned foods as the base for your supplies is the best idea.
You can store water in the plastic containers that it's in when it's bought. Or, you can get larger containers at camping supply stores, hardware stores, etc., that you can fill yourself with tap water.
Most other supplies can be bought at the dollar store or elsewhere quite cheaply. Make a note of the things that you use up regularly, and keep track of it. This will give you an idea of what you would need to store up to get you through an emergency.
I don't necessarily think a 3-6 month catastrophe on a national scale is something a lone person can plan to survive all by themselves, unless they're in an extremely remote location to begin with. Everyone should have some supplies to get them through at least a month of emergency conditions, though, like a natural disaster, when things could be chaotic.
It doesn't take all that much of an investment of time or cash to get some supplies put away for 1-3 months. Just use them up when they come close to expiring, and rotate fresh supplies as you need to.
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