An emergency food supply doesn't need to be special survival food. The national guides mostly recommend ordinary long-life food you already eat, bought a little at a time and rotated through your normal cooking.
The rule: food that's edible cold
Plan for the worst case: no power, no gas, and you can't cook. Then anything you can heat is a bonus. Seventeen of the guides we compiled list tinned food, and sixteen list ready-to-eat dry food.
Tins you can eat straight from the can
- Ready meals: chilli, stews, soups
- Fish in oil: tuna, sardines, mackerel
- Meat: chicken, corned beef
- Vegetables and beans: sweetcorn, peas, baked beans, chickpeas
- Fruit in juice
Choose ring-pull lids where you can, and keep a manual can opener anyway: electric ones stop with the power.
Dry food that needs no preparation
- Crispbread, crackers and rusks
- Nuts, peanut butter, dried fruit
- Chocolate, muesli bars, protein bars
- Long-life milk and juice in cartons
Emergency ration bars are a compact backup: they keep for five years or more and need no water to prepare.
How much?
An adult needs about 2,000 kcal a day, a child about 1,500. For two adults and two children over 72 hours, that's around 21,000 kcal. Germany's calculator also suggests about 330 g of grain products per person per day. Our checklist works out the totals for your household.
If you can cook
A camping stove with a few gas cartridges lets you boil water, which opens up rice, pasta, oats, lentils and instant mash. Only use it outdoors or with good ventilation.
Don't forget
- Babies: ready-to-use infant milk needs no clean water.
- Pets: food for the full period, and count them in your water stock.
- Special diets: allergies, diabetes and coeliac disease make a stock even more important, because shops will have less choice.
Keep it rotating
Store food where you'll see it, put new tins at the back, and eat the oldest first. Check dates twice a year.