Many people realize that they need to have an emergency food supply stockpiled in case of an emergency.
However, few consider how to prepare their emergency food supply when the power is out and conventional stoves won’t work.
To ensure that you can actually cook your survival food, you’ll need to have an emergency stove too.
There are multiple options, but it’s important that you understand the pros and cons of each as well as safety concerns.
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During emergencies, there is almost always an uptick in injuries and deaths.
Many of these have nothing to do with the actual emergency but are caused because of unsafe cooking methods.
The biggest safety issues are fires, carbon monoxide poisoning, and gas leak explosions.
Almost all emergency stoves rely on flames to cook the food.
Whenever you have an open flame, there is an increased risk of house fire.
The risk only gets bigger when people try to cook in the dark.
To reduce the risk of fire when cooking:
Carbon monoxide (CO) is a deadly gas released whenever you burn carbon-containing materials.
This includes burning propane, kerosene, and wood. If you use an emergency stove in a closed area without ventilation, the CO gas can build up and slowly kill you. It is a very serious risk.
To prevent CO poisoning:
After certain types of disasters (such as earthquakes), gas lines can break and cause gas to leak into your home.
If this happens, it only takes a single spark to set off an explosion.
While this is rare, it is a serious safety issue you should know about before cooking with flames after a disaster.
Never use any flames (even candles) if you suspect a gas leak.
As part of your prepping, contact your gas company and ask what their post-disaster recommendations are.
You’ll also need to make sure your emergency kit includes a gas shutoff wrench.
It isn’t always safe to cook after a disaster, so you should make sure you have some no-cook emergency food stockpiled.
Some good options include canned foods, dry cereal, granola bars, and non-perishable snack foods.
Freeze-dried fruits and vegetables can also be eaten raw.
Most emergency meals must be cooked before you eat them. However, some types of emergency meals can be prepared using the “cold soak” method.
This method simply involves pouring potable water over the meal and letting it sit until the meal softens.
You then eat the meal cold. It won’t be as satisfying as eating it warm, but at least you will have a substantial meal to eat.
Most emergency meals that contain beans, potatoes, or oats as their base can be cold-soaked.
For example, all of Valley Food Storage oatmeal and cereal breakfasts can be made with cold-soaking.
Unfortunately, meals which contain pasta or rice cannot be cold-soaked. Pasta must be cooked to break down the proteins.
Rice remains hard and difficult to digest even after hours of soaking.
To make sure you can cook your emergency food, you’ll need to have an emergency stove. There are 5 main options.
Canister stoves usually work on propane or butane.
They are usually small but you can connect some stoves to large canisters of propane.
Overall, these are considered one of the best options for disaster preparedness.
It is usually very easy to find kerosene and it is often cheaper than other types of fuel.
Because of this, kerosene is popular in many places for heating and cooking.
Kerosene doesn’t burn as cleanly as other fuels though so it’s important that you choose a device which is rated for indoor use.
Some of the best kerosene heaters for indoor use are designed so you can cook on top of them.
This takes care of your winter heating and cooking needs with one piece of gear.
However, you’ll also want a separate stove for cooking in hot weather.
Alcohol stoves burn denatured alcohol or ethanol alcohol to produce a flame.
You can also use methanol alcohol (such as HEET) or isopropyl alcohol, though these don’t produce as hot or clean of a flame.
These types of stoves are very popular with backpackers but are also suitable for cooking emergency food.
Wood stoves are very popular with disaster preppers.
Some even choose to have a large wood stove installed in their home which can be used for heating during a winter power outage.
There are also lots of small portable wood stoves, including ones you can make yourself.
These stoves use solid tablets (such as Esbit) or jelly (such as with Sterno). You light the solid fuel on fire and use it to cook.
Make sure you have enough fuel on hand to cook all of your emergency food. It’s generally recommended that you get at least two different types of stoves.
If you run out of fuel for one, then you can switch to the other stove.
Now that you know how to cook your emergency food when the power is out, it's time to stock up on emergency food and the best place to do that is here at Valley Food Storage.
We have the best selection of clean emergency food on the market. Our food has none of the garbage that other storage food companies use to extend the life of the food. No GMOs, No Fillers, No Bullshit.
The best bang for your buck is the 175 Serving Long Term Emergency Food kit. This kit comes packed with 175 servings of clean healthy survival food with selections from our breakfast, lunch/dinner collections as well as our freeze dried meats and freeze dried fruits and freeze dried vegetables collection.
This is the best way to start your prepping journey or level up your current food storage.
| Author Bio: Diane Vukovic is one of those highly organized planners who assesses everything in advance. She puts her organizational skills to use at Primal Survivor where she gives level-headed advice about how to get prepared for disasters. |