Are we actually stockpiling food following govt announcement??

[Mumoftwo8519]

DH and I have a 4 year old, 2 year old and a 9 month old baby. I feel like this govt announcement to stockpile food is just media scaremongering and I’ve ignored it up until now, but tonight after I put our children to bed and turned out their lights out and the house was pitch black I did think to myself, god what if this was actually it and we were put into a blackout.

Im worried about having food to feed my children, and the thought of them going hungry is starting to worry me, but I also cannot bring myself to believe something will actually happen??

is anyone else stockpiling? What kind of things are you getting? Are we actually going to eat cold beans from a tin?

my husband and I were talking about it tonight, and wondering what the govt are hiding?

If there was one very specific threat, they would just deal with it on their side.

Realistically, it doesn't really matter whether the reason is extreme weather, big disruption in international supply chains, a cyber attack or some kind of war/sabotage action.

In all cases:

• the internet can be down, with subsequent effect on information, logistics and payment systems -> be equipped to stay at home comfortably for a few days not worrying about buying food and essentials.
• Food supply can be disrupted -> be equipped to stay at home comfortably for a few days not worrying about buying food and essentials.
• water supply can be off in a bigger area -> be equipped to maintain hydration and hygiene.
• blackout can happen (which generally means both internet and water could be off as well) in a bigger area -> be ready to survive for a few days.

Cold beans and tuna would be sad, but if a bigger area is impacted for a longer time for any reason, having a few sad meals while giving the system a few days to sort put a potential bigger scale problem is generally an acceptable outcome.

You can improve it by thinking about alternative cooking/food warming options (some people realize they have a barbecue they could use, some have camping equipment, some searche how to use a tea candle to warm a tinned food a bit to make it taste better, some will just survive a few days on cold beans and chocolate)

It's good to see that at least some some people have a bit of common sense. Anyone from countries where this advice is common must be reading some of the comments on this, and other related threads, and thinking the UK must be a nation of thickos.

Anyone planning a war on Britain would surely be heartened by reading this thread 🙄

Ugh. Someone needs to tell her it's not what you put ON your body, it's what you put IN it

Re toilet rolls, a small bucket, nappy sanitiser and at least three flannels each.
The problem is that the government has squashed us into the smallest housing they can and some people just don't have room to store anything above their usual three days of shopping. So no wind up radio, camping stove etc etc. I suppose a portion of people prepping takes the strain off the government, supplying people. I (clinically vulnerable) know when I was phoned during Covid the woman said she was relieved that the last five people (including me) had told her they had family help, because the service was struggling. We've downsized into an apartment. We are on a housing development and none of us could stock pile.

Normally well stocked and prepared anyway, but have just made sure we have stock, rather than running lower. Bought some bottled water and more gas canisters for my camping stove, going to buy a few more power banks too. It’s good practice in general I think. The younger generation have lost touch with the concept, but weather is getting more varied, and other things can go wrong. People who live more remotely and in places with less reliable infrastructure do it anyway.

We live in easy walking distance of a couple of supermarkets and don't tend to eat a lot of tinned food bar tomatoes for sauces, so probably exactly the sort of people the advice is aimed at!

We do have a camping stove so will make sure we have plenty of gas for that.

Depending on when the power went off, we'd potentially struggle for three days - we wouldn't starve but wouldn't be satisfied or particularly well nourished. And have no bottled water or even bottled soft drinks which would be the bigger problem.

Or torches, or candles.

I'm not going full on nuclear bunker, but the advice is sensible so I will be making sure we have matches, (could potentially use the gas hob?) torches, wind up radio and that my powerbanks are fully charged.

Will also get a few more tins in, some more flour, UHT milk. Water is probably going to be the biggest PITA as we don't have a huge amount of storage space and I reckon we need 18 litres for the two of us. It'll probably just be a case of sticking a couple of crates of bottled water somewhere dark and out the way.

Power cuts, like in the SW last week.

@ClashCityRocker the ignition on a home gas hobs uses electricity they don't work in power cuts (we typically get 4-8 sustained power cuts in a winter season). You can get a cheap fire light on amazon though 🙂
Our gas has typically stayed on but it's not a given.

I think you only need to see how people react to even a short amount of time when a utility is down. In our local area there was a part without water, people demanding water, begging for others to help because the local shop has ran out of bottles, then closed because the staff bathroom isn't working and they don't drive so can't travel out. Constant phone calls to the utilities company. If everyone had a bit of water and worked as a community to update each other, as we are being told to do, it makes it less stressful for everyone!
Our retail park had internet issues last week so you could only pay cash, shop workers were being shouted at as if a basket of things in B&M was life or death.
We've had a couple of power cuts in the past 2 years on our road as they've been doing work on the electric lines, we always have lots of candles and battery lights and a gas hob, which I have because of lessons learnt from power outages as a child. We had one volunteer neighbour who was ringing for updates and passing on the info.
Occasionally my water supply is cut off when they are working, so I always have some bottled water and I just keep a bucket outside that collects rain water for the toilet, I just tip it away every so often and let it refill.
I used to have a landline phone that still worked when the power was off, but now it's all upgraded it runs off the WiFi, so don't have that now.
And they've said to get a radio and write down the local and national frequencies for updates on situations, which I hadn't thought of but CD players made a bit of a comeback a couple of years a go, so my teens have them, they also run off batteries.
Sorry for the long post! Reading back, maybe I need to move somewhere more stable 😅

But you can use a match instead of the ignition button if needed.

Good point 🤣🤣 we have a stove my husband uses when fishing. No could for chips though. Yeah I need to get some other food in. Because I live in the centre of a town I normally just buy what we need for that meal or the next. I cook mostly from scratch, so don’t have the need for tinned or freezer food.

ive done nothing new - we always batch cook and the freezer is full of food so coul deat anything from in there once it defosts i guess

always have freezer bread

We have a gas hob that we can still light with a match if needed

we camp loads so have a little gas stove anyway if we really were stuck !!

We have heaps of tins we bulk buy anyway cus its cheaper that way

We go shops most days for bits like cheese, ham / sandwich fillings

always have a big peasnut butter / jam etc

always have frozen brekkie muffin the freezer so if these defrost we can eat those

i already own a radio with batteries and we always have loads in the house

we have heaps of extra bedding cus of camping / sleep bags and that and lights / torches

not sure what else we would need tbh

You haven’t mentioned water which is also advised to keep - possibly more important than food

this is true - we drink tap water only and have never bought bottled water in our lives - so i'll pick up maybe 2 massive bottles this evening when im in the supermarket and leave them in the boot

I live outside London and we had a power cut for 40 hours over the weekend. We have no gas supply so we had no light, heating or cooking power. Our home stayed pretty warm and we had candles for light. Any tinned food we had couldn't be warmed anyway. But we did mange to get a camping stove in the end so we could have tea!

I stocked up during COVID and ended up just eating more 🫢😁

But that is kind of the point if you stocked up during covid. That is panic buying.
Being prepared generally before an event is different.
People who panic bought more than they needed during covid was the reason that other people were left short.

It seems Russia will leave the USA well
alone now that Trump has picked a side sadly for Ukraine - Could China be the threat though!? Your guesses are as good as mine?

The UK on the other hand are an absolute target as we supply plenty of military kit to Russia and this is obviously a no
no in Russia’s opinion. Can the rest of Europe stand up to the deluded Putin - without the USA’s backing ithen it’s doubtful. 🤷‍♀️