Straw Poll. How much food do you have in reserve? How well do you stock rotate?

[GillyBee]

Water is a definite weak point here. No real space to store the amount needed for 4 adults. I keep enough for short outages or to allow time to access supplies elsewhere. If there is a very very bad outage then it would be down to the filters and boiling to keep us hydrated and making use of the water butts (assuming it isn't the middle of a drought)

[Medusa]

Food, probably 3+ months if it was just the two of us and I was just looking at tinned, dried, jars etc. If I was still able to use freezer stuff then longer. If I had to feed others in my family then much less. At that point it would be family members who did manual labour and children who were fed first, the rest of us would be on much smaller portions or skipping meals. To be fair when the children were small and money was very tight my portion control was excellent, now less so which is why I am more well padded. Water wise we have enough in date to keep us going for about 2/3 weeks and the out of date stuff would be used for washing etc. We do have a water supply nearby and would use our filters. Cleaning and toiletries, (OTC medication although hard to guess this one) I have at least 6 months worth. I recently relocated the stock room and was impressed that there was very little which was so out of date I would not risk. I am happy to use out of date food for us, but am careful about using it for my elderly Dad and the grandchildren.

[PPrep]

I'm a bit late responding to this thread.

Although I have food for some 2 to 3 months, my food preps are still slowly evolving. As the food I store is my daily diet, I have little problem with rotation. I routinely eat a lot of dried foods such as home - made muesli mixture, TVP chunks, beans and pulses, but grow microgreens and beansprouts. Growing these ensures I have fresh, highly nutritious veg in small quantities (which I add to the daily salad) in addition to "normal" veggies which I can buy if there's no emergency. As the microgreens and beansprouts are seeds, they keep for well over two years. I grow radish microgreens as they're several times as productive as any other microgreen I've tried, and will grow on a NW window in Summer, but need a southerly - facing window for Winter. I've used UHT long life milk for many years as I haven't had a fridge and continue to use it even though I now have a fridge. I don't use a deep freezer for food preps because they're vulnerable to power outages. I'm not geared for full SHTF. My diet is fairly basic by Western standards, anyway. After the second month, the diet would start degenerating.

Protein wise, I like tinned sardines. I would run out of cheese after a month or so, and eggs after maybe a week. There's vegetable protein in the microgreens and beansprouts.

I have enough personal hygeine items for about 3 months.

Water is an issue as I have a combi boiler and no traditional cold water tank and hot water cylinder for water storage. I store about 3 weeks' worth in 10 litre containers. I do have chlorine and a micropore water filter system for emergencies, but have no nearby source of water. I need to install water butts, but these may be of limited use in very dry weather. They're best placed on the North side of a building if posseible, out of the sun.

[Frnc]

Probably could last 2 months on what I have in. Got about 2 weeks in the fridge and freezer, and about 2-4 weeks in the cupboard. Obviously the fridge freezer stuff might go off, so might not last 2 weeks. I'd have to get it cooked.
Also of course I'd be limited by how much fuel I have, if the grid and gas were both down. I doubt I'd have enough for 2 months, maybe a lot less. I'd need to find twigs and cook outside. I have a twig gasifier/rocket type and a basic folding one.
Mostly I'd boil water and use a flask to cook pasta, and have it with tuna straight out of a tin/pot, plus a bit of diluted tomato puree for sauce, warmed up. I also have some dehydrated falafel powder that can be fried. Dehydrated egg. Butter beans (tinned). I'm starting to increase my stocks a bit.

[PPrep]

Probably could last 2 months on what I have in. Got about 2 weeks in the fridge and freezer, and about 2-4 weeks in the cupboard. Obviously the fridge freezer stuff might go off, so might not last 2 weeks. I'd have to get it cooked.
Also of course I'd be limited by how much fuel I have, if the grid and gas were both down. I doubt I'd have enough for 2 months, maybe a lot less. I'd need to find twigs and cook outside. I have a twig gasifier/rocket type and a basic folding one.
Mostly I'd boil water and use a flask to cook pasta, and have it with tuna straight out of a tin/pot, plus a bit of diluted tomato puree for sauce, warmed up. I also have some dehydrated falafel powder that can be fried. Dehydrated egg. Butter beans (tinned). I'm starting to increase my stocks a bit.

I've got a couple of home - made twig stoves, plus a Kelly Kettle. They are efficient but use a lot of twigs. Bear in mind that the smell of cooking and burning wood carries, and you may not want to alert others that you're cooking. A camping gas stove with plenty of cylinders is an option.

[GillyBee]

One of the thing I stock is salt.Not so good for the blood pressure but very useful if you want to salvage the contents of your fridge or freezer by old fashioned preserving in salt or brine. I may run into trouble if it is high summer but the rest of the year it should let me keep a lot.
The Curing & Smoking: River Cottage Handbook No.13 is on my bookshelf and has taught me how to make a very simple bacon out of belly pork, a plastic bag and some salt & sugar.

[Peter]

I've got a couple of home - made twig stoves, plus a Kelly Kettle. They are efficient but use a lot of twigs. Bear in mind that the smell of cooking and burning wood carries, and you may not want to alert others that you're cooking. A camping gas stove with plenty of cylinders is an option.

We too have a couple of twig stoves (made from IKEA cutlery holders).

Our main cooking prep is a calor two burner plus grill stove burning propane.

I like a bistro type stove, very stable and not expensive (weren’t they designed for restaurants), I would
not worry about using one indoors with plenty VENTILATION, and a CO detector close by.

We do have two camping gas stoves the ones that use the old C206 cartridges but even with the plastic
stabiliser base the are wobbly and easily knocked over, I would use outside, stand them on the barbecue.

In the car GHV is my old Esbit stove which I carried in my rucker for many years, would recommend one for a BOB.

[Frnc]

One of the thing I stock is salt.Not so good for the blood pressure but very useful if you want to salvage the contents of your fridge or freezer by old fashioned preserving in salt or brine. I may run into trouble if it is high summer but the rest of the year it should let me keep a lot.
The Curing & Smoking: River Cottage Handbook No.13 is on my bookshelf and has taught me how to make a very simple bacon out of belly pork, a plastic bag and some salt & sugar.

Salt is very important. You can live on water and salt, for a while. I keep a tub in my prep cupboard, and a small tub in my BOB for extended evacs. But day to day I use Lo Na salt, and try to stay under 6g day.

[jennyjj01]

One of the thing I stock is salt.Not so good for the blood pressure but very useful if you want to salvage the contents of your fridge or freezer by old fashioned preserving in salt or brine. I may run into trouble if it is high summer but the rest of the year it should let me keep a lot.
The Curing & Smoking: River Cottage Handbook No.13 is on my bookshelf and has taught me how to make a very simple bacon out of belly pork, a plastic bag and some salt & sugar.

Salt is very important. You can live on water and salt, for a while. I keep a tub in my prep cupboard, and a small tub in my BOB for extended evacs. But day to day I use Lo Na salt, and try to stay under 6g day.

I think you're overstaining the value of salt. Our bodies need about a gramme a day to function well.
A better electrolyte mix such as Dioralyte or even just salt and sugar might help us survive a while longer in a zero calorie scenario, but that's a short countdown to death anyway.
That said, I missed it terribly on the Ration Challenge as survival food without flavour is hell.
There's plenty of salt in our tinned beans and ready meals.

[Peter]

Don’t forget the humble OXO cube in you BOB, I always carried a flask with hot oxo when
hill walking in extreme winter weather.

A prepper should never be in a zero calorie scenario, in a BOB at least 3 days food preferably
which can been eaten without cooking, then emergency stuff like kendall mint cake, mars or
any sugary snack, this is while you forage, hunt or fish for the next meal(s).