How to Ration Food in an Emergency

In an emergency situation, the very first impulse may be a sense of blind panic; however, you will need to control careless reactions and a loss of wits if you want a chance of successfully rationing food in an emergency. It can be easy, once panic has taken hold, for people to eat up their supplies more quickly than they would even under ordinary circumstances. Such reactions can lead to untimely death. If you can keep your head, remain disciplined, and be consistent, you'll find that rationing food in an emergency is an extremely effective technique and it may save your life.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

1. Set up a hierarchy. If you're the only person, you can skip this step, but if there are more than a couple of people then you'll need to come to an agreement about who is in charge of the rations. Try to pick the most rational, level-headed person for the job. Also, it doesn't hurt if that person is somewhat physically intimidating. This will keep others from deciding to try to steal rations or take them by force.

2. Pool the food. Put all edible items in one central location.

3. Tally the food. If pen and paper are available, it's good to write out an inventory. Otherwise, take mental note of the food and try your best to keep track of it.

4. Determine what rations are spoilable and eat those first. Items that will last a long time should be saved for final rations.

5. Determine the ration size, which should be the bare minimum amount of food needed to continue functioning. Also, try to plan your rations according to how long you believe you'll be in the emergency situation. If you're unsure how long that will be, assume the worst.

6. Determine a daily ration schedule. In an emergency situation, it's important to instill a sense of order and logic because doing so will help keep people calm. Schedule the rations to be handed out at the same time, each day, to give a sense of habit and routine to the process.

7. Ration food according to your plan. Do not vary from the plan once it's been set except in the case of unforeseeable needs.

Tips & Warnings

• The human body does better on very few calories than it does on none at all. In a serious emergency, set your rations at absurdly small amounts and stretch the food out as long as you possibly can to give yourself the best chance of survival.
• Rations shouldn't necessarily be the same for everyone. Need should be the determining factor in deciding who gets what amount of food.
• In most climates, there is food readily available in nature. So, before you ration everything and try to wait it out, think about how you can add rations to your inventory, giving yourself a better chance of survival.

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