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How long could you last ?

(92 Posts)
nanna8 Thu 17-Nov-22 09:22:10

Just thinking, reading some other threads, how long could you last on the food that you already have in the house without having to go shopping? I reckon we (2 of us) could last about a month just now. Then we would have to start eating grass and Italian parsley which seems to be about our only regular ‘crop’ in the garden. Our freezer is small and about half full.

AreWeThereYet Thu 17-Nov-22 14:53:48

Probably about 3 weeks if we were frugal and cut down our meal sizes a bit and we would have to eat some unusual meals by the end.

lovebeigecardigans1955 Thu 17-Nov-22 14:33:36

If I was more frugal than usual, I'd maybe last 2-3 weeks with a tin of soup or the powdered variety each day, but not much else. I don't keep much in the freezer. I could make bread I suppose but it'd be very boring without fresh stuff to make a nice sandwich. It would get pretty dull.

crazyH Thu 17-Nov-22 14:24:45

1 month +. I enough tea, coffee, sugar, salt, rice, pasta, spices and a freezer full of everything else.

Abitbarmy Thu 17-Nov-22 14:02:52

Probably 3 to 4 weeks then another couple of months if it is possible to survive on gooseberries and redcurrants! A freezer full of them plus other allotment harvests,

OnwardandUpward Thu 17-Nov-22 13:57:37

As long as we didn't get a power cut, we could probably last a few weeks or maybe a month uncomfortably. I have a huge bag of soya mince in the cupboard that might last years though...

Since lockdown I started buying a sack of rice, pasta and keeping instant mash in the house. So I always have food in the house, to give away or to eat in an emergency. Since there have been no emergencies I've been able to send loads to the Ukraine and also local food banks, then I've just replaced it.

M0nica Thu 17-Nov-22 13:49:17

At least a month. We use UHT milk and always have plenty in stock. I have plenty of flour and could make bread. I would quickly run out of potatoes and onions, but I always have a box of chopped frozen onions in the freezer and with rice, couscous and pasta in stock the lack of potatoe would not be a major problem.

The first thing I would do , should the eventuality arrive,is take an inventory of what I had and then plan what food to set aside for each of the next 5 weeks, so that we had a varied, and, as far as possible, healthy diet.

Norah Thu 17-Nov-22 13:44:04

Quite a long time, if we stayed content with pulses, pastas, rices, polenta, quinoa, flours, tinned tomatoes, apples, onions, potatoes.

Other than fresh veg and fruit same as normal.

MissAdventure Thu 17-Nov-22 13:36:56

I have five tins of tuna for work my way through.
I don't even like fish.

Pittcity Thu 17-Nov-22 13:00:57

Just remembered that DH bought a frozen turkey crown yesterday. That's another week!!!!

SachaMac Thu 17-Nov-22 13:00:57

I’d probably last less than a week, I have started just buying what I need rather than doing a massive shop, I was wasting too much food. I do need to stock up with the store cupboard essentials before the prices go up even more though. I have a few tins/dry goods at the back of the cupboards and a loaf and few bits in the freezer but wouldn’t last long. I have a small box of fresh vegetables delivered so could make plenty of soup!
I agree about the potatoes nanna8, when the children were little we used to get a big sack of spuds delivered by the milkman, they came complete with soil and I remember having to cut big chunks of black bits out of quite a few of them, they were very cheap for the quantity though compared to a small bag from the supermarket today.

MissAdventure Thu 17-Nov-22 12:53:00

I could probably go a month or so, by eating all sorts of weird things.
No doubt I could drink water, too, but...

Pittcity Thu 17-Nov-22 12:52:37

Eating normally about 4 days. If it was a matter of survival we could probably double that. DH is always eating.
We also live in a City centre and shop almost daily.

Baggs Thu 17-Nov-22 12:39:14

Taking "last" to mean stay alive, if we lived on lentils and rice, and pasta with tinned tomatoes, and only drank water (or black tea/coffee), probably a lot longer than we would like to consider.

Urmstongran Thu 17-Nov-22 11:48:59

Only a day or two.
We take for granted that we can just go down in the lift and Sainsbury’s is just outside the main entrance door in the square. I call it my ‘larder’.
😊

Lathyrus Thu 17-Nov-22 11:47:13

The seed potatoes are sprayed before planting nanna8 to eliminate potato blight.

Beechnut Thu 17-Nov-22 11:43:30

Purplepixie

We could manage for about 2 weeks but we would need milk, unless we froze some of that as well.

I always keep some long life cartons of milk and more of them in the winter just in case of bad weather or if I felt poorly.

nanna8 Thu 17-Nov-22 11:40:37

In the old days when we were first married( mid to late 60s) we never ate out, got takeaway (did they even have that back then apart from fish and chips?) and we had a lot of potatoes and pasta . We didn’t actually have a fridge or washing machine either so we wouldn’t have lasted long at all. The potatoes then were pretty vile, often greenish and rotten inside. We never, ever, get nasty potatoes now, they must do something to prevent it.

MawtheMerrier Thu 17-Nov-22 11:32:33

It would be an interesting challenge and apart from milk I am tempted to give it a go. It would cover the expense of Christmas!
When we were young parents I had a more or less fixed budget for my weekly Sainsburys shop but used to try to buy a little extra each week for 4 weeks and then miss out on the fifth.
That “freed up” the weekly budget for one-off purchases.
A simple “jam jar” form of saving but effective!
Can’t remember why I stopped though. After what Jeremy Hunt has in store for us today I think every little will have to help.

Theexwife Thu 17-Nov-22 11:17:27

10 days, I know this as if I cannot sleep I try to think of how many meals I could make only using ingredients that I have. 10 is the most that I get to.

nanna8 Thu 17-Nov-22 10:36:58

The danger for us is power cuts defrosting the fridge and freezer compartment. If that happened it would cut the time back a lot. I don’t have many tins but I have a fair bit of rice. Must get more coffee , I need that in the morning, not that I am addicted to it of course 😃

karmalady Thu 17-Nov-22 10:15:49

At least the whole of winter as I have plenty of dried foods. Having lived in the middle of no -where and even at age 25, I did well on the food we had when winters were bad

2010 suddenly we were snowed in, living in a valley, for six whole weeks. Did not want for anything, except chocolate and things to do in the house. Remedied that for here. I will not be going out anyway, when conditions underfoot are dangerous

I have had plenty of winters of experience and am always ready for the worst case. I can make my own plant milk, soya, almond or tiger nut

Witzend Thu 17-Nov-22 10:14:50

Not very long - we’ve only got the freezer bit of a fridge freezer, and no cubic miles of cupboard space. I do usually keep some bread and long life milk - or frozen excess milk - but neither would last more than about a week.

During the first lockdown, though, I did quite enjoy being inventive with what was lurking at the back of cupboards, inc. some very out of date e.g. split peas and GF flour.

Hellogirl1 Thu 17-Nov-22 10:06:14

About 2/3 weeks, if we eat sparingly.

merlotgran Thu 17-Nov-22 10:00:45

I’d be OK for two weeks but would need milk and bread after that. Not sure how long my stock of gf flour would last but frozen veg should see me through for a month.

Purplepixie Thu 17-Nov-22 10:00:07

We could manage for about 2 weeks but we would need milk, unless we froze some of that as well.