AIBU to think the stockpile advice suggests something to come??

[OhNoooooooooooooooo]

The government is low-key telling people to stock up with tinned food, bottled water etc

I have tinned food, gas camping stoves etc just need to think about water really..

Do you think that they know something is happening/going to happen?

Heat source is something I’ve been thinking about. I don’t much want to have to eat cold food and drinks for days in winter in a house with no heating. But I am also not keen on having a gas canister in my house. Do you have any thoughts about storage that you could share?

We've a log burner so we will try and warm food on that I guess. Though not so brilliant in the summer. We don't have lots of space to store logs so they stay dry so will have to use the ones we get sparingly. We might all have to camp in the lounge if it got extremely cold as it will only warm the one room.

When there were power cuts in the 80s my mum would cook the dinner on a camping stove, perfectly safely. You do have to ensure there is good ventilation, it's on a stable level surface away from fire hazards, and it will be fine.

As i have said upthread, you need to watch the flames, if they become tinged orange/yellow then there is insufficient oxygen and your camping stove is producing carbon monoxide. This generally only happens in small spaces, gas stoves use a lot of oxygen (domestic stoves mix extra oxygen with the flame so this shouldn't happen). The flame on a gas stove should always be blue.

Poisoning with camping stoves generally happens when people use them in their tent for heat at night and fall asleep.

As long as people are being mindful it's fine. I just think about camping stoves like bathing your baby, you don't EVER leave it or take your eyes off it.

A lot of people have gas barbecues, couldn't you use that, we have a gas cooker in the caravan and would use that sparingly as no doubt there would be a run on calor gas cylinders for these and camping stoves

We have a gas BBQ plus a log burning stove plus a small portable induction ring which works with a jackery battery (which has a solar panel to recharge). We'd get by for a while if nobody tried to take them from us. We have a good stockpile of wood in particular.

It's best to store food that is ready to eat though or that just require you to boil a kettle. Pot noodles, cous cous, crackers, long life wraps and cakes/biscuits, tins of fish or meat, tins of fruit and rice pudding. As long as it's things you will happily eat so that you can rotate your stockpile as dates expire then you're fine. Also a good idea to have back ups of essential meds if you can and to have a bottle of vitamins.

I have a very full pantry and lots of back ups of everything. Much of it depends on the electricity and water still being available though.

Those of us who can should also be thinking of incorporating food in our gardens too. Longer term as a country we need to be less reliant on the rest of the world to provide our food.

DH is eying up an RV.. He's wanted one for ages.

I think the government don't want to say 'prepare for the possibility of war' but instead will use something like the El Nino to make the point we need to have at least 3 days' supplies in, either way, it's sensible to prepare, but make sure you buy things you like to eat!

Something that hasn't been mentioned is that during times of stress, as would happen during a prolonged power cut, many people who aren't well prepared (and even some who are) will do foolish things, or use equipment they bought for an emergency but have never actually learned how to operate when things were fine. Don't be fumbling about in candle light trying to figure out how to light your camp stove. I expect the Fire Brigade will be busy.

The other point is hot food/drinks boost morale. If an outage occurs during winter it's pretty miserable to be eating cold food. You'll survive, sure. It's sensible to cultivate good relations with neighbours so you can help each other out. Most of my neighbours have log burners, I'm happy to trade some tins of food for the use of that, say once a day, so I can have hot food and heat some water to fill a thermos flask.

Found our old camping stove & kettle in the loft whilst doing a massive clear out recently. Also some candles and tea lights, so that's handy to keep. Will also stock up on a few more tins and packets of stuff, dried and long life milks. Will look into water purification for my water butts just in case & get some bottled water. Got torches and thermos flasks. We used to have a wind up torch, but it died after years of use. Will have a look at getting another and a radio.

We store and rotate very much as you do. Its really important to only buy foods you would normally use as you say, just rotating and replacing on next shop. We don't have a log burner but do have an outside firepit and large stock of wood where we could boil water etc if need be, to save on the gas canisters. We already grow food outside in raised beds, we're just finishing with our summer crops, and turning over for winter crops including potatoes. I also have a herb garden which helps with flavouring and always includes natural remedies as well including mint, echinacea and others.

Yes I find the water stores we have outside reassuring, we have means of purifying etc. Re the wind up torch/radio we got a brilliant one that is radio/torch/USB charger. It winds and also has a small solar panel for extra trickle charging. It cost about £23. I tested it to charge a few things last week- it charged my phone, my kindle and even my cats water fountain battery (!) very effectively.

How do you purify the water? I read something about tablets and charcoal & boiling? but I'm a bit unsure of the correct ways. Wow, your wind up torch/radio sounds great, just the ticket, where did you get it from please? Thank you. My daughter teased that I'm turning into a prepper, although I can see signs of her going off grid in the future.

The tablets are a bit chloriney and can take a while to work, half hour or so but would be fine in the house as they are fairly cheap to buy from walking shops, Boots, Amazon, etc, so probably best to get a pack of them in. The filter things that DH uses when hiking are quite expensive but handy as you can just filter some water to have there and then, but it's only a like a small bottle of water. you can probably get some large scale filtering kits but if you are not likely to use all this stuff I would just get some tablets, some taste better than others apparently, I can remember DH discussing this in Cotswold Outdoor one day.

Water purification tablets which DH buys online, he has a charcoal filtering thing too- he's ex military so I left all that to him 😅 boiling it is sufficient for some uses but would purify for drinking and cooking. The radio/torch/charger was ebay 👍but I think they're now widely available online. I think sensible preparation is a good thing- even in a power cut, bad weather, all these things can be really useful.

@LilyBunch25 Thank you! I agree, it's good to be prepared just in case. I remember as a small child mum cooking using a paraffin cooker and the coal fire & candles for lighting, think it was during the three day week, early 70s. I thought it was a great adventure.

And thanks @Mespher . That's great info 👍

Cool dark and dry is as safe as anywhere. We had ours stored for years in a wardrobe in a spare room , the room was a dumping ground and never had extreme heat spikes like you would get in a caravan/ tent through the summer

They are now stored in a tin ( big tin ) in the cupboard under the stairs , with the tin of candles and matches, the spare batteries, power banks, torches etc

As someone who is used to going up to 8 days without electric in the winter, head torches are a life saver - especially if you have children. They mean you can move safely room to room leaving hands free. Get the usb charagable ones and some sort of solar trickle charger or wind up charger

This sounds mad, but believe me it's got us out of a hole As soon as we are on storm alert, I fill the bath with water . Last big storm the water plants went down as well and we were without water as well - only a short while, but while the roads were blocked, we had water for washing and flushing without having to waste bottled water . Im also so very lucky that I live on farmland and the farm has a wind turbine, wells and generators and is very good at allowing neighbours up to use the electric after the milking is done .

Filling the bath with water if we have a storm alert is extremely good advice.

Yes. We do have a small amount of water stored but not really the space for more, so off the back of this I have ordered some more water carriers that fold flat for easy storage. I can keep them with other supplies and prioritise additional drinking water in these and then fill the bath.

Yes we have the folding water carriers too; we don't have a bath.

More articles out today.

We had a shopping delivery today and the driver said most of his round this week has been bottled water! At least people seem to be listening.

That's a good thing. I have decided to buy a small camping stove so that I'll be able to at least boil water and fill a thermos, or heat small amounts of food. Will definitely try it out whilst all is good so I know what I'm doing!

I might start keeping an empty water container in my car, I drive past a natural spring on my way to and from work so could easily fill it up if there's a storm on the way.

There is definitely something coming. Next Spring marks a big military exercise, but that's not what's concerning.

https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/army-veterans-recalled-war-armed-forces-bill-military-mobilisation-uk-5Hjdh82_2/

https://londonlovesbusiness.com/uk-to-call-up-95000-retired-members-of-the-armed-forces-for-war-like-preparations/

Army veterans up to the age of 65 are to be recalled, 95,000 of them. This Spring exercise will be compulsory. There's a lot more going forward. Even a school recruitment campaign! Horrific. There are 4 phases to this preparation for war. Poland are well ahead with all this, for obvious reasons being on the border with Ukraine. Active conscription is back in a number of EU countries. NATO are saying war by 2030.

The Telegraph has a lot to say on this but unfortunately I don't have a subscription, I wonder if any of you do.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/09/07/army-to-mobilise-veterans-war-preparation/

I really hope this is all hyperbolic but it doesn't feel like it, more like the UK is being pushed onto a war footing, a war none of us want! If you aren't on the reserves list or other military list, then you'll be on the Home Defence program, whatever that is.

So if you ever been in the forces and under 65 you have no choice? Fml.

A lot of dhs family are ex military and mid 50's

It's all very strange. They do seem utterly determined that there will be a war with Russia. However, modern warfare isn't really about trenches and hand to hand combat now, so where exactly is this war going to take place? Are they just looking for cannon fodder? Trying to get rid of us or something?

Apparently! Of course there would still be a medical before they tried to deploy you somewhere but still! This whole thing is quite crazy, and people in the country are not going to be happy about it.