Cooking

If you find yourself in the midst of an emergency that requires you to stay put and take care of yourself for several days or more, you will find it much easier to cope if you have a way to at least warm up food. If you are unable to cook anything, you have to make sure all of your emergency food supplies can be eaten as is, or just with a little water mixed in. If you store dry goods, dehydrated foods, or packaged items that need to be cooked then you may find yourself unable to eat because you don't have a way to cook anything.

Some disasters take much longer to recover from than just a few days. In March 2011, over one million people in Japan were still without running water a full week after the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami devastated large areas of the country, and almost 300,000 had no electricity. In the United States, most people use electricity to cook their food. If you do not have enough ready-to-eat food to last one to two weeks or more, you may find yourself and your family waiting in line for hours at an emergency soup kitchen.

Storing a method for emergency cooking is a smart move. The method you choose is up to you and will vary a bit based on where you live. Some people have a fireplace or wood stove and access to enough firewood that they can use to cook meals. Other people have natural gas or propane cook stoves and ovens already in their home, and still others have a barbecue grill in the back yard. All of these are viable emergency cooking alternatives, as long as you have the supplies for them on hand.

Keep an extra supply of firewood, charcoal or propane on hand at all times so you'll have them if an emergency ever arises. If you use the fuel throughout the year, simply replace it as you go so there's always extra.

If you do not already have an alternative cooking source, consider purchasing a small propane camping stove, a propane barbecue grill or a cheap charcoal grill. You cannot safely cook on a charcoal grill indoors because the carbon dioxide will kill you, but you can put the grill outside on a patio, balcony or porch.