A store cupboard that sees you through

Three days, or two weeks?

The government's Be Ready advice is to keep food for three days that lasts a long time and needs neither a fridge nor cooking. That's the starting point for every home.

Two weeks is our suggestion, not an official figure. It makes sense if you live somewhere a storm, snow or flooding can keep you at home for a while, if getting to the shops is hard, or if you'd just rather not depend on them. Get to three days first, then keep going.

Planning it

The British Red Cross suggests planning for each meal and each person. For two weeks, that's 14 breakfasts, 14 lunches and 14 evening meals per person, at their normal portions. A cupboard that works usually has:

• meals the household already likes, since food nobody wants to eat is wasted money
• some meals that need no cooking at all
• food for special diets, allergies, babies and pets (for a baby, the government suggests ready-to-feed formula, which needs no boiled water)
• drinks and snacks: tea, coffee, biscuits
• a manual tin opener

Food that needs no fridge and no cooking

The government's own examples are tinned meat, fish and vegetables, dried fruit and nuts. Other familiar foods that keep in the cupboard and can be eaten as they are include:

• tinned fish in oil or sauce, tinned meat, and tinned beans and pulses labelled ready to eat
• tinned fruit, fruit pots and long-life juice
• crackers, oatcakes, crispbreads and breakfast cereal
• long-life (UHT) milk or plant milk, in small cartons you can finish in one go once opened
• peanut butter, jam, honey, and spreads in jars
• cereal bars, biscuits, chocolate

Some tins and pouches are made to be heated; the label says which.

Rice, pasta, flour and dried lentils are good stores too, but they all need cooking, and pasta and rice need water. They're an addition to the no-cook food rather than a replacement.

Water

The government advises 3 litres per person per day for drinking, and more for cooking and washing. For two weeks that's 42 litres per person for drinking alone. Bottled water from the shop is the simplest store. More on storing water and what to do when the taps stop.

Rotating stock

A store cupboard only works if it's eaten and replaced. Otherwise it quietly goes out of date at the back.

The usual way is new shopping at the back and the oldest dates at the front, built up by buying one or two extra of the things you use every week rather than in one big shop. The government suggests checking the dates every six months.

Use-by and best-before

They mean different things. According to the Food Standards Agency:

• Use by is about safety: the FSA says food shouldn't be eaten after its use-by date, even if it looks and smells fine.
• Best before is about quality: food past its best-before date is usually safe, but may not be at its best.

Cooking in a power cut

Electric and induction hobs stop when the power does. A gas hob may still work, though some with electric ignition won't.

A camping stove or barbecue will heat food and boil water, and both are made for outdoor use. Cooking on them takes a little longer than on a hob. Choosing a camping stove for a power cut.

A portable power station can keep the fridge-freezer cold through a cut, but it won't run a kettle or an electric hob for long. See which ones would keep a fridge-freezer going for a day.