Archive: https://archive.is/2025.03.26-113538/https://www.ft.com/content/eeb1ee80-00b8-4f9f-b560-a6717a80d58d
EU households should stockpile essential supplies to survive at least 72 hours of crisis, Brussels has proposed, as Russia’s war in Ukraine and a darkening geopolitical landscape prompt the bloc to take new steps to increase its security.
The continuing conflict in Ukraine, the Covid-19 pandemic that brutally exposed a lack of crisis response capabilities and the Trump administration’s adversarial stance towards Europe have forced the continent to rethink its vulnerabilities and increase spending on defence and security.
The new initiative comes as European intelligence agencies warn that Russia could attack an EU member state within three to five years, adding to natural threats including floods and wildfires worsened by climate change and societal risks such as financial crises.
Europe faced increased threats “including the possibility of armed aggression against member states”, the European Commission warned on Wednesday as it published a 30-step plan for its 27 capitals to increase their preparedness for crisis and mitigation measures.
72 hours, the average length of a special military operation.
That has been the recommendation for civil protection for a while already. Not so much because of the risks of war, but e. g. floodings, power outages, storms etc. And most importantly you should stockpile water, because at a power outage, there will be no tap water anymore. That’s the most important bit people here seem to forget. So nothing new here, actually.
72 hours of food is just grocery shopping
I’m definitely not prepared.
Without water, gas or electricity, there’s not really much left in essentials I can use from my grocery shopping.
I don’t know about you, but I usually buy fresh food that needs to be cooked, and drink water from tap.
worst case ill just eat my poop
My grandma lived through WWII and rationing. After she died, we were cleaning out her house to find she had hidden cans of food stockpiled everywhere: behind the washing machine, in the pit in her garage, in the corners of her loft, everywhere.
If rationing ever came back in, she was more than ready for it.
Thank goodness that wars only last for 3 days exactly.
Given how quickly supermarket shelves emptied at the start of COVID, this is good advice generally for a crisis.
True. We had a pretty big storm here a couple of years ago and the next day the supermarket shelves were almost empty. We really don’t usually think about how fragile the supply chain is when it comes to a crisis.
72 hours means you go to the store on Monday and then again on Friday. I thought this was kind of the norm for everyone? I mean, not for me, I go once every 10 days but surely 3 days is not that big of a deal?
72 hours of food is crazy to me. I would be making a trip to the store when down to maybe a week or two.
Guess Europe really does shop different.
I have half a dozen supermarkets in 10min radius by foot. multiple more if I use a bike/scooter.
There’s really not much use in stocking huge amounts of food at home, especially when you want to cook fresh stuff.
Non-perishable things like canned and frozen meals is mainly used as a fallback in case of lazyness (ignoring canned stuff for ingredients)
I go to the supermarket at least once a week. normally 2-3 times
Completely depends on how you live.
Someone who lives in a house with plenty of storage and a 30 minute drive to the nearest store will have a lot of food at home. Whereas someone who lives in a tiny apartment with a five minute walk to the store will not.
In general, places like American suburbs, with huge single-family homes, no stores and complete reliance on cars, are rare in Europe.
I don’t live in the states, but the reliance on driving here is real. Small towns are lucky to have one grocery store and are usually very expensive.
A lot of us shop once a week or so too, but most things people want are fresh baked goods, fruits, vegetables, milk and other fast-spoiling things.
I’m from EU and this is way less than my country suggests, which is 2 weeks.
I actually have 2 weeks supplies, but I’m gonna eat baked beans and vegan chocolate and drink coke zero the last few days 😅
Yeah, 3 days is a joke. Do they expect a war to be over in 3 days?
It’s an estimate on how long you need to survive on your own, before the government is able to help.
I think that’s very optimistic. Looking at how COVID went, I have no faith at all in people’s ability to stay calm. The government isn’t going to be able to help those in need 3 days in with the masses of idiots around. No way.
Well, during COVID the idea was still that things should run as normally, with a market economy and stuff. During an actual war, any sensible government would immediately take control of the distribution of food, water, energy and other essentials. Scalpers would be immediately detained, rather than to allow them to run rampant.
One would hope so, but I bet you enough people would be influenced by a Russian disinformation campaign to trigger riots on the streets because “Russia is a friend, we are the aggressors” or whatever other bullshit they come up with. Then troops would have to be pulled away from the border to deal with the riots.
I have acquaintances who are invested in the Russian propaganda, and this is very possible.
It’s insane, talking about it does nothing as the root issues are others.
I can’t help them.
Any sensible government would.
But for any government consisting of a bunch of greedy opportunists who are only in it in order to enrich themselves, there is endless opportunity to become very rich by fucking over the public even more than in peacetime.
If it’s an actual war they can throw their weight around just fine, idiots will just have to deal with it. Actually, that happened during covid too. I don’t remember starving, just an every-increasing whinging in the background as the problem was dealt with efficiently.
It is not just for war, but disasters in general, imagine a colapse or jamming of internet network or credit card buying or isolation from a flood or erathquake, help and minimum delivery infrastructures may take easily 3 days in effectively reach the people in need, is a reasonable amount to recover from the shock having around in average the minimum to survive in the mean time. Worse problems will be waiting for solution but this could save lives and improve significantly circumstances.
More likely they expect to be able to get support/reinforcement/aid in, within a couple of days.
It’s big enough to be a useful stopgap, but small enough not to accidentally cause a run on the supermarkets. It also makes people think about it more. If they update it to 2 weeks later, people are more likely to have a feel for what they need, and what will keep.
I think big part is that people would go out and empty the shelfs imediately if they all started stockpiling for two weeks starting tommorow.
I started getting a bit more everytime it was on sale about three years ago, and have a decent stockpile that probably lasts me for more than 4 weeks… It’s an art to not get too much so that you can eat it when it gets close to expiration date though, so it’s better to not buy everything at once but to spread it out.
But in the end, canned food will likely last many more years than the expiration date suggests.
Just chipping in to say I ate a can of food that was made during WW2 in 1990, so yeah cans do keep for a long time … when they get very old the trick is to shake the can before opening and if it sounds like there’s air inside it’s gone bad
I’ve maintained a basic stock for a while now. I suspected people would panic buy with COVID. I stocked up well before, and so dodged most of it. I’ve kept an extra buffer since.
A proper war lasts at least six days.
Some special military operations are planned like that 🙄
Not war, but special military operation.
They cant say the real number or it would cause panic. 3 is a sensible number people can get behind without causing a run on grocery.
Yeah, everyone should stock up on a year’s supply of food, at the very least.
That’s how long a war will likely last, anyway.
the problem is that you would need to eat canned food every other day to make sure it’s not going bad
Yeah, I live halfway up a small mountain (in Europe) and usually have everything needed to survive a month, including if the water and power are cut.
We’re currently putting together a pair of bug-out bags as well though, so we can be mobile in an emergency too
Here we only have very short wars, because we’ve got other things to do.
I think there’s an AI generated chocolate beans meme hidden somewhere.
Do they usually make chocolate with meat in your country? :)
P.S. Please stop buying Coca Cola/Pepsi/etc. Look for local substitutions.
Wait, what do.you think “vegan” means?
Slightly less percentage of raw red meat in the final product, with cute packaging featuring the color green
Not sure if trolling.
Joking, but not trying to troll
So jokes aside, do you really think veganism is just eating a little less meat of a certain type?
No. Why do you assume I don’t know what veganism is, after I already said I was joking? It’s not eating animal food products, including not eating foods that contain some animal food products. Let’s please finish this conversation…
In case it’s not clear by now, chocolate sometimes has milk and I guess OP doesn’t like dark chocolate.
“without meat”
That’s “vegetarian”. Veganism avoids all animal products (there’s more to it than that, but that’s the simple version), so the dairy in most chocolate is out
Vegetarian is not just “without meat”, it means “no animal has to die for me”. That also technically excludes some cheeses as they contain rennet (although this is often overlooked due to nescience). Plus we’re only talking food right now, not clothing and other lifestyle products.
It bothers me that vegetarians don’t care beyond this very un-though-through concept of ‘animals dying’.
Dairy is a product of the mass rape and imprisonment of cows in horrific factory farms, and chickens are also kept in massively over crowded and unsanitary conditions.
And this is not to mention the constant cullings of male animals, which aren’t considered food as testosterone tastes so bad, and male animals can’t produce eggs or milk.
Or the constant culling of animals that no longer produce eggs or milk to quota.
Or the mass culling of the diseased or at risk of disease from being forced to live in such disgusting environments.
Vegetarianism is not a moral stance, it’s delusional and harms and kills animals at the same rate as eating both meat and dairy.
I get what you want to say and principally, I agree. However, I would highly advise against making better the enemy of perfect. Vegetarians usually are on the right track, they’re often just not educated enough, thinking that some animal products can be sourced ethically (as demonstrated by the other comment).
In my experience, vegetarianism often is just a waypoint towards veganism.In ireland, free range eggs are the norm, and most cows graze on actual fields. but, we have barely any wild areas anymore,.
I mean, plant agriculture isn’t exactly great for wildlife either. Hell, being wildlife isn’t great for wildlife. We theoretically could keep animals in a way that’s fine for them, we just usually don’t.
I eat a mix of free-range eggs and backyard eggs, and avoid milk where possible. Unfortunately the challenge scales pretty rapidly after that. Directly eating meat that can only be gotten in an unethical way feels a lot worse.
It’s delusional and harms and kills animals at the same rate as eating both meat and dairy.
How does the math on that work? Less animals harmed is less animals harmed.
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Just a question for people here who do not have 72 hours of food stored in their homes? Do you go to the supermarket every day? Or do you cook at all? What are you doing on the weekend? What happens when you’re sick and can’t go shopping?
Supermarket daily, mostly microwave stuff.
I eat what I buy. If I buy a days food I’ll eat it in a day, if I buy 2 days food I’ll probably also eat that in 1 day. If I’m sick I wear a mask, if I’m super sick I ask someone to deliver me some shopping but then it is more than a days worth because I don’t want to ask someone to do my shopping every day.
Do you have 72 hours of food supplies that you can use in case of an emergency? When there is no water and no electricity, and you can’t cook mac&cheese in the oven.
I assumed most everyone had at least two weeks of emergency supplies. Like I have a stock of a couple weeks supply of food and water in the basement in case of emergencies, that’s what my parents taught me was the bare minimum in case of emergencies.
Might happen at the end of month for me. We go grocery shopping with a car at the beginning of the month, but 31 days are longer than my freezer is big and a backpack can only hold so much. So I respectfully ask Putin not to attack on the 29th.
I have 2 days worth of food in my home. 4 days worth of lunch. When the 2 days of food runs out, I buy more on my way home. Same goes for when the lunch runs out. Meaning if I’m caught at a bad time, I’ll have 0 food
I grocery shop every 2 weeks and at any given time I have a month of food in stock. because I live in a hemisphere with hurricanes.
72 hours of essential supplies. Do you have 72 hours of:
- food (cooked, or cookable? see points 2 and 3)
- stored water (taps out?)
- stored power generation (powers out?)
- medicines and first aid (emergency services outages? communications outages?)
- heat in the coldest months? (see point 3) etc.
Yep, I have four supermarkets and two discounters in walkable distance and it makes me walk and leave the house daily. Plus my back’s not the healthiest and I can’t carry that much anymore.
You’d be amazed the lack of foresight most have.
When CoViD hit, I was able to avoid shopping trips for nearly six months, due to having a well prepared pantry. At best, I would go every other week to the store for mostly fruit, which is something I find hard to preserve without requiring huge amounts of sugars, of which I shy away, for personal reasons.
Yes, I live right next to a store.
I read that as 72 days at first and thought something serious was expected soon. Oh, 72 HOURS. Who doesn’t have that?
Also unless you are on the border, how useful is that likely to be? What would the expectation be, only short term supply chain disruption so shops may run out of something in the first few days but after that food supply will adjust to it?
I don’t think the preparation is meant for full blown war. It’s for disruptions.
Russia won’t be able drive tanks all over Europe any time soon, but they are capable of cutting cables to attack energy distribution, hacking payment methods and other infrastructure dependent on networks.
Remember the start of Covid? There was plenty of toiletpapir, hand sanitizer and test kits for everyone, but nobody could get it in stores for a long time because everyone wanted it at the same time. It’s better if everyone stock up over a longer period of time, so it doesn’t crash the supply chain when it is needed.
That makes quite a bit of sense as to how it would be useful.
I don’t have 72hrs of food at home, because I have almost no self control. 2 days of food can very easily also be one day of food haha
Germany’s advice for normal times is to be stocked up for 11 days. 3 Days compared to that is laughable even so it is better than 0.
Its not really something I think of because I am going to have easily days worth of food without even having to think about it. Stuff like pasta, rice and flour.
11 days not so sure on, if I had just been shopping at the start of the 11 days then easily, but if it was from just before I go shopping then its harder to say. I would most likely be able to ration out what is left to cover 11 days but its going to be pretty basic by the end of it. Like fried rice with salt and pepper kind of thing.
If your food needs water to be eaten then you need to store that extra water, which is by far the largest part you need to keep.
I have rainwater collection, boil it and it should be safe to drink.
Boil it without electricity?
Fire
I have tablets for purifying and rainwater, but that needs rain, and in winter it means fuel.
Food for these days should not be dependent on water.
Unlikely to get that cold here that everything completely freezes, usually keep enough wood dry to boil a fair bit of water and I can easily go out to get more of necessary.
That’s good, then can you read your original comment and see that other people are in other places with other situations? 😌
Meanwhile, here in the Uk our government is making sure we won’t have enough money to buy more than two days of food at a time.
I mean, 14 consecutive years of Conservative leadership will do that to the best of nations.
No doubt the UK has a MASSIVE uphill struggle ahead to bring back a sense of prosperity for its people, but it’s a bit disingenuous to make it sound as though it’s the fault of a Government that’s been in power for less than a year so far.
It can take mere seconds to destroy something, and multiple times longer than that to fix it.
In Australia, we are a couple years ahead of the UK (in terms of our first Labor Gov’t following a decade+ of Conservative leadership); things don’t magically get better overnight, but we are at least on the correct path now — here’s hoping we don’t fuck things up by voting the Cons back in later this year 😫
Oh I’m well aware that the Con govmnt has been an appalling dismantling of our country, but Labour are so far appearing to largely be following suit. Remember the Tory repetition about the need for austerity? It just feels like a repeat of that, to put it very breifly. I know 14 years can’t be fixed overnight, but shitting on the poor and needy, who have been suffering the most already is just grotesque. There’s plenty of condemnation by journalists and MPs alike for this as well as some calls to tax the rich instead.
I’ve never voted for either so I’m looking at what they do through neutral(ish!) eyes and I don’t see politics so much an ever increasing pandering to the corporate economy (over decades).
I can’t say I’m too knowledgable about Aus politics, but got glimpses of how bad your last govmnt was through the Guardian. Hope you have a better time than us with a new set of faces!
Do what you can to get your people onto here either through Lemmy itself or Voyager for Lemmy along with:
Bluesky @bsky (All these on Bluesky), Flashes @flashes, Spark @sprk.so, Element @thematrixfoundation, Revolt @revolt.chat, Resonite (For fun) @resonite, & PeerTube @joinpeertube
Gotta say the UK needs its own version of Run For Something @runforsomething organization. With multiple other accounts and organizations unifying to get stuff done as well
Best of luck to ya mate, grow the movement in your country everyday!!
Run for Something sounds good. We have a fairly healthy number of independent politicians in the UK I think but something like that can only help improve peoples involvement in local snd national government.
Assuming you’re from the US by sharing that, I hope you have more than luck to help over there!
I don’t enjoy archived links that much, so here is the plan, straight from the EU.
Hello
darknesscanned bread, my old friendCan you get that?
My plan has just been flour (or grain and a grinder if it’s more like 72 days) and more time spent baking.
Hope you’re also planning to keep that oven going if there is a power outage…
It’s something a lot of people (myself included) keep forgetting that without electricity, both your fridge and your stove / oven stop working.
I’ve cooked over open fires before and could do it again. I can even start one without a match.
The grinder would need a generator or solar panel, though. Thankfully both are fairly plentiful in my area, and depending on the situation oil production could continue to some degree. If it’s comes to mortar and pestle I should maybe just die.
God, that looks delicious. I’m going to have to order some just to try it.
I’ve had it before, the raisin version and it’s perfectly decent when toasted.
It scares people because bread in a can is unusual but there is nothing wrong with it. No weird ingredients, just…bread in a can :)
If I’d want to prepare for real I’d get some military rations and the German ones have canned bread
If limited space or weight is and issue that’s how I’d go too. However, they cost significantly more than basic grocery items.
