Only 60% of municipalities have emergency supplies for infants, elderly

The survey found that while all municipalities had stockpiles of emergency food supplies, only 66 percent, or 87 municipalities, had powdered milk for infants, and 64 percent, or 85 municipalities, had rice porridge for the elderly.

Every time there is a natural disaster in an area they 'discover' the same thing. I remember the same things being raised after the 2011 Tohoku quake. Nappies, adult diapers, baby wipes to name a few things.

The elderly like rice porridge? I know it's easy to chew, but can't they think of anything else that's easy to chew but has taste?

About smaller towns not having a stockpile of food for infants - are there any infants in those towns & villages? I keep hearing how smaller towns and villages are disappearing and the average age is creeping up to 70+

Maybe, just maybe, the village elders looked around, saw no infants, and decided not to splurge scarce cash on something they didn't need. Or they looked at the couple with an infant and said, "buy three weeks of food, just in case, okay?"

@borsht

let’s see how much you can appreciate bland food when you don’t have another choice. Or are you expecting a personal chef? People have better things to do than worry about the judgement of people like you while preparing for emergencies. Perhaps you should just be happy that you live in a country that actually has preparations in place for disasters

Do they keep these items until they expire? And just write off the cost?

Or do they have some sort of rotation and tracking system that enables them to sell the foods when they get close to their expiry date, and replenish the supply?

Even if they were heavily discounted, they would still get some cash to contribute to the next round of supplies.

I think they should prioritize the adult diapers. I mean, you can pretty much wrap a towel or blanket around an infant, even let it run around naked on a warm day. The elderly, well, I don't want to be cleaning up that mess.

that person

Perhaps I didn’t explain myself well. Rice porridge, sometimes called rice gruel, to me is a degradation of rice. While it is softer because of longer boiling/cooking and thus easier to chew it also lacks a certain amount of flavor. However, onigiri, which is also fairly easy to chew and doesn’t require longer boiling times, has a flavor.

Being old myself, I appreciate a good onigiri or even a bowl of rice with what the Japanese call furikake. Gruel, on the other hand, doesn’t appeal to me. Perhaps to you?

In any case, thanks for the comment.

Well-prepared okayu is a treat; not bland or lacking in flavour at all. It isn't so much longer cooking time as the rice-to-liquid ratio. I quite enjoy okayu now and again.

That said, I don't think anything in the 'emergency foods' section of the municipal stockpile gets put there for its flavour. I wouldn't expect anything, be it gruel, rice, onigiri or instant anything, to be flavourful; the idea is to fill stomachs, not provide a gourmet treat.

It's a good idea to expect the municipal emergency services not to be up and running for a couple of days after a major disaster; everyone should have at least three days worth of emergency supplies (stuff you're happy eating) at home.

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