Monsoon Season: What to Keep in Your Emergency Food Bag

Every year between roughly November and January, the monsoon does what the monsoon does. Some households lose power for a night. Some lose road access for days. Some have to leave in a hurry with whatever is by the door.

Most emergency food advice assumes you can still cook. During a flood or a blackout, you usually can't — no electricity, no gas, and tap water you shouldn't trust. That changes what's actually worth keeping.

The rule: no cooking, no fridge, no can opener

Anything in your emergency bag should be edible with nothing but your hands. If it needs boiling, a microwave or a tin opener you can't find in the dark, it's the wrong thing.

A practical checklist

• Drinking water — the real priority. Plan around 3 litres per person per day, for three days.
• Ready-to-eat meals that need no heating. This is the gap in most households' kit. Dry biscuits keep you going for an hour; a proper meal keeps a family calm.
• Biscuits, nuts, dried fruit — easy calories, no prep.
• A torch and spare batteries, not your phone. You will need the phone battery for something else.
• Power bank, charged.
• Basic first aid, plus any regular medication for a week.
• Important documents in a sealed plastic bag or photographed to your phone.
• Food for whoever else lives with you — pets included, and anything specific an elderly parent or small child needs.

Why Vegecore ended up in a lot of these bags

We didn't design these meals for emergencies. We designed them for people with no time to cook. It turns out those are the same requirements.

• No electricity, no stove, no fridge. Retort processing cooks and sterilises the food inside the sealed pouch, so it's shelf-stable at room temperature. Eat it straight from the packet if you have to.
• Two-year shelf life. Pack it once and forget about it. Check the date printed on the box each season and rotate the oldest into a normal weeknight dinner.
• No preservatives. The pouch and the process do the preserving, not chemistry — which matters when you're feeding this to children or elderly parents.
• Halal-certified and 100% plant-based. One pack works for a Muslim household, a vegetarian household, and a mixed shelter or relief kitchen where nobody has time to check labels. (It does contain garlic and onion, so it isn't suitable for a no-allium pure vegetarian diet.)
• It's a real meal. Rendang, ayam masak merah, masala curry — hot food you recognise, even when it's eaten cold. That's worth more on a bad night than another packet of crackers.

How much to keep

A reasonable target is three days of food per person. For a family of four, that's roughly 12 meals — our Lucky 10 or Adult Bundle covers most of it in one box. Store it high, not on the floor, and somewhere you can grab on the way out.

And if the season passes quietly? You eat them on a Tuesday when you can't be bothered to cook. Nothing is wasted.

Build your kit → · Storage and shelf-life questions

This is general preparedness guidance, not official emergency advice. Follow directions from local authorities and civil defence during an actual emergency.