omg i have been one of these for years, secretly...

[jeanswithatwist]

dh thinks i am mad but i am well read on the subject, not something i advertise. i stock pile too......mountain house, etc. big secret, dh sworn to secrecy....this will make for some interesting reading. only know about this new section (is it new?) as someone on aibu was asking what prepping was

[Stratter5]

You have a mountain house?

[FuckTheseSixFishInParticular]

Funny how people keep finding their way there! (Welcome!)

[winchester1]

Mountain house is a brand of very long life food.
Very new section, yes.

Welcome to the fold up

[ISpidersmanYouMeanPirate]

Am loving this new section

hello!

[mumblechum1]

Ooooh I wandered over to this section out of curiosity and realised I'm a closet prepper. I have:

2 wood burners and a lot of trees
Bottled gas for cooking
A gazillion bottles of water from the bird flu scare; does water go off?
And two NBC (nuclear biological and chemical weapon proof)suits in the cellar as DS is in the Army reserve. They include dinky respirator hoods

I just need to buy lots of Mountain Food now and we're sorted ??

[PuckyMup]

I think water can go stale and get bugs?

[SideOrderofChips]

I love this section. I've been a secret prepper for years. I dont actually have supplies but every winter i start stock piling food just in case of bad weather or snow (i live on an island. It snows or the weathers bad: Boats and planes dont get in. I also live on top of a hill. It snows? I can't go anywhere with 3 kids)

[winchester1]

How long water keeps depends on the type and how its stored. I just have some tap water in old pop bottles and need to refill ever few months (I tend to give it to the dogs), we have a well so its not a major concern for us.
You can get special containers and the like that hold much longer.

[warmastoast]

Nuclear proof suits in the cellar? ok you win

[mumblechum1]

will now chuck the water out. Had forgotten we also have a well in the paddock if I can remember where it is.....

[jeanswithatwist]

funny but there is alot of slagging off about us preppers in the aibu section a mixture of fear, envy or simply think we are pathetic. i have always had a deep rooted fear of death, end of days shite is connected so have ALWAYS liked to feel secure. as for mountain house, i know it is really expensive but the last 5 odd years (not including last year as oddly enough i found a couple of the large tins at a bootsale for £2 each!!!!!!) i have bought a few tins. trust me, the government have cellers full of this stuff. have you seen their 'cheap' box sets online? start at around £1,000/£2,000. i wouldn't have anywhere to store it even if we could afford it. have you seen these documentaries with preppers talking openly about their stash? so ridiculous, if lord forbid there was a 'situation' everyone in the area would be banging their doors down, trick is to tell NOONE. tbh, if there was a nuclea holocaust/zombie apocalypse i wouldn't want to survive, the survivors would be FAR worse off. i only stock pile for situations where for whatever reason, there is a temporary emptying of the shop shelves. Makes me feel safer having it, with a 25 year shelf life, i found it worth the extra expense as tins/packeted food expire after a few years so rather than keep replacing the stuff i have stocked in the loft, i thought the tins were a better investment. dh gets really annoyed with me though even though i bought them with my money, i have to sneak them in the house. he is a glass is half full person whilst i am a glass is nearly empty type . i have also invested in water purifying tablets rather than stock up on water as water does go out of date. i have some in the loft, been there for a few years, must be disgusting although i know in desperation i would drink the cats water... (i also have alot of cat food tins......, can't let her suffer)

[ThroughThickAndThin01]

My dh is the same jeans. Can I ask you where you get water purifying tablets from?

[BiddyPop]

I have a water butt off one roof (the kitchen extension) which we have used for toilets in the past (when the water system locally had major bursts and problems in the bad snows of 2009/10, and we had a lot of outtages). Rather than the normal watering of veggies use.

We also, since that time, have a few bottles of regular water (Tesco basics) put aside for drinking water, and we have a few large containers that we fill when needed too. I keep saying I must get a few of the WPTablets, just in case.

I am a kinda prepper - I was a Girl Guide and into scouting as an adult (and am now a leader in cubs). We lived rurally growing up, and had lots of power outtages and other issues at various times. We currently live in an urban area but its very hilly so snow is a big problem and there have been flooding problems as well over the years. I have a yearning for a smallholding once I am old enough (or once I've earned enough money to buy it and support myself on very low income) so I've read a lot about self-sufficiency, which has taken me through some prepping stuff over the years. So I have a stockpile, and a fair amount of knowledge. But there are things I still need to learn and need to do in my preparations.

[jeanswithatwist]

through emergency food storage online (i think it was them). one of dh's sisters lives on a lovely large farm in the middle of nowhere and has the same mindset (worries about the same sort of stuff). she has said to me in the past how she would be alright as she lives in the middle of nowhere and has a large farm etc etc. but she wouldn't be as people in towns & cities would make a bee line for the countryside and pillage other peoples resources. i truly believe the nastiest type of people would come into their own in these situations and would rule the day. kindness towards other people would disappear in the blink of an eye in alot of people and most would be out for themselves (who has seen those awful films 'the day after tomorrow' (i think it was called that, about a nuclear war in the US) & the english equivalent not to mention probably the most depressing film i have ever seen 'The Road'. hiding your goods is the best bet, other people knowing what you have is the wrong thing to do. on a different note, you can buy these huge water containers (already mentioned above) to store water however there is NOWAY i could smuggle even one of those past dh in our small house

[howtorebuild]

In the short term kindness will be ok, long term kind people would have to hide out.

A farm would be ok if it was well off the roads and not easy to access.

[Stratter5]

Umm, you do know the loft is a really bad place to store foodstuffs, because of the huge temperature variances. You'd be better off pulling up the ground floor floorboards, and stashing it under them

[ISpidersmanYouMeanPirate]

jeans my 20l bottle of water is in the bottom of my wardrobe next to my OFRS. DH doesn't even know it's there

Although this weekend I did sheepishly give him some energy bars to eat (I don't like them) that went out of date last June...he asked me why on earth I bought them then clicked and laughed and said "oh it's when you were preparing for war to break out!"

To be far, it was during my maternity leave that I became a bit obsessed with prepping and went at it in all directions. I'm more concentrated on several (realistic) scenarios now.

[jeanswithatwist]

stratter funny you should say that, as it had occurred to me in a nightmare scenario, i would stash the stuff under floorboards. the mountain house is in the 'cellar' (small space under the stairs, not exactly a cellar but it is cool there & out of the way), the stuff in the loft has been there a few years, well out of date by now but i am not going through one of those freaked out hormonal phases so am happy to leave it there plus it has really annoyed dh in the past when he has caught me either binning or replacing what was in the loft which i haven't done since i turned my attentions to good old mountain house. they do freeze dried packeted deserts although these don't have as long shelf life but longer than standard tins etc packeted things (i think anyway). their mains aren't exactly exciting but i imagine that lord forbid, if i ever had to crack open a can, the last thing i would be worrying about was what we were eating....

[Stratter5]

Commercially canned food lasts pretty much forever, don't worry about tinned stuff.

[Sadik]

I think I'm an accidental prepper! I lived off grid for 10 years, so actually I'm less self reliant now as we're back on mains at our house due to the lure of the feedin tariff. But I reckon 6 acres of land, 2 acres field veg, 4 acres short rotation coppice, bore hole with direct solar pump and a root cellar gets me some brownie points

[Zetetic]

I have got an amazing life straw for water. I have not yet plucked up courage to use it on really dirty water. Apparently you can suck up foul water from a puddle and it filters through the straw so that by the time it reaches your mouth it is sparkling and pure.

I might get ds to try it. He has a cast iron stomach.

vestergaard.com/lifestraw-personal

[Zetetic]

By the way, what does Mountain House food in tins taste like?

[jeanswithatwist]

no idea as haven't had any reason to crack open a tin. actually, from the pictures online i think they look quite good. you just have to add water...they do things like chicken korma, pasta dishes, scrambled egg (i can't remember what i have as been stuffed away for years). they annoy dh whenever he has reason to go in the cellar although i think it is really funny as he thinks i am really eccentric but i take that as a compliment rather than an insult

[atticusclaw2]

Actually I tested a few tins which hadn't been rotated recently and which I discovered when clearing out the garage. One was just tinned rice pudding and one was tinned steak. Both were about 2009/10 Neither had stood the test of time (although clearly neither was gourmet food in the first place) and I wouldn't have been happy eating them. I was quite disappointed since I'd also read that tinned food will last indefinitely if the tin isn't dented and if they've been in a cool place.

Honey will apparently never go off. They've found honey in egyptian tombs which was still edible.

[ISpidersmanYouMeanPirate]

I've got a couple of life straws. Never tested but the reviews are convincing