Water. Baked beans. A shotgun? Many people occasionally wonder about what they should stockpile to prepare for the collapse of civilisation, but don’t get round to doing anything about it.
It’s usually the kind of idle speculation that occurs late at night after watching one too many zombie movies. But now the question has become somewhat more pertinent for people in the UK, where the government has announced it is taking steps to make sure the country has enough food if there is a “no deal” Brexit. Prime minister Theresa May said people should be “comforted” by this news.
Of course, the UK has some experience of limited food supplies – rationing began during the second world war and lasted until the mid-1950s. But why rely on the government? If you want to start stockpiling yourself, let science guide the way.
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For your basic apocalyptic scenario, your main concern would be stockpiling enough calories without taking up too much space. Dried foods, like wholegrain rice, porridge and lentils, are easy to store discreetly without attracting attention.
Apocalypse cow
“Lentils and rice is a staple diet for hundreds of millions of people. They take up no space and essentially never go off.” says author of The Knowledge – How to Rebuild Our World From Scratch.
Even with a worst-case Brexit outcome, though, the risk is not so much that the UK may have no food at all, but that the stuff that comes from Europe will be subject to shortages or price increases.
About 30 per cent of UK food is imported from European member states and another 10 per cent comes from countries the UK has trade deals with by virtue of being in EU. This covers a wide range of food types: fruit, vegetables, eggs, cheeses, pork, beef and chicken. Lamb is the exception, coming mainly from British or New Zealand farmers.
The UK is especially reliant on Europe for fruit and veg in the winter. The UK climate does not allow much to grow between December and early March other than potatoes, leeks, root vegetables and brassicas.
Get a freezer
Obviously most fresh fruit and vegetables cannot be stored for very long. One option for anyone keen to get their five a day would be to stock up on canned produce. Tinned carrots anyone?
But of the University of Oxford says frozen fruit and vegetables would be better because they have more nutrients. “If you must stockpile, it might be worth investing in a chest freezer,” she says. Frozen meat is also usually tastier than tinned.
And speaking of nutrition, you probably shouldn’t forget your omega-3 fatty acids, the best source of which is fish. Here, we shouldn’t turn up our noses at cans, such as tinned mackerel, pilchards and salmon. Tuna that has been tinned in water is OK, but the kind tinned in vegetable oil has little omega-3s left.
All this stockpiling – not to mention buying a second freezer – would be less possible for poorer households, of course. The food consequences of a bad Brexit will inevitably be more of a threat for those on lower incomes, who may already be struggling to feed their families.
Supermarkets have estimated that if the UK crashes out of Europe without a trade deal, a fallback to World Trade Organization tariffs would . For some families, that would be no joke.
