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Hurricane Irene Captured August 25, 2011. Photo by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

As if experiencing an earthquake and aftershocks for the last several days was not enough, Hurricane Irene has an uncertain course for our area. Here in the Fredericksburg area, we had a preview of the storm this afternoon with heavy rain and high winds. If you are also in an area that may be affected by Hurricane Irene, a few emergency tips.

Evacuate, if you are directed to do so. If you are not asked to evacuate, assume that in the worst case, you will need to shelter in place without power, telephone or internet service for several days and that you may not be able to drive anywhere due to downed trees along the roads.

To the extent you can, prepare an emergency kit according to guidelines from sites like ready.gov or the American Red Cross. If these supply lists are too overwhelming for you, at a minimum, observe the following.

Make sure you have water, both for drinking and sanitation. If you can’t drain your home’s water heater for non-drinking water, fill a bathtub before the storm hits.

Fill your car with a full tank of gas before the storm hits.

Refill any prescriptions or purchase additional medical/personal supplies you routinely use (such as baby diapers and formula) to carry you through for a few days to a week in case of widespread storm damage or blocked access to roads.

Stop by the ATM to get some cash if you don’t have any emergency cash on hand.

Check to make sure you have at least one working flashlight.

Have some food ready to eat that does not require refrigeration. At a minimum, a few boxes of cereal and some powdered milk (to reconstitute with your water supply), honey, peanut butter and bread for sandwiches, granola bars, nuts, cookies, crackers, fruit snacks, boxed juices, beef jerky, etc. You may also want to check my list of grocery store emergency preparedness foods here.

In case of widespread power and telephone outages, have at least one way of hearing communication from the outside world. This most likely is a radio with batteries or a hand-cranked emergency radio. Your cell phone might work if the cell network is not overloaded and your cell phone battery is not depleted.

Let your family/friends know how you will communicate with them in the event of a communications outage lasting several days. If necessary, set up a telephone tree where you will call, email or text one designated person and ask them to spread the word on your behalf. A site like the American Red Cross’ Safe and Well program may be a good central check-in point.  Note that during the recent earthquake, the cell phone network was very overloaded and it was hard to get calls through. FEMA has requested that during an emergency you text, email or use social networking instead of making calls on your cell phone during the height of the emergency so that the cell phone network is available to emergency personnel and people needing emergency assistance.

Charge your camera/videocamera batteries and clear off your memory cards so that you are ready to record your experience. (While you are at it, charge your cell phone and keep it on the charger until the power goes out to maximize your communications time.)

If you expect damage such as fallen trees, look up the number of a good tree-cutting service and/or your home insurance carrier for damage claims.

Try to minimize damage and danger by securing or storing any loose objects in your yard, like garbage cans or patio furniture.

Lastly, from my experiences so far, a lot of emergency situations tend to end up being a few hours of heart-attack inducing excitement and then a whole lot of boredom. After sitting for an hour without power, Internet or telephone access, many people get a little restless. Think of some ways to entertain yourself. If you have good light to work by, perhaps catch up on some reading or knitting, or play a board game.  Otherwise, take a walk, do some exercise or get busy with some organizing or cleaning projects.

May Irene be kind to us all!

Have an Irene preparedness tip? Please share in the comments.

Flight attendant. Photo by Tom Purves. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

In the last post, we reviewed Amanda Ripley’s book The Unthinkable, which urges all of us to become more aware of emergency situations and be psychologically and physically prepared to handle them. In the book are several suggestions with regard to escaping from airplanes that I found very helpful and wanted to pass along. We are going a little off topic from our change theme but bear with me, we’ll get back on track next week.

As we know from Ripley’s work, one of the biggest problems the average person faces in an emergency situation is paralysis, i.e. being so overwhelmed by a situation that the person does nothing rather than using the precious time available to do something that might save one’s life. This is especially true in the case of airplane evacuations. Ripley indicates in her book that many times an airplane crash or fire is survivable but you have to move quickly and get off the plane as quickly as possible. The brief training you get in the airline safety presentation at the beginning of a flight does not do much to tell you some of the most important and very simple things you need to know.

While I have never been involved (and never hope to be involved) in an airplane crash, the first airplane business trip I took required an emergency landing and the lessons Ms. Ripley teaches would have helped me tremendously in that situation.  So below are 6 tips on airline emergency preparedness garnered from Ms. Ripley’s research and my own experience.

1. During an airplane emergency, it is likely that the captain will not be communicating with passengers at all and you need to sit calmly and quietly and be ready to help yourself rather than waiting for instructions.

In my situation, we were about an hour into a commuter jet flight, when suddenly the oxygen masks deployed. Since this had never happened to me before, my blood pressure immediately increased and I looked around the plane anxiously. My fellow travelers, all middle-aged men who appeared to be veteran business travelers, noticed the masks but didn’t seem to be doing anything about them. I looked across the aisle and asked a man, “Should we put these on?” He shrugged indicating he had no idea.

There was no communication from anyone for a very long time. The flight attendant looked as perplexed as the rest of us. I naively assumed that they all must have been through this type of experience before and since this was my first business flight I should follow their example. Now that I know about the normalcy bias and the natural unwillingness to be the first to make an action that could be perceived as panicking, I would trust my own instincts before I would look to anyone else for guidance.

2. If the oxygen masks ever deploy in flight, put one on immediately. Don’t wait for someone to tell you to do so or for other passengers to do the same.

Ms. Ripley informs us that in the event of rapid cabin decompression, you have only 10-15 seconds to get that oxygen mask on before you are at risk of passing out. This is why they tell you in the safety briefing that if you are traveling with children you should put your own mask on first before you help your children. So if the mask comes down, put it on right away.

During my fateful flight, there wasn’t a rapid decompression but rather a gradual failure of the ventilation system. When we took off, we all noticed that the plane was a bit hot. The pilot told us that things would cool off once we were in flight. Little did we know that this was the first sign that the ventilation system in the plane was not working correctly. I later learned that the heating and cooling of the plane is directly tied to the pressurization of the cabin so if you don’t have air conditioning you are at risk of losing pressurization and oxygen.

About 5 minutes after the oxygen masks deployed, the pilot came on the intercom telling us that the ventilation system was malfunctioning and that we should put the masks on as a precaution. This was my first experience with these oxygen masks. I was not prepared for what I experienced. First, the flow of oxygen is very weak. You don’t feel a rush of air or really have much sense of whether the mask is working at all. For some reason, I assumed that the emergency oxygen supply in a plane was in some sort of large air tank in the ceiling. It turns out the supply is a small canister about the size of a mailing tube in the ceiling above each seat. The oxygen is generated by a chemical reaction in the tube rather than a tank of air.

Also, since these oxygen masks are rarely used, they were not in the best condition. Many of the masks did not seem to be working. Fortunately, this was not a full flight so many passengers could simply change seats until they found a mask that worked. The flight attendant advised us that we might need to tug on the plastic cord a little to get the oxygen flowing. Many people pulled the cord so hard it came out of the canister and due to the heat of the canister could not put it back in without burning fingers.

3. If there is a problem during your flight, chances are the first thing that the pilot will be doing is trying to land the plane as soon as possible. Don’t be immediately alarmed if the plane is rapidly descending.

Nobody likes the sensation of rapid descent in an airplane. In my situation, with no information coming from the captain, it took all of my concentration to breathe slowly and focus on whether oxygen was flowing into my mask. When the plane started suddenly descending, my heart was beating so quickly and all I could do was pray, “Please God, don’t let this be my time to go.”

Fortunately, there was no panicking on the plane. All of the men around me seemed almost numb to the situation. It was very quiet and I watched in horror as the plane was edging lower and lower to a completely unfamiliar rural landscape below.

It would have been tremendously reassuring if the captain or flight attendant had been able to communicate with us that the the reason we were descending so quickly was that we needed to get to an altitude where oxygen can flow in the plane without pressurization. The oxygen supply lasts only a short while, maybe 30 minutes. This information came much later after we had already descended to the “safe” altitude.

The pilot then made an emergency landing at a small, rural airport–again with no communication to the passengers. We had no idea where we were until we pulled up to the gate to unload.

4. If it becomes necessary to have a crash landing, after the plane comes to a stop, you need to focus on getting out as soon as possible.

Based on Ms. Ripley’s research and interviews with survivors, you learn that those who survived plane crashes are the ones who immediately unbuckled their seat belts and headed for the exits as soon as the plane crashed without waiting for any formal instruction. Many times people are so stunned by what happened they just sit there in their seats waiting for instructions or paralyzed by shock. Again, yelling at people to get out, is often enough to shock people back to their senses. Calm evacuation goes much faster than when people scramble to climb over seats and rush the exits.

5. Never stop to grab a carry-on bag or any other items when it is necessary to evacuate an airplane quickly.

When it is time to get out quickly, too many people stop to grab their carry-on bag and take it with them off the plane. Ms. Ripley indicates the carry-on bags are tremendously dangerous in this situation. If the cabin is full of smoke, people end up tripping over the bags and the bags become weapons when they are flung down emergency slides toward other passengers waiting below. Let that bag go and just focus on getting the people out. If you ignore this rule, you could end up causing your own death or someone else’s.

6. If it is necessary to use the emergency slide at the exit, mentally prepare yourself to fling yourself down that slide as quickly as possible without pausing at the exit to contemplate the view.

Women, apparently we are the worst offenders of this rule. Delaying at the exit means less time for everyone else to get out. We need to risk minor injury getting out of the plane to avoid harm to ourselves or others by being too slow.

For an inspiring example of all these tips in action, check out the recently released video from the National Geographic channel on the famous landing of U.S. Airways Flight 1919 in the Hudson by Captain Chesley Sullenberger and First Officer Jeffrey Skiles.

Have an airplane survival story or tip? Please share in the comments.

"New Year's Eve." Photo by besighyawn (Allan Chatto). From the Flickr Creative Commons.

To start my 2011 off right, I need not to be dragging the emergency food storage planning forward with me. ☺

So, I present to you my draft 6-day plans for

• men (2,500 calories)
• women (2,000 calories)
• and a few ideas for meal planning for very young children (1,000 – 1,400 calories).

Children, of course, are the wild card. They can rarely be made to eat anything they don’t want to….even in an emergency. The best bet for small children is to make sure you are storing at least one food they reliably eat (for example, Cheerios or noodles or tuna fish).

There is still more to do on this food plan. I am going to make our family actually eat each of these meals to see if we like them and/or if there is enough flavor/calories in this meal plan. I also have to figure out how much to store if we do decide we like these things.  But I am going to take a break from it for a bit.  You will hear back from me again on this in a little while.

One thing that has been very interesting to discover through this process is that counting calories and nutrition is far too complicated. This is an area of life crying out for a quick and easy technology solution. With so many people concerned with their weight and health, why should it take hours to calculate what you have eaten in a day–whether you have eaten too many calories, too much salt, sugar, or fat or what changes you need to make to improve your diet?

In the ideal world, it would be great to require that all food products have a bar code that could be quickly scanned with an iPhone or a 10 digit code you could type into a website. Over the course of a day, you just scan as you eat (veggies from the fridge, fast food or restaurant food, canned goods, etc.) and at the end of the day, you get a report on what you ate and perhaps where you could do better to achieve your health goals. It would be quick, personalized information–not judgmental, just informational.

Until that day arrives, we have manual tracking, standardized dieting food products like Weight Watchers or frozen foods, and a few websites with databases of various foods. Every food manufacturer reports their nutrition information in a slightly different way and the consumer is left to do their best to make sense of all of it. It is hardly surprising that so often we just give up, eat what we want and hope we are doing OK.

If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to improve your eating habits, you might consider looking at the foods you eat the most often and research whether there are healthier alternatives. You may be surprised to learn how a small change in your ingredients (switching to a whole wheat flour, or a high fiber breakfast cereal, etc.) could make a big difference.

Happy New Year to everyone! May 2011 bring us all a bit of good economic news, great health, excellent organization and much happiness!

"Can display." Photo by Maureen Lunn. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

Time is running out for my 30-day emergency meal plan! I am still hard at work on it with just a few more calculations to run. In the meantime, I wanted to share the breakfasts and snacks I have come up with so far.

My final challenge is to try to pull together all these breakfast, lunch, and dinner options to see if a healthy plan meeting most of the recommended nutritional requirements is possible!

The sodium count is by far the most challenging. Fortunately, there are many people now on low sodium diets that have forced food manufacturers to come up with lower sodium versions of almost every product. Making simple changes, like swapping out one brand of pancake mix for another had a huge impact on the overall sodium count. It has also been eye-opening for me to discover how much sodium is in so many different foods, including ones you don’t think of as being “salty.”

Since our family generally likes cereal, oatmeal and pancakes for breakfast and would be ok eating these things over and over again, I didn’t try to come up with 6 different options for breakfast. Instead, I came up with the following four:

All-Bran Strawberry Medley Cereal at amazon.com.	1. All-Bran Strawberry Medley Cereal with nonfat powdered milk and 1 can Dole pineapple chunks. (400 calories, 365 mg sodium)
Quaker Quick 1 Minute Oats Original Instant Oatmeal Value Box - 55 Servings at amazon.com.	2. Quaker Instant Oatmeal (plain) made with powdered milk and raisins with hot chocolate to drink. (500 calories, 195 mg sodium)
Arrowhead Mills Pancake Mix, Oat Bran, 2 Pound Bags (Pack of 4) at amazon.com.	3. Arrowhead MIlls Oat Bran pancakes made with dried dates and served with maple syrup. (420 calories, 177 mg sodium)
Carbquik Baking Mix at amazon.com.	4. 2 Carbquik biscuits (a lower sodium and higher fiber biscuit mix alternative) with gravy from a packet mix, with one cup natural applesauce and a packet of dried fruit. (320 calories, 480 mg sodium)

One thing I have learned in my food planning research is that it is really hard to get enough daily calories out of your main meals without adding any snacks. Generally if you have enough calories in the main meal, you are blowing the sodium count, fat count or some other nutritional guideline. So it generally works out better nutritionally to have somewhat smaller meals and more snacks. Some dieters swear by this method of eating as well to curb hunger cravings.

What are my staple emergency snacks?

Skippy Peanut Butter, Super Chunk, 16.3-Ounce Jars (Pack of 6) at amazon.com.	1. 2 unsalted rice cakes with 4 Tablespoons chunky peanut butter (450 calories, 240 mg sodium)
Fiber One Chewy Bars Oats and Chocolate Flavor Thirty 1.4 Ounce Bars at amazon.com.	2. Fiber One Oats n’ Chocolate granola bars (140 calories, 90 mg sodium, 9 g fiber)
Sun Maid Fruit Bits, 7-Ounce Bags (Pack of 6) at amazon.com.	3. Fruit bits or raisins (~120 calories, 20 mg sodium)
Navitas Naturals Really Raw Cashews, 16-Ounce Pouch (Pack of 2) at amazon.com.	4. 2 oz raw cashews (or other raw nuts) (320 calories, 0 mg sodium)
Hershey's Milk Chocolate Kisses, 19.75-Ounce Bags (Pack of 3) at amazon.com.	5. 9 Hershey Kisses (an indulgence to be sure but a relatively low-fat way to get in your chocolate fix) (200 calories, 35 mg sodium)
Kettle Bakes Potato Chips at amazon.com.	6. Low-salt baked potato chips. (120 calories, 115 mg sodium). It is really hard to find low-salt or no-salt chips locally but the Internet offers numerous options for a salty snack with less guilt.

In my next post, I hope to pull this all together into a 6-day meal plan (that can be repeated 5 times for a 30-day plan) for a male, female and child. Stay tuned!

"the shiners." Photo by Sterling Communications. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

It is a good evening to be thinking about emergency preparedness.  Today, the Fredericksburg area received several inches of snow.  My children are in heaven!  They love snow and I think it is great too.

Snow does make it hard to get around, however.  While we are not strangers to driving in snow, many people in the Washington area are (although I like to hope the snowstorms of the past several years will eventually make us all proficient snow drivers).  The danger of being on the road in most Washington snowstorms is not the weather but the inexperience of other drivers.  It is definitely the safer option to stay off the freeways, take untraveled back roads and not drive at all unless necessary.

Aside from being mildly stressed about getting my packages to the post office for mailing, I am happy to stay put, enjoy the white and continue work on my emergency food storage plan.

On Tuesday, I gave you 6 dinner options eating solely from canned and prepared foods. Today, I offer 6 lunch options.  Lunch from prepared foods is not new to most of us.  At one point or another, most of us have packed a lunch to school or work.  Most people have eaten a PB&J or tuna sandwich at least once.  This menu includes these classics and adds a few others to give a little variety.

As I sort through the millions of options for emergency food eating from the grocery store, counting all the calories, sodium and nutritional content, it is striking to me how small choices make a huge difference.  For example, changing one soy taco mix for another saved hundreds of milligrams of sodium.  Choosing corn tortillas over flour also cuts sodium dramatically.  No salt canned vegetables are the essential choice to make this menu work.  If you add any salt to the vegetables it is almost impossible to stay within a 1,500 mg/day sodium count.

So, without further ado, what are my 6 lunch menu choices?

Ryvita Whole Grain Rye Crispbread, Rye & Oat Bran, 8.8-Ounce Boxes (Pack of 10) at amazon.com.	1. Tuna “sandwiches” with mayonnaise on rye crispbread crackers with low-sodium V8 juice drink. (~429 calories, 563 mg sodium)
Lundberg Eco-Farmed Brown Rice Cake, Salt Free, 8.5-Ounce Units (Pack of 12) at amazon.com.	2. Peanut butter and honey rice cake sandwiches with a glass of milk (~590 calories, 360 mg sodium)
Eden Organic Garbanzo Beans, No Salt Added, 15-Ounce Cans (Pack of 12) at amazon.com.	3. Salmon and chickpea salad (modifying this recipe from the wonderfully-named “Paupered Chef” blog) with honey whole wheat bread made from a boxed mix.  (I am not sure if I would actually be able to cook bread in a real emergency but a friend has tried it with at least partial success.  I am not thrilled about stockpiling a ton of crackers so I will take the risk that between frozen breads and rolls in the freezer and breads from box mixes we can have at least some real bread in our emergency food diet). (~450 calories, 395 mg sodium)
Frontier Soups Hearty Meals™ California Goldrush White Bean Chili, 15-Ounce Bags (Pack of 4) at amazon.com.	4.     Chili and cornbread. The chili is from a dehydrated mix with no salt added.  The recipe calls for artichoke hearts which unfortunately don’t seem to come in a low-salt option.  The cornbread is from a Marie Callender’s just-add-water mix.  The sodium on this meal is a bit high so I will see if I can still use it by keeping the sodium count of the remainder of the day’s meals low in the final menu plan. (~490 calories, ~755 mg sodium)
Harvest Direct Soy Taco Mix at amazon.com.	5.     Tacos. The filling for these tacos is a soy vegan/vegetarian variety.  My husband is not thrilled about this but since we will only stock 6 packs that we will consume just every once in a while to keep the supply fresh, he thinks this could work.  The taco mix will be served on corn tortillas (kept in the freezer to preserve their shelf life) with canned tomatoes and onions.  (~470 calories, ~510 mg sodium)
Frontier Soups Homemade In Minutes™ Idaho Outpost Potato Leek Soup, 4.0-Ounce Bags (Pack of 4) at amazon.com.	6.     Potato Leek Soup with Vegetables and Bread with Hot Chocolate. A basic no-salt added potato soup mix is enhanced with no salt added canned vegetables.  Hopefully this could be served with some whole wheat bread made from a mix.  (~590 calories, ~445 mg sodium).

When I read the list of lunch choices to my husband, he thought they actually sounded delicious!  Success!  I still have the problem that my children are not going to like some of these choices but I know they will eat canned tuna and salmon.  I am not so sure myself about eating canned chicken.  When I tasted it the last time, I found it absolutely gross.  I don’t mind it heavily salted and seasoned in prepared soups but that doesn’t meet my healthy criterion.  So, the parts of my dinner menu that include canned chicken might ultimately change.

In my next post, I will aim to add 6 breakfasts.  I have a new appreciation for anyone who does menu planning!

What do you think of these lunch choices?  Are there healthy options for lunch you would add?  Please share in the comments.

"soup can" Photo by Steven Depolo. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

I owe my readers an update on my emergency food storage planning. This has turned into an extraordinarily complex project for reasons I had not anticipated. Since I added the additional challenge of trying to only use foods with at least mediocre nutritional value and ones that we would want to eat to improve our diet on a regular basis, it has been shocking to me how much this has complicated the project.

Why is this so hard? A couple of reasons:

1. It is hard to find nutritional foods that are canned, packaged or have a long shelf life, particularly when you are trying to keep the sodium content low.
2. Most recipes for nutritional foods use fresh fruits and vegetables, which are nearly impossible to rely on or substitute for in an emergency food plan.
3. Even when you find nutritional foods, they are often so low in calories and fat that you are not getting enough energy from them to make a full meal. You have to add a lot of supplementary ingredients to get the rest of the way.
4. It takes time to locate and track the nutritional information for all the foods.

So, I keep taking baby steps forward trying to finish up this emergency food plan by the end of the year. Today’s step is to identify 6 emergency food dinners that we would eat 5 times each to make our 30-day emergency food plan. Each dinner has to consist solely of emergency shelf-stable foods. This is where it gets challenging. After much thought, I came up with the following 6 dinners:

Campbell's Red & White Low Sodium Chicken with Noodles, 10.75-Ounce Cans (Pack of 12) at amazon.com.	1. 1 can Campbell’s Low Sodium Chicken Noodle Soup with drink: 1 8 oz can CVS Liquid Nutrition Vanilla Flavor (~410 calories, 340 mg sodium)>
Galil Stuffed Grape Leaves, 14-Ounces (Pack of 12) at amazon.com.	2. Canned dolmathes (grape leaves stuffed with rice and spices), 3-bean salad consisting of low-sodium canned kidney beans, green beans and garbanzo beans, with drink: 2 5.5 oz cans low sodium V8 juice (~514 calories, 978 mg sodium)
Barilla Whole Grain Spaghetti, 13.25 Ounce Boxes (Pack of 10) at amazon.com.	3. Whole wheat spaghetti with low sodium pasta sauce and canned shrimp with drink: 1 8 oz can CVS Liquid Nutrition Vanilla Flavor (~580 calories, 780 mg sodium)
RiceSelect Original Couscous, 31.7-Ounce Jars (Pack of 4) at amazon.com.	4. Couscous chicken apricot salad from this recipe at busycooks.about.com. The nutritional calculator at sparkpeople gave an estimated calorie count of ~527 calories and 995 mg sodium based on 6 servings per recipe. We haven’t tested the recipe yet but we will and may try to tweak it a bit to get the sodium count down.
HAPPY PHO - Shiitake Mushroom, GLUTEN FREE Vietnamese Brown Rice Pho Noodle Soup, 4.5 oz, 2 SERVINGS Per Box (Pack of 6) at amazon.com.	5. Happy Pho brown rice noodle soup (a healthy alternative to ramen noodles) with raw peanuts and canned shrimp with drink: 2 5.5 oz cans low sodium V8 Juice (~522 calories, 551.5 mg sodium)
7" La Tortilla Factory Smart & Delicious Low Carb High Fiber Whole Wheat Tortillas (Regular Size) at amazon.com.	6. Whole wheat tortillas with low sodium black beans, salsa, black olives and canned chicken (~440 calories, 1580 mg sodium!) The sodium count on this dish is way too high so will have to experiment with it as well to get it down to a reasonable number.

There are a few problems with my selections. Our children may or may not eat all of these meals so my food storage plan may need to count in extra tuna fish or Cheerios for dinners for them. The high sodium counts of certain meals also need some reworking.

What I do like about the selections however is that it gives us some pretty good staple foods to work with for everyday eating. Dolmathes are a great appetizer for parties. Spaghetti we eat all the time and tortillas, couscous and pho would not be very difficult to rotate into our regular regimen. For everyday eating, we would probably use fresh fruits and vegetables, and fresh cheese to liven up these meals.

Like everyone, I am a bit slammed lately with business and personal tasks. I have a lot of fun holiday thoughts to post and may intersperse some quick posts on holiday events with quick posts on emergency food planning. When I post, I will update my Facebook and Twitter accounts and will update the e-mail list subscribers still on the twice weekly basis.

A quick reminder that shipping deadlines are very close upon us so it is time to get any packages into the mail. Also, holiday cards should be posted by December 20th if intended for Christmas delivery. Phew! Hang in there! I am rooting for you!

"Thanksgiving on Combat Outpost Cherkatah, Khowst province, Afghanistan." U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Andrew Smith. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

Today is Veteran’s Day in the United States where we honor those who have served in the armed forces of the United States. Last year, Ruly Ruth gave some great tips on honoring our veterans.

This year, tying in with our emergency preparedness theme, I thought we would discuss the MRE and learn a little bit about our military through what they eat on the battlefield.

The U.S. military has several types of prepackaged meals. They include:

"seriously, you can't make this stuff up." Photo by Robert Couse-Baker. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

1) The MRE – which comes in 24 different flavors, 4 of which are vegetarian, as well as Kosher and Halal versions and versions for hot and cold climate extremes. The MRE comes in a shelf-stable pack along with a “flameless heater” to warm up the entrée.

“The Meal, Ready to Eat™ (MRE™) is used by all Military Services to sustain individuals during operations where food service facilities are not available. They are the cornerstone of military subsistence, intended to provide a Warfighter’s sole subsistence for up to 21 days of deployment (in accordance with AR 40-25) yet nutritionally adequate to be used for longer periods if necessary.”

-U.S. Army Natick Soldier RD&E Center,Operational Rations of the Department of Defense, 8th edition, May 2010.

For all the science nerds out there who want to know how the “flameless heater” works, here is a great description.

“The idea behind a flameless heater is to use the oxidation of a metal to generate heat. . . . To make a flameless heater, magnesium dust is mixed with salt and a little iron dust in a thin, flexible pad about the size of a playing card. To activate the heater, a soldier adds a little water. Within seconds the flameless heater reaches the boiling point and is bubbling and steaming. To heat the meal, the soldier simply inserts the heater and the MRE pouch back in the box that the pouch came in. Ten minutes later, dinner is served!”

–Marshall Brain, How MREs Work, howstuffworks.com

"A Soldier samples a pocket sandwich, one of the componenets of the First Strike Ration." U.S. Army Photo.

2) The First Strike Ration – A more compact and calorie dense meal that comes in 3 flavors, none of which are vegetarian.

“The First Strike Ration® (FSR®) is a compact, eat-on the move, assault ration intended to be consumed during the first 72 hours of intense conflict by forward deployed Warfighters . . . . Each FSR® provides an average of 2900 calories (13% protein, 34% fat, 53% carbohydrate). . . . To meet the needs of lighter, more mobile troops, one FSR® per day is issued to each Warfighter . . . .”

-U.S. Army Natick Soldier RD&E Center,Operational Rations of the Department of Defense, 8th edition, May 2010.

"UGR-A Serving Line in the Field." U.S. Army Photo.

3) Unitized Group Rations – These are the foods that military cooks and food service personnel use to feed large groups of Warfighters. From the pictures, they look like the civilian equivalent of family-size heat n’ serve frozen foods like lasagnas and casseroles—except these don’t require refrigeration.

“The UGR-H&S™ is designed to be the first group meal provided to Warfighters in early deployment where field kitchens without refrigeration capability are available . . . In the earliest stages of deployment, the MRE™ is versatile and nutritionally adequate enough to provide a Warfighter’s only subsistence each day. However, as soon as field kitchens can be set up and cooks can begin preparing hot meals, the UGR™ provides increased variety to Warfighters. Feedback from troops over many years has told us time and time again that there is a huge intangible benefit of being able to relax in a group setting and enjoy a hot meal. The UGR™ provides this capability.”

-U.S. Army Natick Soldier RD&E Center,Operational Rations of the Department of Defense, 8th edition, May 2010.

"Food?" Photo by nukeit1 (James McCauley). From the Flickr Creative Commons.

4) Humanitarian Daily Rations – These meals are generally not eaten by the military but are provided to displaced people in the conflict areas.

“The components [of the Humanitarian Daily Ration] are designed to provide a full day’s sustenance to a moderately malnourished individual. In order to provide the widest possible acceptance from the variety of potential consumers with diverse religious and dietary restrictions from around the world, the HDR contains no animal products or animal by-products, except that minimal amounts of dairy products are permitted. Alcohol and alcohol based ingredients are also banned. The meal bag is similar to the MRETM meal bag except that it is a salmon color and contains graphics depicting how to open the bag and that the contents should be eaten.”

-U.S. Army Natick Soldier RD&E Center,Operational Rations of the Department of Defense, 8th edition, May 2010

Meal, Alternative Regionally Customized. U.S. Army Photo.

5) MARC Meals – These are special shelf-stable vegetarian meals designed for detainees at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.

“The final product configuration includes 10 different luncheon entrée menus containing food components familiar to Southwest Asian/Middle East populations.”

-U.S. Army Natick Soldier RD&E Center,Operational Rations of the Department of Defense, 8th edition, May 2010

"Tube food provided to U.S. Air Force U-2 pilots." U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Jason Tudor.

6) Tube meals – These have the biggest ick factor for me. This is food liquefied and put into something that looks like a toothpaste tube. We must have some very dedicated Air Force pilots to be able to do their intense and stressful jobs while eating these “foods” for their sustenance.

“Tube foods are often referred to as high-altitude rations, or ‘foods with altitude.’ The purpose of tube food is to feed U2 pilots in the U.S. Air Force (USAF) during reconnaissance missions that last for periods up to 12 hours. Due to the flying height of U2 jets during such missions, pilots must wear pressurized suits and helmets that cannot be removed, making it impossible for them to consume food with their hands or utensils. Instead, tube food is designed to attach directly to a feeding tube that extends from the outside of the helmet to the inside where the pilot is able to sip the food from a straw-like tube.”

–U.S. Army Natick Soldier RD&E Center, Operational Rations of the Department of Defense, 8th edition, May 2010

To their credit, the military does try to continually improve the food and make it better. Each year the content of MREs changes with some foods retired and new foods introduced.

“After Operation Desert Storm, surveys indicated that Warfighter food preferences closely resembled those of the general non-military population. Warfighters wanted more ethnic foods and more vegetarian offerings.”

—U.S. Army Natick Soldier RD&E Center, Vegetarian Meals in the MRE

"tabasco." Photo by Robert Couse-Baker. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

I also found it funny that the survey also showed that regardless of the meal, most warfighters wanted hot sauce to season it with (I suppose to mask the taste) so every MRE comes with a cute little bottle of Tabasco sauce.

The military also does seem to try to improve the nutritional content of these meals with each iteration. The current nutritional guidelines for MREs are:

“The contents of one MRE meal bag provides an average of 1250 kilocalories (13 % protein, 36 % fat, and 51 % carbohydrates). It also provides 1/3 of the Military Recommended Daily Allowance of vitamins and minerals determined essential by the Surgeon General of the United States.”

-Defense Logistics Agency, Meal, Ready-to-Eat (MRE)

I did my own calculation of the nutritional content of one days worth of MREs. I picked at random 3 MREs from the 2010 meal list found here.

The MREs I chose were the maple sausage and granola MRE, the Veggie Burger in BBQ sauce MRE and the boneless pork rib with potato cheddar soup MRE. It is surprisingly hard to find any information about what exactly is in the MRE. I scraped together my information based on photos and reviews of the MREs at mreinfo.com, MRE calorie counts at livestrong.com and myfitnesspal.com, as well as MREs for sale at survival stores and on eBay.

I wasn’t able to find information for some of the meal components and for some of them I used civilian emergency foods of a similar description.  Others I just left out.

My results showed that one days worth of MRE’s provided:

• 3, 457 calories (According to mypyramid.gov’s calculator this would be roughly appropriate for a 21 year old man, 6 feet tall, 175 pounds exercising more than 60 minutes per day. It is almost 1,000 calories too many for women, even those exercising 60 minutes a day or more.)
• 165 mg cholesterol (This is far less than the 300 mg allowed for both men and women so the MRE does well here.)
• 9 grams trans fat (Trans fats are acknowledged to be the most dangerous kinds of fats and the recommendation is generally around 2 grams of trans fat per 2,000 calories.  9 grams is really quite a high amount of trans fat. All of the trans fat in the MRE meals came from the baked goods like snack bread, cookies and muffins. Hopefully they will cut this way down in the next version of the MRE.)
• 4,239 mg sodium (Big failure for the MRE here. Way too much salt! Almost 3 times the recommended daily allowance.)
• 21.5 grams fiber (If these meals are aimed primarily at young men, recall that the desired fiber quantity for men under 50 is 38 grams. This is about half. Perhaps this is the reason that you cannot read about MRE’s without finding some warfighter’s detailed story about constipation! For women, this is much closer to the 25g they need but remember that the number of calories is generally far too high for most women so women probably need more fiber-dense foods as well.)
• Roughly 14% protein, 21% fat, 65% carbs, which meets general guidelines for athletic people.
• These MREs provided 368% of the recommended daily allowance (RDA) for vitamin C, almost 100% of calcium and iron, about half of the Vitamin E, Riboflavin, Niacin and Folate, about 36% of vitamin A and about 25% of vitamin B6. Adding a multivitamin to the MRE might not be a bad idea.

But the crucial question . .. how does the MRE taste? Apparently OK but certainly not for everyone. Here you can see a BBC reporter tasting the “chili macaroni” meal with U.S. troops.

And here is a group of schoolchildren tasting the meals at the Army Reserve Enrichment Camp.

I have a new appreciation for the many sacrifices of our warfighters and am thankful today for everyone who has served our country.  Please feel free to share in the comments your Veterans Day wishes and remembrances.

"Dinner on the Final Night: Wabakimi Provincial Park, Ontario." Photo by OakleyOriginals. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

For those who just moved the clocks back one hour, how are you doing? I am still adjusting to daylight savings time but am really enjoying the “new” time. I purposely kept my alarm clock back one hour for the privilege of waking up each morning to “give” myself an extra hour of sleep.

Continuing our discussion of emergency food supplies . . . today we are going to combine the prior work we have done on nutritional requirements and grocery store supplies to try to create a 30-day emergency food plan for a family of 4.

This work has been more detailed and complex than I anticipated so I am not able to deliver the full plan to you today. However, I am going to share some of the interim research steps.

Even if you are not interested in creating an emergency food supply, I hope going through this exercise will enlighten you both in terms of how you might be able to stretch your food budget to save money and how to eat more healthily with minimal effort.

After writing my post on nutritional requirements, I found that I needed to add a few more details. In addition to knowing how many calories you need and the basics of a food pyramid, there are some specific quantities of various nutrients you need and some nutrients that you need to limit. What are these requirements? Interestingly, they are printed for us on many of our longer food labels, like those on cereal boxes. I never noticed them before now. Here is the section from our cereal box:

Most of us know that we should limit our fat intake, particularly of saturated fat and trans fat. Most of us also know that too much cholesterol is not a good thing. Based on my own reading of food labels, it seems we don’t have to worry quite so much about fat and cholesterol because most food manufacturers have limited fat and cholesterol in their foods for us.

"breakfast: bunny in the hole." Photo by woodleywonderworks. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

The Mayo Clinic, citing recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine, indicates that Men under 50 need 38g of fiber per day (even more than what is recommended on the cereal box!) and women under 50 need 25 grams. Men over 50 need 30 grams of fiber and women over 50 need 21 grams.

A recent study suggests that children 2 and older consume grams of fiber per day equal to their age plus 5. (For example, a 5 year old should consume 5+5=10 grams of fiber per day).

How much fiber does the typical American adult consume each day? About 14-15 grams or about half of what we should.

Salt content in food is something you are going to start hearing more and more about. The American Heart Association recommends all Americans limit sodium consumption to no more that 1500 mg a day. Overdosing on salt is something that is easy to do and is a condition that has almost no symptoms you can identify yourself. You might not know you are eating too much salt until you develop high blood pressure.

How much sodium does the average American consume each day? A whopping 3,712 mg! More than twice the recommended limit.

Potassium is a requirement I had only vaguely considered before this research project. Apparently we are supposed to aim to balance our potassium and sodium intake to maintain healthy blood pressure. Since sodium is added to so many foods for flavoring, that means you have to eat a LOT of potassium to even things out.

Finally, some nutritionists advise that what we need to look at is the overall ratio of foods in our diet with about 40-60% carbs, 20-30% fats and 10-15% protein.

Is it possible to plan an emergency food storage plan that complies with these health requiremens? We’ll sure try!

Here is an example of a nutritionally balanced daily meal plan in canned food emergency rations for a woman consuming a 2,000 calorie diet and a man consuming a 2,500 calorie diet.

 
The male and female rations are mostly the same except that the man needs to add on about 500 more calories and 7 more grams of fiber, ideally without increasing the salt! So the man has a higher fiber breakfast cereal, double the portion of fish at lunch, adds raisins to his peanut butter rice cakes snack and swaps the granola bar for a higher calorie energy bar or a handful of unsalted nuts.

Hmmm….so despite best efforts, we are still low on potassium and carbohydrates and a smidge too high on sodium. But considering that fresh fruit and vegetables aren’t a realistic part of the emergency supply, I think we are doing fairly well.

I clearly have a lot more work to do to get a full 30-day meal supply with a greater variety of healthy foods that we eat often. I will continue the work.

In the meantime, please feel free to share your comments and suggestions! Do you count calories or the nutritional value of your own diet? What tools do you use to make this data-intensive work easier?

In my last post, I promised to share with you some of my favorite finds from the grocery store for emergency preparedness.  Several people have commented that they prefer to stick with traditional emergency food packs like military MREs (meals ready-to-eat).  Under this plan, people typically purchase the MREs, which are good for several years, from a special supplier then throw them out and replace them when they expire.  There is no one right way to do emergency preparedness and if this works for you then by all means, go ahead!

In my own emergency preparedness, I am hoping to use the emergency preparedness stores as a way to encourage healthy eating on a regular basis as well.  My intention is to stock our emergency stores with foods that we eat (or should be eating) regularly and rotate regularly through the food, I don’t want to buy foods like MREs that we would never desire to eat outside of an emergency situation.  Also, I have my doubts that my young children would subsist on MREs—at least not until they got VERY hungry.

Below are my 20 best finds at a typical grocery store (or online in bulk at amazon.com) for emergency preparedness.

Total cereal at amazon.com	1) Breakfast cereal or oatmeal – Most breakfast cereals are so fortified with vitamins that you are getting a lot of nutritional punch for your calories (and dollars).  Ideally, you would select a whole grain cereal with low sugar content but I believe even most sugared cereals are fortified as well.  If all you did for your emergency food planning was buy an extra box of cereal and some powdered milk (see next item) you could probably survive on that for days.  Ask any college student!
Organic Valley Organic Nonfat Dry Milk Powder. At amazon.com.	2) Powdered milk – If you are going to be eating cereal, you will need milk!  Just add water to your powdered milk and you are ready to go.  It tastes fairly close to regular milk.  If you are allergic to milk, you could also substitute alternative “milks” like rice milk, soy milk or almond milk.  I quite liked those milks until I looked at the nutritional labels one time and found that they were all basically just sugar water and didn’t have any of the protein benefit you get from cow’s milk–although they are low in fat and cholesterol.
Skippy Peanut Butter, Super Chunk. At amazon.com.	3) Peanut butter – Ruth foreshadowed this one in her comment Tuesday but yes, peanut butter is a great emergency staple because it packs a ton of calories into a compact little package.  It is also full of protein, vitamin E and niacin.  If you don’t like peanuts, most grocery stores carry other nut butters as well, like cashew butter and almond butter.

Campbell's Red & White Low Sodium Chicken with Noodles. At amazon.com. Frontier Soups Homemade In Minutes™ South Of The Border Tortilla Soup. At amazon.com.	4) Canned soup and dried soup mixes – Canned soup is one of those really basic things you might forget about for emergency planning but canned soup is really kind of like an MRE.  It is usually very high in sodium so you have to watch out for that but more and more soups are being made that are lower in sodium and higher in nutritional content.  If you haven’t taste-tested a low-sodium soup, you are in for a bit of a shock.  You don’t realize how much sodium you are used to eating until you try a low-sodium variety.  The taste is a little bland but some well-seasoned low-sodium soups are OK.  This emergency staple will require heating but I can tell you from experiments with my own children that eating it cold straight out of the can (their preference) won’t kill you.  There are also dried soup mixes that you just add water to and heat that are less bulky.
StarKist Tuna Solid White Albacore In Water, 12-Ounce Cans. At amazon.com. Bear & Wolf Pink Salmon. At amazon.com.	5) Canned seafood – We all know that fish is full of all kinds of healthy nutrients for us, particularly the esteemed omega-3 fatty acids.   I most frequently hear people say, “ I don’t like fish.”  If you refuse to eat fish, then obviously you will need to pick some other canned protein.  I am a timid seafood eater myself but if you love seafood you can get so many types of canned seafood from sardines to clams to shrimp. The second complaint I hear about fish is that people are worried about the mercury content.  My favorite kind of canned fish (white albacore tuna) is one of the fishes with very high mercury content.  You are only supposed to eat a 6 oz can about once a week.  The State of Alaska Department of Health and Social Services has done quite a bit of research into the mercury content of various kinds of fish, both because of the significant fishing industry in Alaska and because of the number of native Alaskans who consume large amounts of fish in their diets.  Alaska Health and Human Services has created this handy chart to guide pregnant women and children (the most sensitive populations for mercury exposure) but this guide is really a good guide for anyone.  According to this chart, you can safely eat unlimited amounts of “all species of Alaska salmon.”  This was great news for us since one of our favorite substitutes for albacore tuna is the Bear & Wolf (Costco brand) pink wild Alaskan salmon.  They manage to take all the bones out of the salmon in this brand and while the flavor is a bit stronger than tuna, it is quite delicious.
V8 Vegetable Juice Low sodium. At amazon.com.	6)   V8 juice – One of the harder foods to obtain in emergency food stores are fruits and vegetables.  V8 juice, particularly the low-sodium variety, gives you a large quantity of vegetables in an easy-to-drink container.
Dole Pineapple Chunks in 100% Pineapple Juice. At amazon.com.	7) Canned pineapple in juice – You could really use any canned fruit in juice but the only fruit I can reliably find that is not packed in a sugar syrup is pineapple.  This emergency staple doubles as both a juice and a fruit!  I especially love it cold and keep it in my fridge (but I realize that in an emergency, room temperature is the more likely alternative).
Herdez Salsa Casera. At amazon.com.	8 ) Salsa – Salsa is another great way to get your vegetables in and add some flavor to your meals as well.  You have to watch your sodium content here but chips and salsa are a great shelf-stable snack.
Goya, Bean Black Low Sodium. At amazon.com.	9) Canned beans – Beans are a great protein source.  You could also get dried and cook them yourself if you know you will have a cooking source in an emergency.
Ryvita Whole Grain Rye Crispbread, Rye & Oat Bran. At amazon.com.	10) Crackers, Rice Cakes and Tortillas – Since I love good bread I wish there was an “emergency bread.”  I have not found one yet.  Instead we have to settle for bread substitutes like whole grain crackers, rice cakes, chips and even taco shells.  This is the one part of my emergency storage plan I am not so happy with.  I don’t want to stock up on too many high fiber crispbread crackers or rice cakes since we don’t like to eat them all that often (although we would probably be healthier for the switch).  We will need something to spread all that peanut butter on for snacks.  Some tortillas will keep for up to 60 days so that may be the direction we go.
Ensure Plus Complete Balanced Nutrition Drink. At amazon.com. Carnation Instant Breakfast Nutritional Drink. At amazon.com.	11) Meal-substitute drinks. You generally find these in the geriatric section of the pharmacy aisle or sometimes the weight loss section. In vitamin stores, they might be sold near the muscle-building area.  There are many brands of these drinks and some are quite expensive.  We found a generic CVS brand that wasn’t too expensive and actually tasted pretty good.  These drinks are usually free of any allergens (dairy, etc.) and are fortified with just about every vitamin and mineral you could ever need.  We have used them to substitute for refrigerated breakfast yogurt smoothie drinks.  They are a great grab-and-go food when you are headed into the car.  Another product with slightly less nutritional content but good taste are the shelf-stable breakfast drinks from Carnation.
Fiber One-Oats & Chocolate. At amazon.com.	12) Granola Bars –   Yes, good old granola bars are an emergency staple.  Most granola bars have too much fat and sugar to really be considered healthy foods but they do offer some benefits in terms of complex carbohydrates and vitamins.  If nothing else, they are a compact way to get some calories.
Sun Maid California Raisins. At amazon.com.	13) Dried Fruit – You can get exotic or go with a classic–raisins!
Navitas Naturals Really Raw Cashews. At amazon.com.	14) Raw Nuts and Seeds – Generally you have to shop in the bulk foods section of the grocery store to find unsalted nuts and seeds.  Salted are of course delicious but when you are trying to keep your sodium down (there is salt in everything in packaged foods!) this is one area where you can cut the salt out and miss it less.  Peanuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds.  Lots of great choices here.
Hunts- Snack Pack Pudding. At amazon.com.	15) Shelf-stable pudding! Probably an essential if you have small children.  No refrigeration needed.  Self-contained little cups.  Some nutritional content from the milk (although it is mostly sugar, of course!).  The Hunts Snack Pack brand has a shelf life of up to 540 days!
Barilla Whole Grain Spaghetti. At amazon.com. Ragu Pasta Sauce, Chunky Garden Style, Mushroom & Green Pepper. At amazon.com.	16) Whole grain pasta and spaghetti sauce. I am putting this toward the bottom of the list because this supply is useless if you don’t have a cooking source.  You can’t soak pasta in room temperature water and make it edible.  Since we eat pasta all the time, however, and since we have been able to cook pasta on the gas stove in at least one prior emergency, it will stay on our list.
Early California Ripe Pitted Olives. At amazon.com.	17) Canned olives.  A great source of healthy fats and a good snack as well.  Most small children like black olives and adults could go for a tangy variety like kalamata or manzanilla.
Maruchan Instant Lunch Chicken Flavored Noodle Bowls. At amazon.com.	18 ) Ramen noodles/Cup O’ Noodles – These are probably the most cost-effective emergency food staple. They generally cost about 30-50 cents per meal and they are warm and filling. You do need to be able to at least boil water to make them useful. They are also very high in sodium but you can control that a little if you use the ramen with seasoning packs and use less of the seasoning pack. Fortunately ramen noodles are one of the foods our kids will eat reliably too.
	19) Jerky – Beef jerky, turkey jerkey, even ostrich jerky! Any meat can be dried into a jerky. While high in fat and salt, these are great pick-me-up treats particularly if you are doing high energy work. Jerky is usually pretty expensive at the grocery store so look for a sale or buy in bulk online.
Hershey's Milk Chocolate Kisses. At amazon.com.	20) Chocolate – Chocolate is an essential survival food!  There are some health benefits to chocolate but really it is more of a mental food than a physical one.  Want to make a friend?  Offer some chocolate.  Need an escape from your stressful emergency situation. Chocolate to the rescue!  There is no way we would be caught without it!

So that is the list of the items our family is most likely to stockpile to create our own emergency food storage. What would you add to this list?  Please share in the comments.

In Tuesday’s post, we’ll try to put these foods together into a sample 30-day emergency meal plan. Have a great weekend!

"Pantry Commentary 2010." Photo by aMichiganMom (Julie Magro). From The Flickr Creative Commons.

Since we have spent quite a bit of time lately on holidays, we are going to switch back to emergency preparations for a while.  November in the United States is the month of feasting and celebration for Thanksgiving at the end of the month.  So, to tie in with this food theme we will focus our emergency preparations this month on food storage.

Last month, we discussed emergency water storage, which is relatively straightforward.  There is only one ingredient (water) to consider and the most difficult parts of water storage are: a) finding a place to store the water, b) making sure you are storing water in an approved manner that will keep the water safe to drink and c) monitoring expiration dates and rotating the water as needed.

Food storage adds a significant layer of complexity to this whole equation.  There are many more ingredients, expiration dates and storage requirements to take into consideration.  Your emergency food storage eating is likely to be a little different from your regular eating patterns.  Often you need to eliminate foods that require refrigeration or elaborate cooking or those that cannot be easily transported.  This ends up being a large portion of what most of us eat every day!

I have been working indirectly on my own emergency food storage plan since I first wrote about it last year.  I have made some progress but not much so this month’s discussion is as much for me as for you.

My goals for my own emergency food storage are:

1. 30 days food supply for our family of 4
2. “normal” foods that we consume regularly
3. foods with good nutritional value

The last piece, “good nutritional value” is the most difficult of the three pieces.  I am not a nutritional expert and our regular diet could definitely use some improvement.  So, the first question I start with today is:

What are the recommended nutritional requirements
for the average person?

 
The Healthy Eating Pyramid at the Harvard School of Public Health looks quite a bit different than the food pyramid advanced by the federal government at myfoodpyramid.gov.

Harvard’s food pyramid, which you can see here starts with exercise as the base of the pyramid—the thing we should be consuming the most of!  Next comes fruits and vegetables, whole grains and healthy fats like olive and canola oil.  Then nuts, seeds, beans, tofu, fish, poultry and eggs, then dairy products like milk and cheese.  At the top of the pyramid, the things we should eat the least of are red meat, butter, white rice, white bread, pasta (except, I assume, whole grain pasta), potatoes, sugar and salt.  Harvard also advises that we all consume a daily multivitamin and that certain groups may benefit from modest alcohol intake of red wine.

If you are looking at these recommendations and are thinking, “Wow, my diet needs a major overhaul!” join the club!  We have experimented eating along these lines in the past and the one thing we learned (consuming a primarily fish and vegetable diet) is that you feel a lot hungrier than when you are eating a more traditional diet.  Meat, potatoes and pasta really fill you up and make you feel “full” after eating them.  Fish is light and you get sick of eating it before you feel the same satiation.

But, knowing that this is the best way to eat for optimum health, we will use the Harvard guidelines as our baseline nutritional guide.

What about calories?  The Harvard plan doesn’t really discuss calories in detail but indicates that you need to have the calories burned in exercise equal to the calories consumed in food to maintain your weight.

We need at least a baseline indicator for calories in order to create the emergency food storage plan, so we will use the guidelines from the federal government at mypyramid.gov.

You can click here to get a free customized eating plan by age, weight and height for anyone aged 2 and older.

Our results:

 
Now, to try to translate these calorie and nutritional requirements into actual foods!  This seems to be really difficult for anyone offering general guidance to do.  Take, for example the mypyramid.gov plan for a 1000 calorie preschool diet for a 2-year old.

Here is what it says for breakfast:

1 oz grains with ½ cup milk and ½ cup fruit

If you have the average preschooler, you are probably talking Cheerios and milk.  As for the fruit, maybe applesauce (unless you have a really picky eater, like me).  A banana would be another good choice but that is kind of hard to do for emergency storage.  Most of the dried banana chips I have seen are either fried in oil or sugared.  Raisins might work too.

Option 1: Cheerios breakfast

¾ cup Cheerios = 80 calories (The serving size on the Cheerios box actually says ¾ cup for a child under 4 rather than the 1 oz indicated by myfoodpyramid.gov.  We’ll go with the box on this one.)

1/3 cup nonfat dried milk (since we are talking about emergency food storage, I will use the box of nonfat instant dry milk.  Note that curiously mypyramid.gov recommends low or nonfat milk for children rather than whole milk. The dried milk box recommends a serving size of 1/3 cup rather than the 1/2 cup from myfoodpyramid.gov.  For simplicity, again, I will go with the box) = 80 calories

½ cup applesauce (Let’s assume you stockpile some of those Mott’s applesauce cups in the “Natural” unsweetened variety) = 50 calories

Total Cheerios child’s breakfast = 210 calories

If you assume you have the ability to cook during the emergency and you swap Cheerios for Quaker instant oatmeal (made with the nonfat dry milk and raisins), you get:

Option 2: Oatmeal breakfast

½ cup oatmeal = 150 calories

1/3 cup nonfat dry milk = 80 calories

1 mini snack size box Sun Maid raisins = 45 calories

Total oatmeal child’s breakfast = 275 calories

How are we doing nutritionally with these choices?  If we add up all the nutritional information from the sides of the boxes we get:
 

 
Is your head swimming with nutritional information yet?  How do we make sense of all this information?  My takeaway from this comparison is that both breakfasts are roughly the same but the Cheerios is fortified with so many vitamins that it is essentially like taking a daily multivitamin pill. The downside of the Cheerios, however, is the higher sodium content, and lower fiber.  The Mayo Clinic advises that kids aged 2-3 should have a maximum of 1,000 mg sodium per day.  Getting almost 1/3 of this at breakfast from the Cheerios might be a problem given the higher sodium content of most canned goods that might be consumed in an emergency diet.  But for now, Cheerios or oatmeal both seem OK.

Now there are many other choices for breakfast, of course.  You could have sardines or beans or any other number of things but when you are talking about emergency storage, you have to take into account that a) everyone is going to be a little stressed out and familiar foods are going to help calm people down and b) keeping food preparation simple is going to be a high priority since your energy will likely be needed for other things.

What can you do to get started on your emergency food supply?  First, take a baby step and look up on the myfoodpyramid.gov website to see what your calorie requirements are.  Then start thinking about what types of foods you are willing to eat and what foods you eat already that would work in an emergency.  If you have special dietary needs (vegetarian, gluten-free, peanut allergy, diabetes, etc.) you may need to consult specific dietary sources for those needs.  I have linked to a few in the sentence above.

In my next post, I will try to highlight some of the most nutritious foods you can have in your emergency storage available in your regular grocery store.  Please share in the comments your thoughts on favorite emergency foods or ask any questions you want to see answered.