Freeze-dried meals

What you are buying

Freeze-dried meals and ingredients — from chilli mac to fruit — keep for years when the pouch is intact and stored cool. They shine when water is available but weight and fuel are tight: a bug-out bag, a car kit, a cupboard for the first three days. They are a poor bargain if you never practise cooking them.

Read the water line on the packet before you trust the marketing. Some “two servings” are two polite servings. Log calories from the whole pouch, and set best-before rather than use-by unless the pack says otherwise.

Water and taste

A box of pouches without water is ballast. Store the water beside them or know which tap and filter you will use. Salt and fat make them edible on day three; a single chilli sauce packet in the same box is not silly.

Eat one pouch on an ordinary weekend. Time it. See if the children will finish it. If not, buy a different recipe while the shops are ordinary. The Replace list should show those pouches months before they are sad, not after.

Buckets and everyday food

A large breakfast or dinner bucket is convenient and heavy. Put it where you can reach it without a ladder, and know how many days it really is at your household’s appetite, not the label’s. Keep ordinary rice and tins as well. If the bucket is the only plan, one spilt liner ends the plan.