Menu:
Food
It is a smart idea to prepare yourself and your family at the time of emergency that can save lives. To save food for emergency times and how to handle safe food practices is a significant part of preparing oneself to deal with the disasters. It can not only save life but also prevent the food borne illness in the event of natural disasters, accidents or terrorist attacks.
Preparing for Food Emergency
Get to know the risks of natural occurrence in your area that could become emergencies, such as winter storms and other winter hazards, tornadoes, earthquakes or landslides, power outages, floods and large-scale accidents such as chemical spills. Unfortunately, no country is immune to terrorism. Be aware of the dangers that could be presented by an intentional act and listen to the guidance from official authorities.
Food Safety Tips During Emergencies
- Be very sure to have a careful inspection of all the food items
- Do not eat the food that you consider to be unsafe. If you are in doubt, you should always make it a point to throw it out.
- Check the food kept in your refrigerators or freezers. See if there is any sign of spoilage. You can ask the retailers and restaurant people to tell you how they have kept the food safe at the time of power failures.
- Be aware of all bacteria and dangerous contaminations that may be fatal.
- If the flood water has intruded inside and has contaminated the fresh meat and even packaged food, throw it off. Do the same in case of food contamination with snow, animal waste, chemicals, soil, dirt and other foreign materials coming from the outside environment.
- Even when you see the food as dry, it is indeed not safe to use.
- Always be cautious of the home canned foods kept in the glass containers, if contaminated with dangerous materials.
- The food that is air tight sealed in containers can be considered safe. They can be the containers such as juice boxes, metal cans and the packages of frozen dry meals.
- Before storing food, you should always clean and disinfect containers. The containers that are bulbous or damaged should be considered unsafe. You must throw them off.
- You can clean the containers by washing them in the strong detergent solution. Always make all food preparing equipments, dishes, surfaces and the utensils sanitize. Then you can immerse them in the solution made by mild bleach and water for about two minutes. To make the solution, you can take 5 ml or 1 tsp bleach in each 750 ml or 3 cups of water. After this you can make them air dry to avoid possible contamination as you open the containers.
- Keep your food in refrigerator as it can keep perishable foods chilled temporarily.