Raw food for a disaster kit?

[barose]

After our last earthquake just about threw me out of bed, I realized I need to update our "disaster kit" for something more major. For food, I'm not sure what to do though.

I want to have enough to last us for at least 3 days if not more. In addition to nuts, I was thinking I could make a bunch of dried fruit, but I'm not sure what the shelf life is for certain fruits - if its something I would have to "renew" often. Also the problem with dried or dehydrated food is the need for more water. I was thinking of having some canned food because some cooked food is better than no raw food (and not enough liquid). At the same time I want to keep the food as nutritionally dense as possible.

Does anyone have any ideas of what raw foods to have on hand for a disaster situation?

[StarFire]

Oh man barose... I never even thought about that --- what a great thread! What about those seal a meal things-- won't that lenghten shelf life for say dried fruits or veggies or crackers --?? We have our share of earthquakes here in Hawaii - the last one busted up several bridges and we were stranded... This is very important - and we should be prepared.... geeze louise - it never crossed my mind since going raw. :eek:

[barose]

I was thinking about a food sealer---thats a good idea. It seems to be better than a zip-lock...:)

Yes, we should prepare ourselves! I hadn't really thought about it either since going raw until Friday.

[Halo Aglow]

Here's a couple of threads from awhile back:

http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/showthread.php?t=14716

http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/showthread.php?t=18146

There may be more.

Very good topic that people should definitely get into, glad this is being brought up again!

[Dimond]

Been compiling this over the past couple of yrs & have recently improved it.

First, if there is advanced warning, create some meals such as soups, puddings, smoothies, etc. to eat for the first couple days. Also make any dehydrated items if you have a dehydrator.

Protein Powder Shakes w/greens and/or hemp powder, coconut Oil+carob Powder or raw fruit powder
(Use shaker cup or cordless hand blender)
Quantum Raw Tomato Concentrate to make soup
Oats/Granola/Cereals
Nori Sheets-to make Walnut Taco Wraps
Apples w/Almond Butter
Bananas-green+yellow
Avocados-some ripe, some not
Dried fruit
Dates-make bars/balls
Nuts
Dulse+other sea veggies
Ready-made Bars, crackers+other snacks-if don't make own
Lots of water, ice & a cooler.

If not 100% raw, Wholefood Farmacy soups+snacks:
http://tinyurl.com/gcj39

[dreamrawalwz]

I know possibly not completely raw, but lara bars or make your own bars and freeze them? Jars of coconut oil. Not sure what else. You could always fast for a short while if needed I guess.

[SmilingRawDancer]

I'd make my own date-nut bars, much like larabars.
Then seal THOSE in the food sealer thingy : )
Other than that, if my life was threatened and I just needed to LIVE, I would eat canned food in a second. So throw some cans in your basement or whatever. Staying alive comes in 1st, IMO.

[GlimR]

Barose~
Great question~
I'm in florida and it is hurricane season. At the beginning of the season I pack assorted dried fruits...goji berries, raisins, cherries, blueberries, dates and cranberries, also asst. nuts, almond butter, raw granola and some raw granola bars that I've made and flax crackers. I just put them in ziplocs and suck the air out with a straw. They will stay fresh for several months at least. We had to evacuate twice and when we did I grabbed all the fruit in the house and took that with us and some gallon jugs of water.
In a true disaster situation I would eat what I needed to though.

[prana]

I would put a jar of the Healthforce Nutritional's Vitamineral Green in your kit. Alissa sells the exact same green food here under her own name if you would wish to purchase it from her. This green food is packed with nutrition and you could drink it down with your daily allotment of water.

[KatK]

How about seeds for sprouting? That way you could have fresh veggies anytime.

[Nurse in the Raw]

Most people don't think about their water supply either and we learned a lesson from Katrina....water, water, everywhere but not a drop to drink. So we bought canteens (one for each family member) that will filter sewer water if need be and have them in our disaster recover back packs. When you live in Florida, you learn to prepare in advance.

[juliebove]

Obviously, water is the thing you would need the most of in a situation like that. People have mentioned seeds for sprouting, but you need quite a lot of water to rinse those sprouts and you need to sprout them in a clean place. So if you're having an emergency situation, this might not be the best thing to do.

When we were living in NY, we had a power outage for about a week in the summer. It was hot and muggy and there was no way for us to cool off at all. We had tap water but it was warm.

I had just stocked up on food so we had fresh produce for the first two days. Beyond that, pretty much everything went bad except for a few apples. The temp. was around 100 and nothing would keep. I had a ton of blue ice in the freezer and I moved that down to the fridge so I managed to keep things fairly cool for 2 days.

One thing I noticed was that due to the extreme heat, we simply didn't want to eat at all. Drink? Yes. But eat? No. My daughter kept whining because she wanted something better to eat than what we had to offer her. She was young enough then that she didn't fully understand. So of the shelf stable foods we did have, very little of it got eaten. Mainly nuts and dried fruits. I wasn't on a raw diet then, although I did normally eat a lot of raw food. I did open a can of beans each day and we all ate a few bites of that so we had at least something in our system. But mainly we didn't want to eat at all.

So I'd make sure to have a ton of water and keep replacing it at regular intervals. I let mine go and it had expired. You'll also want stuff like batteries, baby wipes (so you aren't wasting your water to wash stuff), a few articles of clean clothing, (in case you have to pack up and move out) and a small amount of food like flax crackers, nuts and dried fruit.

[barose]

Thanks for the ideas everyone! We started on our kit today.

[belleadonna]

I think about this alot. What if this country were thrown into a disaster where fresh foods could not be had. Unless it is summer and you have your own garden, we are up a creek without the proverbial paddle.

I keep jugs of distilled water in the basement at all times. I rotate them every couple of weeks to keep them fresh. You can buy cases of it at Wal-Mart.

I also stock canned beans and bags of organic rice which I keep in the freezer. I stock some soups too. Dried fruit will keep for awhile but I wouldn't hoard nuts unless you can refrigerate them because they can get rancid.