If you are planning to cook meals with your stored food, rather than just heating it straight from the tin or jar, you’ll need to make sure that you have some of your usual cooking requirements on hand. These might include…
- Oil. Keeps better than most other fats and does not need refrigeration; you can use it for cooking and for e.g. salad dressing and — at a pinch — for fuel/lighting. It won’t keep forever but its shelf life is likely to be long enough for this particular crisis. (We hope!)
- Sugar. Keeps essentially forever, if stored correctly. For cooking and for sweetening drinks (also don’t forget sweeteners, if you use them)
- Salt, pepper and spices.
- Stock powder/cubes For gravy or flavouring, and can also be used as a hot drink. Check the salt content if this is a concern for you.
- Curry paste, garlic paste, ginger paste, tomato puree, pesto, soy sauce, Worcester sauce. Things to make dull tinned/dried food taste more interesting.
- Vinegar. A flavouring, a preservative and in some cases usable for cleaning.
- Yeast if you might want to make bread or similar. It doesn’t last all that long once opened, so buy smaller packages rather than one larger one.
- Powdered milk. Good for baking and for drinks, and takes up (much) less space than long-life milk — but requires rehydration, so uses up water if this becomes a concern.
- Baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. Again useful for baking, and bicarbonate of soda is also a handy cleaning product.
Drinks can be nearly as important as food — while it’s vitally important to keep hydrated, just drinking water can become dull quickly, especially if you are used to more varied consumption. You might need to stock:
- Tea and coffee. Both require water but a cup of either can be a morale-booster. Don’t forget the sugar and/or sweeteners if you need them (see above list)
- Squash. Look for more concentrated brands so that you don’t need to store quite as much. Again, it needs water, but will take up less space than storing canned drinks. (Though you might want some energy drinks for a quick pick-me-up.)
- Water flavourings — powdered or liquid — typically take up even less room than squash.
- Alcohol. Perhaps not for regular consumption but can help people’s moods. (Also, spirits can double as a disinfectant if required.)
And then, the miscellaneous oddments you might want:
- A spare tin opener. If you are intending to rely on tinned food then it only makes sense to have a spare tin opener in case one is lost or breaks. Also, if you struggle to open tightly-sealed jars, consider a jar opener as well.
- A torch along with spare batteries to go with it. In case of power cuts.
- Matches and possibly candles. If you cook with gas, even if the electricity is off you may find you can still light your hobs with matches. Whether you want candles for lighting may depend on whether you have small children or pets to consider.
- Multivitamins: while preserved food these days theoretically retains all or most of its vitamin content, you may wish to take a multivitamin alongside it.