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
Cooking Homemade Beef Stew over a Dakota Fire Hole with the Bush Runner
Ten-minute walkthrough: preparing and cooking a full meal over a Dakota fire hole using the Bush Runner stove for off-grid emergency cooking.
Preparing Egg Drop Soup Over a Small Dakota Fire Hole
Six-minute demonstration of cooking over a Dakota fire hole using the StealthFyre Bush Runner stove, showing practical techniques for lightweight off-grid meal preparation.
Inside Our Mobile Emergency Kitchen Chuck Box by Preparedness Kits
Ten-minute walkthrough of a 136-item mobile emergency kitchen kit: contents, organization, and stadium-style access design for rapid deployment.
The E.P.C. - A Lightweight Bug Out Bag For Your Vehicle (Part 3)
25-minute walkthrough of the Emergency Preparedness Cache bug-out bag: how to assemble a lightweight emergency kit organized around the Rule of 3's (shelter, water, food) with integrated stove for off-grid cooking.
Beef patty MRE review
Taste test and evaluation of a 2018-packaged MRE Menu 19 beef patty with jalapeno pepper jack, assessing palatability and shelf-life performance.
Overhauling our main garden - Part 2: Building a raised garden bed
Seven-minute walkthrough of constructing a raised garden bed as part of a suburban homestead food-production overhaul.
Overhauling Our Main Garden - Part 1
First episode in a suburban garden transformation series: assessing the existing space and planning production beds for the 2021 growing season.
What Should I Consider Before Stocking Up on Survival Foods?
Five-minute walkthrough on evaluating and testing stored foods before buying in bulk, with emphasis on digestive compatibility and family needs.
4 Recipes To Make Using Your Emergency Storage Food
Dad-daughter team demonstrates four recipes using common emergency food storage staples to prevent monotony and build confidence in long-term food.
The End of the Worst Drought in Living Memory... Hopefully
19-minute walkthrough of drought impact on off-grid food production, water sources, and regenerative agriculture strategies for household food security.
Water: Collection, Filtration, Treatment & Storage
35-minute overview of water sourcing, filtration methods (commercial and DIY), chemical and UV treatment, boiling, distillation, storage options, and oral rehydration salts.
Growing Food and Medicine
Episode 5: cultivating edible and medicinal plants in an off-grid homestead setting for household self-sufficiency.
10 Best Trees to Kickstart an Off Grid Food Forest Garden
Sixteen-minute guide to selecting and establishing ten productive tree species for a food forest system on off-grid property.
Prepper Gardening: Sustainable Food Production
Comprehensive 71-minute guide to self-reliant food gardening covering soil, seeds, season extension, composting, and preservation techniques for year-round production.
Food Storage 101: Why, What, Where, & How
62-minute walkthrough of food storage progression from emergency kits to year-long supplies, covering preservation methods, organization, tools, nutrition, and cost optimization.
Off Grid Regenerative Agriculture
Ten-minute overview of regenerative agriculture practices for off-grid homesteading and food self-sufficiency on your own land.
Chicken Noodle and Veggie MRE Review
26-minute taste test and condition assessment of a 2018-packaged MRE Menu 3 chicken noodle with vegetables.
Mountain Hammock Camping - Site selection and wild huckleberry foraging
Eighteen minutes on selecting a safe hammock campsite in mountainous terrain and identifying edible wild huckleberries.
Sea Bass Supper Overnighter
24-minute overnight bushcraft trip: building a functional shelter, foraging, and catch-and-cook preparation in a wild setting.
Swamp Survival Camping & Bushcraft (No Tent) – Hunting & Eating Frogs
Five days in Louisiana bayou: tarp-and-hammock shelter rigging in rain, water purification with chlorine tablets, catching and butchering frogs for food, fire-cooking in wet conditions, and navigating high-bug environments.
Catch and Cook Pigeon Fritters
Five-minute walkthrough of field dressing a pigeon and preparing it as fritters—practical wild-food procurement and cooking from foraged game.
Camping on Abandoned Island - Fishing, Crabbing & Coastal Foraging
Two-day island camping trip demonstrating crab potting, coastal shellfish harvesting, tidal awareness, and cooking foraged seafood over an open fire.
$278 Costco Shopping Haul – Slim Pickings!
Four-minute walkthrough of a $278 Costco haul covering 3 weeks of meals, demonstrating practical provisioning and household food-storage strategy.
Building and Testing a Modular Floating Fishing Cabin
Design, build, and field-test a 16-by-8-foot floating cabin made from recycled storage bins and wood panels, covering buoyancy math, modular assembly, and overnight camping in cold water conditions.
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
Cleaning out the hay bale end of the garden: spring planting prep
Twenty minutes of hands-on garden bed preparation and spring setup on a ten-acre homestead, with practical tips on raised bed management and soil maintenance.
Why It's Important to Know Your Incubator Type
Five-minute guide to still-air versus forced-air incubators and how fan systems affect temperature settings for successful egg hatching.
Organic Weed Control, Year Two: Work with Me
Twenty-seven minutes of hands-on organic weed management and early-spring garden prep on a ten-acre homestead, filmed during January planning.
Growing Corn in Straw
Nine-minute walkthrough on growing sweet corn using straw as the growing medium, with results from an experiment the creator says hasn't been widely documented.
Tomato Bucket System - Setting Up and Planting
11-minute walkthrough transplanting tomato starts into 5-gallon buckets for a space-efficient growing system.
Straw Bale Garden Collaboration - Update
Garden update on a multi-channel straw bale gardening collaboration project, showcasing seasonal progress and participating homesteading channels.
Bale Gardening - Direct Sowing Squash and Cucumbers
Nine-minute walkthrough on direct-sowing large seeds into straw bales, covering spacing and moisture for squash, cucumber, and similar crops.
Bale Gardening - Planting Peppers
Nine-minute walkthrough on planting pepper seedlings in straw-bale gardens: spreading the straw and transplanting techniques for outdoor food production.
Costco Shopping Haul: $234 for 2 Weeks of Meals
Seven-minute walkthrough of a $234 Costco haul demonstrating how to stock groceries for two weeks of meals on a budget.
Goats! Farm Update
Nubian dairy goats setup, housing construction, and early-stage farm management on a homestead switching from cattle to milk production.
Deep Snow Primitive Survival Camping in Mountains - Winter Shelter Build
Winter survival shelter construction in heavy wet snow at 7,500 feet: snow-cave digging, fire management in cold wet conditions, insulation with natural materials, and high-altitude survival logistics with a 4-year-old.
Winter Survival Camping in Alaska: Building a Primitive Shelter and Managing Fire in Negative Temperatures
Step-by-step winter survival shelter build in sub-zero Alaska with fire management, layering strategy, fuel planning, and cold-weather camp logistics over an 18-hour overnight.
Is Incubating Eggs Right for You?
Introduction to home egg incubation: evaluating whether hatching chicks at home fits your homesteading setup and goals.
Free Seed Catalogs by Mail
Five-minute walkthrough of how to request free seed catalogs from 20+ major US seed suppliers for planning your next growing season.
Five Garden Tips in Five Minutes
Five practical gardening techniques for food production, presented as a quick reference guide by an urban homesteader.
Seed Swap Time
How to organize and participate in seed swaps to build diverse heirloom varieties for your garden and strengthen community seed networks.
So you want ducks
Five-minute introduction to keeping ducks on a homestead: basics of duck husbandry, why they're useful for self-sufficiency, and what beginners should know before starting.
Longhorns and hay rings on the homestead
Two-minute walkthrough of hay bale rings for livestock feed storage on an off-grid homestead.
Easy Corn Fritters Recipe - Midwest Style
Seven-minute recipe for corn fritters using fresh or preserved corn, demonstrating food preparation from homegrown harvest.
Grow Sweet Potatoes in Wisconsin - Harvest Results
Eight-minute walkthrough of sweet potato cultivation in a cold-climate garden, from planting through harvest outcomes and yield.
Super Early Frost in the Organic and Hay Bale Garden
Walking through frost damage assessment and recovery in a mature organic garden after an unseasonable early freeze.
End of September Garden Tour: Bugs and Cats and Thunder, Oh My!
Fifteen-minute walk-through of a ten-acre homestead's vegetable garden at season's end, covering organic pest management, raised-bed design lessons, and fall gardening planning.
Harvesting Potatoes, Yams, and Garden Cleanup
Amy documents fall harvest, garden organization, and season-extension strategies on her ten-acre homestead, including unexpected late-season yields.
HydroBlu Water Filter and Versa Flow Gravity Bag
Seven-minute walkthrough of the HydroBlu gravity water filtration system and Versa Flow bag for household water purification.