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
Ten Years on a Half Acre: Building Self-Sufficiency Without Burnout
Reflective essay on a decade of backyard farming, off-grid systems, and raising animals on half an acre: what it cost, why expansion became unsustainable, and how to choose between growth and contentment.
Retro Camp Dove Dinner: Cleaning & Camp Cooking Tips
Field-to-table walkthrough: cleaning wild dove and preparing it over a camp fire, with practical tips on meat handling, cookware, and fire management.
Greg Interviews Hank Reed of Natural Gramma: Regenerative Ranching in North Missouri
Interview with a neighboring regenerative farmer on pasture management, livestock practices, and natural food production techniques.
Indonesia Rice Fields Cracked by El Niño
Visual documentation of El Niño drought impact on Indonesian rice terraces: crop stress, reservoir collapse, and river disappearance—implications for global food supply.
Sourdough Starters and Wild Yeasts
Introduction to building and maintaining sourdough starters and collecting wild yeasts for home baking on a homestead.
Why You Can't Find Local Meat Anymore
Analysis of the collapse of local meat-processing infrastructure since the pandemic and strategies for managing livestock inventory when butcher capacity is unavailable.
JPMorgan: +5% Food Inflation Expected in 2027
Analysis of converging supply-chain pressures—Black Sea logistics, weather, drone strikes—driving JPMorgan's forecast for 5% global food inflation in early 2027.
Noodling catfish
42-second demonstration of noodling—hand-catching catfish—as a primitive survival fishing method requiring no gear.
Bow Trap Survival Build
Twenty-minute walkthrough on constructing and setting a bow trap for hunting game, from a self-taught bushcraft instructor with four decades of wilderness experience.
Tenkara Fly Fishing
Eleven-minute introduction to tenkara, a minimalist Japanese fly-fishing technique using only a pole, line, and fly — ideal for backpacking and wilderness self-sufficiency.
Goose Burgers
Short-form demonstration of processing wild goose into burger meat—practical wild-game food preparation.
Harvesting Early This Year | September Garden Tour | Zone 4A Minnesota
44-minute garden walkthrough covering harvest timing, pest management, food preservation (canning, fermentation, freeze-drying), and seasonal planning for Zone 4A.
One Seed With Endless Results: Growing Tomatoes for Food Preservation
How one tomato seed produces pounds of fruit for family meals and long-term food storage through preservation.
Homestead Garden Update: Perennial Pigeon Peas, Container Carrots & New Growth
Nine-minute garden walkthrough covering perennial pigeon peas, container carrots, luffa, ginger, and compost—practical food production techniques for household self-sufficiency.
Our 1,700-Gallon Water Tank Fills Itself (Off Grid)
Complete build of a gravity-fed spring collection and cistern system: finding springs, sizing flow, building collection boxes, routing multiple sources, and solving silt problems.
10 Homestead Priorities for Rising Food Costs in Australia
Ten-point breakdown of food security strategies: staples, storage, equipment, butchering, seeds, local sourcing, livestock, and dietary shifts for household resilience.
Homestead Systems Maintenance: Rainwater, Heating, and Winter Prep
Twenty-two minutes of practical off-grid maintenance: securing rainwater collection, testing a diesel heater, prepping a Russian stove, and repairing water-storage tanks.
Smoked Wild Rabbit
Twenty-minute catch-and-cook walkthrough: trapping, processing, and smoking wild rabbit as subsistence food.
How to Stop Bugs From Ruining Your Long-Term Food Storage
Eight-minute walkthrough of how insects infest stored dry foods, which storage methods (Mylar, oxygen absorbers, freezing, vacuum sealing) actually work, and what to do if you discover an infestation.
Foraging Rose Hips
Four-minute walkthrough on identifying and safely harvesting rose hips in fall, with preparation tips for this vitamin-C-rich wild food.
Stinging Nettle Herbal Beer Recipe
Step-by-step fermentation guide: turning foraged stinging nettles into a vitamin-rich, gluten-free herbal gruit using basic equipment and a week of fermentation.
Anker SOLIX EverFrost 2 Portable Fridge Review: Battery Runtime and Off-Grid Performance
Five-minute walkthrough of a portable battery-powered refrigerator: runtime on single and dual batteries, 12V/solar charging, temperature control, and use as emergency backup food storage during power outages.
Baking at a Higher Altitude
Panel discussion on adapting baking techniques and recipes for high-altitude cooking, hosted by Camppatton Family Compound with guest experts.
7 Strongest El Niños — 2026 Leads
Visual comparison of historical El Niño events and heat-anomaly patterns, with focus on current 2026 conditions and potential agricultural impacts.
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
Farm Soil Recovery After Prescribed Burn: Forage Explosion on Newly Leased Pasture
Seventeen-minute site visit showing soil response and forage growth following spring prescribed burn on newly leased regenerative grazing land.
Cordless Mini Chainsaw for Off-Grid Homestead Pathway Clearing
Testing a lightweight battery-powered chainsaw for clearing pathways, pruning branches, and preparing livestock grazing areas on an off-grid Arizona homestead.
Solar Flare Damage to Crops: Global Reports of Sun-Burnt Plants
Examines reported crop damage from solar activity and explores potential growing strategies in response to solar weather threats.
Cooking meat in mud
Thirty-second demonstration of primitive earth-cooking technique for meat in a wilderness or off-grid context.
We are getting very close to an economic collapse...ALL PRICES are going to explode higher
Economic collapse scenario with focus on price inflation and portable water filtration as preparation strategy.
5 Jungle Bird Traps: Complex to Simple Designs
Five bird trap designs from complex to simple, demonstrated for wilderness food procurement and survival skill building.
Saving Heirloom Seeds and Preparing for Next Year's Garden
How to harvest, dry, and store heirloom seeds for multi-year garden continuity.
Extend Your Skillet Handle: Simple Bushcraft Cooking Hack
Two-minute walkthrough on safely extending a cast-iron skillet handle with a wooden stick for better control and heat protection when cooking over a campfire.
Building Rural Self-Sufficiency and Community Resilience
Strategies for establishing land-based self-sufficiency and reducing dependence on centralized systems through local production and cooperation.
Building an Earthen Pizza Oven in the Forest
Learn to construct a functional earthen pizza oven from raw forest materials—clay, sand, and straw—for off-grid outdoor cooking.
Sam's Club Emergency Preparedness Items: Budget Prepper Shopping Walkthrough
27-minute walkthrough of Sam's Club bulk items for emergency food storage, water, batteries, and shelf-stable pantry supplies, with cost-per-serving focus for budget-conscious preppers.
Late-Summer Garden Transition: Five Steps to Extend Your Growing Season
Five practical late-summer tasks to maximize remaining harvest and prepare your garden for fall production.
Greg Loves the Beavers: How They Hold Large Pools of Water in Creeks During Dry Summers
Eight minutes on how beaver-built water retention benefits regenerative ranching operations and pasture management through the dry season.
17 Foods To Stockpile That Never Expire
Forty-one minutes identifying 17 grocery-store foods with multi-decade shelf life, storage methods to achieve that lifespan, and realistic costs for a complete long-term food security system.
Winning the War on Weeds with John Moody
Hour-long deep dive into organic weed management strategies, soil health, cover cropping, and garden planning from a homesteading expert.
Diesel Prices Are Spiraling Out of Control: What You Need to Know
Analysis of record diesel prices and how shipping cost spikes cascade through logistics networks to affect grocery inflation and household food budgets.
Off-Grid Homestead Systems: Water, Power, and Laundry Automation
Seven-minute walkthrough of pressurized water, solar-powered shower, and washer/dryer systems that reduced daily labor on a working off-grid homestead.
The Herbal Oil Method Used by Professional Herbalists
Learn the alcohol intermediary method to extract medicinal compounds more effectively when infusing dried herbs into oil.
Converting a Carport Into an Off-Grid Homestead Pole Barn
Step-by-step build converting a 10×5 carport into a multi-purpose livestock shelter, hay storage, and tool shed for an off-grid Arizona homestead.
They Don't Care Anymore—Prepare for the Worst
Assessment of current threats and practical preparation strategies across food storage, medical supplies, and radiation detection.
Fall Apple Collecting for Long-Term Food Storage
Walkthrough of foraging and preserving apples for winter storage—sourcing, selection, and storage methods for year-round food security.
Seven Days Without Power: What Changes and How to Prepare
Step-by-step walkthrough of how a week-long power outage affects water, food, refrigeration, backup power, fuel, communications, and sanitation systems—and what preparation matters most.
The Exodus Plan: Beyond the Bug Out Bag
Build a practical extended-evacuation kit beyond the basics, with water, fire, shelter, food procurement, and signaling tools.
Why I Tell Patients to Ferment Food
A physician explains the gut-health benefits of fermented foods and their role in household nutrition and resilience.