Day 5 {Friday}

Breakfast – Nothing.

Let me explain. The 1 Month Food Supply Value Kit comes with 85 servings and based on 2 things:

1. Price point so that people can start their food storage in some way.

2. You are supplementing the kit with beans, rice and other items you are already storing.

In hindsight I should have gone with the Premium Kit because it comes with 205 servings and was especially designed to feed 1 person for an entire month. But I didn’t. Because I’m an idiot. And kind of stubborn. 😉

Anywho, 30 days = 90 meals and the kit I am using only has 85 servings which means I have to go without a meal 5 times. So I need to be strategic about it. My first thought was to sleep in on every Saturday this month and skip breakfast plus and go without lunch once.

But then I remembered I am signed up to do a 5k this month {on a Saturday} so that means I can only sleep in {and skip breakfast} 3 times this month and will have to skip lunch twice so I don’t end up with an empty box and no food to eat at the end of the month.

On top of the 5k race, there is Monkey Boy’s Graduation and Father’s Day. Both of which include a family gathering WITH FOOD. Could I have picked a better month to do this personal challenge?

YES

So basically, I’ll be staying in my pj’s and trying not to move a few days this month. It should be interesting. Luckily Lucy the puggle princess likes to snuggle and watch movies with me.

Moral of the story –>When the zombie Apocalypse hits… HAVE A BIG ARSE STOCKPILE OF FOOD. Because you are going to NEED it. 

Snack- Beans and Rice 320 calories

Lunch and Dinner – Southern Style Chicken and Rice Soup  460 {230 calories per serving}

Total Calories Consumed on Day  –  780

Total Beverages Consumed on Day  –  0 cups of tea 9 bottles of water {I’m using this to drink out of}

The hardest part about day 5?

I gave up tea. I can’t believe it. If I can’t have milk and sugar in my tea… forget about it. It’s not even worth drinking.

Day 6 {Saturday}

Breakfast – Multi Grain Cereal 160 calories

Snack- Beans and Rice 320 calories

Lunch and Dinner White Bean and Lime Chili 460 calories {230 calories per serving}

This stuff was freakin’ delicious. I am continually amazed at how good food with a 25 year shelf life can be. Plus, this chili has cumin in it which is one of my favorite spices.

Total Calories Consumed on Day  –  940

Total Beverages Consumed on Day  –  10 bottles of water {it was 86 degrees out!!}

The hardest part about day 6?

It was hot out, a low calorie day, and I had about 6 hours of online work I had to do. I knew going into the day it was going to be a hard one so I made sure to take a nap and drink plenty of water. I also got woke up around 5:30 {I normally sleep in on Saturdays} and watered the garden beds and all the plants super early so I wouldn’t be outside during the afternoon and evening hours when the temps are high. Saturday was lame and kind of depressing.

Until the mail man dropped off a package from James at Valley Food Storage containing 2 packages of pancake mix! “Just a little something to help.” the note said. Hmmmm. What does this mean?

Should I make pancakes? Would this be considered cheating? {Yes, yes it would} I mean, zombies have not attacked yet so maybe I need to save the mix just in case they do. We’ll see.

Day 7 {Sunday}

Breakfast – Strawberry Malt – o- Meal 220 calories

Snack- Beans and Rice 320 calories

Lunch and Dinner White Bean and Lime Chili 460 calories {230 calories per serving}

Total Calories Consumed on Day  –  1000

Total Beverages Consumed on Day  –  9 bottles of water

The hardest part about day 7?

I made homemade chocolate ice cream for my peeps AND baked oatmeal cookies for them as well. On more than one occasion {okay, maybe 10} I opened the jar of oatmeal cookies and gave a good hard smell trying to basically inhale the cookies through my sniffer. It was pretty pitiful and my husband may have yelled “Eat a Damn Cookie Already” at me.

But I soldiered on.

23 days to go.

~Mavis

More Posts-
Living off a 30 Day Supply of Dehydrated Food
Living off a 30 Day Emergency Supply of Food – Day 1
Living off a 30 Day Emergency Supply of Food – Day 2
Living off a 30 Day Emergency Supply of Food – Day 3
Living off a 30 Day Emergency Supply of Food – Day 4

Yesterday was a good day. I woke up knowing I was going to eat the strawberry oatmeal out of my 30 day food supply box from Valley Food Storage and I just knew it was going to be delicious. And it was. It was so good in fact I found dreaming about strawberries and popped online to look our up our favorite local berry farm.

Which of course, led us on a morning road trip to Spooner Farms. I don’t know how I did it, but we bought 2 flats of juicy, freshly picked strawberries and I didn’t eat a single one.

We also made 22 jars of strawberry jam. 🙂

And I made my peeps strawberry shortcake for dinner. 🙂 🙂

Now that my friends is WILLPOWER.

We had a very mild winter here in Western Washington and much to my dismay… it is officially berry season. Oh well, I least we froze a bunch of berries so I’ll get to taste them in July.

Breakfast – Strawberry Oatmeal 300 calories

Snack – Beans and Rice 320 calories

Lunch and Dinner – Southern Style Chicken and Rice Soup  460 {230 calories per serving}

Total Calories Consumed on Day  –  1080

Total Beverages Consumed on Day  – 1 cup of tea 8 bottles of water {I’m using this to drink out of}

The hardest part about day 4?

Actually yesterday was pretty easy. I think my body is getting used to eating smaller portions. It’s more of a mind game at this point I think.

26 days to go!

~Mavis

More Posts-
Living off a 30 Day Supply of Dehydrated Food
Living off a 30 Day Emergency Supply of Food – Day 1
Living off a 30 Day Emergency Supply of Food – Day 2
Living off a 30 Day Emergency Supply of Food – Day 3

 “All I have in the house is alcohol and Oreos.”

I can’t tell you how much I LOVED Dana’s comment from yesterdays update. Go HERE to read it. I’ll wait. Basically, it pretty much summed up WHY I decided to do this self imposed {and totally crazy} challenge.

On the very first day of this Living off a 30 Day Emergency Supply of Food series I wrote “What would it be like to have to use one of these kits in a real life scenario? What if you found yourself with no access to a grocery store, no access to Amazon.com – just you, some water and your box of emergency food?”

Like a lot of things in life, I jumped into this without putting much thought into it. I added beans and rice to the box yesterday, but that’s all I will be adding. Period.

I’m sticking to my guns… this is what I’ll be eating for the next 27 days. So no more suggesting I toss in suckers, or spices or chocolate… it’s only going to make this personal challenge of mine that much more difficult.

People keep commenting about my activity level. In reality, I don’t think I am that active. More active than a person who sits at a desk job all day? Yes. But active like stroller mom and her 4 hour a day walks? No. In fact I haven’t taken Lucy on one of our usual 1 hour long walks in about a week… and I don’t plan on doing any of those anytime soon either {the kids are taking her on her long walks instead}.

Maybe I’ll crash, maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll have better skin at the end of this because of all the water I’m drinking, maybe I won’t. Maybe, just maybe, this will wake a few of us up and show what it would really be like to live off a basic food supply kit, some beans, a little rice and water. Maybe we need to fork over a few dollars more and BUY the bigger kit because we’ll need it if we don’t want to be uncomfortable. Maybe we won’t.

Maybe I’ll succeed. Maybe I won’t. 

How boring would life be if we woke up and lived the same life every single day? If we didn’t stretch ourselves? Well, that’s just not me.
Breakfast – Strawberry Malt o Meal 220 calories

I could eat this everyday. I really do like it and I especially like the fact the cereal is sweetened.

During the morning hours I drank 2 cups of hot tea and 3 bottles of water.

Lunch – Pasta Primavera 380 calories

I LOVE this stuff!

Snack – Beans and Rice 320 calories

Never before in my entire life have I eaten beans and rice as a snack. And yet, a huge population of the world does. In fact they eat beans and rice 2 or 3 times a day.

Dinner – Southern Style Chicken and Rice Soup  230 calories

This was another dish I am in love with. It’s very simple and tasty. Lot’s of flavor.

Throughout the rest of the day I drank 6 bottles of water.

Total Calories Consumed on Day  3 –  1150

Total Beverages Consumed on Day  3–  2 cups of tea 9 bottles of water {I’m using this to drink out of}

The hardest part about day 3?

I made 5 dozen chocolate chip cookies for my peeps and didn’t eat a single one. Not even the broken one that was crying out to be put out of it’s misery. The cookies smelled so good and I wanted to rub them on my face. 😉

27 Days to go, and in it to win it.

~Mavis

More Posts
Living off a 30 Day Supply of Dehydrated Food
Living off a 30 Day Emergency Supply of Food – Day 1
Living off a 30 Day Emergency Supply of Food – Day 2

I’m not going to lie. Yesterday was hard. After eating only 980 calories the day before, I woke up HUNGRY. I have absolutely no idea how many calories I consume on an average day, but let me tell you Bob… it’s a lot more than 980. In fact, I’m not even sure if the milk and sugar plus the two sweets a day I normally shove in my face is less than 980 calories.

Anywho, I went to bed hungry, and I woke up hungry. 

Breakfast – Multi Grain Cereal 160 calories

The cereal itself was fine. But I sorely missed the brown sugar and milk I would have poured onto it under normal circumstances. And life without a little sugar to get you going in the morning is actually a little depressing. On the positive side though, both the strawberry malt o meal {19 servings left} and strawberry oatmeal {10 servings left} have sugar in them. 🙂 So I’ll get my fix.

During the morning hours I drank 2 cups of hot tea and 3 bottles of water.

Lunch and Dinner Pasta Primavera {760 calories – 380 calories per serving}

Ever since I can remember, I’ve always liked pasta on the second day better. And yesterday, was no exception. I really, really like the pasta primavera dish Valley Foods offers and will no doubt be looking forward to the next pouch of it I get to eat later this month. It’s yummy, and something I highly recommend having in your emergency food storage.

Throughout the rest of the day I drank 5 bottles of water.

Total Calories Consumed on Day 2  –  920

Total Beverages Consumed on Day  –  2 cups of tea  8 bottles of water {I’m using this to drink out of}.

The hardest part about day 2?

I found a cough drop in my husbands nightstand and SOOOOO wanted to eat it. I swear to you it was talking to me. The cough drop wanted to jump in my mouth. I even brought it to my nose and gave it a good sniff. But I didn’t eat it.

And then I started reading everyone’s comments about supplementing the Value kit with beans and rice. You know, the way it was meant to be eaten in the first place. 

I really struggled with the fact that if this were a real life scenario, and I had forgotten the beans and rice in my food storage kit, it would have been TOO BAD FOR ME. I really wanted to stick to the whole I meant what I said part of the deal. Because in real life, I am an incredibly stubborn person and rarely go back on my word. 

But then I realized, I wouldn’t have forgotten the beans and rice because 1. I already have them in my {real life} emergency food supply kit and 2. I’m not that dumb. I was just excited about the fact I could recognize all the ingredients on the food storage products that I ran to my computer and wrote and post about it before taking two minutes to think about it.

So I’m going to add 28 servings each of beans and rice to my food supply box {1 for each day}. BUT NOTHING ELSE. No spices, no fresh vegetables, no CANDY… nothing else.

28 Days to go. I can do this!

~Mavis

More Posts-
Living off a 30 Day Supply of Dehydrated Food
Living off a 30 Day Emergency Supply of Food – Day 1