Right NOW - how long could your food supply last you

[millerjane]

I would say a good month of eating twice a day (pasta, rice dishes) - ie no thrills just sustenance

Probably over a month but we would move further and further away from our usual diet. I just had shopping delivered yesterday so have a full fridge and cupboards, and I added a few extra bits for the freezer. Then I still have the tins I stashed for Brexit, plus I have baking ingredients. If we were still getting our milk and veg box deliveries we could eat pretty well for a few weeks, without those it would be a bit more bland and less healthy but still manageable.

There are 4 of us and we have enough to last us for at least 3 months. Although thats because we have a restaurant that has been closed now because of the rules in France! We have 3 freezer now full with everything we didn't get chance to use!

Those of you shocked about the amounts, obviously everyone’s circumstances are different too. I live alone so just buying an ordinary box of porridge oats, pasta or rice means it’ll last me for a lot of individual servings. That’s not crazy stockpiling, just the normal amount I always have. Obviously a family of 6 would use it up much quicker.

I would say a month maybe longer if we ate everything.

I like to think about 2 months. It would be soup, rice, pasta.
I have long life milk.
I also have a 8mo DS and had to buy extra jar foods just incase. I didn't really use jars for him but with everything going on I made sure I got some!

@1981m , I have MS. You gonna take care of me. Or should I do it myself?

Shit! About a week and a half. Panicking now.

Food about a month, gin about 2 weeks. Might get some more gin in!

I'm shocked at how many people have 3 weeks + worth of food!
It's fairly easy to do even if you're not a prepper.

For example, we buy toilet roll and kitchen roll in bulk once a month.
We cook a lot with rice and pasta so tend to buy the large bags
We eat a lot of lentils and pulses so buy them dried and top them up as and when we run out.
Buy commonly used canned ingredients when they're on offer.

Week to week we buy fruit/veg/meat/dairy and whatever treats we want.

It usually means one shop a month is bigger but it's more economical to shop that way.

Sunday.
Don’t have much dry storage space or freezer space.

Couple of weeks did shop today. No basics such as flour eggs chicken or dried pasta in the massive local Sainsbury’s 😮 had to buy weird things like duck.

About 6 weeks but I expect the last Week would be only porridge and lentils. There's only 2 of us so a 1kg bag if the sorts of items last us a long time. I'm glad it warming up now so I can start sowing the salad leaves and pea shoots for some fresh veg.

I only have enough for probably a week to make actual dinners, and that's eating tuna and beans for about 4 nights. We could survive on rice I guess!

There's two of us and a toddler, we'd be fine for 2 weeks, then not so interesting but we'd cope for probably about 2 more.

Generally due to being unprepared, so chucking stuff into the freezer just before best before dates etc, and forgetting I already have tinned stuff in/freezer stuff in and picking up more...

Quite fed up wit people saying they are not stockpilers but that they are picking up a couple of extra packs of beans/pasta/looroll whenever they pop into a shop. This is having the same effect as stockpiling

I am not convinced that they always have months worth of food stored away. They may have prepped but it is at the expense of those who haven't or can't. That can't be denied otherwise there wouldn't be any empty shelves and Eve humid would be able to get what they need which isn't the case.

The shelves are empty because people have suddenly woken up and went mental buyjng tons of stuff at once. Not because i bought 2 packets of spaghetti instead of one in one week in january. People are lifting whole trays of tins off shelves and putting them into thier trolleys, trying to buy 5 trays of 15 eggs at a time, (who the hell needs 75 eggs at once?) People are fighting over things ffs! I served someone the other day with 6 of everything in her trolley it took 10 whole minutes to scan it all! The average shop last week was probably £200 through my till! People were spending £300+ and not batting an eyelid! These are the people who are emptying the shelves not those of us who dont actually need the stuff as we bought one or two extra things over the past 6 months.
Wtf is difficult to understand? I dont buy lots of food a week. I know people who buy twice as much as me for normal shopping so why is it my fault that the shops are empty and not thiers?
I havent bought loo rolls, pasta or anti bac wipes (never buy them anyway), soap, or anything else that is now rationed in shops recently. Once the panic subsides i will restock as necessary a bit at a time.

For H, dd and me I could eek out 1-2 weeks. For my 2 dses 2-4 days. I’m going to the shop at 8am tomorrow because I’m now getting worried.

A week at a push, which frightens me because I'm pregnant and now supposedly need to self-isolate. No delivery slots for 2 weeks in my area. I wasn't stocking up, because I felt those who are vulnerable and likely to be isolated should have access to long-lasting food, but apparently I should have been selfish, as I am now vulnerable.

3 weeks reasonably well. 3 weeks eating weird crap. I do have a litre of Baileys though so won't care by then

You lot have made me want to do an inventory now. I have no idea how long we would last I would hazard a guess at 3 weeks but maybe more. Since brexit I have been buying more rice/noodles/ pasta than we need but I have no idea what’s lurking at the back of the cupboards.

About 6/7 weeks if we pushed it and ate absolutely everything. Maybe a couple of weeks longer if I done things like bake bread, made pancakes, made pasta sauce from dried herbs and ketchup (works in a pinch). We certainly wouldn’t be eating healthy by week 5 or 6 but it would be food. If we rationed our food to 2 smaller meals per day I think we could stretch it to 10/12 weeks but it would be pretty miserable. I would also probably have to eat things like tinned meats (I’m vegetarian but DD and DH aren’t).

Obviously DD eating would take priority. Fortunately she has the appetite of a sparrow so it wouldn’t be too much of a problem feeding her first.

A month if I was being sensible and having smallish portions I think.

2 months, maybe 3 if I go on a 1 month bender after the food runs out.

We'd last hardly any time, especially not me as I can't eat canned or dried beans.

DD2 'won't' eat pasta so we've been low on that since DS left home 18 months ago. DD1 'won't' eat potatoes so we don't eat many of those (she's working now). We mainly eat fresh vegetables & salads with some protein, things are going to be interesting. No big freezer or larder as we're in London and don't have room. It's never mattered before as we are within walking distance of 3 proper supermarkets and lots of corner shops and locals/express stores. Plus more restaurants & coffee shops than you can imagine. I think we could do to the end of the week just about and then it would be takeaways (which we never normally use). I guess we should have used DS's room as a giant larder but it wouldn't have helped with fresh food. I think I should buy a grow bag tomorrow and some seeds & a propagator.

The shelves are empty because people have suddenly woken up and went mental buyjng tons of stuff at once. Not because i bought 2 packets of spaghetti instead of one in one week in january.
Exactly.
I'm no prepper and still think the prepping for Brexit was a bit OTT, but it's fairly silly for people to argue that a few extra items a week by preppers 4 months ago (when stores were able to keep up supply and demand and adjust their stock orders) is anywhere near as problematic as panic buying.

I'm not sure how me buying the large 5kg bag of rice or large bags of dry lentils from the world food aisle a couple of times a year as an economical way to plan by own cooking is causing empty shelves caused by people panic buying everything they can get their hands on.

I agree that it isn’t the fault of so called ‘preppers’. I’m not even sure I’d call it panic buying at this point, now advice has changed to whole households isolating for two weeks and vulnerable people isolating for months at a time. People need to have stores of food in.

I haven’t stockpiled up-to now but last night’s change in official advice has me concerned that I should now be preparing some stocks of supplies to tide us over if we do have to self-isolate. The only stocks we do have are pet food as I routinely buy that in big sacks on subscribe and save schemes.