If all grocery stores shut permanently, how long would your current food stocks last?

[barkley]

Guess it depends on what sort of disaster you are planning for. If you live near the coast where you might have a hurricane is probably a different sort of plan from someone in the midwest where there might be a tornado. If you live in a remote area, seems the issue is more about how far away the stores are and what happens during a power failure. With an approaching hurricane you are more likely to have to evacuate and then all of those items you are stockpiling won't do you much good if you can't fit them in your car (30 gallons of water/person would take up a LOT of space). Do you periodically rotate those stored items since most likely have a shelf life? Seems like you will end up throwing a lot of things in the trash if the expected disaster never occurs.

yes on rotating so no food items are wasted. we have a whole house generator and a 1000 gallon tank so we are good for a decent period w/o power-learned during a prolonged outage of over a week one year that it outlasted the supermarkets in our region which had to toss vast amounts from their fridges and freezers.

i don't intentionaly plan to have 9 months to a years worth on hand (i would be ok with 90 days) but i avail myself of sales and end up with larger amounts at lower prices and if there were no ongoing shopping available to us i suspect our eating habits would change and we would make it last longer (our habits changed during the pandemic, some old habits have re-surfaced while others have not).

 

[tvguy]

Guess it depends on what sort of disaster you are planning for. If you live near the coast where you might have a hurricane is probably a different sort of plan from someone in the midwest where there might be a tornado. If you live in a remote area, seems the issue is more about how far away the stores are and what happens during a power failure. With an approaching hurricane you are more likely to have to evacuate and then all of those items you are stockpiling won't do you much good if you can't fit them in your car (30 gallons of water/person would take up a LOT of space). Do you periodically rotate those stored items since most likely have a shelf life? Seems like you will end up throwing a lot of things in the trash if the expected disaster never occurs.

The sort of disaster and the recovery period do make a huge difference. My wife's stepmother lived east of Houston and was lucky that her home had no physical damage. However, she was without power for six and a half weeks. She had a small gasoline generator that was big enough to keep her refrigerator and chest freezer running. She had enough gasoline to run it for a week, but then there was no gasoline available. So all the food in the freezer and fridge were lost. She had a big stockpile of canned goods and they came through her neighborhood every day dropping off bottled water so she was alright, but counting on frozen items being available was a mistake.

 

[cayennews]

Maybe 2 months if we cut back on portions. We started stocking up more when the pandemic happened and I've kept more in the house since.

 

[disneychrista]

A few weeks? I haven't done much in the way of "stock up" grocery shopping in awhile. I have only been running to the store to grab a couple things when I want them.

 

[tvguy]

Most of us went through this 4 years ago at the start of the pandemic. Stores were out of a lot of things. We're all still here so I guess we all survived. In our household, we adapted and bought what was available. I read a lot of "younger" people discovered canned goods during the pandemic.

 

[TippyThomas]

Growing up we always had to plan for crop failures because we grew and raised the majority of our foods. We bought a lot in bulk in large groups to save money as well. I've held on to those habits but don't grow or raise any of my food now. I do buy foods from those in my old community who do still do both and it works out well. I like knowing I have options and take advantage of them now just to save money and to still enjoy some of the foods from my childhood. It's a good mix.

 

[TwoMisfits]

I'm gonna join the "1 month of normal eating, 2-4 months of almost normal eating, and 8-9 months of "you won't starve" eating" crew for about a year of non-starvation. My kid is growing me tons of things this summer, so I'd have fresh stuff through Nov to perk up some pretty lousy food...but then it would all get lousy...then again, she could start over b/c all this year's stuff she sprouted from seeds (and some from actual veg), so she's pretty good at this. Without her, I'd be miserable at the month+ point.

She's got arugula, peas, cantaloupe (this was from a fruit), spinach, and 100s of herbs (and would have grown more, but she's doing an immersion summer and figured I'd kill anything else while she was away). She did tomatoes last year but wanted a break...

 

[Cogswel_Cogs]

Usually decent time but recently have been trying to empty freezer as things were getting older than I like. So hopefully nothing crazy happens in next 6 months.

 

[tasha99]

I have to ask, is freezer burn an issue? My mom's two sisters and brother all had large families, two had 5 kids, one had 6. They had a chest freezer, but I know one Aunt said generally everything in their freezers was used up in a month, and she dated everything in there because after two or three months it was suffering the effects of being frozen that long.

I haven't had issues with that, but I rotate stock, date everything, and use a vacuum sealer (or saran wrap and a freezer bag for roasts that are too big). Food should last longer than 2-3 months, so it makes me wonder if the meat wasn't packed airtight enough.

 

[tvguy]

I haven't had issues with that, but I rotate stock, date everything, and use a vacuum sealer (or saran wrap and a freezer bag for roasts that are too big). Food should last longer than 2-3 months, so it makes me wonder if the meat wasn't packed airtight enough.

FDA says frozen food is safe almost forever, but flavor begins to be impacted after 3 months. But I have no first hand experience. I think my Aunts pretty much rotated everything out with in a couple of months.

 

[amylevan]

We buy our beef by the half cow direct from a farmer, so the amount of beef in our freezer could last a while depending on when disaster hits with respect to our most recent restock. Right now we are down to a couple of random steaks, a roast or 2, and probably 10 pounds of ground beef. But by the end of summer there will be half a cow back in the freezer. We also always have a few boxes of pasta and rice on hand and some cans of soup.

Everything else is much harder. I generally meal plan and shop by the week. We only really buy fresh produce, so we’d be out of that pretty quickly. Pork, chicken, and fish are purchased usually in meal portions, so at any given time there’s usually no more than 5 meals of those around.

So we wouldn’t starve, but there would potentially be some very beef centric meals.

 

[barkley]

However, she was without power for six and a half weeks. She had a small gasoline generator that was big enough to keep her refrigerator and chest freezer running. She had enough gasoline to run it for a week, but then there was no gasoline available.

that was an issue when our area was without power for over a week some years back due to a windstorm. people with gasoline powered generators found that they had to drive out of the area to find gasoline-if they had enough in their cars to travel to get it. i can't imagine the expense of running a gasoline generator these days for any extended period of time. the smaller ones run through around 3/4 of a gallon per hour so that would get pretty expensive at over $4 per gallon. if it got to be more than a few days it might be less expensive to lose the stuff in the fridge and freezer.

 

[Snowflakey]

Wow you all have got me motivated to buy some groceries! I usually buy from the outside isles, fresh veggies, meat, dairy. I do have a chest freezer but even there I don't have a ton of frozen food. Time to start my shopping list.

 

[tvguy]

We buy our beef by the half cow direct from a farmer, so the amount of beef in our freezer could last a while depending on when disaster hits with respect to our most recent restock. Right now we are down to a couple of random steaks, a roast or 2, and probably 10 pounds of ground beef. But by the end of summer there will be half a cow back in the freezer. We also always have a few boxes of pasta and rice on hand and some cans of soup.

Everything else is much harder. I generally meal plan and shop by the week. We only really buy fresh produce, so we’d be out of that pretty quickly. Pork, chicken, and fish are purchased usually in meal portions, so at any given time there’s usually no more than 5 meals of those around.

So we wouldn’t starve, but there would potentially be some very beef centric meals.

Half a beef nets about 200-225 pounds? Or so Google seems to indicate. For some reason I thought the net would be more. Seems that one of my Aunts used to buy half a cow but with 5 kids it didn't last long.

 

[TwoMisfits]

We buy our beef by the half cow direct from a farmer, so the amount of beef in our freezer could last a while depending on when disaster hits with respect to our most recent restock. Right now we are down to a couple of random steaks, a roast or 2, and probably 10 pounds of ground beef. But by the end of summer there will be half a cow back in the freezer. We also always have a few boxes of pasta and rice on hand and some cans of soup.

Everything else is much harder. I generally meal plan and shop by the week. We only really buy fresh produce, so we’d be out of that pretty quickly. Pork, chicken, and fish are purchased usually in meal portions, so at any given time there’s usually no more than 5 meals of those around.

So we wouldn’t starve, but there would potentially be some very beef centric meals.

Yes, my spouse is a at home beer brewer, so he keeps a huge supply of grains (and a grain mill), and I've got salt and sugar and oil. When I said we wouldn't starve, it's b/c I expected an ancient meal of bread and water being around in some way - possibly with a can or two a day of something to supplement. Aka, the Walking Dead diet.

My fridge/freezer and "good stuff" save my daughter's gardening would be gone in 3-4 months (with the best gone the 1st month)...but folks used to live on bread and water and whatever they could scrounge up, so that would be us...

PS - I'd guess we'd have beer too for a couple months b/c my spouse normally has a rotational supply on hand - not that I drink it, but if grocery stores closed, who knows...

 

[amylevan]

Half a beef nets about 200-225 pounds? Or so Google seems to indicate. For some reason I thought the net would be more. Seems that one of my Aunts used to buy half a cow but with 5 kids it didn't last long.

It can vary based on the cuts you get (and the size of the cow). Our last one came to about 218 pounds of beef.

We are a family of four, picked it up last August, and as mentioned above, getting near the end of it now. The price is decent. I might be able to do better shopping sales, but the quality is so much better than grocery store beef.

 

[Disneyland1084]

Hmm, probably about 3 months. Then my DH and DD would be out hunting some deer.

 

[easyas123]

Honestly - no very long. Without knowing exactly what I've got in the pantry/freezer off the top of my head I'd say 2 weeks? That is assuming all the sudden there were no grocery stores.
I don't plan/prep for anything. If we are expecting a major storm I may buy a bit more, and we always have a case or two of water floating around.
If a MAJOR event - like a world wide nuclear bombing or asteroid hit or something nutty like that I'm of the mind that I hope I perish in that because surviving it with 0,2,6 or 9 months of food only seems to prolong things by 2,6 or 9 months!
If something happened that knocked out power for a loooonnnggg time, well then I don't see the need to worry over keeping stuff in the freezer since it would go bad before we ate it. If the power was knocked out for a day/week or weeks well, we have a generator and a 500 gal tank of off road, so I could run it then.
Worst case, we survive - well then we are already a family of hunters/fishers and farmers so we'd make do with the tools we have to do so with - fishing pole, crab/turtle traps, trot lines, bows, guns until the ammo runs out, farm tractor that will run till the off road goes, discs, planter, seeds, firewood, well.
But personally, I'd rather go out in a cat loss than survive until I die.

We have 2 extreme hoarders in our family and I find it anathema to stockpile stuff, it really bothers me so, so much that I don't keep a lot of anything. Not even tp or clorox wipes during Covid.

 

[focusondisney]

If a MAJOR event - like a world wide nuclear bombing or asteroid hit or something nutty like that I'm of the mind that I hope I perish in that because surviving it with 0,2,6 or 9 months of food only seems to prolong things by 2,6 or 9 months!

Yea, MTE. What’s the point of surviving something like that if you slowly starve to death or have to defend your supplies from others. Just kill me now

 

[Frozen Canuck]

At least two months...maybe longer if we used careful portion control. Much of that is in the freezer, so if we lost power, we would be going hungry much sooner.