rationsPublished October 28, 2026
What goes in a 72-hour kit
The EU's March 2025 advice turned into a shopping list for one person, with a three-day menu at about 1,490 kcal a day and the water it takes.
A 72-hour kit has to feed one person for three days from a cupboard, at a time when the shops may be shut and the fridge may be off. On 26 March 2025 the European Commission asked every household in the EU to be ready for exactly that, and the food in the kit has to work without a socket. The menu below is built from Rations No. 01 Chicken & Rice and its three siblings, a porridge and a bag of sweets a day.
72-hour emergency kit food, day by day
Each day follows the same pattern: a porridge in the morning, two mains and a bag of sweets. This is how the 72 h Pack lays it out, and the figures come from the labels.
| Day | Food | kcal | Dry weight | Water, hot or cold |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Porridge, chicken and rice, beef chili and rice, Sour Keys | 1,489 | 380 g | 910 ml |
| 2 | Porridge, chicken and rice, beef chili and rice, Strawberry Bears | 1,482 | 380 g | 910 ml |
| 3 | Porridge, pasta bolognese, lentils and chorizo, Peach Rings | 1,509 | 380 g | 910 ml |
| Total | 12 pouches and bags | 4,480 | 1,140 g | 2,730 ml |
About 1,490 kcal a day is a base, and an adult on the move uses more. Treat the box as the part of the three days that's guaranteed, and add bread, crackers, nuts or chocolate from the larder if the time stretches.
Protein runs high on the first two days, 94 g and 96 g, because the chicken and rice carries 45 g on its own. On day three the bolognese and the lentils bring it to about 78 g.
The breakfast is Breakfast No. 01 Porridge & Fruit: oats, apple, banana and strawberry in 90 g, made with 250 ml of water, hot for five minutes or cold for about 20. The mains each take 330 ml, and eight minutes hot. If the stove won't light, every pouch in the box still works with the same amount of cold water in about 20 minutes, a time that varies with the water and the recipe, and the meal comes out cooler and softer. The sweets take nothing at all.
The rest of the shopping list
The Commission's advice covers more than food. Per person, for three days:
- Drinking water, stored separately from the water for cooking
- A way to heat water for hot meals: a camping stove with spare gas cartridges, or a butane hob (the pouches also work with cold water)
- A lighter and matches, because many hobs need a socket for the spark
- A torch or head torch and spare batteries
- A radio that runs on batteries or a wind-up handle
- A charged power bank
- Some cash in small notes, for shops whose card machines are down
- Your regular medicines, a basic first aid kit and copies of important documents
- Phone numbers written on paper
Most of it is already somewhere in the house, and the job is putting it in one box. A long spoon belongs in there too. It reaches the bottom corners of a standing pouch, and it means nobody has to wash a plate.
Water: the part we can count
How much drinking water to store depends on the person and the weather, and your regional civil protection service publishes its own figure, so take that one. The cooking water we can count exactly. Each main takes 330 ml and each porridge 250 ml, which comes to 910 ml a day and 2,730 ml over the three days.
A 2-litre bottle covers the cooking water for two days, and a 5-litre jug covers all three with some to spare. Mark the cooking bottles so nobody drinks them first.
Store it in addition to the drinking water, in sealed bottles, and the menu works even when the mains water doesn't. Hot, the pouches want water at 80–100 °C, so heat it on the stove and pour straight in. Cold, they take the same amount straight from the bottle and about 20 minutes, with no flame at all. The time varies with the water and the recipe, the meal comes out cooler and softer, and it's eaten within a couple of hours.
Why the EU says 72 hours
The Commission's Preparedness Union Strategy of March 2025 set 72 hours as the time every household should be able to manage on its own in a crisis, before outside help can be counted on. Spanish newspapers picked the figure up and ran with it.
A month later the idea stopped being theoretical. On 28 April 2025 a blackout cut the electricity across mainland Spain and Portugal for most of the day. Card payments, mobile networks, lifts, traffic lights and fridges stopped together, and power came back over the night and into the next morning. That was well short of 72 hours. It was long enough to show that dinner depends on what's already in the cupboard and whether there's a flame to heat it.
What to eat first when the fridge goes off, and how to cook with gas in a flat, is in cooking in a power cut.
Where the box lives, and when to check it
Keep the kit in one place that everyone in the house knows, somewhere cool and dry, away from the oven and the window. Put the torch on top, because that's the thing you'll be looking for in the dark.
The Rations keep 36 months sealed, and every pouch has its lot and best-before date printed on the base. The sweets keep 12 months, and that shorter date is the one printed on the 72 h Pack as a whole. Once a year, check the dates, the batteries, the gas and the medicines. Eat anything close to its date on an ordinary weekday and put a fresh one in its place.
The pouches are packed only after each batch's water activity reads 0.60 or lower, which is what lets a cooked meal wait three years in a cupboard.
What the box costs
The 72 h Pack costs €85 for the twelve items above, and the food inside weighs 1,140 g, so the whole box fits on one shelf of a kitchen cupboard. Bought one at a time, the same pouches and bags come to €102.75. Shipping to mainland Spain is free from €39, and to Portugal, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Austria from €79, so the box ships free to all of them.
A household of two needs two boxes, one per person. Single pouches from the Rations range fill gaps for anyone who eats more, at €10.90 a main and €7.50 a porridge.
