Friday, January 2, 2009

Common Food Storage Mistakes - Insufficient Water Storage

The average person needs to drink approximately a gallon of water each day. This is water for drinking purposes only. Many people also store a gallon of water to help fulfill their daily hygiene needs. It is important to remember that you will also need sufficient amounts of water to cook or prepare your food. Avoid this common food storage mistake by taking a few simple precautions.

Your predominant method of food storage will determine how much extra water you will need to store. If you are relying on canned food items as your main type of food storage, your additional water requirements will be much lower. If you are dependent upon dry bulk items, such as grains or beans, or dehydrated food items your need for additional water storage will be much greater.

The advantage of having canned foods in your food storage program is that most of them already have the water needed for cooking. This water content is one of the main differences between canned food items and dry bulk foods or dehydrated food items. Your water supply can be supplemented in a variety of ways.

The easiest way to supplement your water storage is by stocking different types of liquids to conserve your water supply for use in cooking. Canned sodas, bottled drinking water, bottled juices, and “other” types of canned or bottled beverages will help conserve drinking water for use in cooking. You can also store cans of soups and broths to supplement your dry food storage items. This will also give you a greater variety in your choice of liquids for cooking and something besides “plain” water for drinking. This will also help to retain some normalcy in your life during an emergency or crisis.

A little more difficult way is by simply storing an extra gallon of water per day for preparing meals. An extra gallon of water will allow you a sufficient amount to prepare several meals. This will require extra storage containers and space.

Properly storing adequate supplies of other beverages or additional water will help you avoid insufficient amounts of water for cooking during an emergency or crisis. It is also important to remember that during a crisis or emergency that sufficient water may not be available and that even if the water is on, many times it may not be suitable for drinking or cooking and will probably need to be filtered and purified before use. Keep a water filter and a means to purify your water on hand in your emergency supplies.

Staying above the water line!

Riverwalker

5 comments:

foodstr2 said...

First, canned foods from the grocery store will last FAR longer than their dates state, so that water source will work well, see http://www.internet-grocer.net/how-long.htm

Second, the best water filter made is the AquaRain Gravity Water Filter. You can find it at http://www.internet-grocer.net/aqua.htm (we've got a 30,000 gallon above-ground pool to use with it.)

Best regards and Happy New Year!

Anonymous said...

Here in Arizona,we have late summer/early fall storm's,called monsoon's.This fall we had one with over 100 MPH wind! I have gotten into the habit of taking gallon water bottle's,bleach bottle's,whatever,and filling them with water,toss in the freezer.If the power goe's off,you have ice..if it's off a long time,you have water!

riverwalker said...

To: anonymous

I've been through a couple of those Arizona monsoon's on trips. It was a 100 degrees and hailing. Prior to that it was raining mud. They ain't no picnic!

RW

Anonymous said...

I'd like to recommend the WaterBOB -- we got one but haven't tested it yet. We plan to test soon and I can come back with the results.

riverwalker said...

I've heard good things about the waterBOB. They are fairly expensive and may not be an option for some. E=mail your test results and we'll let people know about it.
Thanks.

RW

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