HM Gov telling us to get tinned food and bottled water?

[DecisionTime123]

Call me old fashioned, but isn't this sort of thing likely to provoke a run on toilet rolls? Couldnt find any other threads on it, but I think there is a "preppers" topic on here somewhere. In any case, what do you think? I'm sort of concerned, should I be? Or has this gone under the radar?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/aug/25/uk-to-warn-citizens-to-stock-up-on-food-amid-threat-from-climate-crisis-and-hostile-states

It's more to prepare for a potential cyber attack from Russia.

This is good advice from the Swedish Government which is sent out to all households and which people follow without complaining. It’s about being expected to help not just yourself, but other people too who are vulnerable. So that help can be used where it is best needed. Not on people who couldn’t be arsed to follow simple advice.

rib.msb.se/filer/pdf/30874.pdf

One of the issues of having no water is flushing the loo. I get really cheap water for penny's in Aldi every six months. About 6l which at a push would be drinking water for the 6 of us for two days. The rest oʻut of date stuff I keep for the loo.

The prepping I do is about £5 a month outlay if that. We have candels, matches, headlights, water, pasta, rice and tinned things we normally eat on bulk like baked beans and tomatoes. We have water and power cuts and a disabled child. We couldn't get any help for him when lockdown started and not naive enough to belive we would get help next time. It's all come in handy during water and power cuts and makes me feel a bit better. I don't think being prepaired has to look like having all you need for months. It could be refilling old pop bottles with tap water and putting them under the kick boards or under the bath void. We had weeks long of no water. After two days the hours of queues had died off. I figure I only need a few days of anything then the panic dies off. It's was the first week or so of lockdown the shelves was stripped bear

I don't think its crazy, we've always kept supplies to last at least a week, my DH is ex military- not a prepper as such but has always said its sensible and we rotate it about once a year, use and replace. We also have a wind up/solar radio with USB chargers which has actually been handy in power cuts 😅 and gas stove and canisters etc..

We have enough for about 5 days but also have some military rations (my husband is ex military and he does wild camping with his ex squadie mates a few times a year they like the taste of those things) so should be okay for a bit also my mum has a well on her property just have to walk to collect it

And to the one who said you need water to cook pasta. You can cook pasta in pasta sauce or a tin of chopped tomatoes.

Yes we do have a generator

What an odd post.
Netanyahu is criticised for attacking Gaza and Lebanon (for no reason whatsoever?), yet Russia (who attacked Ukraine) would be better at running Europe than the current leaders?
Is Zelensky closing down churches in an attempt to ban Christianity (spoiler: he isn’t) or is he specifically targeting the Russian Orthodox Church?

Yes, it's quite odd. We certainly aren't all like that but it appears a subset of us are.

Well you have just very successfully demonstrated the them and us divide in society. Presumably because you have the income or wealth to cushion you from the reality of life, certainly in the UK, that a large percentage of the population are facing. And it would appear you have very little interest in what is going on outside your bubble.

If you really don't recognise the difference in attitudes and behaviour of people post Covid as opposed to pre Covid, and you don't acknowledge the devastating effects that social media is having on people, particularly young people, then you really are in a privileged world inaccessible to a lot of us. And are you really unaware of the Cost of living crisis and the effects of global warming?

In the US, people are not encouraged to "can" food themselves although it did used to be a thing. The FDA have produced guidance but that is not the same as encouragement. As a matter of fact its not cans that are used but jars, the mason or kilner type. In the Uk its called "bottling" or "preserving" You can (ha) find instructions on how to bottle meat and meat products online but its a risky business and needs specialist pressure canning equipment. In the US, most large scale preserving is done by communities who want to reduce their use of electricity so its done instead of freezing. It also has a very limited shelf life and is labour intensive so you'd need to do a lot of it and be scrupulous in rotating to make it useful, also of course it would have limited use in an emergency as it will still deteriorate at the same rate you don't want to add gut infections to your list of issues.
if you want to preserve meat, drying or freeze drying would be a better option.

Russian submarines could destroy underwater cables from offshore windfarms

No please don’t move to Scotland. Having an English refugee crisis will not do us any favours!

its actually not. The advice massively predates the current Russia issue.

No I know, there are thankfully many sensible people too when it comes to things like this of course.

It’s probably the angry ones who will complain about the useless Government not handing out water in time because how would they be expected to know a cyber attack could happen..

I had no idea this was a thing. I've got a couple of tins of sardines, tinned tomatoes and a tin of soup in the cupboard and buy bottled water in my weekly shop which runs out by Friday. How much are we supposed to stash? I dont think I'll be stockpiling as I dont really like tinned food.

One winter I lived rurally and it was quite stormy, the power had been on and off for a couple of days and a bigger one was coming so I filled a massive bucket (like 200l bucket) with water. Then the storm hit and had a 5 day power cut, that bucket of water came in very very useful (as did the wood heated stove I could cook on, wood fire heating and a wood heated sauna and hot water cauldron)

Can I suggest that you’d like it better than no food? Current advice is to add one or two bits to your shopping each week. Yes I am aware that there are people who can’t even afford this.

Not so drastic and I know not everyone can have them but I was blooming glad of my water butts when we had no water for a week a few years ago

I said it's more to prepare for, not only because of.

Yes, it’s just been dredged up by the papers because of the recent Russia headlines.

It’s not new.

Isn't this just about common sense?

Building up to having a few days extra so that no one actually does need to panic if there is an interruption in services for whatever reason?

Buy a can or a pouch of microwave rice or ready to eat lentils for £1 or less once every couple of weeks when on special offer and tuck them away in a cupboard.

For when you run out of money, or can't get to the shops or there is some form of emergency.

And keep an eye on dates and don't waste them.

The public get hysterical and now we have hysteria over hysteria!

This has been happening for a couple of years, no? Wasn’t there a list published foe
the UK, and also other countries (somewhere in Scandinavia, if I recall correctly?)

I asked ex-b who worked for a utility company on the clean water side, if water ever went out of date. He said no, of course not, just keep it in the dark to keep the plastic in good shape.

Totally agree except I wouldn’t rely on anything that needs electricity to cook it unless I had a genny or thr house runs on solar.