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
Get Free Hot Water From Your Air Conditioner
How to capture waste heat from air conditioning systems to provide hot water, reducing energy consumption in off-grid setups.
Baking Staples: Storage, Testing, and 100-Day Pantry Week 3
How to stock baking essentials for long-term storage, three one-minute tests to check if baking powder, soda, and yeast are still active, and budget-tiered shopping strategies.
What's Ready In The Garden Right Now? Tomato Harvest and Ripening Timeline
Garden walkthrough showing cherry tomato harvest readiness, ripening timelines for different varieties, and why staggered production matters for consistent food supply.
Free Pig and Chicken Feed Using Foraged Apples
How to source free or low-cost produce to feed pigs and chickens on a small farm, reducing feed costs through gleaning and waste-produce strategies.
6 Common Garlic Planting Mistakes
Six practical tips for successful garlic cultivation: variety selection, fall timing, clove handling, spacing, orientation, and mulching.
10 Ways to Improve and Maintain Your Health on the Homestead
Fifty-five minutes with Rebekah Rhodes on homestead health practices: water filtration, air quality, nutrition, sleep, cold exposure, and strength training for self-sufficiency.
Offgrid Homestead Sustainability: Winter Is Coming—Raw Land Transformation
18-minute walkthrough of preparing an off-grid Arizona homestead for winter: shelter upgrades, seasonal planning, and tools tested on a raw-land build from foundation to multipurpose pole barn.
Bluetti FridgePower Portable Power Station: Keep Your Food Cold in a Power Outage
Review of a portable power station designed to run refrigeration during grid outages, with discount codes for purchase.
Learn to Trap a Beaver Easily
Step-by-step beaver trapping technique for subsistence hunting and wild food procurement.
Off-Grid Laundry Setup: Six Years to a Complete Washer and Dryer System
How to run a full laundry setup on an off-grid homestead: power and water requirements, system evolution, and testing a portable power station alongside existing solar and battery infrastructure.
Diesel Prices Up 70%—What It's Doing to Your Groceries
Analysis of actual grocery prices across 31 states vs. national averages, diesel's impact on food costs, and which pantry staples held steady or spiked.
Hand Scythe Chop-and-Drop Mulching for Garden Soil Building
Ten-second technique using a $10 hand scythe to turn garden waste into compost in place, boosting soil fertility without hauling or purchased inputs.
Stocking Buckets of Survival Food - Thousands of Calories
How to store bulk survival food in Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers for long shelf life and low cost per calorie.
Burn the Candle at Both Ends: Accelerated Property Preparations
Tour a working homestead's bulk fuel storage, soil building, backup power systems, and animal feed sourcing amid supply chain pressures.
How to Build a Garden Bed in 5 Minutes: No-Dig Composting Method
28-minute walkthrough of the no-dig gardening method using cardboard and straw to suppress weeds and build soil for food production without digging.
Make Your Own Applesauce: A Simple Sunday Project
17-minute walkthrough of water-bath canning applesauce using NCHFP tested-safe methods for shelf-stable home food preservation.
Last Harvest of 2026 — Zone 2B/3A Garden
Twenty-one minutes documenting the final autumn harvest in a northern Alberta garden (zones 2B/3A), with seasonal learnings for next year's growing.
Cheap Rainwater Catchment for SHTF
Build an affordable rainwater collection system using simple materials and methods for emergency water supply.
Cheap Cooking for SHTF
Learn budget-friendly cooking methods and meal strategies for emergency scenarios when normal utilities may be unavailable.
Our First Winter on the Homestead: Firewood and Sheep Grazing Planning
Walk-through of first-winter planning on a PA mountain homestead: firewood procurement, stacking and drying strategy, rotational sheep grazing to stretch pasture, and regenerative land management for cold-season self-sufficiency.
Modern Life Is a Trap: Building Food Self-Sufficiency on a Half Acre
How the creator quit multiple jobs to live debt-free on a half acre, growing most of their own food and eggs while minimizing property taxes and reducing financial vulnerability.
Hot Tent Camping in Heavy Rain: Bushcraft Shelter and Foraging
29-minute solo wilderness camp in heavy rain: building and maintaining a hot tent shelter, foraging wild mushrooms, primitive cooking, and managing survival conditions with a dog.
Mowing the landowner's yard with the herd, no fuel required
Six-minute walkthrough of using livestock grazing to maintain pasture and reduce external inputs, eliminating fuel costs through rotational animal management.
Before Grocery Shelves Are Empty: A Survivalist Expert's Warning
Learn critical preparedness steps from a survival expert before supply disruptions occur.
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
The Last Brook Trout - A Fall Overnight Canoe Camp
Wilderness fishing and camp skills: catching, processing, and cooking fresh trout in remote Canadian backcountry.
Compact Survival Fishing Kit
11-minute walkthrough of a minimalist fishing kit: hooks, line, sinkers, spools, and rigging methods for catching food with minimal gear.
Crazy Gas Prices and Free Potatoes
How to offset inflation through kitchen cooking, gardening projects, and strategic homestead investments that pay dividends over time.
We Asked a Permaculture Expert What We Got Wrong
Permaculture expert audits a dry-climate homestead garden, teaching contour planting, swales, composting fixes, and perennial food production for water-scarce land.
Beaver Burgers – Catch and Cook
Harvesting, processing, and cooking beaver for subsistence food procurement in the wilderness.
The Best Time to Buy: My Complete Q4 Stock-Up List
Month-by-month guide to Q4 pantry shopping: what to buy in October, November, and December based on USDA food price forecasts and seasonal availability.
7 Foods That Could Become Currency
Seven shelf-stable foods chosen for barter value and practical utility in a post-collapse or currency-failure scenario.
Testing a Manual Root Puller at Our Homestead
Norwegian homesteaders unbox and field-test a manual root puller to clear overgrown land for cultivation, demonstrating real-world performance on different stump types.
Bone Marrow, Street Corn, Cornbread | Off-Grid Cooking in the Cabin | Preparing for a Bowhunt
Cast iron cooking techniques for three off-grid meals: Mexican street corn, bone marrow, and cornbread prepared over a wood stove.
Step 3 - Making Probiotic Yogurt
Walkthrough on fermenting yogurt at home for food preservation and probiotic production as part of household food self-sufficiency.
Step 1: Mesophilic Yogurt in Instant Pot and Traditional Method
Two-method yogurt culturing tutorial: using an Instant Pot and traditional fermentation for household food preservation and self-sufficiency.
The Difference Between Mesophilic and Thermophilic Yogurt and Why It Matters for Your Gut Health
Fifteen-minute guide to yogurt fermentation: comparing mesophilic and thermophilic cultures, temperature requirements, and health benefits for home food production.
I Bow Hunted Elk for 20 Days in the Mountains: Traditional Bow Hunting Elk 2026
Twenty days pursuing elk with a selfbow on public land: a walkthrough of backcountry hunting logistics, patience, terrain navigation, and the reality of food procurement in remote mountains.
Finding Peace in the Forest: A Solo Canoe and Bushcraft Adventure
Master fire-building, camp setup, and open-fire cooking skills during a solo backcountry canoe trip in the Canadian wilderness.
Can You Actually Vacuum Seal Soup? Vesta V23 Tested
Real-world vacuum sealer evaluation: testing bulk meat, bread, soup in liquid mode, and dry staples to help you choose the right tool for pantry preservation.
Modifications to Our PF Filter Canteen and Integration to Your Survival Kit
Thirteen minutes on translucent filter canteens: design features, measurement markings, and how to integrate one into your existing water-carrying and camping kit.
Ferrocement: A $5,100 Problem, A $1,200 Solution
Building a 5,000-gallon water tank using ferrocement (wire mesh and cement) for $1,200 instead of $5,100: material costs, engineering principles, test-piece casting and failure analysis.
If Farmers Are Right, You Should Prepare for What's Coming
How rising input costs are forcing farmers to cut capital investment, with cascading risks for food production and household food security.
Processing Tomatoes for Canning, Freezing, and Powdering
Live panel discussion on tomato preservation methods—canning, freezing, and powdering—hosted by homesteaders and food-preservation experts with audience Q&A.
Gray Squirrel from Field to Table: Appalachian Camp Cooking
Seventeen-minute walkthrough of harvesting, preparing, and cooking gray squirrel with potatoes and gravy over a camp fire.
Digging Our Potatoes We Planted This Year
Walkthrough of harvesting homegrown potatoes from a homestead garden, demonstrating food production for self-reliance.
The 100-Day Rice Math You Need to Know
Calculate caloric and staple quantities for 100-day food storage using rice, beans, oats, and flour; learn packaging and oxygen-absorber best practices for long-term safety.
Emergency Food Storage for Extended Family: Planning and Cooking for a Crowd
Real-number walkthrough on sizing emergency food supplies for multigenerational households, bulk-cooking methods for grid-down scenarios, and budget storage strategies using basic staples.
Heat Stress in Chickens: Water Management for Flocks Large and Small
How to keep chickens hydrated during extreme heat: gravity-fed water systems for 300-bird operations and small backyard flocks, plus why dehydration is the fastest threat in summer.