Government Prepping Food and Water

Water! Now this is a biggie and to begin with we will go through the basics as these are critical to storing your water and keeping it in good condition for the longer term and remember water doesn’t go off, it merely allows more micro organisms and algae to form under the right conditions which are light and oxygen and immediately the eagle eyed will have spotted that transparent water containers are no good as they allow light through. Immediately we can see water needs to be stored in the dark and ideally in a cool place and if you have a concrete floor you add some wooden boards to isolate the water from the constantly fluctuating temperatures of the concrete and make the temperature more consistent
Our next issue is water quality and is tap water safe to store? Generally yes but in the event of a grid failure the processing plant will fail and any water you get will almost certainly not be treated so it is better to treat it, so how do we store it and that would be in containers which are either food safe and dark in colour or marked with PET or PETE and the symbol as this signifies it is food safe and contains no bisphenols which leach into your water.
I prefer new water containers; or to at least know their origins so I know they are safe to store water in and exactly what they had in them so they can be effectively cleaned and sterilised before use and sterilising should always be done before storing any water. To sterilise you wash out any new containers as well as second hand ones as they may contain bits of plastic from manufacturing to bits of food from food processing and cleanliness is next to godliness so take the time to do it correctly. You can use dilute bleach or go to other industries such as brewing or specifically home brewing and get sodium metabisulphate or go the baby sterilising route and get the babies bottle sterilising solution; in all cases you mix this with water in the correct proportions and swill it around in the container to cover everything, then remove any caps and soak them in the solution to ensure they are cleaned. Now I would suggest getting a stock of water purification tablets and keep plenty in stock.

From this point we shall split it into two entities which are clean potable water and grey non potable water and potable water is drinking water, and we shall focus on potable water. Any water you store needs storing correctly and treating to prevent any micro organisms from growing along with any algae from forming and to do this they add chlorine at the water processing plant and most water treatments available after market are either Hydrogen Peroxide or Sodium Hypochlorite or in more general terms hair dye and bleach and they treat up to a specified amount of non tap water so always use something to prevent losing your water and note how long it treats it for and mark the date you filled your water container and how long the treatment works for, so anything stored on June 1st should be marked June 1st and the length of time the water treatment works for and if this is 5 years it should be marked June 1st 2024 - 5 years.
Next is light so storing them in a cool, dark place is a must and the best rule is to avoid white, clear, and translucent containers and get dark ones from the outset and next is size as a selection would be nice as the UK 45 gallon drums hold 45 gallons of water and you can get the similar 200 litre containers and even larger IBC containers which will all work. Keep large volumes of water in your large containers and use smaller containers first, then to decant water into as they become empty and remember to be economical with your potable water.
Treating potable water can be done in many ways and the first is to add water sterilising tablets to your water and these work up to certain volumes and for a minimum amount of time to mark this use by date on your container; and I would not recommend using hydrogen peroxide as recently it has been found it has long term health implications so unless totally necessary, avoid it.

If you have an account at Costco or other warehouse you can get bottled water in bulk and supermarkets are doing it now and this comes with the treatment included, but; it comes in clear bottles and over time algae and micro organisms can form so at best it is only a stopgap whose life may be improved by storing in the dark and in a cool place. Never run past the use by dates with bottled water and never keep it past its use by date, no good then throw it out for pot washing or garden watering.

To calculate your bleach amounts to add you need to do a little maths and to do this you need to know how much treatment is included and look up the amounts of treatment you need for every container and mark it on it, next you need the bleach type and generally it comes as 3% or 7% and many others; go online and your local water company provides this information and if this amount is 50% of what you want you only add 50% of the amount of bleach to your container. Some sites work in litres while others work in gallons and a UK gallon is 4.54 litres and a US gallon is 3.785 litres. You can now look at many sites and work out how much bleach to add to your water and You Tube has videos on how to calculate this with what % Sodium Hypochlorite in the bleach.

When you come to use your stored water you decant it at least 30 minutes before use and stand it as this allows the bleach to evaporate and then pour it between containers to aerate it and help the bleach remnants out and aerate the now flat water.

We now need to understand terminology as this differs around the world and one example would be someone in the UK looking at an English site and thinking quantities are the UK gallon being referred to and an American site may be referring to the US gallon and the UK gallon is 4.54L and the US gallon is 3.785L so understand the terminology and which measurements are being used. One favourite term is chlorine bleach as there are two main types, chlorine bleach and oxygen bleach and oxygen bleach is not used in water treatment as it is not suitable; chlorine bleach refers solely to containing sodium hypochlorite and this is usually given as a percentage or the percentage of sodium hypochlorite in the bleach, many bleaches come with colouring and currently pink is popular, and many come with different smells and pine is just one of many.
When it comes to bleach you just want plain bleach and not one smelling of a forest or having fancy colourings in it and you need a dropper such as an eye dropper to administer it onto your water.
How long can you store tap water treated with bleach? Actually around a year as bleach breaks down and degrades and it generally does this after about a year and stops offering protection to your water. After this time you need to empty out your stored water and clean the container out and replace it with fresh water and treatment; hence why you stagger your filling times for your containers.

Grey water is non drinking water and this can be used for many things and an obvious choice would be for the toilet cistern so you can flush the toilet and you can reduce the amount used by putting a brick or similar in the cistern, what many people forget is that grey water is often used for watering plants or your foods you are growing. If you scrape any remaining foods from used plates and stack them up for washing and wash once a day to economise on water you are instantly creating grey water and if all the bits are filtered out it is grey water which can be used to water your garden, or just stored for future use, grey water is also rainwater as this is pure water or acid rain which you collect and store in water butts. If you periodically look into these water butts you will see long green weed like plants, this is algae and what you treat potable water against as if algae is forming so are micro organisms and this water is not drinkable and needs treating or used for its initial purpose of watering the garden. Rain water has immediate problems which are that it is often captured in or on surfaces and it runs into plastic guttering or piping which is NOT food grade and then into non food grade barrels open to the atmosphere which means open to anything, anything means birds or other animals and this means rats and other rodents which fall into your water and drown. Rats are particularly problematic as they do their business while on the move and rat urine is the cause of something called Weils disease or more technically Leptospirosis which can lead to many health conditions and none of them good, so at the very least put downpipes through the lid into tightly fitting holes and minimise the bombing birds and rat droppings.
Whenever you capture grey water such as turning your sink waste pipe into a bucket instead of letting it go down the drain; or the greenhouse or other roof water source, you will need to filter it because sink waste water will have food particles in it and rain water will contain silts and other particles from your roof and you need to filter these out. Bag filters are the easiest way of filtering out unwanted solids and an old cotton Tee shirt makes an ideal bag filter as you cut off the sleeves and sew the sleeves and neck hole up and you have a bag, turn the bottom over and sew this and insert a draw string and you have a bag filter you can hang and all you do is to pour your grey water through this and you filter all the particles and sits from your grey water and you have water for irrigation.

Identifying all local water sources is a must as your water will eventually run out if left and most people never store enough water and you need additional sources, do you have a golf club or country park nearby with a pond or lake, or do you have a stream, canal, or river nearby and just how accessible is it and how much water can you get and more importantly, how much can you carry? And can you get it home without being mugged for it, all essential criteria. You will need time to treat this water and allow any treatment to work which may be for a couple of days so this water needs separating from any water you already have while you treat it and I would suggest avoiding the bleach unless absolutely necessary and begin with collecting your water from the fastest flowing part of the waterway you can access as this reduced the contamination considerable. Next I would suggest filtering it to remove any solid contamination and then using water treatment tablets as they are cheap and generally last around 5 years and avoid the Hydrogen Peroxide based tablets, you can buy them cheaply online. Home made water filters are highlighted in the projects section.
How Much Water? This varies according to alleged experts, the same experts who go to the University of Experts and after a week emerge as an expert, an expert in what is unknown but the term “expert” sounds better than an idiot guessing or making it up as they go along. In reality each person requires a minimum of 2 litres or ½ UK gallon of water per day to sustain them and this should be a MINIMUM and if we add some for cooking or pot washing or personal hygiene this can be raised to 3 litres per person, per day and for a family of four this is 12 litres per day or 84 litres per week and as a month is 4.3 weeks this is 362 litres per month. Now for the obvious question, do you have this much water storage and what if you need more than this as any incident goes beyond a month? This is where your water storage and treatment of replenishment water comes in.


Food is another important consideration and one which so many people get wrong and when a SHTF situation arises they find large quantities of their food has gone off or is rotten or unusable in some other way such as being mouldy and this happens with the most basic of foods and a little understanding and knowledge goes a long way.

Dried Foods are usually the basis for prepping as people assume they have long storage dates and they can be stored in bulk so I would suggest researching and breaking large quantities of food down into smaller quantities so if some of it goes off, it doesn’t all go off and you lose a huge quantity of your food and one example would be brown rice as this contains the husk and the husk contains oils and it’s the oils which make it go off, so only use white polished rice and avoid the oils and risks of your rice going off. Pasta may seem dried but the reality is that it uses Durum wheat and this is mixed with water and while it may seem dry it is not and again this needs breaking down.
To break food down you take your 20Kg bag of rice or pasta and you get something like a pack of Mylar sealable bags or sealed glass jars and you put quantities of your dried produce into these bags and if they hold 1Kg of food and one goes off you lose 1Kg of the product and not the entire 20Kg, if you break a glass jar you lose one jar full and again not the entire 20Kg bag, so use common sense.
Dried foods extend to more than rice and pasta and the dried noodles have a long shelf life and items such as Pot Noodles have these noodles in them and so do their cheaper competitors who do them in various packs with long dates and let’s not forget the 1 minute rice noodles which only require 1 minute in water. Now for another wonder food, oats; they are excellent for breakfast porridge and you can add honey or any fruit which is in season and if you add honey and chopped fruit and nuts to them you can make your very own cereal bars; or you can use them to bulk up main meals, basically they are so versatile they have to be included.
Remember salt and sugar as they are both preservatives and very useful for preserving food and I would add honey as this can be eaten or used to replace sugar and used for first aid to treat wounds if applied directly to the wound and we can also add flour as with the small amounts of salt and sugar we can make a basic flatbread which can be cooked on a hot plate and doesn’t require an oven. Some foods we assume would have a long shelf life actually don’t and this is one thing you need to check and learn to store correctly to maximise their storage life, now we can add various whole and chopped nuts as these are so flexible. One thing worthy of mention is dried fruits as berries such as raisins or sultanas can have a long life if stored correctly and can be used with oats to make your own health bars, or just added to porridge.

Storing these foods under the right conditions is critical as some attract weevils and most attract other nasties and a wild food shortage makes things like rats and other things brave and they will try and get into your stored food, and remember birds and bats fly as do other things, rats and other rodents climb so putting things into the air on shelving has limited effect.
Mylar bags are potentially the best way of storing many of these foods and you put them in the Mylar bag with an oxygen absorber and pull the flap over and iron it to seal the bag, you put all your sealed bags into a large container and clearly park the large container.

Tinned or canned foods includes bottled foods and these are critical to long term survival and the first rule is obviously longevity or long dates on your canned foods and as you will be more physical during any longer term SHTF event you need much more protein and this generally means much more meat and many tinned meats exist and the obvious are Spam and corned beef which were designed from the outset to have long storage lives. It doesn’t end there as you can get tinned tongue to tinned burgers in onion gravy and this is an important consideration as any meat with its own juice such as gravy is something it can be cooked in which saves your water, so anything such as hot dog sausages in brine and these days you can get most tinned meats so choice is not really a problem. Beef, pork, lamb, and many more tinned meats are available and so are tinned fish such as tuna or sardines or even pilchards and another little trick is to look at the options as tinned tuna comes in everything from spring water to sunflower oil and sunflower oil is ideal as you can use the oil for frying other things, so a 2 in 1 canned food.
When it comes to vegetables you can get tinned single vegetables or two vegetables in the same can and peas and carrots would be an example and in many cases they come in their own water or brine and canned fruits often come in water or syrup, so what is brine and syrup? Basically brine is just salt and water and syrup is just water and sugar, so we can see salt and sugar are preservatives and something else we get in quantities. Why get these things in some sort of water or brine? Because you can use this to cook the food inside and save your precious water and if you get as many things as you can in some form of liquid you cook it in that liquid.

Example: Your meat is tinned hamburgers in onion gravy and your vegetables are tinned peas and carrots and tinned sweetcorn, you pierce the lids and light your barbeque and simply stand your tins above the flames and you have cooked a full nutritious meal and used no water, therefore saving precious drinking water and no pots to wash other than plates and crockery.

Soups and broths are other examples of tinned foods which are a complete meal and can be turned to other things as something called condensed soups exist and these are condensed by removing some of the water and this makes them thicker and you put them into a saucepan and refill the tin with water and add this to the condensed soup and it makes twice the amount or takes up less storage space.
Condensed soups have other uses and if you get condensed mushroom soup and you have dried, or grown some mushrooms you cut them up and add them to the condensed soup and instead of adding a tin of water, you add ½ tin of water and you have a thicker mushroom sauce, if you have other things you can add them to your base sauce and use this to cover pasta or rice and make a bland meal tastier. You can create recipes if you have onions and mushrooms and add some meat you have made a full meal and you can make your own home made soups from your ingredients and bottle them to store them.

Tinned fruits are essential for a balanced diet and if you add the tinned individual fruits and tinned mixed fruits you have variety, but you also have the option of fresh foods and for this you need to know your local environment and the seasons as while blackberries are popular how many people know where apples or wild garlic are and locally I know where I can source rhubarb, damsons, raspberries, and plums all growing in the wild and these supplement many other foods and not in my extensive garden.

You can get many tinned and dried foods such as dried powdered milk and this can be used to make milk for cereals or just put into tea or coffee; or dried and flaked potatoes and while it may not be as nice as real potatoes it will help keep you and your family fed.

One thing you need to learn is how to can and bottle as any supplementary foods you find can be preserved and stored and not wasted as food in your stomach is preferable to rotting food on the floor. Canned foods extends further and the pouches of dried rations are also fine for a meal as you add water and heat through and while not exactly Michelin starred food again it keeps you alive.

Growing food is another supplementary way of feeding yourself and I would strongly suggest everyone grows things for themselves as now you can grow many foods all year round which serves several purposes as it teaches you how to grow food, and also allows some fresh food nearly all year round and it means you have growing space. If you don’t have a garden you can container grow and again this is another skill you have and it means you have both the containers and growing medium and the ability to grow your own foods which means you can supplement your stored foods and make them last longer. You will also have compost and prepared soils to grow in and potentially a compost heap to make compost to supplement your soil and feeds such as the natural blood, fish, and bone to replenish your soil nutrients so you can reuse soils and composts. One important aspect of growing your own is you control what goes into it and unlike mass grown foods your home grown will be free of many contaminants currently found in the heavily processed foods and intensively grown foods used as ingredients in other foods.

Frozen foods are the often thought of mainstay of home preservation and these have to be balanced out against the canned/dried/pickled/bottled foods as everyone seems to forget that in an emergency situation the power grid may well be down and this one factor may determine your useful freezer life as the amount of fuel you have if you have a generator, or the weather conditions of you have solar and an inverter. In reality your fuel may run out and the sun may not shine and your solar will not charge your batteries and you cannot replenish your fuel and this moves you towards other preservation methods such as canning/bottling as your mainstay for preservation.

If you grow your own I would suggest things like stew packs or stir fry packs as these along with frozen meats will provide useful meals as you can make these up as you harvest your crops, or you can buy them in quantity while they are in season and cheap and you add these to your stew packs as they come along and if you combine these with your home grown produce you can get some pretty nice foods. In the event of a grid down situation your frozen produce may thaw out and even then it will last for a few days after thawing and be useful food.
What foods to grow is critical and a question often asked and simply foods which can be cooked or eaten raw are ideal as you have the option, foods which have multiple uses such as cabbage may be overlooked and people turn their noses up at it but it can be eaten raw or cooked and turned into things such as sauerkraut or kimchi to produce a healthy long term stored food. Many foods such as lettuce can be cut and come again where you cut the outer leaves off and eat them and they sprout new and larger leaves and a few lettuce can last a whole family all season and tomatoes can be turned into tomato base sauces and bottled and stored for months and onions can be grown and picked as needed and hung in a cool dark place.
Pick foods which can be grown all year round and you can get carrots for cropping in winter, autumn, spring and summer and the only difference is winter growing takes longer.

Seeds are critical to self sufficiency and are equally important in survival and you need a stock in to plant and grow at a moments notice and remember they may take several months from planting to cropping so pick fast growing varieties; learn how to seed your plants as often allowing one plant to bolt will yield lots of seeds and you store them until you need them.

Foraging is often overlooked and can be a mainstay of survival and most people know about blackberries but what about apples, pears, wild raspberries, damsons and anything else growing wild, if you know how to seed them then get a few seeds and guerrilla plant which is to scatter a few seeds about somewhere quiet and let them grow as once established they self seed and you often get a self perpetuating crop. Never forget netting and trapping and of course fishing and if you have a nearby waterway then check if it has been plagued by crayfish and if it has then make and bait a few pots and put them into the waterway and you will often get lots of crayfish and while a little fiddly you can prepare and eat them.
Being aware of your surroundings will pay dividends and while you are there you can identify what you can eat as you can eat almost anything wild and many people simply overlook many wild foods and don’t realise you can cook and eat nettles or make nettle tea and if you are hungry you won’t turn your nose up at nettle tea and eat the cooked nettles. Also be aware of your seasons as rhubarb crops at a specific time as do runner beans and if you pick both when they are young they simply reproduce and continue growing and one heavy yield suddenly becomes many smaller yields which soon add up to much more than your one yield.

Remember that in the event of a system breakdown you will need to replenish your food and water and the three days the Government are advocating will be more like a month so have your systems in place to cope and the capabilities to replenish and store your acquired foods and you need foods which are easily prepared and use the minimum of resources as these resources may be needed elsewhere.

Members really need to pay attention to the above post,now more than ever.

Before i left England i was fully prepared ; A years supply of food ,chest freezer full & solar run. diesel heater & fuel, repeating crossbow ,knives,snares for rabbits & birds,
water purifier one man tent and a bug-out spot selected if needed,knowledge of edible wild plants (over 10,000 in europe)
All now passed to family & friends.

Here in Australia there are far less edible plants to forage.However living by the sea ,fishing is really good + seaweed & shellfish.
I have not seen 1 garden here growing anything edible .Although i am starting to plant in containers as i did in England..

No one in England would be short of food if they applied some research into foraging.