I’m a dad. It’s still a little crazy to think about it sometimes. That means I have responsibility. I have someone to take care of beside myself. Someone who relies on me for their safety, their health and their nourishment. Recent events such as hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods make me think about my family and how prepared we are for emergencies. The truth is, we are not.
In response to my desire to be prepared started with the basics. I began my preparation by acquiring an emergency stock of food. I decided to start with a small amount and work up to enough food to last my family for a months time if needed. I ordered the Food Supply Depot 1 Week Kit found on SurvivalBased.com.
This conveniently packaged kit claims to be enough to feed 3 adults or 2 adults and 2 young children for a week. We are a family of 2 adults, an 18 month old, and a 1 month old so I figured that would work perfectly for us.
We live in an apartment with a limited amount of storage space so for us to carry a large amount of food storage can be difficult. I was pleasantly surprised by the size of the buckets. As you can see by the photos they are small and compact. The buckets are also stackable to maximize the space available. A week’s worth of food from the grocery store would take up much more space.
Of course I wanted to try the food to see if it would be something we could stand eating for a week if we had to and to make sure my son would be properly fed. The first meal we tried was the Wisconsin Cheddar And Pasta.
The package states that there are three servings in each pouch of the Cheddar and Pasta. I am usually a pretty big eater so I was worried about how much a “serving” really was. I was happy to find that one pouch fed all three of us. I probably had about 1 ½ servings while my wife had a serving and my son had a half serving. I was full and so was everyone else.
The Cheddar and Pasta tasted great too. I am a big fan of Mac and Cheese from a box and I will have to say I liked Food Supply Depot’s version much better. The cheese was creamy and the noodles were soft. Even my son enjoyed his dinner.
We also made the Chocolate Milk. It tasted like I had made it with real milk and Hersey’s chocolate powder. There was enough for everyone and some left for the next day at breakfast.
The biggest down side that I found in the whole process was how long it actually took to prepare the meal. From the time I put the water on to boil until I sat down to eat was about 25 minutes. The upside was that preparation was as simple as stirring the pot occasionally.
The following night we decided to try one of the soups. We went with the Nantucket Potato Soup. Each pouch contains 5 servings and again this was more than enough to feed my small family.
The soup tasted great. The soup was a little grainy in texture because of the potato flakes but it was not anything I couldn’t stand. Preparation time was closer to 20 minutes start to finish. We also had Hawaiian sweet roles on the side that we would dip into the soup.
We also made the Refreshing Orange drink. My son loved it and so did I. Very similar to Tang. And again there was enough juice for breakfast in the morning.
Overall, I am very pleased with the quality and taste of the Food Supply Depot. The ease of preparation and delicious taste make it a perfect choice for anyone in an emergency situation or on a camping trip. The size and ability to stack the buckets makes it easy to store in any living circumstance. I would even be confident in keeping it in my garage because of the heavy-duty buckets and mylar pouches. I hope I never have to use it but if I do my family and I will be well fed.
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2 comments
I am sure if I did not have the time to shop, I would go for a prepared kit. Instead, I have chosen some of the Bear Creek soups that cost about $3 for 5 servings, some Equate brand drink mix that tastes like Tang and contains 100% of daily Vitamin C requirements and other similar items. I could not believe the price of the buckets. I buy food quality buckets, mylar bags with oxygen absorbers, and create my own. I use a large plastic tub with a lid for all of my first aid items. I purchased quite a few of them at The Dollar Tree. I am ordering scapels and sutures from online stores. I keep a spare laptop in a homemade Faraday cage (galvanized garbage can lined with cardboard). Many people don’t prep because they think they don’t have the money. Every time I go to a certain store, I pick up 2 cans of Swanson chicken a’la’king, another store; 2 cans of sweet potatoes and 2 cans of greens of some type. Now we have supplies for emergencies and can shop at our own stores. My point is, take a day and compare what you have spent with what you can buy locally. Walmart sells Augason Farms milk, although I have heard that Provident brand tasted closer to real milk. I think anyone can do some preparations, even if they don’t have $200 to spend at one time.
I tried the same route of getting cheaper products and making my own kits. Problem was, the expiration date on many things was only good for 2 yrs. I stored my items in plastic tubs and was recently moving them to another location when I decided to check on them. Many packages were expired and when I opened a few to check and see if they were still good, they weren’t. Many of the spices and seasonings had gone bad and I ended up tossing a lot of my items. There were a few that had recently expired and were still edible so I used them up right away. Bottom line….I have been purchasing small quantities of “long term” food items instead of wasting my money on cheaper products that don’t last long. Believe me, I did try to salvage some of the items but even the dogs wouldn’t eat the stuff….lesson learned!