When you build your emergency stockpile, it’s natural to focus on energy-dense foods that will help you survive.
However, in a prolonged crisis, you’ll need not only calories, but also vital nutrients like protein, healthy fats, vitamins, and minerals.
Let’s highlight seven reasons to stock up on well-balanced, nutritious emergency foods.
7 Critical Reasons Your Emergency Food Supply Must Go Beyond Calories
Our bodies are complex systems with intricate biochemical pathways.
To stay in optimal shape during a long-term emergency like war or global food shortage, you should build a well-rounded, nutrient-rich stockpile that supplies you with all the macro- and micronutrients you need to thrive.
Here’s why nutritional density should be your top consideration when you assemble an emergency food stash.
1. Maintain Energy Levels Over Time
In an emergency situation, you’ll likely need more energy than in your everyday life.
For example, you may rely heavily on manual labor when you’re surviving off grid, building an emergency shelter, or repairing your home after a natural disaster.
Utilizing calories takes a lot more than just burning fuel for energy.
To convert glucose to ATP, the universal energy-carrier molecule, our body uses B-complex vitamins, iron, magnesium, and other micronutrients.
A nutritionally poor diet will eventually deplete your stores of these essential nutrients and may disrupt energy metabolism.
High-Energy Foods To Stockpile
A sugar-loaded snack can temporarily power you up, but won’t sustain energy over time. Rather than rely on processed sugary foods, make sure your survival pantry includes:
- Whole grains like oats, quinoa, and buckwheat for complex carbs
- Peanut butter as a handy source of calories and healthy fats
- Calorie Bar ready to eat for a quick snack
2. Support Immune Function
Healthy, balanced food is also crucial to keep your immune system in shape.
In a crisis scenario, staying healthy is a top priority. The last thing you want is to get sick when doctors and pharmacies are out of reach.
Make sure your emergency stockpile provides plenty of vitamins and minerals.
Specifically, you need enough Vitamin C for immune defense, zinc for general immune function, and iron to prevent anemia during an infection.
Other micronutrients, like folate, Vitamin A, Vitamin B12, and selenium likewise support your immune response.
Micronutrient-Rich Foods for Your Stockpile
Getting enough micronutrients can be a challenge when you don’t have access to fresh foods. If a prolonged emergency disrupts food chains, you’ll be glad you stocked up on:
- Canned vegetables and fruit, preferably without too much added salt or sugar
- Freeze-dried fruit and vegetables that you can quickly rehydrate and use
- Vegetable powders for adding to smoothies, sauces, and soups
- Vitamin supplements to boost your micronutrient intake and prevent deficiencies
3. Prevent Fatigue and Weakness
A prolonged crisis may test your physical limitations. In a long-term emergency, you need to maintain a healthy muscle mass that supports hours of strenuous daily labor.
When your diet doesn’t include enough protein, healthy fats, and essential micronutrients, you’ll feel low on energy and may eventually suffer from muscle loss.
You need plenty of protein to rebuild your muscles and fat to support brain function and absorb fat-soluble vitamins. Fat is also a high-density calorie source for long-term energy.
Top Foods for Strength and Stamina
To keep up a healthy muscle mass and boost your endurance, stock your emergency pantry with:
- Preserved meats, including canned meat, freeze-dried meat, and pemmican
- Freeze-dried, powdered eggs for easily absorbable protein
- Nuts and seeds for healthy, plant-based proteins and fats
- Shelf-stable fats like coconut oil, olive oil, ghee, and tallow
4. Ensure Digestive Health
Fiber may not supply calories, but it’s absolutely essential for gut health.
The typical Western diet of processed, low-fiber foods can cause all sorts of issues like constipation, unstable blood sugar, high cholesterol, and colon cancer.
Digestive health, as a part of your overall health, is critical in an emergency situation. When you’re in survival mode, you don’t want to deal with bloating, discomfort, and other digestion-related issues.
You need both soluble and insoluble fiber in your diet. Soluble fiber absorbs water, “bulks up” the food moving through your digestive tract, and prevents high blood sugar.
Insoluble fiber provides the roughage you need for regular and comfortable bowel movements. Fiber also promotes satiety and helps prevent overeating.
Stock Up on These Fiber-Rich Foods
Keep healthy during in a prolonged crisis scenario with a plentiful stock of high-fiber foods such as:
- Legumes like beans, lentils, and chickpeas
- Dried vegetables to use in soups and stews
- Oats, preferably whole for a longer shelf life
- Seeds, including chia, flax, and sunflower
5. Avoid Nutritional Deficiencies
Over-reliance on foods that supply little but empty calories sets you up for nutritional deficiencies.
Anemia, scurvy, rickets, and pellagra are just a few examples of disorders that may crop up when your diet doesn’t provide enough key nutrients.
These conditions can weaken you and cause severe, long-term health issues that would be disastrous in a crisis.
In a long-term emergency, it can be hard to maintain a perfectly balanced diet that would provide all the nutrients you need.
If you live off your stockpile for months, I highly recommend stashing some supplements to make sure you’re getting enough iron, calcium, Vitamin D, and other essential vitamins and minerals.
Recommended Supplements and Fortified Foods
Depending on your household’s needs, consider stocking up on:
- A general daily multivitamin for an optimal supply of micronutrients
- Targeted supplements, e.g., multivitamins for pregnant or nursing women or iron and Vitamin D drops for babies
- Fortified products like protein and drink powders
- Electrolyte powders for emergencies
6. Support Mental Clarity and Focus
When you’re facing the unexpected, quick thinking can save your life.
You need a clear mind ready to process difficult situations and make fast decisions, like whether to flee or shelter in place.
A healthy diet is crucial for supporting concentration and mental abilities. For instance, B-group vitamins are essential for brain function.
Omega-3 fatty acids have proven effective in combating depression and other mood disorders. Like B-group vitamins, omega-3 fatty acids are essential nutrients, since our body can’t generate them and we need to acquire them from food.
Brain-Boosting Foods To Keep Around
These foods will help support your brain powers during a prolonged emergency:
- Oily fish like salmon, sardines, and mackerel: rich in omega-3 fatty acids
- Nuts: provide different types of omega-3 fatty acids, plus vitamins and antioxidants
- Turmeric: contains curcumin, which acts synergistically with omega-3 fatty acids to improve brain function
7. Barter or Trade in Emergencies
There’s another excellent reason to stash up nutrient-rich, long-keeping foods for a crisis situation: barter.
In a collapse scenario, economy will likely become a lot more barter-driven. People who have extra goods to exchange will gain a significant leverage.
An abundant stock of nutrient-dense food could enable you to trade for other supplies you may need, like fuel, tools, or medicine. This might become a huge advantage when money, or even precious metals, lose their purchase power.
Tradable Food Items
Consider storing an extra supply of these items for trading:
- Powdered milk and other powdered foods: useful, versatile, and easy to carry
- Honey: never spoils and is useful in both food and medicine
- Electrolyte powders: handy for rehydration in emergencies
- Salt: a staple with many uses, from food preservation to rinsing wounds,
Build a Diverse, Nutrient-Rich Food Stash
While you certainly need calories to survive, your emergency stockpile must provide a lot more than energy.
A robust supply of proteins, quality fats, fiber, and micronutrients will help you not just survive, but thrive during a crisis.
Is your survival food stash ready for a prolonged emergency?
Assess your stockpile and consider upgrading it with a larger selection of nutrient-rich foods.
