Why you need to have a SHTF/emergency food supply plan

By graywolf

 

 

 

Food is one of the most important considerations in a long-term survival situation. It’s also an important consideration for those in short-term emergencies who want to maintain some semblance of normalcy – especially those who have family.

If you’re just in the beginning stages of stocking and preparing for emergencies, make sure you figure out have water stored and a way to filter it such as a higher quality microfilter or survival desalinator, depending on your circumstances. That’s a higher priority than having food.

This post will break down why you need to store food for short- and/or long-term emergencies.
This was going to be a full post on not only why you need to have food available, but the different ways you can make sure you have food for long-term emergencies. Due to feedback I got on my facebook page (love you guys – you know who you are), I broke this HUGE post into several ones. This will allow me to go into more detail on each without you having to come back to read this over several days. Love the idea.

I’ll be following up this article with the subsequent sections I have listed at the end of this article. A few of you said that you’d rather read something all in one sitting, so as I finish each section, I’ll have the topics for the next chapters at the end. Once I write each article, I’ll come back and put the link into the list of topics so you can read them as they’re written instead of having to wait until they’re all done.

I’ll be giving as many direct examples in links as I can to take you to exactly what I’m talking about - or at least some good examples. I’ve gotten some great feedback emails from you guys saying that you like having a concrete example to look at so I’m taking more time to look them up with each post now.

I know that a lot of you that have been following my blog since I started it when I was deployed to Afghanistan are used to me downplaying a lot of the threats that are out there in the world because quite frankly, a lot of it is crap and just used to scare you into clicking the scary title to read the article. The characterization of those threats is out of proportion with the risk and probability of those threats.

Well, I don’t mean to concern you, but your food supply is one of those things that you should be concerned about on some level. Even if you don’t think there’s any chance that society could ever collapse, you should take steps for at least the firly likely events I’ll be talking about. I absolutely think it’s not likely but there are enough possibilities out there that I can’t ignore it.
I’m not saying that you need to build yourself a bunker and stash it with 10 years of food but you absolutely need to do some research on some of the things that could happen and take prudent measures for yourself. This series on food isn’t going to give you everything that you need to know to make that informed decision – but it should give you enough of an idea that you’ll now know some of the threats that you should understand for yourself.

The nice thing is that with some research and some proper planning, even some of the worst things that could happen won’t be all that bad. Also, the worst things that could happen aren’t nearly as likely as the lesser things. It doesn’t really take too much to make sure you’re not only prepared foodwise for those scenarios – you can go on like nothing’s wrong. The added bonus is that some of these solutions will allow you to eat healthier and more delicious food.

If you would like to take the blue pill…

and not know some of the real threats to your food supply, just buy yourself some of this to make sure you have something to cover you in case of a storm or through most disasters or to get an idea of what you like and how you might live with emergency food and wait until the next chapter is published.

But if you choose the red pill…

and want to know about some of these fairly likely as well as not-so-likely-yet-catastrophic events I’m alluding to, read on you beautiful hunk of prepper – read on …

So why are we even talking about emergency food for your home?

In most cases, you’re not going to bug out to a cabin in the woods if something happens. Your life isn’t likely to just go on like normal and then BLAM! – SHTF. You’re MUCH more likely to face something like a short term power outage, area-wide storm, or even temporary martial law due to riots or whatever. In most cases, you’ll be staying home – and rightly so. Bugging out in a disaster situation is one of the most dangerous things you can do.

There are absolutely some reasons that could cause you to have to leave your home: fire, flood, military incursion, alien invasion, whatever. Luckily, they are the exception, and not the rule. Not to say something like that can’t happen – and DEFINITELY I’m not saying you shouldn’t involve something like that in your planning – but you need to understand there are a lot of other things that could happen in the meantime.

As far as food’s concerned though, it doesn’t matter whether you bug out or bug in – you’re gonna need food eventually. It may be true that you can go for a few weeks without eating before you die of starvation, but if you don’t get some food coming in, you increase your likelihood of dying WAY before that from your brain making wrong decisions, grumpiness causing division amongst your group, and your bodies immune system not being able to function as well.

Plus, without calories coming in, it becomes increasingly difficult to do a lot of the important things that you would need to do to have water, shelter, protection, and travel. Get it out of your head that you can go a month without eating. In a real survival situation, you’re not likely to survive if you do.
Plus, I know a lot of you don’t research, learn, and practice things just to ensure that you don’t die if something bad happens. Most of us would like to actually float through bad things like they’re minor inconveniences. If the power goes out in town for several days and you have a generator – who cares? If the city’s water supply becomes temporarily undrinkable for the next couple of months but you have an effective way to filter and purify it – who cares? For those who are prepared, major problems can become minor adjustments to your daily life. For everyone else, they have to endure a lot more stress than they should.