Clan 7

Leader: Rica Marie Moreno

Members: Bernadette Cadores Gilary Gervacio Abigail Magbalana Francine Salita

Glarizze Ednaco Fredielyn Griarte Joanne Rivera Maria Danniel Tolejano

Food in Emergency

When a disaster occurs, you should expect relief in no less than 3 days - that means at least 3 days of keeping your family fed. You will probably have no refrigeration, electricity, or gas so both traditional cooling and cooking is not available. Storing high-energy, non-perishable, no-preparation food is necessary for short-term aid. If your plans call for long-term survival, you will need to store a much larger supply of emergency food - probably not quite THIS much food, unless you're a big eater!

Stress will be very high after a crisis, so be mentally ready for it. Stress, extra physical labor, and lack of sleep will also take its toll on your body so high energy food is important. Even "empty calorie" food such as candy and other sugar-rich items are ok in these situations. As long as you have water you will probably live without food for the 3 days until help arrives, but ensuring adequate nutrition will make the challenge more endurable. Psychologically, eating will boost morale and relieve stress.

You already have some amount of food when disaster hits. Your pantry may have enough food in it right now to last a week or more. Do an inventory and see how many days of food you have. Canned food and dried food will last weeks and months. Fresh food and the food in your fridge and freezer will go bad quickly once the electricity is out. Dry food will be ruined if your house is flooded and all your food may be gone if you are hit by a tornado or hurricane.

Set aside a specific part of your house for emergency storage. Keep your and food supply in the same area. A corner of your basement is an ideal location for your storage. It is cool, dark, undisturbed, and has the highest chance of surviving everything but floods. Make sure all food supplies are sealed and packed in plastic tubs to prevent mice damage. Put heavy items, like water, down low and light weight items on higher shelves. Label everything with expiration dates and make a list of what expires next so it is easier to use and replace items.

Types of Emergency FoodThe perfect food for emergencies would be a single pill that contains all the calories and nutrition of a full meal. Until that is invented, there are some smart choices to make. The emphasis is on reduced weight, high calories, minimal preparation, long shelf life, and good taste. Don't worry about any weight-loss diet in an emergency - you will burn lots of calories from extra activity, stress, and less sleep. Remember to keep up your water intact too. Food Bars - ready to eat bars are non-thirst provoking and provide high calories. Choose bars that exceed the recommended daily vitamin and mineral requirements - read the labels! These bars usually have a 5 year shelf life and provide about 1200 calories/day. A 3-day supply costs around $5.00 but you would want to supplement them with some other type of food because they really are a 'survival' food. They are great for a Grab and Go kit at home or Auto kit because they are small, dense, and handle wide temperature range. A 3-day supply for a family of 4 would cost around $20.00

If you do not go with survival food bars, you may want to include some granola bars or trail bars in your supply since they are also light-weight and nutrition dense supplements to your diet.

MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) The food in these meals is sealed and then cooked. This process sterilizes the food so it has a shelf life of 5 years and actually much longer if not subjected to extreme temperatures. MREs were first developed for the space program and then evolved into military meals and are now used by wilderness adventurers. You can buy complete meals that include entree, side dish, dessert, drink mix, and utensils all in a pack. Or, you can stock up on individual entrees, side dishes, and desserts separately. These meals are designed to be heated, but can be eaten cold since they are already fully cooked. Place the meal pouch in boiling water to heat, or you can purchase special MRE heaters - for a price. Notice that you don't need to add water to the meals - that's a plus over dehydrated meals in the "easy to prepare" area but a minus in the "reduce weight" area. 

MREs are an excellent emergency food choice, but take a deep breath before checking out the prices. Full meals cost around $5-$7 each and are typically things like barbeque pork, spaghetti, chicken ala king, and ham omelette - quite a few choices. They are compact and nutritious and would be a good addition to your Grab and Go kit. A 3-day supply for a family of 4 would cost a little under $200.

Camping Meals - very light-weight, compact food that is reconstituted with clean, hot water. These meals are very popular with backpackers due to their light weight and good taste. They have a 2-year shelf life and cost around $4-$6 per meal, once you add in side-dish and dessert. A 3-day supply for a family of 4 would cost around $150. If you want to "Go Big", AlpineAire has a kit that feeds 2 people for 1 year, providing 2100 calories/day, weighing 1200 lbs. and costing just $6700 - see SuperPak System. (That is $18/day or about $3/meal).

Do It Yourself - a lower-cost alternative to specific camping products is to put together your own meals from similar pouches you can buy right in the grocery store. Knorr/Lipton has dried rice or pasta side dishes to which you can add canned tuna or chicken for very tasty, inexpensive meals. It is easy to make meals for less than $2.00 each. A 3-day supply of "do it yourself" meals for a family of 4 would easily cost less than $100. Another advantage of going this route is that you can use the food in regular meals as it reaches its expiration and replace it with fresh packages. The cost will be no more than normal meals.

Comfort Food - be sure to include some favorite foods and snacks in your emergency food supply specifically for the effect of raising spirits. Eating somewhat bland meals for more than a couple days will become old. Make sure you stock a spice wheel so folks can add a little zip to their meals. Some comfort food to consider:

instant oatmeal hot chocolate mix instant pudding hard candy chocolate granola bars fruit bars

More Emergency Food Tips

Try out different kinds of foods before stocking up. Make sure the taste is ok.

Replace food before the end of its shelf life. Dehydrate your own food for short-term storage. Consume it every few months. Make your own GORP (Good Old Raisins and Peanuts) trail mix. This high-energy, high-taste snack is a great treat but do not store it more than a few months. Store GORP, dehydrated food, and other slightly perishable items in the freezer to extend their shelf life. Include a bottle of vitamin and mineral supplements in your store to ensure your body gets what it needs. Protein drink mixes are good supplements, if you like the taste. Ramen noodles - cheap, high-calorie, and light weight. Good supplement, especially for cold weather. Powdered milk - good calcium source and real milk won't store more than a couple hours. Babies - keep dry and liquid formula stored, as well as instant baby food and extra water. Keep a box of ZipLoc gallon bags and quart bags ready. Opened food can be stored in them as well as many other uses. Utensils - consider including a cook kit and portable stove with your emergency food store.

Food PyramidA food pyramid or diet pyramid is a pyramid-shaped diagram representing the optimal number of servings to be eaten each day from each of the basic food groups.

The first food pyramid was published in Sweden in 1974. The food pyramid introduced by the United States Department of Agriculture in the year 1992 was called the "Food Guide Pyramid". It was updated in 2005 and then replaced by MyPlate in 2011.

Origin

Amid high food prices in 1972, Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare developed the idea of "basic foods" that were both cheap and nutritious, and "supplemental foods" that added nutrition missing from the basic foods. Anna-Britt Agnsäter, chief of the "test kitchen" for Kooperativa Förbundet (a cooperative Swedish retail chain), held a lecture the next year on how to illustrate these

food groups. Attendee Fjalar Clemes suggested a triangle displaying basic foods at the base. Agnsäter developed the idea into the first food pyramid, which was introduced to the public in 1974 in KF's Vimagazine. The pyramid was divided into basic foods at the base, including milk, cheese, margarine, bread, cereals and potatoes; a large section of supplemental vegetables and fruit; and an apex of supplemental meat, fish and eggs. The pyramid competed with the National Board's "dietary circle," which KF saw as problematic for resembling a cake divided into seven slices, and for not indicating how much of each food should be eaten. While the Board distanced itself from the pyramid, KF continued to promote it, and food pyramids were developed in other Scandinaviancountries, as well as West Germany, Japan and Sri Lanka. The United States later developed its first food pyramid in 1992. Yet many populations appear to have flourished on diets based largely on combinations of plant foods, with animal foods used rather sparingly. For example, archaeologic and literary sources suggest that the composition of the diets of ancient Greece and Rome closely resembled the recommendations of today’s Food Guide Pyramid. Of course, the health impact of ancient diet can only be inferred. Life expectancy was short, but this was more likely as a result of disease and war than of malnutrition. The rich accomplishments of such societies were unlikely to have been possible in the presence of widespread nutritional deprivation.

Grain Foods

Grain foods are mostly made from wheat, oats, rice, rye, barley, millet, quinoa and corn.  The different grains can be cooked and eaten whole, ground into flour to make a variety of cereal foods like bread, pasta and noodles, or made into ready-to-eat breakfast cereals.

Grains (cereal) foods can be broken up into four main groups. The main sub-groups are:

Breads - Whole meal, wholegrain, white, rye, pita, lavash, naan, focaccia, crispbreads, damper

Breakfast Cereals - Ready to eat, high fiber (wholegrain) oats, porridge, muesli, whole-wheat biscuits

Grains - Rice, barley, corn, polenta, buckwheat, spelt, millet, sorghum, triticale, rye, quinoa, semolina

Other products - Pasta, noodles, English muffin, crumpet, rice cakes, couscous, bulgur, popcorn, flour.

Vegetables

A vegetable is a part of a plant consumed by humans that is generally savory but is not sweet. A vegetable is not considered a grain, fruit, nut, spice, or herb. For example, the stem, root, flower, etc., may be eaten as vegetables. Vegetables contain many vitamins and minerals; however, different vegetables contain different spreads, so it is important to eat a wide variety of types. For example, green vegetables typically contain vitamin A, dark orange and dark green vegetables contain vitamin C, and vegetables like broccoli and related plants contain iron and calcium. Vegetables are very low in fats and calories, but ingredients added in preparation can often add these.

Fruits

In terms of food (rather than botany), fruits are the sweet-tasting seed-bearing parts of plants, or occasionally sweet parts of plants which do not bear seeds. These include apples, oranges, grapes, bananas, etc. Fruits are low in calories and fat and are a source of natural sugars, fiber and vitamins. Processing fruits when canning or making into juices may add sugars and remove nutrients. The fruit food group is sometimes combined with the vegetable food group. Note that a massive number of different plant species produce seed pods which are considered fruits in botany, and there are a number of botanical fruits which are conventionally not considered fruits in cuisine because they lack the characteristic sweet taste, e.g., tomatoes or avocados.

Oils

The food pyramid advises that fats be consumed sparingly. Butter and oils are examples of fats. Healthy sources of fat can be found in fish, nuts, and certain fruits and vegetables, such as avocados.

Dairy

Dairy products are produced from the milk of mammals, usually but not exclusively cattle. They include milk, yogurt and cheese. Milk and its derivative products are a rich source of dietary calcium and also provide protein, phosphorus, vitamin A, and vitamin D. However, many dairy products are high in saturated fat and cholesterol compared to vegetables, fruits and whole grains, which is why skimmed products are available as an alternative.

Historically, adults were recommended to consume three cups of dairy products per day. More recently, evidence is mounting that dairy products have greater levels of negative effects on health than previously thought and confer fewer benefits. For example, recent research has shown that dairy products are not related to stronger bones or less fractures.

Lean Meat and Poultry, fish, eggs, tofu, nuts and seeds and legumes/beans

Meat is the tissue – usually muscle – of an animal consumed by humans. Since most parts of many animals are edible, there is a vast variety of meats. Meat is a major source of protein, as well as iron, zinc, and vitamin B12. Meats, poultry, and fish include beef, chicken, pork, salmon, tuna, shrimp, and eggs. The meat group is one of the major compacted food groups in the food guide pyramid. Many of the same nutrients found in meat can also be found in foods like eggs, dry beans, and nuts, such foods are typically placed in the same category as meats, as meat alternatives. These include tofu, products that resemble meat or fish but are made with soy, eggs, and cheeses. For those who do not

consume meat or animal products (see Vegetarianism, veganism andTaboo food and drink), meat analogs, tofu, beans, lentils, chick peas, nuts and other high-protein vegetables are also included in this group. The food guide pyramid suggests that adults eat 2–3 servings per day. One serving of meat is 4 oz (110 g), about the size of a deck of cards.

Importance of Food Pyramid

The Food Guide Pyramid emphasized the importance of eating a balanced, varied diet by depicting five main food groups: grains, fruits, vegetables, dairy products and other proteins, including meat, fish, beans, nuts and eggs.

It is also important to enjoy a variety of foods within each of the Five Food Groups because different foods vary in the amount of the key nutrients that they provide.  For example, in the vegetables and legumes food group, orange vegetables such as carrots and pumpkins contain significantly more vitamin A than other vegetables such as white potatoes.

Food Safety Networking

Food Safety - refers to the conditions and practices that preserve the quality of food to prevent contamination and foodborne illnesses.

Networking - interact with other people to exchange information and develop contacts, especially to further one's career.

Food Safety Challenges

• Global Population

• Global Food Supply

• Global food System

• Disease Detection

• New pathogens

• Consumer Trust

Creating a global to local food safety system

• Food safety applies to all foods for all people.

• Food safety standards must be science based.

• Food safety standards must be outcome based and flexible.

• A harmonized standard facilitates global trade.

• Food safety must not be used as competitive advantage.

• A safe, affordable food supply for all requires public/private partnerships.

Some of the Food Safety Regulatory Agencies

International:

WHO – World Health Organization

INFOSAN – International Food Safety Authorities Network

FAO – Food and Agriculture Organization

Local:

DOH – Department of Health

*Under DOH – Food and Drug Administration, Center for Food Regulation and Research and the Bureau of Quarantine

DA – Department of Agriculture

*Under DA – Bureau of Animal Industry, National Meat Inspection Service, Bureau of Fishes and Aquatic Resources, Bureau of Plant Industry, Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority, Phil. Coconut Authority, Sugar Regulatory Administration and National Food Authority

NGO – Non-Government Organization

*Under NGO – Center for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development, International Centre for Living Aquatic Resources Management, International Rice Research Institute, National Coalition of Fisher Folk for Aquatic Reform, Farmers-Scientist Partnership for Development