What 'meals' are you putting in your 3-day emergency kit?

[CheeryOnion]

Please be gentle, my mental health is delicate and I'm trying not to panic about preparing a suitable emergency kit for my family of 4.

I just wondered what meals you are putting in your kits please? It's me, my partner and our 2 DC (8).

I'd like to write a 3 day 'meal plan' which I can laminate and pop in my box so I'm fully prepared (for MH reasons I think this will make me feel a lot calmer)

Breakfast lunch and dinner with snacks.

Drinks
Water
Hot chocolate (we're not tea/coffee drinkers)
Long life milk.
Squash

Breakfast
Weetabix
Porridge oats
Tinned fruit
Long life milk

Lunch
Dry spaghetti & Tinned Bolognese
Baked beans & ?
?

Dinner
Rice & Tinned curry
?
?

I'm so sorry if this is a silly question I'd just really appreciate some help so I can do a shop, prepare it and 'forget' about it! I'm finding it very stressful.

Thank you :)

That’s what I was thinking! 😁

How do you intend to cook the meat that is currently in your freezer?

I’ve got corned beef, tinned potatoes to make hash, with baked beans or tinned peas.
I have a lot of tinned fish and pasta.

I've not got any emergency pack. We'd manage for 3/4 days ... we d got a BbQ so we would be able to cook things out of the freezer and we've a small portable gas hotplate.

If the power goes off then what ever is in the freezer. That should last three days and still be edible,

Bbq or portable gas ring

If you're stacking-up with baked beans don't forget the air freshener. 😂

Camping stove.

I think tinned fish is a good one to have in the box, tuna or mackerel that can be mixed with mayo to fill sandwiches. Maybe in a pitta bread with salad (obviously the salad is not part of the prep).

Baked beans that you can put on toast if you can cook but can also be eaten cold.

Tinned meat, I have ham, I am not a fan of spam but others are, again can be eaten straight from the tin or fried, again if you have a cooking method.

They are expensive but you can get self heating meals / tins.

https://www.hotpackmeals.co.uk/mre-wet-meals/self-heating-boxed-meals?srsltid=AYCX9vJCrmaJKC2HFSHmbkXou0q1kWzd0DG0KZ9AGZNzCTil3R-PQ3VF

It might be worth looking at MREs, in case you don't know they are a ration given to the armed forces, they have a meal, tea and coffee, sweets biscuits and a few other bits and pieces.

Not necessarily to buy them but for an idea of what the army think you need for 24 hours.

I don't think anyone should be creating a box or kit, just keep your cupboards well stocked and rotate things. The likelihood is none of this stuff will be needed and will go to waste if you buy different things to usual and store it sperately.

Personally, anything that is a ‘complete’ meal in a tin. M&S curry, Stagg chilli, some of those Heinz Big Soups. Anything that is one pan and some heat applied. I don’t buy separate elements of a meal, because I have a one ring gas cooker. These are also things I will eat outside of an emergency so happy to rotate and replenish.

While I do agree that powdered milk makes more sense from a storage point of view, I don’t want to factor clean drinking water to make up milk into the water storing requirements.

Also, being prepared means being prepared all the time. I find it hard to imagine having zero warning and no internet. We had a power outage and no phone reception over the weekend and it really hits home how ill prepared you are. Phones half charged, battery packs half charged, petrol light was on. It completely opened my eyes.

Just to say i also have a torch and a phone power bank which I charge regularly. I keep both in an easy access drawer. Those are important too, not just food and water.

I think we’d have to live on dry cereal, crisps, crackers, biscuits and chocolate. ASD household that wouldn’t eat cold beans and we are all vegetarian.
I’ve not bought anything yet but will start today.

I hadn't even thought about tinned fish but I'm definitely adding that to our list.

We have had some self heating ramen and hot pot meals. They are nice but like you said, expensive. Maybe cheaper than buying a camping stove and gas. We bought ours in an Asian supermarket.

we are a house of Autistic/ADHD people, all have eating issues around sensory stuff, one has ARFID and a VERY restricted diet. So

Pasta & Sauce
Cup a Soups & Instant Noodles
We've bought some tinned meat & veg, instant mash.
We also have loads of long life eat to grab food like crisps, cereal bars...etc. We've got loads of bottled water stashed, cereals we're happy to much on dry, but do have some long life milk for emergencies.

We had to survive 2 weeks without a functioning kitchen and used a gas stove a couple of years ago so we have some idea of what we can manage to feed people.

We're vegetarian and I bought several packs of vegetable chilli and bbq beans etc in Lidls, together with packs of precooked quinoa and rice, tinned soups, savoury crackers, and tinned fruit.

Freeze a loaf of bread fresh once defrosted it will last a few days.
Powdered milk, a camping stove if you want hot meals, ditto pasta, rice and couscous.
Wind up radio or battery powered radio with a charger, battery pack, more bottled water than you need for drinking to wash and sanitise.
Alcohol gel, baby wipes, a few tins of food enough for 3 days each plus a bit extra in case you don't have the ability to do any cooking.
Basic first aid, dry shampoo.
That's pretty much it.

I’m going to get baby wipes to keep clean rather than use bottled water to wash in.

The here are multiple threads on this. There’s also a prepper’s board op x

I think I'll be ok without a fridge as the weather will be cold enough for things not to go off if I pit them on a box in the porch

None. We have enough food for 3 days. I don’t need special kit. I will buy more meths for our trangia though and we may buy a battery charger / portable mini generator when things calm down. I may get a pack of UHT milk too

How do you know what time of year this crisis will happen?

I think you're right, food will be fine for a few days, we can leave it in the fridge/freezer even if it's not working, but we don't know it don't be during a heatwave.

The thought of there being some sort of emergency situation where everything is turned on its head and no one knows what to do, but in the midst of the chaos, one lady is donning an apron and checking her laminated meal plan, so she can ensure everyone has the correct food items at the different times of day is making me smile! 🙂

Ryvita with peanut butter.

Ryvita with jam for pudding, then cheese & biscuits

Hope this link works for a very cheap, no cook/ no fridge meal plan for a week. thriftylesley.com/no-power-meal-plan/