UK Food Storage

  For the kids’ after-school snack yesterday, they sampled some food for their grab bags !  With all the stress that would come with leaving our home in an emergency, at least we can know that our food is yummy! I scoured the shelves of Lidl and Aldi, hunting for food that : Doesn’t expire before a year from now .   Ok, I ended up choosing some that expired in 10 or 11 months, but I think an extra month or two is flexible when stored in dry, dark places. Most grab bag lists instruct replacing food every 6 months. But let’s be realistic — I’m going to have a hard time keeping up with a 6 month grab bag schedule. There are plenty of food choices that last 12 months. And if you dig in the back of the store shelf, you can often find some food that lasts 1 or 2 months longer than the ones at the front! Doesn’t require cooking, plates, or cutlery .   Some people will pack little stoves, lightweight dinnerware, and fire-making tools in  their grab bags. But I’m keeping...

Now we begin the fun stuff . . . preparing our first 3 days of emergency food storage! Also called 72-hour-kits and bug-out-bags, grab bags are the first step to preparing our emergency food storage. Among other things, a grab bag contains food to last 3 days. A later post will explore what food we can store in our grab bag. So, what is a grab bag? The  gov.uk  guidance for Preparing for Emergencies says that we should                           put together a ‘ grab bag’  of things to take in an emergency . The above ‘grab bag’ link shows what the Cheshire Resilience Forum suggests we put in a grab bag.  Your own  Local Resilience Forum  will give details about grab bags. Here is what my LRF says about grab bags: There are a lot of suggested lists on the internet about what to put in a grab bag. Each LRF suggests slightly different grab bag lists.  Here  is an example from a UK ...

We just missed this campaign!  Posting it now to remind us to look out for it next September.   30days30waysUK     A national campaign of fun preparedness challenges, every September. 

I expected to find UK government information about how we can be prepared in our homes with food and water in case of emergencies.  There is not much information about storing food and water, but the government has created Local Resilience Forums, or LRFs. LRFs are multi-agency partnerships made up of representatives from local public services, including the emergency services, local authorities, the NHS, the Environment Agency and others. The LRF’s aim to plan and prepare for localised incidents and catastrophic emergencies. They work to identify potential risks and produce emergency plans to either prevent or mitigate the impact of any incident on their local communities.   see  gov.uk Your region in the UK will have its own LRF.  Click on the  gov.uk  link to see a list of the regions (they are the police force areas). The list includes links to most LRFs, but not all of them. If your region does not include the LRF link, try  searching online ...

First things first, what information and help do we have in the UK to get us started and keep us going with our food storage emergency preparedness? (This list will be updated as we find more relevant sites.) Government Publications: Gov.uk      The Government guidance for Preparing For Emergencies LRFs     List of the Local Resilience Forum regions Emergency Food Storage Stores: conserva.de       A European company with a store in Kent, selling lots of helpful long-term and emergency food supplies (like canned cheese and canned or powdered butter!) evaq8.co.uk       emergency preparedness food and water.                                       They also have a  Resilience Blog emergencyfoodstorage.co.uk       online store with Mountain House freeze dried food, Trek n Eat tins and packets, Aquamira and Kata...

One year our Christmas present from my Aunt was hundreds of rolls of toilet paper. Gag gift? No, that is what my mom asked for! I grew up in a family that valued the storage of food and basic necessities. Early summer mornings were spent at strawberry fields, cherry orchards, and our own vegetable garden. I was often a little embarrassed at the amount of baskets, bushels, and boxes we packed into the car. Each summer, we could be found canning peaches until midnight; husking, blanching, and bagging corn for the freezer; making applesauce and bottled apple pie filling; dehydrating apple and pear slices; stewing grape juice; bottling and freezing cherries. making strawberry jam; and pickling dill cucumbers. Then there were the 2 or even 3 trollies of food we filled with the for-sale items from the supermarket… yes, I was embarrassed, but in hindsight, I am in awe of my mother’s zeal for food storage. Mom found huge empty plastic buckets and giant zip bags to fill with bulk food, like whe...