THIS rainy season, one must always be prepared for typhoon-related  disasters. The Philippines is vulnerable to natural hazards in the form of typhoons and floods, flashfloods, landslides and volcanic eruptions.

Whether the disaster is natural, human-induced or a technology foul-up, the challenge to everyone is how to confront and handle a situation.

Survival is a fundamental struggle for people experiencing disasters. Anticipating what may happen can make coping more bearable. However, during and after the disaster, acting at once is crucial.

One of the major concerns is food and nutrition. The kinds of food during emergencies vary. Easy-to-serve quick energy foods high in calories, such as starchy roots and tubers, bread, instant soups, and juices should be given. Foods should be simple, nourishing and hygienically prepared.

Provide water, calories from energy-giving foods, protein from fish, meat and poultry for body repair, thiamin, the “morale” vitamin to help minimize nervous tension, and salt to conserve water in the body. Avoiding dehydration is very vital at this stage.

Easy-to-serve and easy-to-hold one-dish hot meals should be considered. Examples are champorado with tuyo, macaroni soup with milk, and mackerel with misua and rice.

Post disaster foods should include rice, fish or meat, fruits and vegetables. The Food and Nutrition Research Institute of the Department of Science and Technology has developed several food products for emergency and disasters. Products that are affordable and convenient for food assistance programs during disasters include:

* Compressed food. This is a ready-to-eat legume-based nutritious food with milk, vegetable fat and sugar. It is light, compact, convenient to handle and store and easy to distribute. It can be prepared into porridge by just adding hot water.

* Instant Cream Soups. These products are made from combinations of vegetables and legumes with spices and flavors. You can buy Instant Squash Cream Soup and Instant Mongo Cream Soup. They are in powdered form, thus, are convenient to prepare.

* Instant noodles in cups. An instant noodle enriched with beta-carotene naturally present in squash. Addition of boiling water to the product will give nutritious, hot chicken-flavored noodle soup.

It is necessary that during disasters, people’s hunger must be gratified so that less people will get sick and will be malnourished.