Episode 199 | Oct 1, 2026

Harnessing Emergency Preparedness for Better Health, With Mira Dessy

What does being prepared have to do with living a healthy life? This week on Health Coach Talk, Dr. Sandi welcomes holistic nutrition professional, author, and “Ingredient Guru” Mira Dessy for a conversation about holistic emergency preparedness. From food and water to power outages and unexpected disruptions, Mira explains why preparedness can be approached as another part of supporting health, resilience, and peace of mind.

“An emergency happens, you’re going to be stressed. It’s just a very normal response… When we take the time to think about things like this, we’re building self-reliance, we are building resilience, and we are also reducing stress.”

Mira Dessy

Mira’s interest in preparedness began as a young adult when she found herself facing a hurricane with no idea what supplies she needed or how to prepare. As she later navigated her own health challenges and lived in areas affected by different emergencies, she began noticing the limitations of one-size-fits-all preparedness advice, especially for people with food sensitivities, dietary restrictions, health conditions, or other individual needs. In her conversation with Dr. Sandi, Mira shares how families can gradually build a preparedness pantry around foods they already eat, rotate supplies to minimize waste, plan for water and power disruptions, and think through when they might need to stay home or evacuate. Her approach centers on preparing thoughtfully over time rather than reacting from fear when an emergency is already underway.

For health coaches, preparedness offers another lens for thinking about the many factors that can influence a person’s health and well-being. Mira explains that having a plan can build self-reliance and resilience while reducing some of the stress that naturally accompanies an unexpected event. The same bio-individual perspective that shapes functional health coaching can also inform how someone prepares, taking into account their food preferences, health needs, family, pets, environment, budget, and available resources. This conversation offers a fresh perspective on what it can mean to support health before circumstances become challenging.

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Transcript

Dr. Sandi: Welcome to “Health Coach Talk.” Today, we are going to talk about something which some of you might think, that’s pretty off topic. This is something that is not discussed enough, and my guest is a real expert in it. It is emergency preparedness, and specifically, holistic emergency preparedness. What does that mean, and why this can be a matter of life or death for you and your family if you are not prepared. So, I want to talk about our special guest, Mira Dessy. Let me tell you about her.

She is known as the ingredient guru. She is a holistic nutrition professional and author, and she is a popular public speaker. And she knows that it’s not just what you eat, but what’s in it that creates the foundation of wellness. Over time, this philosophy has expanded to include helping people understand the basics of building a preparedness journey, a preparedness pantry that is one of the ingredients for a healthy life. So, I know you are going to find the information that we talk about very useful.

We’re going to talk about something that I don’t think is talked about and explored enough, and that is preparedness. What you do…you talk about…this has been like a…it’s like a holistic emergency preparedness. So, can you start us off by describing what you mean by that, and how you got into this work?

Mira: Sure. Thank you so much for asking. I really feel that holistic emergency preparedness means taking the time to think about what will work for you and your family, whether you have specific health needs, if there’s something going on in your particular area that you need to be mindful of. And while there’s a lot of emergency preparedness information out there, unfortunately, much of it relies on prepackaged foods or prepackaged solutions. And just as we are bio-individual in our health and wellbeing, I think we need to do the same when it comes to building a preparedness plan.

Dr. Sandi: So, what would that look like? What would building a preparedness plan look like?

Mira: I first got into this simply because, as a young adult, I wound up moving to an area where there was a hurricane and got exposed to it. Had no idea. Neighbor came and knocked on my door and said, we have to go to the grocery store. And she was telling me what to buy because I had no idea. And then over the years, as we lived in different areas and were exposed to different things, I also was going through my own health challenges and began to realize a lot of the preparedness foods.

For example, if you’re someone who eats gluten-free, they’re not a good option. Many of them rely on noodles or pasta or breads or crackers. If you’re someone who is sensitive to certain ingredients, there’s nothing that takes care of that. And then certain people are going to require perhaps more water because of their health conditions, or they’re going to require more supplies for dealing with whatever’s going on. If you’re pregnant, you need certain things to nourish on a slightly deeper level.

And I began to realize that it was this one-size-fits-all approach that seemed to say, oh, just buy all these things. Don’t pay attention to how much salt is in there. Don’t pay attention to some of these other ingredients. Just buy this. I call it the big bucket of don’t eat that after.

So, I live most of the year in Texas, and we have a lot of hurricanes. And after a storm, there’s this big black and red bucket that shows up at all the big box stores. It claims to have 172 meals in it, and they’re highly processed, dehydrated food with not great ingredients. And the bucket does not tell you that you need extra water stored in order to be able to rehydrate that. It also doesn’t talk about how are you going to cook that if your power runs out.

So, really, there’s so many different things. My goal is simply to get people to think about what some of the foundational needs are, and then begin to work to build a plan that fits their family.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. That makes so much sense. So, this is…and I have to admit that this is something that I always…I should do this or I’ll tell my daughter, we should be doing this. And I had…after September 11th, this was all over the news because we didn’t know if it was going to hit next and you need to be prepared. So, the grocery stores were like…and it wasn’t a natural disaster. I’ve never been in an area with a hurricane or earthquakes or anything like that, but the…we have tornadoes, but okay, you just go in the basement. I never really think about it in the Illinois area this occurring.

And so, I remember loading up on water and had canned goods and a can opener. And then I just kind of forgot about it. It was in the basement and then…but you really need to keep checking. And first, let’s backtrack. At the time, I remember the government, there’s a website, like emergency preparedness, and there’s a checklist. What are your thoughts? Is that adequate? Do we need other than food if somebody is sensitive to certain ingredients, but what about the…what we’re given in terms of the checklist from the government?

Mira: I feel that the checklist is possibly an okay place to start if you haven’t done anything. But again, it doesn’t take into account what’s going on in your area. It’s very broad. And I will share that, for a lot of people…for example, I live in Texas. In 2021, we had winter storm Uri, which most of us refer to as the great Texas snowpocalypse. And the entire power grid in the State of Texas went down. If you haven’t thought about that, how are you going to cook food? If you haven’t thought about that, how are you going to stay warm?

And so, the government shares some things that are a good place to start. And I also…this is a really good point to share that I am not talking about building a bunker in the woods with five years’ worth of supplies. And if you want to do that, yay for you, great. But for most people, my goal is to help you have two to four weeks of supplies to have food, water, secure shelter, warmth or cooling, and cooking. How are you…and light. How are you going to do those things?

And it’s also not about running out and spending $5,000 to have those things. It’s about going, oh, you know what? It would be a really good idea to have a flashlight by every door so that if the power out and we needed to get outside, we knew where it was. And so, you buy one. It would be a great idea after Halloween to go buy those glow stick necklaces and put them around your pet’s neck at night so you don’t trip over. I have a neighbor who literally broke two ribs tripping over a black cat in the dark. It’s just about learning to think about it, and a little bit at a time we do as much as we can to begin to fill those gaps.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. I started thinking about it again because this summer, we had a very bad storm, and a lot of trees were knocked down. And so, the power was out for an extensive area. And so, just thinking about everything that we couldn’t do because of lack of power. So, I’ve always started with canned goods and have the cans of salmon and sardines and things that I would naturally eat. So, having those available, cans of beans, things that are sources of protein. And of course, having a can opener is critical for that. But is there something that people often forget when they talk…when they think about food and storing food? Naturally, we think of canned food. I got food in pouches. But what are some other good possibilities?

Mira: Sure. And I will say, one of the biggest is to have a manual can opener if you’re going to have canned goods. And funny historical fact, the can opener was not actually invented until nearly 50 years after the invention of canned goods. They used a hammer and a chisel. I always find that amusing. But yes, a manual can opener. I also think it’s really important. I like to encourage people to use a Sharpie and write the date, the expiration date on the top, just the month and the year so that you don’t wind up having a stockpile in the basement, and five years later, you’re like, oh, it’s all expired. That’s a waste of food and money.

I think some of the things that people tend to forget are having alternate sources. Cans are great, but also freeze dried food or dehydrated food can be a good way to expand what you’ve got. Many of the canned supplies tend to have a lot of salt in them, and it needs it to preserve it, but you also can have other additives or preservatives. And so, it can be hard to have a broad enough variety just in canned goods alone.

So, I am a big fan of, for example, freeze dried fruit. I think that’s great. I think people also tend to forget to have a couple of treats. We’re sitting there and, yes, it’s so important to have vegetables and to have proteins. And if you’re someone who uses dairy to have…their ways to have dairy sources that you can store. And sometimes in an emergency, a cookie or a piece of chocolate would not go amiss.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. As we were gathering the supplies and I have replenished them because this was 25 years ago when I first set it up. So, I replenish them when I think they’re way past the expiration date. But as my husband says, in the apocalypse, we don’t care about eating organic, it’s survival. And so, I think there has to be looking at this with some life or death. It’s the apocalypse in the world.

Mira: And that actually brings up a really good point. One of the things that I noticed, supply chain disruptions are also an emergency. Someone losing their job is an emergency. There are other reasons than natural disaster why we would need to have a preparedness plan, and that plan goes more than food. It’s first aid, it’s having all those other things that I talked about earlier. And one of the other things that I really want to encourage people to keep in mind is only buy and store what your family will eat.

For example, I noticed there have been certain times where different disasters have happened, and all of a sudden, dried beans go flying off the shelf. And people know that you can rehydrate beans. But the question is, A, do you know how to use them, and will your family eat that much? If your family does not like oatmeal, please do not buy oatmeal. If they’re hungry enough, sure, they’ll eat it, but they are not going to be happy. And my goal, and this is part of holistic preparedness, is for you to be nourished and to feel comforted by what you’re eating and how you’re supporting yourself.

Dr. Sandi: So, how can somebody do this on a budget? And also, how…because often…and I’ve run into this where I have all this stored food and it’s all now…it’s four years later, it’s expired. So, what would you say in terms of the amount of money and also time it takes to be prepared?

Mira: Sure. And so, there’s a two-part answer to that. The first part budget-wise is to look at your budget and figure out what you’ve got. Again, I’m not one of these people that are like, I don’t even go out and spend $5,000. That’s a lot. And generally, what I try to do is encourage people, look at the things that your family eats. What are the foods that you regularly make on repeat? How do you have the ingredients for those on hand? And then figure out, do you have a little bit of a budget? Maybe it’s $5 every shopping trip, maybe it’s $30 a month, and you buy those extras. So, if something’s on sale, you’re like, oh, I can buy two extra or three extra this month. And that goes into your preparedness pantry. But it’s figuring out what budget works for your family.

And then the other half of that equation is exactly what you were talking about. We have two pantries, in my opinion. One is your everyday pantry. That’s the one that you cook from. That’s the one that you use on a regular daily basis. When you go to the grocery store, except for fresh produce or perishable products, you’re not actually shopping for that pantry. You should be shopping for your preparedness pantry.

And that’s where, let’s say for example, your family loves mustard. And so, you know that you guys go through two bottles of mustard a month, which would be a lot, but you do. And so, you always want to make sure that you have enough in your overflow pantry, your preparedness pantry, that when the one in the refrigerator runs out, you go grab another one. What goes on the grocery list is to refill the preparedness pantry. And then if it happens to go on sale, you’re like, okay, you know what? We’ll store two there. Now, I wouldn’t have six. That’s a lot. But I’m just saying, when we begin to separate our pantries and learn to shop for that preparedness pantry and learn to set aside a little bit of money or to pay attention to sales so that we can stock up. And then what happens is we begin to rotate what we’re using.

So, sure, you can store it in the basement if that’s a great place for you. I know people who…I have one client that I did a consultation with who lived in an apartment. She’s like, I have no place to store anything. And what we figured out was her storage for her preparedness pantry was actually under her bed. And she bought some of those…they’re these long plastic containers on wheels. They’re meant for storing gift wrap. And she was able to get an astonishing amount of food. She could get three of those under her bed. That was where her preparedness pantry was. But that was where she went when she needed to replenish her everyday pantry.

Dr. Sandi: Interesting. So, you have your everyday pantry, you have your preparedness. And let’s say, oh, I ran out of something, then you would go to your preparedness. I actually do the opposite. Because I love salmon, and I travel with cans of salmon. So, I always…I would stock up, and I had…in one of my cupboards, I had this huge stack of salmon and sardines and mackerel. But every time, I would go to…oh, maybe I’ll have some for…oh, no, I don’t want to go into my preparedness food. And so, I waited too long. And I was making salmon patties for my grandkids with canned salmon. I was like, oh, darn, the expiration was like, June… And I thought, oh. I was like… And then I had this debate. And I actually asked ChatGPT. Is it okay to eat this canned food? And I thought, again, if it was the apocalypse, I would eat it. It wouldn’t matter that a year after the expiration. But for my grandkids, I decided I’m going to go buy new cans. I wouldn’t risk that.

But what about if it’s a little over the…because that’s…again, it’s a problem when you have this preparedness food, and all of a sudden, now, you look at the expiration and it’s not good anymore. But how much leeway do they actually give if it’s not dented or bulging or smelly or…when you open it?

Mira: And those are the really important points. If the can is not rusty, dented, if you open it and it’s not discolored, or it doesn’t smell bad. If it’s past expiration date, you can dip a fork in it, touch it to your tongue. If it doesn’t taste bad, you could try a little bit. Generally, it is good if none of those other situations are applicable past the expiration date. But it may not be as nourishing. Some of it may have oxidized or there may have been nutrient breakdown or whatever. I generally believe it’s best to try and stay within the date. But if it’s a little bit over, I confess I do the look, smell, taste test.

Dr. Sandi: What about supplements in your emergency preparedness?

Mira: I think that is a great thing. And that’s one where you really need to make sure that you’re staying on top of rotating them. Because some of those can break down very quickly, especially certain ones that oxidize readily, like magnesium or calcium. You want to make sure that you’re not going over the expiration date. Again, this is where we have the preparedness pantry and the everyday pantry. So, we don’t buy just what we need. We have a little bit of overflow so that when we run out of D3, we grab the bottle, and then we buy to replace that.

Dr. Sandi: Makes sense. How much water should we be storing? And how often do we replace that? Because I would buy the big jugs of water, the big gallon containers. But how much do we actually need? Because we want not just drinking water, but if we’re using it for washing or other things as well.

Mira: Yeah. So, the general recommendation for drinking and low-level cooking, if we just need a little bit, is a gallon of water per person per day. And pets, by the way, are people, too. So, we do need to include our pets. Although pets are a little hard. I was just talking with someone who’s like, I have horses. I’m like, you’re gonna have to figure out how much your horse needs, because I have no idea. So, that’s that. And then if we want water for sanitary uses, then we have to start expanding it.

However, one of the things to keep in mind is, A, how we’re storing the water. I will share those grocery store containers. I personally had a very bad experience with them years ago. We had three kids in the house, and they recommend that you store two weeks’ worth of water. So, I bought a whole bunch and shoved it in a coat closet that we don’t use very often. And then one day went into the closet and the carpet was squishy because the plastic seams, those are very thin containers, and it had split. And that was when I learned about something called an Aqua-Tainer. And they’re kind of like gas cans, the plastic gas cans that you buy to put gasoline in, but they’re blue, and they’re for water. And so, it’s a very thick, sturdy plastic. And they come in a number of different sizes.

So, that can be a great way to store your water. And I generally encourage people, if you’re using Aqua-Tainers, to put a piece of green painter’s tape on it because the green shows up better than the blue and write drinking water and what date, month, and year. And then six months later, use that to water plants or put in the bird bath or whatever, and then replenish. And so, every six months you’re cycling that through.

And then the other thing that I think is really important to keep in mind is to begin to look at your house for other water sources because some of your sanitary needs do not require drinking water level. For example, if you happen to have a hot water tank, depending on…those go anywhere from 30 to 75 gallons. I think there may even be some that are bigger than that. That is a whole lot of water that’s available for flushing toilets if you need it.

So, there’s a…this is where we begin to learn about this is drinking water and then this is non-potable water, like we don’t want to drink it. And then also looking for alternative sources. That’s actually one of the biggest things that when people do consultations with me, that comes up is what is another source that you have for water, and are you going to have to filter it? Is it drinkable as it is? What are you going to do?

Dr. Sandi: These are such good points and I think just something that so many people are just not aware of. And this is where…and we just don’t talk about this unless there is a disaster looming or there’s something that just took place or…but it’s often saying, I’ll be okay, or we just don’t think about preparedness. What about should we stay or should we go? Can you comment on that? Because there’s maybe conflicting opinions.

Mira: Yeah. And that is such an important thing for people to think about in advance. All of this is stuff where I don’t want people to live in the state of fear, like, okay, when’s the next emergency? What am I going to do? It’s simply about being mindful so that if something happens… Trust me. An emergency happens, you’re going to be stressed. It’s just a very normal response. But if you’ve thought about it in advance, it’s like, okay, you know what? We’ve got this covered. We made these decisions. We know what’s going on.

When it comes to the decision to stay or go, the very first thing I want to remind people is that the general guideline is to have a 72-hour kit that you can grab and go. Most of us are probably not backpacking out into the wild. So, for example, when we were raising our kids, everybody had their own little box, and the five boxes went in the back of the car. Everybody had their own box that had three days’ worth of supplies plus some other things. If the federal government says to leave, I encourage you, please leave. I get very distressed when I see on the news, sometimes there’s some big thing going on. People are like, I’m going to ride it out. First of all, you are putting yourself in danger. You are also putting the first responders in danger because those people are going to have to come get you when it doesn’t work out the way you want it to. So, please think about that and be responsible.

If you are not under a mandatory evacuation situation, the idea is to figure out how much you think you can handle with the supplies that you have with the systems that you’ve put in place. And if it’s going to be longer than that, do you need to leave?

So, I’ll share, for example, many years ago, Hurricane Ike, 2008, came to Texas. We had just moved. We literally had not unpacked all of our boxes yet. We’d been there a week and a half, I think, and it hit. And we did not have our systems in place. We had nothing set up. And so, we knew we needed to leave. Luckily, we had a place to go. And that’s the other part of it is figuring out where you’re going to go. Just hitting the road is maybe not a great answer either.

So, figure out what are the situations or circumstances when you think you’re going to leave. Do you have what you need to be able to go, and where are you going to go? Which also brings up another really important point, and I talk about this a lot. Please do not let your car go below a half a tank of gas. I know so many people who slide into the gas station, and they think they’re saving money. It does not cost you more to fill up at a half a tank. And the more gas you have in your car, the further you’ll get when you need to.

The other thing to keep in mind, and this has happened to us living in Texas, we get a lot of hurricanes, and we also get derechos and other things. The gas station can have all the gas it wants, but if the power’s out, it’s not delivering any of it to anybody. So, the more gas you have in your car, the better off you are.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. Wow. These are such good points. And we have a lot of health coaches, who are our listeners. And I think this is something that they can talk about with people. Because, again, it has to do with health and future health and being prepared. This is just one other way of maintaining a healthy way of life, and that is thinking through how you would respond in a disaster or it doesn’t even have to…as you’re saying, doesn’t have to be a disaster. It can be something that could happen unexpectedly that will create a need for having those emergency supplies.

Mira: Absolutely. And I think it’s also really important to remember that when we take the time to think about things like this, and this is that whole holistic piece, we’re building self-reliance, we are building resilience, and we are also reducing stress. Again, I am big about not being a fear monger about this issue because you can go on the internet and there are tons of people like, oh, my God, what are you going to do when this happens? Please don’t do that. It’s two to four weeks of supplies, having a plan, mindfully thinking through the steps so that you are able to have that less stress, resilient mindset.

Dr. Sandi: Wow. This has been such a fascinating conversation. Where can people find you?

Mira: The easiest place to find me actually is on Substack, miradessy.substack.com. And I also have an entire preparedness section. So, if you go to the homepage and you scroll down, there’s a lot of articles about preparedness and information for people to help support them.

Dr. Sandi: Wonderful. I am inspired. I’m going to go to the store. I’m going to stop making it, oh, we should do this. We’re going to do this. And as a coach approach, I’m going to do this at a specific time. This is the store I’m going to go to. This is what I’m going to buy. And this is my plan for keeping my preparedness stacks ready and not expired cans and old three-year-old gallons of water.

Mira: That’s great. And thank you so much for allowing me to be here and to share with people. Like I said, this is…it’s just a little bit at a time because every step you take towards building that preparedness mindset, you’re a little bit better off than you were the day before. And I promise you, six months down the road, you’re going to look back and go, wow, we’ve done a lot. Here’s the other thing. I’m not done. I’ve been doing this for years. I still look at, oh, what could I do? Could I do this? Could I change that? Is there something that happened? It’s just about being mindful.

Dr. Sandi: Absolutely. I could see your passion, it comes across. And I hope that our listeners have caught some of that, and that they’re going to go out and do something today to help their preparedness, their future self. Thank you.

Mira: Thank you so much.