Week 4: Food!

Week 4: For each family member add: 1 can of soup, 3 small packages of crackers and eating utensils (knife, fork & spoon)


I finally get to add food items to my kit! It's not much, I admit, but it's a start. At least if I am caught in an emergency now I'll be able to ration the soup and crackers to survive for at least four hours. Progress!

I was surprised at how difficult it was to choose a can of soup to buy for the kit. I wanted to get something cheap, to keep overall costs down, and I had picked up a can of Campbell's Tomato soup, which was only $1.07. I started to walk away with the can in my hand when I realized that it was condensed soup; you need to add milk or water in order to actually make it into soup. I don't know if I can guarantee access to potable water and I don't find blobs of gelatinous tomato material to be very appealing as a food source so I put the can back and picked up this:

I bet it's delicious cold

It cost $2.07 but once you open the can it's ready to enjoy, as the label suggests. I chose the vegetable beef flavor because it seemed like it would be a good source of vitamins and protein. I almost bought the corn chowder but I thought anything chowdery is probably at the top of the list of soups I might regurgitate under strenuous conditions.

Corn chunder.

I wasn't too sure what I should do about the crackers. Grocery stores do not often sell them in small packages, and a larger package would take up too much space and/or mess up my calculations for total cost. I thought I might have to resort to some kind of voodoo or, even worse, math. Luckily, I was out with a buddy this week and I ordered soup which came with these:

Survival equipment.

Lastly, and so far the most practical item included in the kit, a set of eating utensils! The more observant reader will have noticed that while I have food and utensils I still lack a can-opener. I would say the more observant reader is a Negative Nancy. Seagulls pick up oysters and drop them from a height to crack them open and eat the contents and I am relatively certain that I am smarter than a seagull. I'm pretty sure I could figure something out.

The utensils I bought are designed for camping and have some features that make them ideal for our purposes. The features are written on the front of the packaging but I'll copy them underneath for easier viewing and comment:

Compact: Utensils nest together in metal slot for storage

This seems like a good feature. Not only does it save space but it keeps them from becoming separated.

Dishwaser Safe
Not relevant.

Storage Bag Included: Reusable bag conveniently attaches to belt for hands free carrying.
You read that correctly. These utensils come with a cheap plastic bag to attach to your belt! And it's reusable, whatever that means! I like to imagine it as a holster. Tactical cutlery!

Ok, he wins. Mine does not come with a hood ornament.

Despite the fact that I've only added three fairly ordinary items, the kit is finally starting to feel useful. The soup and cutlery cost me $6.71; the crackers were free, of course.

That gives us a total now of $15.64 or $62.56 for a family of four. I would weigh everything but the scale I just bought has stopped working, even with new batteries. I'll have to return it and update the weight later.

Preparedness is Everyone's Responsibility!