A 24-hour ration from the supermarket: 2,000 kcal, packed

What a day adds up to

Aim for about 2,000 kcal. That’s the reference intake for an average adult that EU law prints on every nutrition label,¹ a yardstick rather than a ration rule. Germany’s federal food agency works its stockpile calculator at 2,200 kcal a person a day,² so a bigger or busier person packs a little more.

Armies plan well to either side of that. The Spanish Army’s emergency ration gives 1,050 kcal for 24 hours; its light 24-hour ration gives 3,000.³ What goes into those, and into an MRE, is in MRE and military rations.

Then water. Spain’s 2025 family guide asks for at least 1.5 litres a person a day, one ordinary bottle;⁴ the UK’s Be Ready campaign asks for 3 litres to drink.²⁰ The other countries’ figures are in how much water to store per person.

The shopping list, with its kcal

The method works in any supermarket: pick shelf-stable packs you eat as they come, and multiply each portion by the kcal per 100 g on its label. Our example is priced at Eroski, a Spanish chain, and every item below is on its online shop, keeps on a shelf until it’s opened, and needs no kitchen. The price is what the whole pack costs, as shown on the date under the sources.

Breakfast is the toast, peanut butter and a carton of chocolate milk; lunch the tuna and the fuet with more toast; the rest is for the gaps and the evening. Swap freely, as long as the kcal column still adds up: salami for fuet, crackers for toast, any nut for almonds. The densest foods per gram are ranked in backpacking food by calorie density.

What to add

No kitchen, no fridge, and one tin to check

The rule for the bag is the storage line on the pack. If it names a fridge before opening, the item stays in the shop. None of the ten does, and most say to keep the pack somewhere cool and dry.

Opening is a different matter. The tuna page says to refrigerate what’s left and eat it inside 24 hours,⁷ and the chocolate milk must be kept cold once opened.¹⁴ That’s why the list uses a 65 g tin and 200 ml cartons: each is finished at one go. Opened dates keep for a week.¹⁰

None of the pages says whether the tins open with a ring-pull. Check on the shelf (in Spain the words are abre fácil); if the tuna you find needs an opener, swap it for a bag of picos camperos, small olive-oil breadsticks, at 410 kcal per 100 g and €1.00 for 250 g.¹⁸

Weight and cost

The sums are ours, from the shop’s prices on the day. Four of the ten lines carried a promotion that day, so the till will vary.

Packing, dating and swapping it

Step by step

1. Choose

   Take shelf-stable packs you’d eat anyway. Read the storage line before the price.

2. Portion

   Keep the small packs whole: the cartons, the bar, the membrillo portions, the 65 g tin. Weigh the loose things, the nuts, dates, toast and fuet, into zip bags.

3. Pack

   Everything in one bag, with the water bottle, a spoon and a few napkins.

4. Date

   Write on the outside the earliest best-before date of anything inside. That date is the bag’s.

5. Swap

   Spain’s guide asks for a kit to be checked every six months.⁴ When the day comes, eat what’s in the bag over an ordinary week and pack a new one.

Germany’s civil protection office calls this a living reserve: food that gets used in daily life and replaced.¹⁹ It also stops the bag from going stale in a drawer. Keep it somewhere everyone at home knows, away from damp and heat, as the Spanish guide asks.⁴ A car parked in the sun isn’t that place.

One day is a bag for the office, the hall cupboard or a walk that could run late, and for the car on the day you drive. For more days the sum is the same, multiplied, and how much emergency food per person does it for 3, 14 and 30. The items for three days at home are in the 72-hour kit list.

The ready-made version

Our One-Day Ration is the same day in four pouches: a porridge, two Large mains and a rice pudding. It needs water, which a supermarket day doesn’t, and no kitchen.

The pouches in this box can also be made with cold water, 20–30 minutes depending on the meal: Chicken & Rice takes about 20 minutes, Porridge & Fruit about 20 minutes. Made cold, the meat stays a little firmer and a little liquid may be left; stir it in. Tins, bars, rations and freeze-dried meals are set side by side, for three days rather than one, in emergency food compared.

From our range

One-Day Ration

Breakfast, two mains and a pudding: 4 pouches for one day.

€42.90Hear from us before the shop opensSee the box