DRMacIver's Notebook
Brexit Prep
Brexit Prep
I’ve been operating on the assumption for a while that it makes sense to stock up on food for Brexit. I don’t think anything too terrible is going to happen (above and beyond the fact that Brexit is intrinsically terrible), but I think the chances of food supply chain disruption are high enough that it’s worth hedging bets and making sure that you don’t starve if things go wrong. I don’t really have an accurate number in my head, but if we say I think the chances are higher than 1%, and I can hedge against that by just front-loading on food purchases, it makes sense to do so.
I’ve been putting it off, but I finally ended up doing a huge Amazon order the other day to form the basis of my Brexit supplies. It’s random and not very well thought out (I have no idea what I’m doing) and I’ve already spotted some problems with it, but a friend asked me to share it and it’s better than nothing, so here it is.
General philosophy
Civilization is not ending but the supply chain is going to go through a rough patch. I expect it will be possible to buy food, but I have enough uncertainty on that that I would like to ensure that if I can’t it’s not a disaster.
I am assuming utilities will mostly not be too disrupted, but am hedging my bets a bit against the possibility of things not working properly for a day or so at a time.
Food
Food is the main thing I’m stocking up on. The general goal is to mostly only buy things I’d like and use anyway, although I’ve screwed up a bit there in a few places.
The basic things I’ve bought are:
- Rice (mostly white, some brown. The brown will get eaten first because it keeps less well)
- Lentils and dried beans (chickpeas, black beans)
- Dried fruit (raisins, banana chips, mulberries, peaches)
- Tinned fruit (peaches, pineapple)
- Tinned tomatoes
- Cashew nut pieces
- Peanut butter
- Potato starch (I’d just buy flour if you can eat wheat)
- Vinegar
- Oil
- Spices and flavourings (salt, black pepper, dried garlic, dried ginger, maggi cubes)
- Dried coconut milk (I screwed up and got a variety that has milk in it, but there are dairy free versions).
- Chocolate (I screwed up and bought Amazon’s own brand which turns out to be awful, but I guess it’s still energy dense food for emergencies).
The goal here was to have a variety of things that would keep well, providing a range of interest and nutritional value. With these I should neither starve nor get scurvy or other nutritional deficiencies.
I’ve bought all of these in reasonably large quantities. I haven’t really done the maths but I think I could easily survive for two months on just this food if it were just me I was feeding (it’s not really, but I’m not actually intending this to be a few month sole supply), I had access to fresh water (and ideally power, but I have the means to make fire). Longer if I stretched it more carefully.
Misc
- Jerry cans and water purifying tablets. I don’t really expect to need either of these but going without water is quite bad and it’s easy to hedge against.
- Medication (ibuprofen, antihistamines).
- Multivitamins. In the normal course of things these are basically a way of making your pea expensive, but if you’re struggling to get good access to fresh food I suspect these would be useful.
- A first aid kit.
- Extra storage boxes and tupperware.
- Industrial quantities of toilet paper.
- Matches.