Stockpile 72 hours of supplies in case of disaster or attack, EU tells citizens

we keep bread in the freezer. eggs are fine at room temperature for a few weeks if they have never been chilled.

There is bread made such that its shelve life is increased at the expense of taste and texture. It is sort of gummy, I find it hard to describe. But that's not the only option, you can buy normal bread but it's more expensive. With that in mind I too find it hard to do groceries every 2 weeks, some items do last but I prefer to get the fresh version.

Meat freezes well. We load up the freezer and defrost in the fridge a day or two before cooking.

Bread tends to last two weeks in the fridge, but our bread isn't what I'd consider great bread. It's just for toast or sandwiches.

Eggs last a long time in the fridge, well beyond their best by dates.

Milk also lasts two weeks just fine.

Veggies are the hardest if they can't be frozen. We tend to go fresh veggie heavy the first week and frozen veggies the following weeks until we get to the store.

OK, I will answer. Bread goes in the fridge in a ziploc (sealed plastic bag). It can last days without getting moldy or dry or stale. Meat goes in the freezer - and it can stay there for months if it is vacuum sealed (I have salmon I caught from last summer in my freezer. Because it is vacuum sealed there are no freezer 'burns'). Veggies - the fridges have some type of circulation inside and they have some bins marked for veggies. In these bins veggies do not go stale in a day or two. Tomatoes / peppers / carrots / celery can easily last more than 1 week. My two cents.

Bread is mostly sliced bread in the US which lasts long. Can be frozen. Lots of meat / fish is frozen.

Milk lasts for weeks in the store, same at your house (until you open it). I know in France milk is sold in bricks or bottles that aren't even refrigerated.

Most veggies can be frozen. And they weren't picked a couple days before you bought them, they can clearly last a long time.

Not OP, but for a lot of things, I actually get two or three months worth of meat (typically chicken) that is frozen (from a super-mega-super store called Costco), and I keep it in the freezer. Not uncommon for people to even have a chest freezer, or second refrigerator in their garages, if they live in the suburbs.

Bread keeps for a week, no problem, and when it's older than that and has started to go stale, it gets toasted for sandwiches.

But I typically go to grocery store weekly, because we eat a lot of produce in our house, and though I have some techniques to keep lettuce good for 1 to 2 weeks, some stuff spoils quickly.

Our eggs are refrigerated, they can keep for awhile in the fridge.

Well, we drink almond milk mostly, and it keeps for 2 weeks. A lot of our meat is frozen unless we're planning a special meal. Some fruits and veggies are a bit tricky, sometimes we make a quick trip to get some fresh produce, but between some produce keeping well on the counter, and others in the fridge, they last a week or so.

Bread keeps long enough, unfortunately thanks to preservatives. "Homemade" (can't believe that label is allowed on factory-made food here) bread lasts a little longer in the fridge. But all bread I know freezes well, so we thaw it when we're ready to it the loaf, and it's gone within a few days.

We also live in a dry climate in the mountain west. I don't think we could get away with this in a wet climate.

> bread go stale

Freeze loaves in chest freezer

> milk go sour

Ultra-pasteurized milk cartons have a shelf life of months (some even unrefrigerated) when unopened. Once open, they need to be used within a week or so, but that is doable with 1.5 gallon cartons.

> eggs go spoiled

Not really. At least the ones we get here, can last a long while in the fridge. Easily a couple of weeks if not more.

> fruits and veggies

Some veggies can be frozen e.g. carrots. Others can be fried/roasted and then frozen. Fruits do go bad fast yes. Some of the fruits can be bought frozen as well.

> Where I live nobody enjoys yesterdays bread and

Frozen bread thawed at room temperature tastes surprisingly fresh IMO. And no, it's not the "flour-based product" you refer to. I have made home-made bread and frozen with no issues and then thawed it out later.

> we don’t cook meat or chicken if it’s been in the fridge for more than about five days.

I don't eat meat, but I think the answer is again a chest freezer that sits at -20 C or so. A 10 cu.ft freezer is super compact and cheap and can store a lot of food.

From what I've gathered the average American doesn't use fresh produce at all.

Everything is frozen, canned or full of preservatives.

One thing nobody said, a lot of what Americans buy is ultra-processed and designed to have a very long shelf life. It's going to last longer than most European foods to start with.

I had one 2 min away. I went to the store to get 1 item, like a bag of chips or croutons for a salad.

> I have two grocery stores within 1 minute walk from my front door

I'm curious about the physical arrangement that makes this possible?

Here (California) the walk from its parking lot to the grocery store is about 1 minute, so having two grocery stores within 1 minute would mean having your house right next to the parking and having two grocery stores next to each other. I'm having trouble visualizing how that can work.

For comparison, I do also have two grocery stores within easy walking distance, but one is about 6 minutes and the other one 10-12 minutes walk. One is across the street and the other one a couple blocks in the other direction.

That's brilliant advice.

> (120 days for normal filtered water with heavy agitation, 2 years for distilled sealed water).

Bottled water in France at least has a 1-year expiration date. I have drunk water well past this date without noticing any particular taste.

There are a few ways to keep cycling through supplies if you’re already using food/water that can last some time.

For water, could get a water cooler. Keep a few 5 gal jugs around, and just use it for some drinking water. By periodically using it, you’re able to rotate through jugs.

For food, plan canned food supplies around what you normally eat.

For example, I like soup in the winter and fall, so I’m always cycling through it every year.

Another couple of days are from me eating various kinds of instant noodles. I always have a dozen or so at hand.

I buy bulk oatmeal for breakfast as part of my normal breakfast routine. That’s several days of food in a pinch.

I go camping several times a year so the freeze-dried foods are worthwhile keeping stocked up, and I just bring a few when I go out.

If you use your pantry as part of your supply planning, the hardest part isn’t stocking up, it’s tracking nutrients.

In South Australia, as a requirement for building our house, we had to install water tanks.

We have 22,000 litres of water stored, with pumps and filters. And we are on mains water too so it’s never used.

We also have 6,000 litres of water stored for fire fighting.

As do many other houses on our street and local area.

Then there is the solar and storage batteries…

We could go for a good while and we live in a metropolitan area!

Rural Australians could probably survive for longer as isolation is their life anyway LOL ;-)

In America most households (single family homes or appartments or condominiums) have a water heater with something like 60 - 80 gallons of hot water (how hot? it is up to the resident to make it really hot or not that hot. Households with small kids usually do not make the water really hot).

In case of disaster water necessities could be covered by cooling hot water from the water heater.

The cheapest bottled water I bought in Denmark has a 2 year expiration date. I don't intend to drink it, I will just throw it out when I replace it.

If I forget, and there's then a situation where it's the only thing I have to drink, I won't worry about it being past the date.

I can buy 5 litres of water for 1,89€ at my grocery store. Because it's industrially packaged into a sterile container, it keeps for a good year or two.

I have one of those for every member of the family (including pets) and a calendar alarm a month before they go "bad". Then we either use them for boiling pasta/potatoes or watering the flowers and get new ones.

We've had to tap into them ... twice in a decade I think? Once when a neighbour did some DIY plumbing and the water was shut down for 12 hours while actual professionals fixed their oopsie and once when the municipal water treatment plant fucked up and the water was tainted for a bit.

I guess you missed the part of the headline that read "or attack."

A few years ago I ran through all the realistic emergency scenarios I could think of, living in a large city and driving in a car, and except for "being attacked with a gun" the emergency tool that seemed to be useful in basically every other scenario from a building on fire to stuck in an elevator to being in or coming across a car accident was a tomahawk or an axe with a spike/pick on the other end. They also tend to be cheaper than large axes and so it's easy to toss in the car or leave near the door, etc. It may not be the single best tool for some situations, but it seemed like the best all-around tool for almost every situation.

Defensive weapons are for protection from your fellow citizens when their supplies run out.

The residents of Helsinki will be making Molotov Cocktails when the armed aggressors are coming =)

We invented that shit and named it according to said aggressor.

There was some violent crime in New Orleans after Katrina.

You can't eat gold or cash. Luxury consumer goods like high quality food and drink, tobacco, drugs, and other useful things will probably be more valuable in an emergency. Look toward what's valued in prisons.

It is nothing like being sick. When sick, there is running water at home as usual. Also, one can order food or groceries while sick.

People underestimate water needs. Enough to drink, wash, brush your teeth, flush a loo unless you're digging a pit at the bottom of the garden to go in

Here in the US we have hot water tanks that store 30 - 75 gallons. Not sure I would drink it without filtering though.... You can also fill up the bathtub if you know beforehand....

Ugh I wish heating was what I had to deal with. Heaters don't need the exorbitant amount of maintenance that air conditioners do. Also, air conditioners don't even meet my needs, probably once I get my own house I'm going to need to get some sort of refrigeration system installed just to be at a comfortable temperature for this body's heat output. (not a joke)

72 hours worth of food is literally no food if the goal is just to stay alive for 72h until help arrives and you get supplies. Basically no one will starve after 3 days unless they’re already in a hospital.

A single tank hot water heater provides 72 hours of drinking and cooking water in many cases, for what that's worth.

> The French are famous for buying bread every single day.

Because standard French bread doesn't keep, or at least does not taste as good, after half a day or so.

But the French will generally still have a few kilograms of pasta, rice, semolina and flour in their cupboards.

I have also never met anyone who ate most of the meals outside, except maybe a few particularly "social" students.

> 72 hours of water is pretty uncommon

I literally have 72 hours of soda just sitting around. Hell, probably a few weeks of soda at least. There's also a bunch of pure water, too.

Also. You can go 72 hours without drinking any water at all... worst that'll happen is you'll get dehydrated, but dehydration isn't always immediately fatal. As long as you were drinking healthily before the 72 hours.