What food is worth buying for a power cut

[Lovelybitofsquirrel3]

sorry if this thread has already been done I haven’t checked. I’m wondering what nutritional meals can be put together in a power cut during a storm? If there was ever an issue with getting home deliveries I would also want to be prepared. I live in a town, it’s not rural. Last year I ate cold tins of beans and soup for a power cut that lasted the majority of the day which was the longest power cut, but I didn’t feel great eating them. Obviously if that’s all there it’s it’s fine

Rice/ grain pouches and tins of tuna?

Do you have an outdoor area where you could set up a BBQ or small camp cooker?

If not, then peanut butter, granola bars, dried beef jerky or salami, tinned fruit. Jarred salsa and nacho chips. Tinned tuna or salmon for sandwiches or salads.

Long life milk
Frozen vegetables.
Tinned fruit.
Plenty of coffee and T bags
Tinned food
Meat you can freeze to make meals with

A camping stove so you can heat food up in a power cut is good.
Don't forget matches and candles.
A kettle you can boil on the camping stove if you have an electric hob.

Power cut that is not a storm. Would buy fresh milk (Ie: don't open fridge) and use that with cereal. Store in a bucket of cold water. It'll keep fresh the day or two.

You don't need nutritious in the short term. I would go with crackers, dried fruits, tuna, if you have butter out the fridge then bread and jam, tuna sandwiches, spam sandwich. Fruit juices. Fruit like apples and bananas that store well out of the fridge.

I would eat tinned baked beans straight out the tin as I like them like that!

You could have a means of heating food. BBQ, camping stove, sun oven. If so. Soups, tinned meals, microwave rice. Instant noodles ,custard(Open and heat through with boiling water or stir into your tinned meals such as curry, chicken and white sauce or chilli. )

Get a camping stove! I'm no prepper but I always have a spare gas canister - the electricity arrives in our town above ground so storms could cause an outage. As to what, have canned soup or canned meals (you can buy curry, stew, mac and cheese etc in canned food aisle) also couscous (ready flavoured for ease), ready cooked rice, basically anything that only needs heating to minimise gas use. I also have the tinned stuffed vine leaves (I love them anyway) and tinned pilchards in tomato sauce (personal favourite from childhood) that are eaten cold. The electricity in towns is pretty reliable these days and we are pretty close to the city so I don't envisage extended periods without electricity, for a few hours we can cope with sandwiches, we always have tuna in the cupboard and bread

You could buy a ration pack, no power source needed and they last for years.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=mre

Just to add, they contain flameless ration heaters (just add water to the heating bag and put meal pack in)

Tinned bean salad / tuna is my go to cold food. I would say a camping stove is a good idea. Life is better with a cup of tea in hand.

A few options:
Easy things to heat up without needing cooking. Camping stove, solid fuel burner or alcohol gel burners can all be kept in a cupboard. You can get things like curry, stew and chilli in tins. Or have made up in the freezer, as opening it once should be fine.

If you know there is going to be a storm, boil water and store in a thermos. You can also preheat food and store in a food flask. Water can be added to things like noodles, soup mix and cous cous. You can boil eggs or cook porridge in a food flask with just hot water.

Finally, if you have no heat source, sandwiches are your friend. Things like peanut butter and tinned fish provide protein and need no refrigerating.

Rather than thinking about what cold meals you can pull together in a power cut get yourself a camp stove, there are really tidy ones available now and once you have it you'll be able to continue with close to your normal diet. While I've a gas cooker at home (not electric) some neighbours have borrowed camp stoves during power outages and they managed fine. If you have space I'd recommend a two ring cooker as it makes a full meal a little easier. Also there are really good rechargeable lamps available but I also keep a few normal battery ones just incase power is out for an extended period.

Or a kelly kettle if you have open air nearby (garden/carpark etc), then you can boil water using twigs for pot noodles and drinks.

You can even get a stand to put a small or camping pot on top, or a little bbq type grill, to use with a Kelly kettle - I tend to heat water first and then throw some other stuff in a camping pot/pan to cook (spare hot water goes into a flask for use later). And once I'm done cooking, I put the pot back on the last of the fire to heat up more water for washing up.

A gas bbq is really useful. Not just for bbq'ing, but put things in tin foil parcels to bake more, or in tin foil containers (the ones for the freezer are handy in emergencies) or a camping pot to cook wet/saucy things. And throw a pot or kettle for a cooker up if you have empty space on the grill to get hot water - for the flask or for washing up. It's also useful to cook tho gs that might otherwise go off but you can eat cold - like bacon/rashers, chicken, veg etc to make salads or sandwiches later.

Related - but separate to your question - is how to keep things cold in the fridge. I have a couple of freezer blocks in my freezer most of the time - or I grab ice cubes or a pack of. Meat to thaw out. That goes in a cooler with the things from the fridge that I use a lot - milk, juice. Cheese, yoghurt, butter/mayo etc. I may also (if I know I'll be a while emptying fridge things but also think the outage will take a while), put some frozen food into fridge to thaw out for the next couple of days.. reducing the need to go shopping and also cooling the fridge back down. I use the cooler to work from as needed, and try to limit the amount of times the fridge or freezer ate opened.

As suggested canned food, vegetables, fruits, fish, meats and soups. It’s cooked to can be eaten without heating if needs be, but better warmed up if possible.

Snacks are good too. Dried fruit, nuts, biscuits etc.

We had a power outage last night- we’re in Somerset with lots of flooding- we used our phones for lighting. I keep my power pack charged and usually my phone too but last night I used it for YouTube etc.

We keep charging cables in the car too, so if we had to leave I’d charge my phone in the car.

Other than that I keep candles on the kitchen window sill, with matches. The same in the bathroom.

We have a camping stove too.

We used a gas stove to make beans & sausages.

If you have a wood burning stove you can easily heat food and water on top in a saucepan.

A stove of course, but also maybe keep some stodge available if you are likely to be cold and miserable. Lincolnshire plum bread is nice by itself or with cheese, and can be stored for ages. That and a pot of tea (under a tea cosy) would keep you going.

Steak and kidney pies I reckon.

I've always wondered why people panic buy bread, and not nice pies.

I hear you – cold beans and soup get boring and aren’t exactly balanced. Mix canned tuna or beans with pre‑cooked rice or couscous pouches, wraps, nut butters on crackers, and vacuum‑packed cheese for better nutrition and variety. If you’ve got a garden or balcony, a portable butane stove from an outdoor online store lets you heat stews, soups or pasta (I grabbed a little folding camp stove from outdoor store camping section and it’s been a lifesaver on blackout days).

In that kind of situation, it’s worth stocking up on foods that don’t need cooking but are still nutritious. Things that work for me: tinned fish (tuna, mackerel in oil), dried sausages, pâté, boiled eggs (if prepped in advance), nuts, dried fruit, rice cakes, jarred hummus, and fresh veggies like cucumber or pepper. If you have a camping stove, you can warm up something simple. And definitely have some drinking water stored – just in case.

Cold:
Treats.(Sweets, crisps, chocolate, biscuits)

Crackers. (Various)
Cereal bars
Ryvita
Wraps and bread (keep topped up)
Tinned fish in small tins. (Assuming no fridge/not cold outside)
Nuts
Dry cereals. (Only some of them are tasty)
Cereals with powdered milk or uht if you like it.
Dried fruit. (Raisins, sultanas, apricots, dates, figs)
Seeds. (Put on cereals)
Pickles,
Pickled onions, red cabbage, beetroot jars
Pre cooked sweetcorn in packets.
Rice pudding for those who have it cold.
Ditto baked beans.
Those tiny jars of sandwich paste.
Olives.
Ko-lee go noodles (dry or with hot water)
Squash
Tinned beans/chick peas. (DD eats these cold)
Drinks that you like cold.

Just add hot water:
Cup soup
Mug shots
Cous cous sachets
Instant custard
Instant noodles.
Instant potatoes.

Just heat through: (if BBQ or camping stove)
Soups,
Beans,
Rice pudding
Custard
Curries/chillis

• Tinned veg Curry sauces in jars. + Microwave rice+ tinned veg and chickpeas. Minced beef and onion tins are ok. Tasty but layer of fat at bottom. More puree texture. Chopped tomatoes.

In summer you can make a solar oven. (Google)

You can use a hay box to prolong cooking. Or wonder bag.

Keep small denomination of cash £5/£10 and change and you could pick up milk /marge /cheese /veg from a corner shop which will keep in a cool box rather than opening your fridge and letting the cold air out. They are more likely to take cash.

Do the staff at military eu randomly trawl mumsnet to scrape a few orders? I noticed a lot of posts spamming on the preppers section with this website lately.

If you have a small camping stove you can make hit drinks, boil water and ‘cook’ pasta in a thermos of boiling water, heat up ready made food (tins of ravioli are perfect).

if you have eggs, a plate of scrambled egg on a gas stove takes hardly any time or fuel

I have a portable power station, it's a bit of an investment but it means I can boil the kettle or plug the air fryer in.

You can get canned food that is self heating, it isn't cheap though.

The PP's suggestion of a military rations is a good one. You get enough food / drink for 24 hours and because they are designed to be eaten by soldiers in the field they are high calorie.

Things that last a long time and can be eaten cold. Tinned fish (tuna springs to mind) meat such as Spam / tinned ham / tinned corn beef.

Tinned sweetcorn - mix it with the tuna.

Biscuits last for ages as does fruit cake.

If you can heat water then dried pasta, noodles, cous cous only need hot water pouring over them and leaving to stand.

Things from the freezer you can cook with hot water kippers (just put the pack in a jug of hot water and you can cook from frozen).

You can also have in the freezer, cooked meat, cheese, milk, bread, cakes, smoked salmon, then all you need to do is defrost them.

Things in jars, pickles, jams apple sauce, mint sauce (OK not great on its own) chutneys, olives.

I’d get a bbq and some charcoal so you can cook on it!