Starting a stash at home, what items to buy?

[RuthieBabeee]

Back in the day we had a stash of 'flu food' inspired by the fear of SARS and swine flu worries years ago. We've moved house since then and we don't have any emergency stash anymore.

We have a little bit of space under the stairs that isn't being used so thought I'd put some things aside. I'd love some advice on what I should be storing.

To buy:
Candles
Matches and lighters
Bottled water
Tins of beans
Tinned potatoes
Tinned carrots
Tinned spaghetti
Chocolate bars

I've chosen those because all can be eaten hot or cold if needed, so if no power we wouldn't starve but would have some protein and carbs, plus the potatoes and carrots come in water.

Also considering :
Water purification tablets
Wind up radio (what should that be tuned to in an emergency?)
Wind up phone charger
First aid kit

Where do you look to buy these?

If you had £100 to spend on prepping (not including the food stash) what would you buy?

Baked beans
Ratatouille in a tin
Couscous
Cooking stove and gas
Lantern
Torch

(We have camping equiptment, including lantern and stove which would be useful)

If I had £100, I would investigate some kind of a heater.

Not a great deal of protein or sources of essential vitamins there. I suggest a slightly better balance of starch and protein with essential vitamins. Some tinned tuna, tinned corned beef, tinned ham?

Would you consider some dry goods like pasta, brown rice, polenta, brown bread flour, porridge oats? What about tinned fruits like tomato, tangerine, pear, apple, etc? Some sugar, jars of jam.

How about custard powder, dried egg, dried milk, UHT milk?

To make bread or raise cakes you will need yeast and baking powder.

Oils and fats are hard to store but sealed bottles of plain corn oil and rotating your stock will ensure they will keep for a year.

What is all this? I don't understand what "Preppers" means nor why anyone is starting to hoard stuff. Do you live on a remote island or something?

Tune your radio to Radio Four.

That is the radio station that the UK Polaris nuclear submarines listen for if they cant make contact with The Admiralty.

Boris - imagine the banks didn't open tomorrow and the supermarkets had no food in them or there was a massive flood and you were in an electricity blackout for a week.

Look what happened in Greece this year. It can happen.

Prepping is about preparing for an emergency of whatever kind.

Great idea, will add tinned corned beef and tinned ham,porridge oats, tinned fruit and jam.
Won't get powdered egg, DD allergic, but powdered milk the rest of family could drink, couldn't cook with it though due to DD.
Maybe packets of bread mix? I work on the assumption that if we're stuck in there won't be power to bake though.

Boris, it depends.

Some people are "prepping" for basic things like power cuts, fires. Others routinely experience issues like earthquakes or severe weather. Very few expect the end of the world (or to survive it if an apocalypse ever hit).

Sometimes it's no more than having spare toilet paper and candles, sometimes it's having a spare generator if people live in the middle of nowhere.

So it depends on who's posting and what their own motivations are, but hoarding is a different thing altogether, and comments like yours come across as pretty rude.

I remember being snowed in for about a week once (wasn't in the UK back then) and having to make our food last, I know the unexpected can happen!

Tin opener. And a spare tin opener!
Alcohol.
Pain killers. I just read that these last long last any use by date; their strength weakens but are still useful.

And pet food.

Basically as long as you have food you all eat, ways to keep warm, toilet roll etc, medicines, it should be fine. Along with household necessities like fire blanket/extinguisher.

Some way of purifying water isn't a bad idea - it's cheap and if needed would be sorely missed. Having all this stuff stashed in some boxes you can grab and throw in the car if you needed to isn't a bad idea.

We have a wind up torch as well as the other wind up things above and it's awesome. I've rediscovered my love for radio with my little wind-up one

Also think about the time period you are prepping for and the kind of weather conditions.

For example, in the UK its likely to be cold and wet and dark when disaster strikes due to floods, storms and power cuts that can easily last for a week.

Sensible prepping for a week of power cuts in mid winter is pretty much just planning for a normal event in rural areas.

I lived through the miners strikes in a rural area and I know how grim even 24 hours without heat and food can be.

Longer term prepping might be sensible for a hot climate where water might run short or an area where water supplies might become contaminated.

Other kinds of prepping for say a fire in your house that destroys all your documents is also sensible.

There is no point prepping for a nuclear war but preparing for the supermarket to be shut for a week and not being able to get fuel is sensible.

I lived through the miner's strikes too, I was only little, but I still remember it well. People have short memories, it seems, and eternal optimism.

I would only put stuff you usually eat, ie do you all eat tin potatoes usually? They are a bit of an strange taste imo if your not used to. And remember you need to eat them every so often and replace so they don't get out of date. If I chose food I would say

• tin salmon
• tin tuna
• tin black beans
• tin peaches
• rice pudding
• pouches of rice/ grains
• granola
• uht milk ( or oat milk if allergic)

All the above we would eat usually also

We'd normally eat beans though not tinned carrots or potatoes (i like them, not sure the DC do) because we'd always have fresh. We would never eat corned beef (very salty) or tinned ham but when options are limited then you need to have other things surely?

I don't know, mine would happily starve a few days than eat something 'yuk'.

So would maybe swap for something else. No tin carrots, but maybe they will prefer tin peas/ sweet corn/ mandarins instead

Think also about how you are going to cook it.

Stuff that is easy to cook say in a pan of boiling water or that can be made into a stew or perhaps wrapped up and baked on a griddle or a flat iron pan like a pancake or a griddle scone.

Tea and coffee becomes a little luxury so a coffee pot you can put on a burner is great like a Bialetti is a must for me. Plus a never ending metal teapot and a kettle you can heat on a flame.

Plenty of aluminium foil. Good for cooking all sorts in.

The golden rule is to store the things you eat. So if you don't eat tuna don't stash tuna even though its an easy source of protein. It will just go to waste and you should rotate your food, using up what's coming to the end of its shelf life, so that you never throw anything away.

I bought 20 of these when they were last on offer (£1). There's a whole range including curry, chilli, meatballs and stews and they had a two year life. They just need heating and the DC will happily eat them for a quick hot meal after school (they already have one hot meal at school but never stop eating!)

www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=272384981

In fact having googled the link it seems that Asda currently have them on offer for £1.

The foods we normally eat won't store though, we don't eat pre-prepared foods like atticus linked to much because we have food allergies so most ready-made meals aren't suitable. I don't want to stockpile foods that require heating, I'd like to store things that can be eaten cold if need be.

If we still have power to cook with we'd be eating all the food that I have batch cooked in the freezer or in the kitchen cupboards, that'd keep us going for ages! The stash I wanted to put together would be for if the S really HTF, so I'm making the assumption there'd be no power/water. I think I'd add ketchup to my stash, cover food in that and the DC are more likely to eat it!

We don't eat that sort of stuff either generally but we would do if we had to and they're much cheaper than the survival MREs. I guess I don't generally worry too much about lack of ability to heat since we have woodburners in the house plus woodland and so have both a practically endless supply of fuel and a method of heating.

Most things can be eaten cold if necessary.

But other cold things that you might want to store are:

honey
sugar
salt
crackers
crispbreads
ready brek
evaporated milk
condensed milk
custard
rice pudding
biscuits
tinned chicken in sauce
ghee (as a butter substitute because tinned margarine is grim)
cheese spread such as primula in the metal tubes which doesn't need refrigeration
marmite
tinned fish

If you're looking at a real SHTF scenario and don't want to rotate your supplies or eat the things you've stored (which limits your ability to create a store from supermarket food) then you might be better looking at some Mountain House tins which have a 25 year shelf life. Otherwise you'll be constantly throwing food away.

If people are buying food that needs cooking for their stores- try to buy hexi cookers- we used to use them in army cadets with mess tins.
I've not started a store yet

Last time we did a stash most of the tinned foods had 2-3 year best before dates, happy to replace it every couple of years.
From your suggestions I can add honey, sugar and salt. Not sure about crackers and crispbreads in terms of best before dates and the rest of the list would be unsuitable for DD allergies and would prefer to mostly only store things we can all eat. I'll see if any tinned chicken would be OK for her, could you eat that cold from the tin if necessary?
Other than a gas bottle bbq out back we'd have no source of heat if gas/electricity was out so want to assume we'd have no way to cook.

Sounds like the dietary restrictions are very limiting and so you're probably better off going for less variety but more of each item e.g. 60 tins of beans. You'd get bored but if the SHTF that is likely to be the least of your worries.

We have thrown very little away but have had a few things that we have kept beyond their use by date and have not been the best. Some tinned stewing steak looked very unpleasant and some of the rice pudding and evaporated milk split. We didn't need to eat it and so I ditched it. I guess if the money isn't an issue then you could always keep an eye on dates and donate to a food bank a month before the expiry date on the tin.

As for food:

Look at dehydrated foods - cous cous is a good one
Tinned fruit
Tinned rice pudding (can be eaten cold)
Tinned curry (can also be eaten cold)
Oil
Condensed milk
UHT milk or substitute
Oats
Vacumn bagged dried fruit (really good for constipation)

Everything else:
Space blankets (can be used for warmth and to signal someone if you're somewhere remote/no torch)
Solar shower (its just a black bag with a tube but they do work)
tea/coffee
a weeks worth any medication you use
first aid kit
mini sewing kit
sterilising wipes
kendal mint cakes
pain killers
super glue (for minor cuts)
crossword or similar book & pens
Swiss army knife
Duct tape & paracord (i would include sugaru as well for repairing flexible objects like shoes)
Bin bags
Wet wipes
Large water containers (marked water) - my mum had to use one of these for several days a couple of years ago when they had to have a bowzer in due to a burst water main.
Large container (marked fuel)
hand sanitiser
multivits
Shovel - very useful for clearing path from house (might want gritting salt too but if its too cold it won't work anyway)
Bucket with toilet lid - if your water is cut you can drink water from toilet cisterns after boiling (before if you have to but its best to boil)
pack of cards
Small tarp
waterproof poncho