Mainstream Media "Stock up on food"

[Edcraft]

I thought it was worth sharing the story. Be nice to know what people here think about this.


"Stocking up

If money is tight then it can be hard to make regular savings and impossible to start dramatically increasing your weekly shop in order to build up a surplus.

But if you spent an extra pound or two every time you do a big shop, you could have enough spare food for a week saved within a few months.

Make use of special offers, such as buy-one-get-one-free, buy-one-get-one-half-price and multi-buy savings to keep the cost per item right down, and aim to buy at least one extra essential every time you shop.

Even if you’re just adding a can a week, you’ll gradually build up a decent surplus."


http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/an-edible-emergency-fund.html

 

[Toddy]

I thought that was just keeping a decent pantry

cheers,
Toddy

 

[British Red]

I believe that is referred to as "common sense". I now only buy coffee when its on offer. It is now and again so I buy a good few months worth. Its doesn't go of quickly so why just get a couple of jars and then go back to paying full price?

I think the problem for most people is that there is no "pantry" in these modern houses so there is precious little space to store things. Buying spuds in 50lb sacks costs £4 a sack here at picking time - huge nets of onions are £1. Easy enough to store if you have a decent cool outbuilding (even a garage), but spoils in the warmth of a house.

On balance, I agree with the thought, but modern houses aren't built for it sadly

 

[Shewie]

My mother-in-law is a pro at hoarding food, the loft is full of "4 for the price of 3's" and "100% extra free" stuff.

 

[Retired Member southey]

I intend to use our shed as a food store, brick built with a double roof to keep cool(second roof covers both shed, coal store and ginnel , just need to make some shelves, the only thing that puts me off is the we may move in 3\5 years so would have to start again, though we will be getting an allotment next month(£15 a year YAY!) and next door have guinni pigs! hahah that's he meat sorted for at least a week!

 

[salan]

Agreed Red it's just common sense.
My 87 year old mother in law does not understand what this craze of 'prepping' is all about! 'Been doing that all my life!'
She has a good stock of food in a cool place. Has done all her life. As she said 'When I was young, you couldn't just pop to the supermarket and get anything' You got a stock when you could and it was cheap'.
funny thing is that after that conversation, my wife is a lot more 'accepting' of all my stuff.
alan

 

[British Red]

Mmmm food stores make sense. I do laugh at all this modern "trendy" stuff

"Eat fresh seasonal food" (like anyone had a choice for most of history!),

"Avoid food miles" (exactly the same)

Now, for me there is one point to this that hasn't been touched on. Some money spent on food stores for the last few years would have proved to be a far better investment than money invested in savings accounts or the like.

There is of course the step beyond "buying in" stored food which is "growing your own". Given the nature of that, it becomes necessary to be able to store what you grow. Keeping a food store is the most natural thing in the world - I find a flurry of freezing, canning, drying, pickling etc. in the Autumn very comforting. A full pantry and log store with Winter coming is a great feeling. There is an emotional resonance of feeling the seasons turn - I come alive now with all the seeds germinating and plants emerging.

Those first fresh salad leaves are a joy!


Salad Leaves 22-4 by British Red, on Flickr

 

[shaggystu]

the worrying bit is that someone, somewhere fells that it's necessary to tell people that keeping food in the house is a good idea. i'd love to know who thinks that that piece of advice is worth paying someone's salary for.

i presume that home economics is no longer taught in schools?

 

[Retired Member southey]

Home economics even when I went to school(left 1995) only consisted of baking cake tins filled with things that could have become a cake if the technology such as in startrek had existed, other than that there was no mention of how to actually run a household things like that are best learnt from Grans I reckon,

 

[shaggystu]

Home economics even when I went to school(left 1995) only consisted of baking cake tins filled with things that could have become a cake if the technology such as in startrek had existed, other than that there was no mention of how to actually run a household things like that are best learnt from Grans I reckon,

i left school two years before you, we had to do home economics in the first three years (first year, second year, and year 9, obviously!), i remember going into some depth about food shopping/storing as well as some simple cooking, i hated it at the time, but it was useful.

couldn't agree more about learning from grans, my nana taught me pretty much everything i know about cooking

 

[Pandabean]

We have pretty much got enough food in the cupboards and pantry to last a week or 2. The past 6 months we have been cutting back on what we spend whilst shopping after seeing our monthly food bills, bascally it is now cut back to either stocking up on what we have run out of or getting in fresh meat/veg. 5 days out of 7 we will cook from scratch so we will usually restock when we get down to one or 2 of the item such as tinned tomatoes or puree. If there are offers on certain things that we eat then we will buy them and if it were bread/rolls or meat then we will freeze them.

So its certainly not new news but sometimes it does take a news article or something to kick a person off into doing this so I can see why the advice comes up from time to time in the mainstream news, not everyone learns it from their parents or have someone that they can ask.

The past 2 years since we moved to this house we have been growing veg with some success although its alot of work trying to find the time to do it is annoying. This is one of the problems with modern society is finding the time to do this, most of us are so busy that when we get time off we want to relax (bushcrafting, TV whatever helps) and not work. The previous couple we bought the house from were retired and had plenty of time to keep things running hence most of the back garden is veg plots with a little bit of grass.

Our first year we had some success with onions, carrots and tatties. Sadly we got too much tatties and they kind of went off when stored in the outbuilding, some of the onions turned a bit mouldy when hung up in a net. So its more the preserving the food that I am having trouble with.

 

[Lister]

I think they're just saying that you can hoard some things.......remember what happened when they told people to stock up on petrol and fill up the jerrycans

I'm definately guilty of hoarding, in the garage alone we've still got 76 fray bentos pies from last year when they were on offer at 2 for £1....gotta love the steak and ale ones

 

[Graham_S]

If I can't feed myself for a week or two from my store cupboard something has gone seriously wrong.
Pasta, Rice, dried Pulses as well as various cans and packets line the shelves.
It's only sensible.

 

[Edcraft]

I think you're all right. Common sense to have enough food in for a few weeks, because you never know what's going to happen.

I thought the fuel crisis was a test to see how the country reacts to a fuel shortage, perceived or genuine, because there's a very good chance Iran will be attacked and fuel will decrease drastically.

If there was a gov instigated panic buying of food or a genuine food shortage as a result of, say, Iran blocking the straits of hormuz for example, people who haven't stocked any food, who'll start looting to feed their crying kids, because they have no other way to feed them. You'll have to defend your stash against them or fold, give up and share it with your neighbours, maybe "buying" allies, then join the looters or teach them some bushcraft.

If there was major civil unrest, it'd be the army doing the policing and they might not let you off up the hills foraging, ever think of that?

Where you live is a massive factor when deciding your plan, if things get mucked up.

 

[TeeDee]

Bump to this older thread.

Edcrafts comments ( above ) seems rather prophetic

https://en.didpress.com/29525/ and the coverage by the Financial Times suggest there may well be some disturbance in food supply lines and fertilizer provision for the next year crops.

 

[Falstaff]

Lazy journo's article, someone runs this out every year to go with the spring gardening articles. Storage space in modern houses is an issue though.

Most of my weekly shop is fresh veg, if that supply fails then I've found it does become a problem. On doc's orders I'm eating a lot more greens and vegetarian meals.
My small freezer is basically just protein, and my other stores largely carb staples and tinned proteins.
I wanted to find the time to grow more this year, and had lots of ideas, but unforeseen events have prevented me from doing anything yet. I'm still pulling leeks from last year but otherwise nowt.

 

[TeeDee]

Lazy journo's article, someone runs this out every year to go with the spring gardening articles. Storage space in modern houses is an issue though.

Most of my weekly shop is fresh veg, if that supply fails then I've found it does become a problem. On doc's orders I'm eating a lot more greens and vegetarian meals.
My small freezer is basically just protein, and my other stores largely carb staples and tinned proteins.
I wanted to find the time to grow more this year, and had lots of ideas, but unforeseen events have prevented me from doing anything yet. I'm still pulling leeks from last year but otherwise nowt.

Not sure if I agree with that on this occasion ( a polite way of saying I don't ) - but yes that type of story is wheeled out and dusted off on occasion.

But the Straits are however blocked on this occasion and I can't see that changing without considerable escalation as opposed to sabre rattling -its more the time related drag on growing cycles that will be a point of concern.

 

[slowworm]

I wonder if we've actually got more dependant on imported fertilizer since the original post well over a a decade ago? I would have thought one of the first things done on the push toward net zero or whatever would be to reduce fossil fuel based fertilizers and make more use of nitrogen fixing plants and human waste.

 

[TeeDee]

I wonder if we've actually got more dependant on imported fertilizer since the original post well over a a decade ago? I would have thought one of the first things done on the push toward net zero or whatever would be to reduce fossil fuel based fertilizers and make more use of nitrogen fixing plants and human waste.

You'd like to think that wouldn't you.
But I suspect its one of those things that we all know we need to do . but find multitude of ways to put it off for Future us to address.

 

[Toddy]

Some Indian villages built digester tanks....everything goes in there, from food waste to 'nightsoil', cow dung, etc.,
It ferments and gives off gas; gas that they use to cook instead of constantly foraging and burning wood....and the left over resultant fermented and used up mulch is brilliant fertiliser and soil improver.

We have sewage works and it's all considered waste.