The Challenge: Being Prepared

If there were a natural disaster how long would you be able to go without getting to the store? Since I have not been going to the grocery store for over a month now I have been getting a lot of comments pertaining to this. Carl Skalak from Blue Pike Farm sited a book he has which said that in the average town there is a 3 day supply of food in the stores. Mari Keating from Food Not Lawns mentioned at dinner last night that she heard it was even less than 3 days. We’ve all seen the pictures of stores when hurricanes or big snow storms are predicted. The lines are long and the shelves are bare in no time at all.

Living off stored foods has been an eye opening experience for me. I don’t take anything for granted. I am careful not to waste a thing. Also makes me happy that I canned, dehydrated and froze as much stuff as I did.  Opens the conversation to more questions. How much water do you have? What if there were a boil alert or the water stopped running? What if the power went out?

I am not trying to be an alarmist. I am actually a pretty sunny person, but I do think we all need to think more about the “what ifs?”. Maybe the Boy Scout motto to “Be Prepared” is a lesson for us all.

So I’d like to hear from you. Do you think about what you would do if there was no food available at the store? How long could you and your family go before resources run out? Is it something you even think about?