Plans for an Emergency Food Bucket

In my Costco mailing this week..... Oh, alright, I can tell I'm going to have to explain why I am shopping at a big corporately-owned box store first. There is one reason: organic soy milk. Yes, I do own a soymilk maker. However, it is, quite frankly, a pain to use or rather a pain to clean. And I'm not crazy about the taste of the homemade soymilk. For the past year, I also simply haven't had the time to make soymilk from scratch, so I buy it.

When Silk quietly started sourcing their soybeans differently a couple of years ago, the only way to avoid GMO soy was to buy their organic version. In the regular grocery stores, it is priced at about $3.49 per half gallon. I did the math and joined Costco so I could buy their three-packs of it for $6.99. We've been using a fair amount of soymilk between my coffee and my sweetie's cold cereal. This may not always be the case, and certainly wouldn't be if things fell apart, but it has been for the past year.

So, back to the mailing. I was interested when I noticed Costco was offering a vegetarian emergency food bucket. They have a different one available in the stores that is not vegetarian but this one was, although available online only. It is on sale for $75 and contains 275 servings. Seemed like a good enough deal to check out. Sadly, there is a heavy emphasis on dairy in it, which makes it a poor option for us. (Dairy aggravates my sinusitis and plantar fasciitis, as well as causing digestive problems for my sweetie.)

My next thought was that we could put together a bucket like this on our own. We could use some of our dividend to get dehydrated meals at REI and also order the tasty dehydrated vegan soup blends from Harmony House. If we added some oatmeal packets, we'd have a pretty good emergency food bucket of our own, albeit for a higher price per serving than the sale above, but still convenient for tossing in the vehicle if we need to leave in a hurry.

The wheels of my brain were still slowly turning. When my mother-in-law was recuperating from her emergency hip replacement, I used some of the dried veggies from the backpacking kits we'd gotten before with our REI dividend to make her some instant soups. I included instant brown rice in some as well as seasonings. She said they were darn good and very easy for her to cook. It'd be great if I could do that since I still have some of those veggies left, along with some of their TVP "meat" products. But they wouldn't keep well at all in little ziploc baggies....

Doh! I have a vacuum sealer! Hey, this opens up lots of possibilities, cheap ones and tasty ones. I can custom-make exactly the kind of soups and meals that we would like. I can buy bulk instant oatmeal and mix it up with some sweetener and seasoning for easy breakfasts. I can even mix up some instant coffee mixes for me and toss in some tea packets for my sweetie. The only things I'll need to purchase are some instant brown rice, quick oats, and bags for the vacuum sealer.

Once I get this all packed up, I'll store it with the propane camp stove and a couple of propane bottles. For home use in an emergency, I'd use the rocket stove and solar oven.

Do you have any favorite recipes for "instant" food mixes you can recommend? Do you have a stash of super easy-to-prepare food ready for an emergency? Is it lightweight and portable enough to grab on your way out the door with less than 5 minutes notice? Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments!