I was reading a newsletter from Sun Oven that was to teach how to pack the food for a 72 hour kit. http://www.sunoven.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Aug2011EveryNeedfulThing.pdf They showed a great picture with all the food you'd need. It even had the three days worth of meals all planned out for you. It made packing for the small emergency really easy. The problem was when you analyze the food that they told you to gather, it's really one day of food at minimum. Not three. Day one: One granola bar and a package of instant hot chocolate. While the TV commercials may tell you that a granola bar is a great substitute for your morning meal, how long will that hold you over? An hour? No food until lunch. And for lunch? A cup of instant tomato soup, a piece of beef jerky, a fruit rollup and a peppermint candy. That's it. No food again until dinner. And for dinner? 1/2 a package of Top Ramen and another granola bar. That's all for the entire day. And it's repeated for the two other days of your three-day kit. Now they substitute the fruit rollup for a single serving can of fruit and one package of instant oatmeal for the breakfast granola bar.
While something is better than nothing it's easy to pack a 72 hour kit. It doesn't take a lot of money to do this. Make it count. Don't purposefully short yourself on your food. If nothing else figure out the calories that you are putting into the bucket. It should be at least 2000 calories per day, not 2000 for three days as Sun Oven is showing.
My get home bag has 3 mountain house 4 person meals and a meal heater. That's enough for 72 hours for me, anything less and it's seriously cramping my activity level. The shelf life is nice, only have to swap out the granola protein bars each year.
ReplyDelete2000 calories per day is probably 1/2 what the average person eats in normal low stress and activity periods. I couldn't image someone trying to stress function on 2000 calories over 3 days unless it was elite military training.