Lessons Through Power Outages: Lesson #4 - Food

  When the ice storm hit - I discovered my nice oven cooked meals I had planned for us did absolutely no good.  My range was electric. I frantically went through the house trying to find anything the kids could eat, or I could hopefully make somehow.   I found:


Bread
Half a jar of peanut butter
Milk in the fridge
Cheese
Bologna
Cereal
Crackers
Granola bars

I decided to save those for the last resort.  I went through the freezer for anything that could be eaten after defrosting.  I hated opening it, but I had to see what we had (It didn't occur to me that the wintery basement would keep things frozen for much of the outage.).  I found:

ice cream
Popsicles
More bread

I took another loaf of bread out to defrost.

Opening the fridge, I pulled out what was left of a jar of applesauce, pickles, cheese, a few apples and grapes, carrots, lettuce, a container of juice and half a tomato.

We ate bologna and cheese sandwiches with grapes for dinner.  I let them eat ice cream for dessert.  Big mistake.  We didn't have back-up heat for the main living areas.  The ice cream made them feel even colder. I had them put on sweats over sweats, double socks, t-shirts under sweat shirts, gloves/mittens and put them all into the living room to sleep with their bedding hoping their body heat would help warm them.

As I fed them the cereal for breakfast, I realized all my children looked like Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer.  Since it was daylight, I knew the house would become a little warmer.  Their dad realized that we could put the cold food into a cooler and place it outside to save what was in the fridge.  We also realized that we could not have coffee, and it was too dangerous to go get some.  We were literally housebound.

Peanut butter sandwiches with carrots for lunch.   By now, the youngest (7) was objecting to sandwiches again.

Granola bars and crackers for a snack.

24 hours without power: Dinner was - you guessed it - sandwiches with apples.   By now, I was starting our 15 passenger van and letting the kids sit in it to warm up while dealing with my caffeine withdrawal headache at the same time.

Rinse and repeat the next day.

By the 72 hour mark even I was objecting. We called around to local hotels to find a room, but there wasn't a single room available.  I was grateful we had food, but I seriously did not want to see another loaf of bread, and I felt like I'd never be warm again.  By then the roads were sort of clear, but our road was still very icy in spots.   My youngest was so miserable he was about in tears all the time.  I couldn't stop shivering.   The kids were begging for anything besides sandwiches and to be warm.   To be honest, so was I.

It absolutely kills to hear your children are hungry (we had to ration the sandwich supplies) and are begging to be warm again.  We couldn't keep putting them into the van, because we didn't have much gas. We decided to carefully brave the roads and go find a warm place where we could get a hot meal.  I had never heard of food fatigue before, but we were all reaching that point.  We found a place to get a bit of gas, so we could actually find food.

We went to several local restaurants. Some we couldn't even get into the parking lot.   Those we managed to enter had a 1-2 hour waiting period.  No one wanted to leave the warmth. We had 6 whiny and hungry kids, but at least they were warm from sitting in the now gassed up van.  When we realized every place had long lines, we asked the kids where they wanted to eat the most (they would be willing to wait), then we went there and waited (McDonalds).  At least the happy meal toys gave them a diversion after we got back home.

We later discovered the gas station closest to our house has a small cafe in the back, was open and had absolutely no waiting that night.  We knew they had an ice cream shop and that was it. We always used our debit card and rarely went inside.  There was no indication that they also had fried chicken, subs, fries, etc. We are now keeping that in mind just in case.

By the time we left, darkness had fallen, the temps had dropped and our road was completely ice.  Have you ever tried to get a 15 passenger rear wheel drive up a hill of ice?  We had to go around a back way which was still ice, even with the road sand the town had put down, but it was a more gradual climb because it was a longer route.  It was seriously hair-raising at times.  At several points we almost went off the road.  I told myself that if any of my children were injured, because we couldn't deal with sandwiches again, I'd never forgive myself.

Eventually, we made it home and fumbled around in the dark for our emergency lights.  The kids huddled up in the living room for a bit, then one-by-one they all fell asleep.  Honestly, I kept checking on them to make sure they weren't suffering from hypothermia.

I thanked God repeatedly when the power came back on in the middle of the night.  If any electrical workers had been around, I'd have hugged them to death.  After everyone had baths/showers, laundry and dishes were caught up and life began to return to normal, I sat down to think and what did I do first?  I overreacted.  

I didn't think things through and bought items for long term (vs short term) storage.  Instead of planning out meals, I began buying canned goods like crazy. I had never heard of "preppers".  I went by what I had experienced and knew I NEVER wanted to experience it again.  This caused some type of survival thing to kick in and I just bought without any thought.

The next power outage only lasted a day, but I realized that my storage was a total mishmash of things that didn't make sense.  I had no idea what to do with some of it.  I had 10 cans of green beans.  Only one person likes green beans.  The cans were too big.  I'd have to throw the leftovers away.  I had heard you should stock flour, so I had 10 5lb bags of it, but no idea what to make. That is a waste of food, time and money. I had to stop myself and begin thinking more logically.

I bought a new camping percolator for the stove top along with an extra glass knob.  The reviews said the plastic one would break.  I've had it for a month, and it hasn't broken yet.   I learned how to use it to make coffee for us should the power go bye-bye.  I discovered I like it much better than our electric drip, so I make coffee with it daily.  I plan on buying a back up eventually.

At first, I had to plan meals that could be eaten without cooking.  I decided to go ahead and use the camp stove in the basement by a cracked window, if I had to just to warm canned food.  Once I bought my new stove, I stopped doing that.

My first goal was to have 3 days worth of "emergency food" that didn't require cooking or could be cooked on top of the stove.  My kids are older now.  They loved the instant Ramen, so I kept a case on hand at all times.   I had stocked up on canned soups, veggies, ravioli, hot dogs (kept in the freezer), cereal, etc.  I had a 3 day menu involving all of it.  I decided I felt safer with a weeks worth, so I stored more food.

Then food sensitivities/allergies hit.  I had been randomly sick for years and no one could figure out why.  I was MSG sensitive.  There is no way to diagnose that except through trial and error with all the different versions of MSG there is.  My daughter turned up allergic to soy.  One of my grandsons is allergic to nuts and eggs.  That required a whole new game plan.  The soups went to the kids' dad for his lunches.  My eldest daughter received the rest of the canned goods and the hot dog version we had stocked.  I had to redo my entire meal plan.  Everything had to be made from scratch or be organic canned goods though we still needed to read labels.

An example: Our local grocery store was out of organic grapes.  I took a chance and bought the "normal" ones.  The next day I ate a handful.  Within an hour, a reaction started.  Turns out the commercial spray used on grapes can contain MSG.  We also discovered that apples can have a soy coating that can't be washed off.  It has to be peeled or scratched off.  We have to be careful what we eat.

Now, if we get a storm warning, I make bread, muffins, brownies or whatever we want/need ahead of time.  I have all the ingredients to make chili, spaghetti, soups, etc. from scratch.  I know I have food, heat, water and a place to cook.  I can't even begin to express how comforting that is.  With the current economy, I am upping my stores to a year or two.  If anyone gets laid off, that will be a nice cushion for us.

Last winter we lost power for two days.  We've gotten so used it now, that it was just another day except maybe a touch colder.  All because we learned through each power outage what we needed, what worked, what didn't and what needed fine tuning.

Lesson #1 - Water
Lesson #2 - Cooking
Lesson #3 - Heat