Not a huge selection of specific advice regarding food and water storage but its a start. Maybe something to print off and give to family and friends.
Not the best of though is it Su, I think I recall being given one of these back when Manchester had been bombed. As for given them to family and friends, I have tried to put the prepping point accross to quite a few. Even using experiences they have had i.e. floods or elctricity cuts. They kind of nod and you know they are not taking you seriously. But I know who they will look to, should anything happen.
With the likelihood that extreme weather will become the 'norm'
it's even more important that our preps are going to be ok
3 days food is next to useless - its probably what's in the fridge and freezer anyway.
I reckon I've got a 2 months of food tucked away in one week containers.
Next step another 4 weeks which brings me to 3 months - then six - I reckon I may stop at the point although it could go to twelve.
Water is fine - 1 x 200 litre/45 UK Gallon drum of water
plus 2 x Rainwater Butts + Berkefield Filter
Cooking might prove a problem. We have a small camping gaz stove and a Kelly Kettle and I know how to make a rocket stove. Plenty of wood round here although very damp at the moment !!
Biggest problem is rotation of stock. Most of the supplies are not things I would normally eat, i.e. I don't eat out of cans - We buy fresh meat and veg - but needs must. If we get near the use by date, I'll give it to some homelsss charity while it is still in date and buy again.
I'm loathe to invest in freeze dried as my experience so far has not been too good but I'm going to try one of my mountain house packs next.
3 days supply of food would probably be fine in a short term power outage or a heavy snowfall, but would be totally inadequate in a shtf situation. Even if the power grid went down I could live out of my defrosting freezer for at least a week as long as the food was used sensibly. Eat any meat or fish products first. If you can't eat it all and have plenty of fuel just cook your remaining meat products and keep them in a cool place, which will give them a few more days of life. Vegetables and fruit should also remain edible for several days after defrosting, particularly if the packs are still sealed. My plan would be to allow 5 days to use as much of the food in my dead freezer as possible, after that it would start to get a bit too risky from a health perspective. Then it would be on to my stash of dried and canned goods, which would last me at least a month as things stand, but I add to it all the time, aiming for a 3 months supply eventually. I live next to a river, so water is no real problem using filters and sterilising equipment, loads of wood available for fuel in the extensive woodland I live next to and opportunities for hunting or culling wandering livestock from the local farms if things get really desperate and it's obvious that help just isn't coming.
Like riversong my problem is that we are eating more tinned foods than we used too, in order to eat tins coming out of date, normally we prefer fresh But it's a small price to pay for the security of having piles of tins. Country people on the whole are better at stocking food but many only do this in winter as we can't walk to shops and our roads are the last to be cleared in snow. My problem is having the conversation and bringing home how important it is to have a supply without letting them know I'm a prepper, which is to be avoided.
The worst thing about this site is that it makes one consider even more " what ifs"
With regard to food I reckon we could manage the three months although it may become more monotonous by the end of that time but that made me think just how much should be stored. If it's a total EOTWAWKI situation even a years supply may not be enough. For example if an event happened now we would have to live off our supplies until the next harvest so potentially six months or more, if it happened in say November then probably longer, and storing enough for up until the next harvest doesn't give much room for manuover . Should we store up to two years worth? Probably not practical for most , or even financially viable.
food stores will only last so long, there only supposed to be for the interim period anyway-probably a year at most, we will then have to fall back on what we can grow, hunt, forage or breed for meat etc.(forget large animals...chickens and rabbit will be the order of the day, something that dosent take up too much room), dosent matter how many tins we can or cannot store-we cannot store enough(of anything) to last the rest of our lives, at some point it will all run out.
Very true , long term or rather very long term storage is probably unfeasible although I seem to recall a family in the Doomsday Preppers programme claiming they had enough to last for something like 20 years but in reality the only real option is to get growing and like so many other things it's best to start now not post event . If nothing happens growing ones own food will help with the bills .
depends on the situation I suppose, in a post collapse event we could be all hunkering down for 6 months before the dust settles and its safe to come out for any length of time, in which case a store of food and a stock of seeds will be in order.
but in reality the only real option is to get growing and like so many other things it's best to start now not post event . If nothing happens growing ones own food will help with the bills .