Angie’s 5-Day Bugout Cooler Ready for Emergency Evacuation

Have you thought about how you will feed your family if you must bug out? Today our friend, Angie is going to share her amazing bug-out cooler that is ready to go at a moment’s notice. There are many scenarios that may result in your need to evacuate in a hurry. Extreme weather, wildfire, civil unrest, flooding, HAZMAT spills, and hurricanes are just a few of the possible scenarios that would cause you to need to evacuate in a hurry.

We all hope that we won’t ever be in a position that requires us to evacuate in an emergency but quite frankly we just don’t know what the future holds. It makes sense to be prepared to bug out at a moment’s notice. Have you considered how you will feed your family if you can’t return home for a week?

Brilliant Emergency Evacuation Food Supply

The different ways to build an emergency evacuation food supply are limited only by your imagination. Our friend Angie has come up with a wonderful way to store all of the food that her family needs for 5 days inside a cooler. It is packed and ready to go with foods that her family eats on a regular basis. That means that it can easily be rotated back into her pantry and nothing gets wasted. We are grateful to Angie for her willingness to share the details of her evacuation cooler with us. You can watch her share her kit in detail in this video.

5-Day Emergency Food Supply Organized in a Cooler

Angie decided that she needed to prepare enough food for her family to eat for 5 days. She carefully plans out these meals and stores all of the ingredients inside a cooler, labeled and ready to go. In this post, we share Angie’s great ideas to help you catch the vision and create what you need to make sure you don’t go hungry if you need to bug out.

Bugout Cooler is Clearly Labeled

Angie designed this cooler so that her family will clearly recognize the cooler and understand how the ingredients should be rationed to make the meals she has planned.

Why store emergency evacuation foods inside an ice chest or cooler?

Angie decided to use a cooler to store her food because it will help keep the food’s temperature constant in both the heat and the cold. Her family plan is to evacuate in a pickup truck and this cooler would be ideal for traveling in the back of a truck. I love how she has taken the time to calculate all of their needs and even include some cash in small bills so that they have money to purchase incidentals if they are available.

Angie’s Bugout Cooler Organization and Planning

Angie has carefully planned meals and snacks for 5 days that include breakfast, lunch, and supper. Wisely, she has included foods that she knows may be vital to her like coffee and chocolate. Meals are simple to prepare but nutritious. Best of all, they are meals that her family likes to eat.

Day 1 Meal Plan

Breakfast

Pancakes with maple syrup or peanut butter (Use 3 cups pancake mix and no more than 1/2 of maple sugar for syrup.)
Serve with 2/3 cup of milk per child
Coffee, tea, or juice for older kids and adults
Multi-vitamin

Lunch

Biscuits with Spam, gravy, and mashed potatoes (Use 1 bag of flour and follow directions for biscuits. Reserve 2-3 tablespoons of flour for gravy.)
Bake for 7-10 minutes per side in a covered pot
Add 1-2 tablespoons of lard for the fat in the gravy
Use 2 cups of potato flakes (1:1 ratio with water)
Water or coffee to drink

Supper

Tuscan White Bean Soup Dry Mix
2/3 cup of milk per child
Tea, juice, or water to drink

Day 2 Meal Plan

Breakfast

Oatmeal with freeze-dried bananas (Use 1/2 of the bag of oats. Crumble and use banana chips and cook with oatmeal. Add sugar or stevia to taste.)
Serve with 2/3 cup of milk per child
Coffee, tea, or juice for older kids and adults
Multi-vitamin

Lunch

Pancakes with scrambled eggs and bacon bits (Use 1.5 cups pancake mix, fry in lard, and top with peanut butter or ghee. Use 6 eggs worth of egg powder and 3-4 tablespoons of bacon bits. Fry eggs in ghee.)
Water or coffee to drink

Supper

Tuna casserole with dried green beans (Boil 3 boxes of mac and cheese with dried green beans. Once cooked, use 2 cans of tuna water for liquid for making the cheese sauce. Use lard for fat instead of butter.)
Tea, juice, or water to drink

Day 3 Meal Plan

Breakfast

Egg omelets with bacon bits and mashed potatoes (Egg powder for the equivalent of 12 eggs, 1 tablespoon of bacon bits per person, fry omelets in lard, 2 cups of potato flakes served with ghee on top.)
Serve with 2/3 cup of milk per child
Coffee, tea, or juice for older kids and adults
Multi-vitamin

Lunch

Biscuits with canned chicken and mashed potatoes (Use 1 bag of flour and follow package directions for biscuits. Reserve 2-3 tablespoons of flour for gravy.)
Bake for about 7-10 minutes per side in a covered pot.
Use 2 cups of potato flakes
Use the juice from 1 can of chicken for gravy. Add water and bouillon to get the desired amount of gravy. Use lard for fat in gravy.

Supper

Burrito in a jar to make taco soup
Tea, juice, or water to drink

Day 4 Meal Plan

Breakfast

Oatmeal with freeze-dried peaches (Use the rest of the oatmeal, crumble peaches, and cook with the oatmeal. Sweeten oatmeal with sugar or stevia to taste.)
Serve with 2/3 cup of milk per child
Coffee, tea, or juice for older kids and adults
Multi-vitamin

Lunch

Potato pancakes (Use 2 cups of potato flakes and 1.5 cups pancake mix. Add salt to taste. Fry in lard. Top with ghee.)
Water or coffee to drink

Supper

Chicken noodle soup (Add one can of chicken to the contents of the chicken noodle soup bag.)
Serve with tea, juice, or water.

Day 5 Meal Plan

Breakfast

Pancakes and scrambled eggs (Use the rest of the pancake mix. Fry pancakes in lard. Top pancakes with maple syrup, peanut butter, or ghee. Fry 6 eggs worth of egg powder with 3 tablespoons bacon bits in ghee.)
Serve with 2/3 cup of milk per child
Coffee, tea, or juice for older kids and adults
Multi-vitamin

Lunch

Potato soup (Use the rest of the potato flakes and the contents of the potato soup seasoning package to make soup.)
Serve with coffee, tea, or juice

Supper

Chicken fettuccine alfredo with dried broccoli (Rehydrate broccoli before adding to alfredo mix to cook. Use both packages of fettuccine alfredo and two cans of chicken. Use chicken juice as part of the liquid for alfredo sauce.)
Serve with tea, juice, or water

Don’t Forget Water, Cook Stove, and Fuel

One important thing to note is that Angie has water stored separately. They have pots, a camp stove, and fuel to cook the food. In this post, we focused only on the food that is required to make these meals. You have to also consider all the supplies that you may need to safely cook the food.

How will you feed your family if you need to evacuate in a hurry?

Angie’s organizational skills are seriously amazing. Thanks so much for sharing with us Angie. You have given us all some great ideas today. Angie has done an excellent job of creating a menu that works for her family and collecting everything that she needs for meals for 5 days. You can watch Angie go through this bugout cooler in great detail and it may give you some great ideas for preparing something similar for you and your family.

Get ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice

Don’t let preparing to evacuate overwhelm you. We have created some really great posts to help walk you through the process. Remember that any preparation that you make is better than no preparation. You got this!