To stockpile 72 hours of supplies

[seriouslessness]

..in case of disaster or attack. A new preparedness strategy inspired by Nordic countries and Germany, who already do this.

Is this something you already do, or will do?

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/26/stockpile-supplies-72-hours-disasters-attack-eu-tells-citizens

Thank you PP you are right, Camping stoves need to be used in a well ventilated space.

We're lucky though in that we have an oil-fired Aga that fuels the heating as well.

As a youngster (aged about 14) we were snowed into our rural home for about 10 days. The oil-fuelled aga was running out of fuel & to save what we had my father shut off the heating & set up a calor gas stove in one of the outhouses (we had a smallholding so several options) in order to boil a kettle for tea & breakfast. We also ate very well as our small community of about 7 houses all clubbed together - all the neighbours shared the contents of their freezers - we had whole salmon, pheasant etc sharing aga fuel by eating in each others houses. My brother & parents & dogs all slept in the living room in front of the log fire in the huge inglenook fireplace. We had the best time ever playing board games, playing in snow etc!

A couple of years later this was repeated.

I could feed 6 people for probably six weeks out of my two freezers and bulging larder cupboards. I have lots of Pepsi max too (hate the stuff, DH drinks it) and no water, so I just need a tenners worth of Tesco Ashbeck 5lt water @ £1.40 and I’m all good?

Sending thanks to @OneTC and @RedToothBrush 😄 Foraging course and Amazon it is

I did actually do a foraging course last year. It was really interesting. We were recommended plant identification books to help. It was a very basic course and probably wouldn't help a great deal. The guy running it did a full on survival course but it's really expensive and I'm not THAT nuts.

I have a cupboard with plenty of tins, crackers, dried foods etc but no water except a 5l bottle I bought in COVID lockdown 1!

How long does bottled water last?!

When Covid lockdown struck, we did an audit of our cupboards, fridge and freezer and discovered we had enough to eat and drink for 6 weeks comfortably! (I suspect we still have)

Freezer might not be much use if there's no electricity...

A while ago my fuse board packed in so no electricity and believe you me, it is awful without power, watching the battery on my phone diminish as I was phoning around for an electrician, carting all my frozen food round to a neighbour, no kettle, no microwave, no hot water. I have a gas cooker so could boil water on the hob, but it really brought it home to me how much we rely on electricity It was horrible and that was just for a day or so. AND it cost me a lot of money for a new fuse board so all in all a stressful time

There's a basic edibility test you can do on lots of suspect foraged good, I've tried it before when I got really hungry in a jungle and found a plant I thought looked maybe edible.

It wasn't, but I found that out from the edibility test rather than likely painful death of eating it.

You get some of what you're intending to eat and you rub it on the inside of your arm where the skin is sensitive, if it doesn't develop a reaction you move onto the next stage, which is cooking and putting it on your lips, no reaction try a bit in your cheek, no reaction carefully go for it. It applies more to legumes and veg than mushrooms and will actually exclude stuff you can eat (like ginger and chilli isn't passing that test)

I don’t - as a black woman I'm going to die first anyway, like in all good horror films…

You can get expedition food pouches that are ready to eat and can be eaten cold with long shelf lives. If I put together an emergency pack I think I’d add this kind of thing as you don’t need a fridge or a source of heat to consume the food safely.

I'd love to do foraging course - free food why not?

Not if you make the first strike.

Self defence and all that.

Just make sure your axe is well maintained.

I usually have three or four jars of sauces, a pack of pasta (like 500 grams) plus what's in the pasta box in the larder. Always have another packet of rice as I've run out on more than one occasion in the past so as I open one, I buy another (you soon learn when you're in the middle of making a curry and...no rice!) I keep at least 5 days worth of soup and tuna too. So I can rustle up pasta and a sauce if I run out of freezer food. I also keep a 6 pack of UHT milk on standby (useful at Christmas as I can never estimate how much more milk I need!)

Which came in handy when we were hit by a storm one February a couple of years ago. We have a gas hob and electric oven - I won't go all electric as we've had a fair few power cuts in our area over the years and I've at least been able to feed us.

We've got an open fire in the living room, hot water bottles and I bought some of these sort of lights a couple of years ago. 8 Pack LED Pull Cord Light Bulb, Colorful LED Bulb Light Hanging Pull Cord Lamp Battery Operated, Portable Night Light for Party, Weddings, Festivals Lighting, Camping, Child Room Decoration : Amazon.co.uk: Lighting Work on batteries and I hung one in the loo, a couple from kitchen cupboard handles including one over the hob to cook by during the storm, one each to read by and get around in the dark. We were cosy enough for three days - add in a few board games and we did OK really.

They taste gastly.

Make sure you have tonnes of hot sauce or other condiments handy to make them taste better.

I did a mushroom course, then discovered that it’s extremely difficult because so many edible mushrooms look identical to poisonous ones.

I have candles because I like them. A few batteries but very few things tha5 are battery powered. You can only get as many meds as your doctor will prescribe, though I always have painkillers in.
I also grew up in the 70s but I’ve moved on. Power cuts are infrequent.

A case of whisky will take up less room. HTH.

On the other hand, I have a dozen jars of marmalade and plenty of rice 😀

Note to self - buy an axe…

i have always had a policy of '1 in use and 1 just in case'.. i thought i was pretty normal? how do people cope when they run out of essentials?

Do you camp? I’d just use my camping stuff to heat things up, we did that in the last power cut.

See a huge supply of alcohol isn't a bad idea if things get really shit. It would make it all more bearable. I highly recommend elder flower champagne - will be in season soon and you can bottle it up and keep. Just being careful on what bottles you use as they can explode. You can get absolutely shit faced on it.

The alternative is - know where your local scout leader lives and bump them off first.

Very true