How to manage 3 days of food for your emergency stockpile
三日分しかないけど
I have 4 family members….so 4 x 3 days??
It means three meals a day x 3 days??
My son eats a lot! Can he be patient with small meals??
I don’t usually eat 3 times meal a day. So do I really need 3 days of food?
Each family has their own lifestyle and their own problems. It’s difficult to cover all of these complexities. It would be nice if the government would help us in an emergency situation, but we can’t rely on them to save us. We need to do as much as we can, by ourselves.
3 meals/day x 3 days = 9 meals/person
If you have 3 days of food per person, in a real emergency, you will have some flexibility. If you really need to, you can stretch the food out to last longer than just 3 days.
You don’t need to eat 3 meals a day, and you don’t need to eat all 9 meals in 3 days.
三日分を三日で食べ切る必要はない。一日３食という固定観念を捨てよう。
How long could we survive if we ate a handful of nuts each day? (I don’t know the answer to that question, but it’s worth thinking about.)
This chart (below) gets pretty extreme, but it should give you an idea of the possibilities. If we redefine what constitutes an actual meal, or if we change how often we eat, we can come up with lots of different ways to consume our 9 meals per person.
Different Food Allocation Strategies
| Frequency | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Total Number of Days |
| 3 meals/day | Breakfast + Lunch + Dinner | Breakfast + Lunch + Dinner | Breakfast + Lunch + Dinner | 3 days |
| 2 meals/day | Breakfast + Dinner | Breakfast + Dinner | Breakfast + Dinner | 4.5 days |
| every 3 days | no food | no food | 3 meals | 9 days |
| 1 meal/day | 1 meal | 1 meal | 1 meal | 9 days |
| 1 meal/2 days | 1 meal | no food | 1 meal | 18 days |
| 1 meal/week | 1 meal | no food | no food | 63 days |
| 1 meal/3 weeks | 1 meal | no food | no food | 189 days |
You might look at this chart and think “no way, that’s too extreme!” But we do we know for sure that somebody will rescue us (or that we’ll find more food) in 3 days, before all of our food is gone?
For example in Japan, we have had many big earthquakes and typhoons in the past. Even though Japan is technologically advanced and is a relatively small country, the disaster-stricken areas rarely got relief supplies within 3 days. Would other, larger countries, be able to do better in a disaster?
My husband remembers after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans (where he grew up), people on TV who had to evacuate were saying, “Where is the government? How come nobody is coming to help us?” It would be nice if someone came to our rescue right away, but we can’t count on it. We need to take responsibility and fend for ourselves.
Next post, I will talk more about water.
See you soon.
Remember, “Protect your life by yourself” （自分の命は自分で守る). You need to survive first, and then you need your emergency supply. No matter how well you prepared your emergency supplies, if you die, then all of your preparations will have been for nothing. First and foremost, keep your health up all the time. Build your stamina so that if you need to, you can evacuate as quickly as possible. Stay healthy.