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1) Especially with rice and beans, they can take a long time to cook = lots of fuel required. Those with acres of forest and a woodstove may have no worries, but for others, the quicker-cooking options may need to be considered.


Again, not necessarily. Do a search on wood-gas stoves and/or bio-gas stoves, you'll be surprised at some of the innovative stove designs people have come up with for 3rd world countries where fuel is scarce/endangered/expensive. Some of the designs even produce charcoal for later use or sale while cooking meals.

ie:Hybrid Stove Making Charcoal

Another solution is to prepare dehydrated meals and store those in ziplock freezer or vacuum sealed bags. Place the bag in an insulating cozy, add boiling water to the bag, reseal it and in 15 minutes or so you are ready to eat. A search of backpacking sites will give loads of info on this. I find dehydrating food an interesting hobby and it allows for an amazing variety of storable emergency foods. Basically, anything you find in the frozen vegetable section at the grocery store can be dehydrated and then vacuum sealed in canning jars for storage.

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2) Nutrition - if we are talking about a long-term situation (waiting for crops to grow, etc.) Staying healthy in the meantime becomes more meaningful. For the fuel-needy who have resorted to the "instant" versions of rice, grits, etc,, consider that they lose much of their nutritional value in the processing.
- Diets heavy in carbs will have negative effects eventually (the fact that rice and beans make a complete protein notwithstanding).
- I haven't read of too many here storing vitamins - maybe because of relatively short shelf life.


Vitamin and mineral supplements can be helpful but most vitamins don’t have much of a shelf life so planning balanced meals is very important. The internal organs of wild and domestic animals are a rich source of vitamins that are rarely used anymore but may be a life saver in a long term emergency situation. Mineral supplements (colloidal minerals are the best) can be stored for a year or more with little or no loss of effectiveness. Colloidal minerals can also be added to hardtack for long term storage by replacing some of the water in the recipe with the minerals and then vacuum sealing the hardtack. While hardtack may be a boring bread to eat, it’s a whole lot better than no bread at all and it can be stored for years if properly prepared and kept dry.