How Do I Know If the Food and Water in My Kit Are Any Good?

Emergency drinking water sold as U.S. Coast Guard-approved should carry a Coast Guard approval number you can verify, along with identifying information such as the manufacturer, volume and date. Emergency food rations should also give you identifying information, including the manufacturer and country of origin. If an emergency water pouch doesn't identify its approval or dating information, there's much less for you to verify. Claims like “FDA approved” or “FEMA approved” are not meaningful emergency-food quality standards on their own.

What should I look for on a Coast Guard-approved emergency water pouch?

On a Coast Guard-approved emergency water pouch, look for four useful pieces of information: the approval number, manufacturer, volume and date.

The Coast Guard approval number for emergency drinking water begins with 160.026, which is the section of federal regulation covering emergency drinking water. The volume is usually 4.227 fluid ounces, or 125 milliliters. Look for a manufacture or expiration date so you can determine whether the pouch is still within its stated shelf life. Many emergency water pouches have a five-year shelf life.

A pouch with no approval number and no date isn't necessarily bad water. But it's water you have no way to check.

Emergency pouches are small on purpose, and that surprises people. Here's why your kit doesn't come with three days of water.

What does "Coast Guard approved" actually mean?

The U.S. Coast Guard approves specific products for use on lifeboats and survival craft. It's a real standard with real testing behind it.

Three things Coast Guard approval does not mean.

Approval doesn't cover a whole company. It attaches to one product from one manufacturer, so a brand can sell an approved water pouch and an unapproved one side by side.

Approval doesn't cover the food in the same kit. Water and rations are approved separately, under different sections of the regulation.

Coast Guard approval applies to specific approved components, such as emergency drinking water or emergency provisions, rather than serving as a blanket approval of every item in a consumer emergency kit.

The number and the date tell you different things. The approval number lets you verify the product's Coast Guard status. The pouch date tells you whether the water you actually own is still within its stated shelf life.

What should I look for on emergency food rations?

Good emergency rations tell you who made them and where. Look for the manufacturer's name, the country of origin, total calories and calories per serving, and a date.

Two details worth understanding. Lifeboat-style emergency ration bars are designed to be eaten without cooking or rehydrating, an important feature when drinking water is limited. They're also typically formulated to avoid excessive salt and other ingredients that could increase thirst. That's deliberate.

Some rations carry their own Coast Guard approval under a different regulation number than water. Plenty of good food doesn't. Long-term storage food, the kind sold in buckets, is a different category entirely and isn't made to that standard, which is fine for what it's for.

Which claims sound official but aren't real?

"FDA approved." The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not approve food, and it does not approve emergency kits. Food facilities register with the FDA. Registration is a real thing; approval isn't.

“FDA-certified facility.” FDA does not independently certify or approve food manufacturing facilities. A food facility may be required to register with FDA and is subject to applicable FDA food-safety requirements and inspections, but registration is not FDA approval or certification.

“FEMA approved.” FEMA publishes emergency-preparedness guidance, but a vague claim that a consumer emergency kit is “FEMA approved” should not be treated as a product-safety certification. Look for the specific standard or approval behind the claim.

“USDA approved.” Whether USDA oversight is relevant depends on the food. USDA regulates certain meat, poultry and egg products, while most packaged emergency foods fall under FDA jurisdiction. A vague “USDA approved” claim by itself doesn't tell you much about the quality or shelf life of an emergency ration.

What is real? A Coast Guard approval number you can look up is one verifiable credential. Independent third-party food-safety certification under a GFSI-recognized program, such as SQF or FSSC 22000, is another. Those certifications apply to specific facilities and scopes, so holding one doesn't automatically mean every product a company sells is covered.

The same logic applies to other gear in your kit. Here's how to tell whether an N95 mask is real.

How do I check a kit I already own?

Find the water pouches and read the date. Do the same for the food. Find the earliest expiration date among the consumable items. That's the first date your kit needs attention, even if other components will remain usable much longer.

Write that first-refresh date somewhere easy to see and set a calendar reminder about a month beforehand. Many packaged emergency water pouches and lifeboat-style food rations have five-year shelf lives, so this may be something you only need to revisit occasionally. Here's the rest of what to check when you refresh a kit.

If you opened your kit tonight, would you know which item in it expires first?

What we check before a kit goes in our catalog

Where a kit includes packaged emergency drinking water, we verify the manufacturer and applicable U.S. Coast Guard approval when that approval is claimed. Where a kit includes long-storage emergency food, we verify the manufacturer, country of origin, stated shelf life and available food-safety credentials. When a manufacturer holds a third-party certification such as SQF or FSSC 22000, we verify the certification and its scope rather than relying on the logo or claim alone.

We keep the supporting documentation on file. If you ever want to know what's behind a food- or water-quality claim on one of our product pages, ask us. We're happy to explain what we verified.

When we can't verify something, we don't claim it. That's the whole standard.

Sources & Standards
U.S. Coast Guard - Approved Equipment Database
U.S. Food & Drug Administration - Is It Really “FDA Approved”?
Global Food Safety Initiative - GFSI-Recognized Certification Programs