72 Hour Kits

FINALLY....well almost:)

We finally had a evening to change out our 72 hour kits. I bought the food 3 weeks ago and was going to do it myself but wanted to involve everyone in the fun but other stuff(like watching movies;)) kept getting in the way. But I got so tired of looking at the food and having the bags in my room that I took advantage of our lazy Saturday evening to assemble the kits.

I decided to do ours a little different than the ones that are put together in a orange juice carton for a couple reasons-give us more food and more food choices. So I made up a menu that consisted of food my family would want to eat on a regular basis because in a time of stress trying out new foods will not be fun! Although vienna sausages are on our menu --I think i might change that next time....I could eat those in an emergency....but if there was something else....

Our menu consisted of these items:

breakfast-poptarts, granola bars and fruit

lunches-canned soups, chilis or stews, ravoli, etc....anything in a can that is fully cooked and preferrably with a pop-top, fruit cups

dinners-tuna, soups, beef jerkey, gummies

cheese/peanut butter crackers were also added to the lunches and dinners. Also a little bag of candy was added each day.

I started this system in April with the idea of rotating the food every 6 months (around conference time) and I learned some things when I tried all the food......

*Do not divide up the beef jerkey into individual portions. It gets very hard and uneatable(couldn't think of the other word;)) I just kept it in the bag it came in and wrote on the outside what meals/days we were to eat it.

*Peanuts also do not need to be put into individual plastic bags because they get soft and taste like plastic! yuck!

*The crackers started to taste stale but in an emergency they would be OK. If you are rotating this stuff every 6 months then it should be alright.

We have a lot more food than we need since most soup cans have 2 servings in each one but I know if we are in an emergency we can share with others so that is alright. I packed one change of clothes for each of us along with some toiletries. Our first aid kit is kept in the hall linen closet and I hope I have the frame of mind to grab that also....that is the idea anyway. Maybe I should add some basic first aid stuff to it in case I dont' think of that. Oh....and I need to get some water to store in the closet with the kits and then we should be good. So until next April!

Now I need to work on my 3 month supply of food and make sure my flashlights have batteries!