Resilient Cooking | Tips for Meals During Emergencies

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After a disaster occurs, one essential challenge is to prepare nourishing meals even with diminished access to water and electricity. Though pantry food may help with short-term hunger, it will not sustain us in the long-term. A post-disaster scenario can tax both our bodies and minds, which makes nutritious, well-balanced, and warm meals critical for surviving, and thriving, during an emergency and its aftermath.

The Japanese have learned the importance of balanced meals in such situations and accumulated wisdom from their collective history of facing nature-instigated disasters. Making recipes for food we eat in our daily lives which can also be used during emergencies helps us to better prepare for disaster scenarios. With knowledge of simple techniques and basic staples to keep on hand, we can be ready to create proper meals even with limited water or electricity.

Kazuko Iida, a cooking expert who advocates for being prepared for emergencies through our daily life practice, guides us on what to keep in our cabinets along with tips and tricks for cooking satisfying and healthy meals when disasters strike. In the webinar, she shares her original recipes including how to cook rice with limited water, as well as a quick but protein-packed side dish, and solutions for how to keep hydrated.

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*Concept images

Demonstration Dishes

• Easy Rice (with variation for Soft Porridge)
• Soft Steamed Bread
• Tuna-Dressed Spinach
• Easy Hydration Beverage
   

Equipment

• Pot
• Heat-resistant plastic bags
• Scraper
• Steam cloth
• Silicon gloves
• Portable gas stove
   

Recipe

About the Speaker

Kazuko Iida is a nutritionist, certified chef, and internationally licensed herbalist, who is also an emergency food specialist at the Japan Disaster Food Society, and CEO of WA・ON Co. (https://www.waon-co.jp/). She began her study on “foods during a disaster” after the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995. In her book Sonae Irazu no Bosai Recipe (“Disaster Recipes without Preparation”, Tokyo Horei Publishing Co., LTD.), she introduces emergency foods as well as medicinal dishes using readily available ingredients.

Read more.

She works as a nutritional educator across Japan, where she shares delicious and nutritional recipes for both every day and emergency scenarios. She believes in “phase free” preparation in which there is no distinction between everyday life and emergency. Through this “phase free” method, she teaches people to be prepared for an emergency as an extension of daily life. In addition to recipe creation and product development, she also coordinates, films, and publishes her own video content and works broadly in various food-related areas.

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