There is no doubt about it: when it comes to being ready for anything, food is an essential part of your preparedness plan. Depending on the plan you choose to follow, you might decide to have enough shelf-stable, long-lasting food ready for seventy-two hours or two weeks for each member of your family. The process of choosing the kinds of food that you want is something that is very personal, depending on your own personal tastes, your family’s unique needs, how much storage space you have, and other factors. But everyone who is storing food for the sake of emergency preparedness needs to consider how they are going to make the food that they have stored. Your stove and microwave are probably not going to be options in the case of a power outage, so you need to have a backup plan that is simple and straightforward. Pair your emergency food with survival cooking gear that will make it easy to prepare meals when you need them!
If you already have camping gear on hand, it’s likely that you have survival cooking gear. A gas or charcoal grill that you can use outside is going to be a great way to heat water to rehydrate your favorite freeze-dried or dehydrated meal quickly, or warm up your canned food. If you don’t have any camping supplies around, now is the perfect time to shop around for a grill that is going to meet your needs. You might decide on a simple tabletop gas stove, a simple charcoal grill, or even an electric burner if you have a generator. The most important thing to consider when shopping for your grill or stove is where you can cook with it safely. Often, gas and charcoal grills are not safe to use indoors because fumes can collect and become dangerous.
Once you know how you are going to heat your meals, and you know that you have the tools and fuel to use it, it’s important to test it out before an emergency situation. Try heating up one of your meals and see what equipment you may need that you are missing. Do you have grill accessories that can stand up to your grill’s temperature? Do you have pots and pans that can be used on the stovetop with being damaged? Do you know how to prepare your pre-packed ready-to-eat meals? You can be ready for anything with grills and tools that make emergency cooking simple.