Water and food

Make water safe to drink

If your tap water isn’t safe, or your stored water runs low, you can make more. Your local authorities will tell you whether tap water is safe to use. Keep water purifying tablets in your kit for when you can’t boil.^•

1. Boil it. Bring it to a rolling boil, where the bubbles keep coming even when you stir, and hold it there for at least 1 minute. Above 2,000 metres, boil it for at least 2 minutes.
2. If boiling isn’t practical, use purification tablets. Follow the label.

During a boil-water advisory

Use safe water for anything you swallow during a boil-water advisory^•:

Your local advisory has the final word.

After a power outage

Keep the fridge and freezer doors closed.^• Food stays cold for about:

Then:

• Refreeze only what’s still cold. Ice crystals, or fridge-cold to the touch.
• Throw out food that sat at room temperature for 2 hours or more.
• Don’t trust smell or looks. Food with bacteria doesn’t always smell bad or look spoiled.
• Never taste food to check it.^•
• Don’t put frozen food outside, even in winter. The sun can thaw it on a very cold day.

The short version: keep the doors shut, and when in doubt, throw it out.

Build a deeper pantry

Stock the staples you already cook with, so nothing goes to waste. Sealed, in a cool, dry pantry, they keep for about:

• Keep it cool and dry, away from the stove, hot water pipes and heating ducts.^•
• Use airtight containers of glass, metal or rigid plastic.
• First in, first out. New stock goes to the back, and you use the oldest first.
• Check for halal. Beef and chicken bouillon cubes and stock powders are made from meat, so look for a halal certification. Lard is pork fat: choose ghee or vegetable oil.

Rotate what you store

• Date everything on the lid.
• Replace stored water after one year, even if the bottle says two.^• Water you bottled yourself: every six months.
• Replace kit food once a year.^• Eat it before it goes, and restock.
• Check twice a year.
• Know your dates. A best-before date is about quality, not safety. An expiration date, on infant formula or meal replacements, means throw it out.

These are projects, not purchases. Start one when you have a free weekend. The workbook has the full steps for each.

• Grow some food. Salad greens, beans, peas, herbs and tomatoes all grow well in containers.^• Herbs grow indoors too, with about eight hours of light a day from a sunny window or a grow light^•.

• Collect rainwater for the garden. Use it for the garden only: no Canadian guide covers making rainwater safe to drink.

• Preserve food safely. Home canning has one serious risk: botulism, which doesn’t change how food looks, smells or tastes.^• The safe rules:

  1. Use only current, tested home canning recipes. Don’t change jar sizes or amounts.
  2. Use a pressure canner for low-acid foods: meat, most vegetables, and mixed dishes like meat sauce.
  3. Use home-canned food within a year, and keep it somewhere cool and dry.

  If you suspect botulism, see a health care professional and contact your local public health unit as soon as possible.

• Pack dry food for long storage in Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers, or with a vacuum sealer.^• Only pack food with about 10 percent moisture or less, like white rice, dry beans and white sugar: botulism can grow when moist food is sealed without oxygen.^• Vacuum sealing doesn’t make food shelf-stable: meat, fish and other perishable food still go in the fridge or freezer.^•