Food & Water
The two things a household runs out of first. Long-term food storage, rotating pantries, freeze-dried, canning and mylar — plus water filtration, storage, sourcing and treatment. The ground truth on what actually feeds and hydrates a household when the supply chain stalls. Plain reviews and honest taste tests, no panic.
Top picks in Food & Water
Curated by topic, not commissionAll curated
Why Every Horse Secretly Wants To Be An Appaloosa
Learn why Appaloosas make excellent homestead horses and how to train them effectively for your property.
Growing Garlic Is Easier Than You Think
Four-step garlic cultivation walkthrough: bed preparation, planting depth and orientation, six-month growth cycle, harvest and drying for home use or surplus.
Frugal Prepper Pantry Haul: New Finds for Food Storage
Walkthrough of freeze-dried foods, emergency supplies, and storage staples with emphasis on budget-conscious prepper pantry building and lesser-known long-term food options.
Why This Chicken Coop Is So Efficient
22-minute walkthrough of efficient chicken coop design and pasture-rotation systems for regenerative land management without fossil fuels.
Our Daughter Took Over the Garden: What Happened
A multi-generational approach to garden management: delegation, systems, watering methods, and daily observation habits that reduce overwhelm.
The Fantastic Root Vegetable: Radish
Forty-one seconds on using daikon radish as a cover crop to improve soil quality, aerate compacted earth, and build organic matter without heavy tilling.
Power Outage Plan: Food & Essentials When Grid Fails
51-second primer on preparing food, water, and light supplies for grid-down scenarios, framed around rising US blackout risk through 2030.
48V DC Oven for Off-Grid Cooking: Building a Streamlined Solar Power Kitchen
Demonstration of a DIY 48V DC oven integrated into a low-voltage off-grid solar system for cooking without grid dependence.
Raising the Timber Frame Maple Sugar Shack with my Apprentice: Off-grid Cabin Build
Master mortise-and-tenon joinery and timber frame raising techniques for a functional maple sugar operation on off-grid property.
Squirrel Problem Got Out of Control: Barn Storage Security
Step-by-step walkthrough of boarding entry points and reinforcing barn doors to protect stored feed from rodent damage.
9 Canned Foods That Become Toxic After They Expire
Ten-minute walkthrough of warning signs for spoiled canned food—rust, swelling, dents, leaks—and which foods pose the highest botulism risk after expiration.
10 Survival Foods Preppers Stock Long-Term
Ten shelf-stable foods that last decades or indefinitely with proper storage; foundational pantry selection for long-term food security.
DIY Bowfishing Reel from Household Items in 15 Minutes
Quick walkthrough: build a working bowfishing reel from a tin can, hacksaw blade, and scrap wood—practical improvisation for food procurement.
DIY Lemon Peel Tea: Boost Immunity Naturally
Learn to make immunity-boosting tea from lemon peels, a simple homestead skill for natural health support.
How to Grow Garlic the Easy Way
Step-by-step garlic planting technique covering soil prep, clove orientation, and burial depth for reliable harvests.
I'm Still Not Great at Gardening, But I Get Better Every Season
45-second reflection on incremental gardening skill-building and seasonal crop success for household food production.
How to Make Your Home Grid-Down Ready
50-minute walkthrough of grid-down preparedness: securing power, water, food, heat, and security on any budget, urban or rural.
Soil and Worms: Broad Forking for Garden Bed Aeration
How to use a broad fork to aerate compacted soil while preserving beneficial worms and microbes, instead of tilling.
Grid Down? Food Supply Chain Crisis Explained in 3 Days
Three-minute breakdown of urban food supply fragility: how long grocery shelves stay full without truck deliveries and why grid failure cascades into supply collapse.
What's Happening on the Homestead?
45-minute documentation of daily chores and lamb birthing on an off-grid Swedish mountain homestead, part of an ongoing renovation and self-sufficient living project.
Sneak peek at the new summer kitchen and butcher shop and showcasing a new survival product
Tour of a new summer kitchen and butcher facility, plus hands-on demo of portable water filtration gear.
Summer Solstice Midsommer Fest - Wartime Russia
Traditional Russian summer festival survival skills and seasonal food preservation techniques during conflict.
Homestead Sights & Sounds from a Very Odd Spring in the Mountains of Wyoming
54-minute walkthrough of off-grid mountain homestead operations: gravity-fed water systems, wood heating, food preservation, composting toilets, gardening in harsh climate, and seasonal wildlife observations.
Thrivalist Ready Harvest Freeze Dried Food - Is it Worth It? Honest Review
13-minute breakdown of Ready Harvest freeze-dried food: quality, sourcing, cooking flexibility, cost, and whether single-ingredient freeze-dried beats pre-packaged emergency meals.
Editor's note
“If you only have a weekend and $200, fix water before anything else — it's the prep with the highest ratio of survival impact per dollar. On food: most $400 emergency kits could be replaced with $120 of supermarket staples plus mylar bags. The expensive part of food prep is the marketing, not the calories.”
— Cockroach editorial
Mobile Coop Hack That Stops Every Predator
DIY predator-proof chicken coop design using tarps and simple fencing to protect backyard flocks from raccoons and foxes.
Melon Plants Training: Vine Management to Prevent Rot and Cracking
Technique for training melon vines vertically to prevent ground rot, cracked rinds, and soil-borne moisture damage while maximizing garden space.
EMP Prep: Beyond Power, Focus on Survival Essentials
37-second overview of EMP preparedness strategy, emphasizing self-reliance in water, food, and shelter over grid-dependent systems.
Water Security Starts With a Second Option
37-second primer on building water resilience through backup systems, using a hand-pump well as an example of insurance against supply disruption.
How to Survive a Grid Failure That Doesn't End
EMP threat overview and practical steps to build water, food, and power redundancy in your home when the grid fails for months.
Lemon Peels for Disinfecting Cutting Boards
Learn how to use lemon peels as a natural disinfectant for food preparation surfaces.
Blackout Food Safety: Keep Your Fridge Cold!
One-minute guide to food safety during power outages: how long refrigerated and frozen food stays safe without opening doors, and practical steps to extend that window.
Rain in a Survival Environment & Q&A
Learn practical strategies for managing rainwater collection, storage, and use during survival situations, plus audience Q&A.
SpaghettiOs Lawsuit: What Walmart Didn't Tell You About This Product
Case study of contamination in canned goods: what the SpaghettiOs lawsuit reveals about retail food safety, inspection practices, and risks to home pantries.
Freezer Hack: Keep Food Cold Longer
23-second walkthrough: fill a freezer with frozen water jugs to maintain cold longer during outages and create emergency drinking water.
Fruit Prices Are Rising… And Farmers Have Lost Entire Orchards
Spring freezes have destroyed U.S. orchards; Eagle Eye breaks down crop-loss impacts on fruit prices and what families can do now to prepare.
Solar Pump Without Battery for Farming or Swimming Pool
Evaluation of a 750W solar pump and controller system ($300, Dexzon brand) suitable for off-grid water pumping without battery storage.
How I'm Protecting My Beef Supply: Pressure Canning vs. Freeze Drying
Comparison of pressure canning and freeze drying for long-term beef storage, with practical setup and cost considerations for food preservation.
What Would You Do in Another Great Depression?
Doug and Stacy discuss practical strategies for economic collapse, covering food production, preservation, and self-sufficiency fundamentals.
Emergency Hygiene: Stay Clean When Water is Scarce
Essential hygiene supplies to stockpile and how to build a makeshift handwashing station when clean water is limited.
Emergency Water Purification: Safe Drinking Water Hacks
Three practical methods to purify drinking water in emergencies: boiling, household bleach, and portable filters like LifeStraw. Covers what works and what doesn't.
Water: The Crucial First Domino for Survival
One gallon per person per day baseline and two-week water storage math for a family of four—why water scarcity cascades into systemic failure.
Free Food! Identifying Swine Cress and What You Can Use It For
Identifying swine cress in the wild and practical culinary and preservation uses for this common edible plant.
Stretch 2 Weeks of Food Into a Month: Smart Stockpiling Meals
Two-minute walkthrough: plan meals around shelf-stable ingredients your family actually eats to double your food supply's duration and reduce waste.
Full Garden Tour - Feeding Ourselves from 600 Square Feet, Crop Choices for a Cold Climate, & Pests
Tour of a productive 600-sq-ft mountain garden in cold climate: crop selection, pest management, and strategies for maximizing food self-sufficiency in harsh conditions.
A Salad Made From Weeds
Two-minute walkthrough of identifying and harvesting common edible wild greens for a foraged salad.
The Most Self-Sufficient Animal You Can Raise at Home
Ten-minute walkthrough on raising Muscovy ducks for meat and eggs with minimal space, noise, or feed cost on suburban homesteads.
Dollar Tree 2026: New Prepper Pantry Finds Worth It?
43-minute walkthrough of current Dollar Tree emergency food stock options, price comparisons to Walmart, and which items offer genuine value for budget prepper pantry building.
Fresh Milled Flour: What Should You Actually Bake First?
Four-minute interview with a flour expert on what to bake first when you start milling your own grain, and how to work with fresh-milled flour.