Your emergency food supply / preparedness

[opa]

Kind of a strange thread but pretty important. How do you handle your food supply?

Lately, climate change has dealt people in my area a rough hand. We've had stronger storms (often with tornadoes) that tear down the power lines. Well at my house we do all of our cooking on an electric stove... so in the past few instances in which we've had power outages we've been s.o.l.

In the past storm (which was really fierce) we went around 5 or 6 hours without power; so cooking food in the fridge wasn't an option.

At this point, I'm looking into buying fresh MRE's from military surplus (if I can find some with a decent lifespan left) or buying some of those XMRE's. I don't really want to not have food to eat.

What do y'all do for your food supply when the power goes out? Or do you live in an area where this isn't a huge concern?
Thanks for any replies/thoughts.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I store large containers of nonperishables: rice, beans, canned fish and chicken, peanut butter, pasta, spring water... UHT milk is also amazing.

[Jagosaurus]

Part of growing up on the Texas coast & being outdoors often ....

After going through multiple hurricanes and a few bad freezes (in TX when it ices, it's bad bc our infrastructure can't handle it) ... I'll always have gas appliances in my home.

Some modern gas stoves won't light without electricity so keep that in mind. Make sure a lighter works on burners & broiler. Some stoves (& fireplaces) have a battery backup system (D-batt) to spark & ignite gas. Know how to access this and ensure not corroded. I also keep propane camping stoves and grills around too. These are important for cooking obviously, but boiling water too.

Try freezing block in your freezer (bottles of water, plastic tubs, etc). These will keep food for multiple days in a good ice chest (Yeti, Rtic, Orca, etc). They also come in extremely handy for family outings throughout the year

We almost always have a month of food on hand. A month of solid family meals, nah ... but in general, yes. Typically 2 weeks of meals & lots of pantry food.

I'd also recommend a ton of batteries, USB battery packs, flash lights, candles, lighters, matches, & bottled/gallons of water.

I've been without power for over 2 weeks ... people get weird man. I almost saw brawl over ice. Things got intense quick. True story. Not to get into touchy subjects in forums... but I'd have the ability to protect your family in addition to supplies on-hand. Those supplies mean nothing if someone can easily take them from your loved ones.

Long term, I need to get my gas stores & generator game going. Keep in mind "dirty" generator power is generally bad for electronics so unplug TVs, consoles, etc. On gas/fuel - I never let my vehicles get below half a tank for emergency purposes.

Hope some of that was helpful, even parts non food specific been through too many no power events

[marurun]

What you do is buy a single propane burner that uses those little cans. That way you can have cooking when you need it. Or an entire propane grill. You can learn to bake on those if you really have to.

[Anapan]

Not a big concern where I'm from, but I have a few large vacuum-sealed bags of nonperishables @ the bottom of the deep-freeze.
I grow and pressure can a lot of vegetables - mostly tomatoes, but beans and the like as well. Our immediate family makes 40-50 jars of dill pickles together every year which is always mostly consumed by the next year's pickling cuke crop.
When they're on sale I buy and pressure-can salmon - it's so much better than the store bought stuff. I keep big bags of freeze-dried butter, buttermilk, and skim milk in the cupboard which I regularly use in cooking along with a bunch of dried vegetables, beans and noodles down below. I have a full complement of knorr soups packets my favorite cup-noodles and instant ramen. There's a bunch of store-bought canned goods in the cellar too - chili, chunky soup, a vast array of Campbells soups, various beans, vegetables, tuna, etc.

Fresh water here is trivial to get with the many mountain-rivers running into the lakes - My place is right on a small creek and the well has perfectly fine tho chemically hard water. I bought a water softener many years ago that hasn't been installed yet. I got one of those Sawyer Mini Water Filtration Systems I've never used, and my brother and I designed and built a stainless reflux still that can be used to distill large amounts of water if needed. There's a bunch of propane tanks here, and I bought the tools to transfer propane from the large ones to the small canister ones which I have an unknown amount stashed somewhere. I've been strongly considering getting a 1300-1500 watt gasoline generator, and I've always wanted to get a decent solar setup, tho the disposable income always seems to be pre-alloted to expensive toys, electronics and power-tools.

My brother and our gas-fitter friend installed a gas stove here a couple of years ago. One part of it works without electricity; I don't remember which one. I have some propane burners for deep-frying outdoors - cold-smoked and deep-fried chicken is so good. I always keep a big bag or two of hardwood-chunk charcoal for smoking sausages, making beef-jerky and char-grilling steaks.

The main concern is the rising cost of meat, tho our extended family communicate and will pick up multiple large cryo-packed chunks to butcher and/or grind when a deal is too good to pass up. My brother and I just last night made and vacuum-bagged about 60 breakfast sausages from a CDN$21 pork shoulder and some of his left-over frozen pork fat, an extra-large Ziploc freezer bag packed full of cracked-black-Dr.-Pepper beef jerky, and ~8 lbs of pepperoni is drying in the smoker right now. Charcuterie and meat curing is a really fun and rewarding hobby. Home-made is so much better and cheaper than going to a deli as it's mostly made with the cheapest cuts of meat and makes so much of the most expensive end product. Vacuum-sealed and optionally frozen it has an incredible longevity without losing or changing flavour.

Best to be prepared - Never know when the zombie apocalypse will happen.

[Gucci]

I’m in NYC with the last major event being Super Storm Sandy. We didn’t have shit prior to that. Now I have flashlights, radios, back up battery banks and food.

Since the focus is on food: I have cans of tuna, salmon, and chicken from Costco. Need to buy canned veggies within the next month or so and store that away. Water is another concern.

I have an extra bag of cat food and a 24 can thing of wet food for them (or me if it becomes a Mad Max situation lol). Need to get some litter to store away.

[Jagosaurus]

What you do is buy a single propane burner that uses those little cans. That way you can have cooking when you need it. Or an entire propane grill. You can learn to bake on those if you really have to.

So I have both of those... I've always found the single burner Coleman set ups to be unstable, especially if windy. I use it for small pots of sides only these days.

I've owned a couple of the table top Coleman camping stoves over the years. I recently opted for this small grill. It's almost a hybrid between a camping stove and grill.

Char-Broil Portable 240 Liquid Propane Gas Grill https://a.co/d/dR6HxGS

I then bought the adapter & hose so I can hook it up to standard 20 lb grill propane tank or the mini green bottles.

Nice for tailgates too

[marurun]

You mean this sort of thing is unstable?

https://www.amazon.com/Chef-Master-9001 ... 01HUOEGM6/

Those are used in Japan all the time. Standard kitchen item, since most stove burners are electric and very underpowered there.

[Jagosaurus]

You mean this sort of thing is unstable?

https://www.amazon.com/Chef-Master-9001 ... 01HUOEGM6/

Those are used in Japan all the time. Standard kitchen item, since most stove burners are electric and very underpowered there.

Nah, we were talking 2 different things. That's essentially a form factor variant of the camping stove I mentioned. I just usually had the 2 burner:
Coleman Triton+—2 Burner Propane Gas Camping Stove https://a.co/d/1ep5VHa

I was referring to these guys being unstable/topple:
Coleman Gas Stove | Portable Bottletop Propane Camp Stove with Adjustable Burner https://a.co/d/cxMV3pM

And to anyone unfamiliar with gas cooking or heaters ... always have a carbon monoxide detector. I have several that plug into the wall outlet with D-battery backup in them for power outages. You'll usually smell any propane or nat gas leaks thanks to additives, but burning that gas puts off CO.

[Ack]

I have discovered that the best cuts of meat on a human being come from the inner thigh territory. In case of emergency, I intend to share this information with my neighbors.