Guest post today all the way from the UK. Even though they drive on the opposite side of the road and call soccer “football”, it looks like wanting to be prepared is fairly universal. :)
A vast ocean separates the United States and Europe. However, for the most part, we live very similar lives. We work hard to put dinner on the table, we read the newspaper, talk to our neighbours, and try to enjoy our free time as much as possible. We worry about the economy and the future, but we do our best to embrace the day. We are prepared for a multitude of emergency situations – we have home insurance, car insurance, and often, a great value health insurance plan. We also think about survival food.
Survival Food in Europe
The concept of survival food in Europe is very similar to what you would find in the US. We buy bulk food and store it away for when we may need it later.
Sound familiar?
Some people are more thrifty and opt to store and rotate dried grains and canned goods. Others choose the less time consuming route and buy bulk survival food at a specialized company that dries, packs and delivers survival food that lasts up to 25 years.
The basic principles are the same, however, there are quite a few differences.
A Rough History
Our grandparents saw the brunt of World War II, right in their own back yards. We hear their stories and personal narratives, which serve as a motivator to always be prepared. Food rationing was a reality for them, and although we don’t dwell on it, we respect them enough to heed their advice. The thought of being allowed only two eggs a week, or having to spend half a week’s wages on sweets is daunting. Some of the people we love the most had to face this reality, which motivates us to buy and store survival food.
Linguistic and Unit Differences
This one may seem obvious, but when shopping for survival food in Europe, we are informed through a different set of linguistics. We rely on the metric system to tell us how much food we are purchasing – things in the EU are sold in grams. A kilogram is about 2.2 pounds, so a 5k pack of dried food is in fact 11 pounds.
Many common foods also go by different names. Have you ever heard of an aubergine? What about a marrow? Or mince? If you’re shopping for survival food in the UK, you are sure to come across these terms. An aubergine is an eggplant, mince is ground beef, and marrow is squash. If you’re not already completely lost, squash is actually juice in the UK!
Smaller Storage Spaces
You may have heard that in the USA, things are bigger in comparison to Europe. It’s true! Our cars and homes are all much smaller. How does this effect survival food? We really have to get creative when storing bulk food! Under the baby crib? Behind the wardrobe? In the garage? You would be surprised where we stow away our survival food. We are proud of our clever storage solutions.
Natural Disaster Differences
We’ve already mentioned the tales of our grandparents’ that drive us to be prepared, but we are also motivated by natural disasters. In the USA, you have to worry about earthquakes, floods, blizzards, wildfires, tornadoes, and hurricanes, just to name a few. But because we are on another side of the earth, we face a different set of natural disasters. In the UK, although we get an earthquake once and a while, it is nothing compared to the tremors that have been known to rock the California coast. A hurricane is a very, very rare occurrence in the UK. And snow is a lot harder for us to cope with. In Maine and other northern US states, plows and sanders line the streets, ready to go at the first sight of snow. If we get five inches of snow, the shelves in our grocery stores get scarce and many, many people get stuck and can’t make it to work. Although we use our survival food the same way, we buy it to insure a variety of different situations.
Eurozone Crisis
The last difference in the USA and Europe is the economic crisis. In 2008 the USA was hit by an economic recession. We know you’re still going through a tough time. Over here, the mention of an economic crisis is relatively new, so it is a headline we see every weekend in the Sunday paper. “Eurozone Crisis” is a phrase we are all well acquainted with. It scares us and motivates us to be prepared. With the price of goods rising and the amount of jobs decreasing, we are very, very motivated to be prepared.
Overall
Although the USA and Europe are an ocean apart, the way we go about buying and stocking survival food is very similar. There are some small differences. We are prepared for different events and motivated by different factors – the labels on our products may read differently, but at the end of the day, the products themselves serve the same purpose. They make us feel safe, they aid us in being prepared, and they help us rest easy at night.
From the guys and gals at Emergencyfoodstorage.co.uk – Making Food Storage Simple.
Keep preparing! Angela
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Living in Europe makes bugging out a bit difficult, as all the are is tightly packed with cities and towns. It’s not easy to find isolated places for the bug-out location.
Also, we use 50Hz / 230 V electricity instead of 60 Hz / 110 V in US, which makes some of the electrical devices useless when bought in the US (unless you get some kind of power adapter).
It’s always interesting to hear of differences and similarities of people from different places, even beyond our borders/shores.
I enjoy learning how others countries do things. We might have a lot of differences in the way we live, but we do understand the same fate of the future.
The best thing you can have is a plan. Doesn’t matter who you are… if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. You should at least have a little set aside, even for a power outage. It doesn’t have to be the end of the world to use emergency supplies.