How long could you survive on the food in your house?

Question

No grocery store, no eating out. Just the food you currently have in your home, and any food you currently grow yourself.

Lets just say some disaster happened, the price of oil shoots to $200 a barrel and paralizes the trucking industry, so no new food in the stores. Or a bird flu, or a terrorist attack, or little purple men from space (hey your aliens can be green, mine are going to be purple).

It doesn't matter what the disaster it, I'm just currious how long you, and your family could survive on the food you currently have, and currently grow?

Yes, I know there would be bigger world ramifications, if some disaster happened, like disease, unemployment, yadda-yadda. I'm only interested in how you and your family would be able to survive with the food you have on hand/grow. (You have to put in special disclaimers like this for the folks who answer questions like politicians...answering, without really answering)

Answer 1

1 month probably-2 months, but I am a hustler and could get find and grow food, all this assuming also that looters havent stolen or rob my every crop.

Before this current high gas and high price for food I would have said close to 6 months but we have actually been cooking more food and doing creative things with food we have had in the pantry.

Also I want to add that by summers end the price per barrel of oil WILL be 200$. we will be at 5$ per gallon any minute(we live in NY-already about $4.15 per gallon)

Answer 2

maybe 3- 6  months, if we ate very little each time. i am a compulsive hoarder so I try not to buy too much, I used to have gone no telling how long, but I had food everywhere. I am purposely trying to cut back. I suppose the biggest problem would be fresh water. water is as important as food.

Answer 3

Not long.   :(

Maybe a few weeks or so, but probably not long enough to get enough food in the ground and harvested to be able to survive. Even with the 40 or so food plants I've got sprouting right now, it would take a while for them to start producing, and even then, you can't survive on cucumbers and peppers alone.

Of course, I could start snaring the squirrels and geese that are all over the place here.

Answer 4

If there were electricity  and then no freezer to keep the meat frozen...hmmm...but wait I could make jerky out of all of it....meat and eggs....I would be good for a long time....I raise pigs, if I need milk then I will milk the pigs...loll....pig milk must be really good cause it sure makes those piglets get really fat and fast....and then there are the rabbits....I have wild plums on the place to ward off scurvy...I could dry those too...then my mom's place has plums....as far as veggies go, who needs um...but if you insist I stick with some kind of out dated government food pyramid the fine...I live out in the country surely one of the farmers around here is growing potatoes....then there is wild asparagus....but yuk...I have never liked asparagus for sure....there are plenty of farms that grow lots of veggies that are within 10 miles of my place....The Snake River is 4 miles away and I have a fishing pole and if the irrigation isn't flowing behind me then there is a fresh water creek that flows into that year around that I would tap into to water things...years I could live for years like that.  And would probably lose lots of weight doing it cause I would have junk food to eat with all of the processed wheat and corn in it....then there are beef cows and I could even eat the horses I have that I don't like and keep the ones I do like to ride to the river and fish..:O).  And there is plenty of firewood around to cook anything....

I am putting an auxiliary hand pump on my well this year just in case any power outages might occur.  Maybe even a windmill attached to a stationary bicycle....I could peddle to get water.....loll....I do worry however about all of those that live in the city's or towns of this nation.

I have heard that the goals of some elitist are to cut the world population by 60% in order to sustain themselves on what is left after man's self fulfilling prophecies play themselves out in the next 25 years or so......maybe by then the elitist that have all these plans will be dead and gone but then I would be getting close to dead and gone myself too....so wtf....I am sure the cavemen didn't run around thinking boy I sure hope things don't get any worse around here cause if they do I will just have to move to another country....loll.....

Answer 5

there's only 3 of us and we dont eat much to begin with...vegans, and we just went shopping so like at least a month and half

Answer 6

Well, as long as the power stays on, we would have about 3 months worth for a family of 4 as long as I am careful with it.  Without power, I would have to cook everything in the freezer so we would eat good for about a week, then we would be living on canned foods, rice, beans, and pasta.  If I had a couple of days notice, I could smoke and dry all of the food in the freezer to make it last longer.  As long as there is water and I have my charcoal smoker grill, we are good.

The garden is just starting to produce but all I planted this year was peas and green beans so that would suck, but I do have some fruit dried and canned, and lots of grains like rice and flour, so we could eat healthy at least for a few months.  After that we would be eating wild.  Fortunately, I know enough about woodcraft, that we could at least supplement our food.

Answer 7

Probably only a couple of weeks at most.  And I wouldn't be a happy camper after the eggs and milk ran out, not to mention fresh produce.  I could probably get some veggies from nearby relatives, but it would be rough until my own crops came in.

Answer 8

well we can go to the primitive times of hunting, although once we wipe out the planet of animals other then us, thenim sure cannibalism would happen, but i highly doubt it would get that far. camnada has an emergency 3 year stalk of crop seeds, in a seed bank for every crop in canada, and cuz og its genetic change wont take a whole lot to grow.

Answer 9

NO takeaway!!!!

Well luckily enough for me the shopping was delivered today! And some one gave me a great recipe for Singapore noodles on here today, so my takeaway graving could be satisfied!

But seriously, I think we could probably go.... 2 months. Maybe up to 4 if we were really careful. But to be honest I think the toilet roll would run out quicker than the food!

I tend to keep my cupboards well stocked up with tinned things and flour, sugar, dried fruits, pasta, stuff like that anyway. And I have a HUGE sack of potatoes in the cupboard. Plus I'm growing broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, cabbage, beetroot on my balcony (no garden!) so, providing the sun wasn't swallowed up and we were allowed outside (no toxic gases or the like) we could have fresh veg for ooh..... a week!

Answer 10

Well, considering that there are only two people in my house, and I just went grocery shopping yesterday, I'd give it about a month or two till we starve. Maybe even three if I choose to live on pasta for an extra month.

Answer 11

Like you,  I think I could live indefinitely, the only problem I can forsee would be SALT.

Currently I have a large, very full, year round garden, and a small orchard, which supply all of our vegetable and carbohydrate needs. I have a freezer full of meat... two fattened lambs, three producing sows, a boar, a fattened steer, a fattened veal calf, 6 fat whethers, rabbits, chickens, ducks and geese, some beef cows and a beef bull, two milk cows, thirty milk goats, 3 bucks... a small pond full of fish, a fenced pasture full of grass to feed my livestock. A buggy, a horse plow, a pair of matched Morgans to pull them, horse packing equipment, hunting and fishing supplies. I have cheese making, soap making, canning supplies, butchering supplies, and more importantly...the understanding and how-to-skills to use that equipment.

Salt though, would be a problem. There is a well on a property not far from where I live that is presently considered "unfit" for consumption because it pumps salt water... perhaps that could be a source of salt for our community.

I grew up in the suburbs, over the years, I began to take more and more responciblity for my own food. Now I have a small farm. I have always found it remarkable and surprising how much food one can grow in a small space, ...my garden is about 1/8 of an acre and the over abundance provides for many other people as well as myself and family. If one begins in a small way, to apply one's self to learning skills for self suffieciency and keeps steadily adding to one's store of knowledge...understanding grows along with one's crops.

I have always been inspired by these simple words:

"To you the Earth yeilds her fruit,

If you but know how to fill your hands."

~Kalilh Gibran

Answer 12

Only on our property... Probably only a month or two.  I have 2 growing boys who are bottomless pits.  As with many others who have answered here, if we can supplement with what is found out in nature, then we would be pretty good.  Both my husband and I have been known to turn a hike in the woods into a buffet.  Knowing what is available out there is important and knowing how to get it as well.  

On our tiny 60 foot by 90 foot property we have 2 bee hives, 3 tortoises (which in case of survival would probably make a good soup, as would the goldfish, snails, and crayfish), I am growing tomato plants, sunflowers, lettuce, potatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, pumpkins, fennel, mint, basil, onions, chives, and green beans.  The cats would have to fend for themselves after a couple of weeks, the dogs would have to help us hunt and we would share with them (they have already learned that squirrels can be eaten - I figure if you kill them, they should not go to waste.) The snake... I suppose I could snag some of the stuff the cats may catch.  The lizard eats bugs and greens - he'll be fine.  

I do try to keep canned food around though I have not done much of it myself - it is mostly store bought.  When we finally get out of suburbia I will most likely be much better off since we plan on going of grid, and be further from civilization, so we would need a larger store of food.  Having 3 grocery stores within 2 miles of us allows for less home storage of food in the average daily routine.

Answer 13

depends on how much yard space you use but if you have let's say 5 rows of a normal type garden then you would practically have to starve yourself for it to last the whole month depending on what you planted for it to last that long.

Answer 14

it depennedss on how much food there is

small amount     1week

medime amount      3 week

larg amount         1 mounth

Answer 15

3 MONTHS EASY.