Of course, storing food is only half the battle: cooking your food can be a challenge, especially in the event of a power outage, which can accompany natural disasters and other events. It may also happen for shorter term – your oven broke, the line to your house was damaged and it usually takes longer to repair. It does not matter what the reason will be, you will need something that will help you prepare your food. You need an alternative tool to boil water and fry your food. Some of the common alternative includes kerosene, wood stoves and propane. Some are safe indoors. If you are living in an apartment building, your choices are more limited. You can either use an indoor small camp stove with close supervision or you can use something outdoors or on your balcony. A fuel known as EcoFuelXB is an excellent fuel for apartment dwellers. It is available in a can, and heat foods up to 4000 Fahrenheit. You can actually boil and cook your soup and not just warm up the soup. This fuel is safe since it does not have any danger of explosion; it is safe to keep this fuel in bulk in places like apartment buildings where other fuels are not allowed. It has longer shelf life up to ten years. It is more costly as compared to other fuels, but since it is very safe, it is a good alternative for apartment dwellers in case of pandemics. If you are storing other type of fuel or stove indoors, make sure that it is stored in the right place and away from the reach of children. To make the fuel last longer, you can cook using a hay box or simple thermal cooker that is similar to a crock-pot that does not require electricity. A thermal cooker is easy to build. You can use a heavy pot with a cover. Using cast iron or something heavier on top of your stove is a good idea. The heavier it is the better. Here is a simple way to make your own hay box cooker: Cook your food or boil your water using your EcoFuel can plus stove or propane camp stove for ten minutes. Then remove the pot from the stove. Without removing the cover, wrap the pot in a blanket. You can use ordinary fleece blanket. Lastly, use aluminum foil or emergency foil blankets to wrap the wrapped pot. This will keep the food warm for about four to six hours. The blanket and foil wrapper will serve as insulation. In case you are residing in a place where it is sunny all the time, you can cook using a solar oven. The price of solar oven ranges from $10 to $25. If all the options mentioned do not work, you can eat some foods without cooking. You can eat oatmeal raw; add some lemon juice and oil and dried fruit. Sprout small beans like garbanzos and lentils and eat them without cooking. Large beans such as black beans and pintos must be cooked. And of course you can always eat seeds and nuts and dried fruit raw.