Arrival and First Meal

Yesterday sitting in front of my door was a large box which could only contain one thing, my impending doom. After taking the bucket out of the box, I popped off the lid and rifled through the contents. Apparently, the meals come in foil packages of approximately five servings each. I still had some leftover food, so I put off eating any of the meals until today.


For my first meal, I decided to go with cacciatore. Basically, I boiled the contents of a foil pouch for 25 minutes and then let it set. Any idiot could do it.



I ended up mixing the food in with some white rice and the meal turned out to be rather bland overall. It wasn't terrible, just not too exciting. The thought of eating this meal on a regular basis gave me pause, but luckily, there are several other meals I can turn to.




Doesn't that picture make you want to go out and try this experiment yourself?

Swine Flu

So according to the CDC, the new Swine Flu isn't likely to be contained. If this turns out to be a pandemic, then maybe my emergency rations will get field tested for real. To be honest, I was hoping I'd get to use it for zombies rather than swine flu. I suppose one can't be too picky with the end of the world scenarios that G-d gives us.

Shipped From Salt Lake City

So my bucket of food has officially shipped from St. Lake City Utah. Apparently the warehouse and company who make the emergency food rations are based out there. This doesn't really surprise me. I know that the Latter Day Saint Church is big into encouraging its members to store an emergency supply of food. In fact, there are discussion groups all over the internet. I know they catch more flak than you average Christian denomination for not being mainstream enough, but they are a pretty practical people.

Thus begins the waiting game. This idea may be a lot more fun in theory, but we'll see how the practice turns out.

The Sodium!

Oh, God. I've just taken a look at the sodium content and it's pretty high. I MUST EAT OTHER FRUITS AND VEGETABLES IF I WANT TO LIVE. Of course, after a steady diet of emergency rations, living will be a mighty big if. The sodium content to caloric content averages about 100 calories to 600 mg of sodium. It's actually pretty comparable to a lot of food out there but the calorie level is really low. A serving of Mac and Cheese has about the same amount of sodium but thrice the calories. Hmm, I'm going to try to avoid getting kidney stones doing this.

The Plan

I'm a curious person, always have been. As a child, I explored both the world within and outside myself. My imagination was always burning and luckily I had parents who encouraged it. Now that I've grown up somewhat, I still have a fairly active imagination, but my curiosity can be funded by an adult salary. Sometimes these amusements come in the form of life experiments. I've gone vegetarian, tried to live on a 25 dollar food budget for a month, went a whole week without sarcasm, biked everywhere for half a summer, and from time to time, I'll pull up google maps satellite view and head to an interesting patch of land.

The most recent idea I've been playing around with is once again food. The survival industry has always done quite well, especially during times of uncertainty. Most survival gear and food gather dust in bomb shelters and basements. But, after seeing a particular product, I wondered what it would be like to actually try and eat a steady diet of emergency rations. Once I get hold of an idea, I have a hard time letting go. I want to see it through to its inception, thought not necessarily its conclusion. Knowing that I might not complete my goal, I ordered the product from Costco. The emergency rations contain 275 meals that can be kept for 20 years in a bucket.

The whole thing cost 83 dollars which amounts to about 30 cents a meal. Now, I'll of course be supplementing my diet with other food. The meals don't seem to have much protein and I'm not keen on getting scurvy either. I might want to go on a multivitamin as well.

As of right now, the bucket will be here in the next 5 days. My goal is to eat the entire contents of the bucket in four months or less. I may call upon help or flat out give up if it becomes unbearably awful. I understand that's not very stoic, but I like to be practical and honest. I'm not doing this for any particular reason. I don't want to raise awareness of anything. I personally find the survivalist attitude somewhat amusing, but thanks to either their foresight (or paranoia) I have a product and a life experiment to run.

Here's a list of what I'll be eating:

# All Meals 100% Vegetarian and Vitamin Fortified
# Sealed in convenient Weather-Proof bucket for easy transport
# 25 Servings - Potato Soup
# 30 Servings - Corn Chowder
# 25 Servings - Cacciatore
# 25 Servings - Western Stew
# 30 Servings - Country Noodle
# 25 Servings - Rice Lentil
# 45 Servings - Whey Milk
# 40 Servings - Blueberry Pancake
# 30 Servings - Barley Vegetable
# Total Weight: 23 lbs.

MmMmmmm, Mm. Just like Mom used to make.