Originally posted by brewmaster15 agree there on both counts.
Seems common sense to me that we should have a few weeks of what we need for when we need it and can't get it.... Its come in handy where I live during the aftermath of storms. Thats a principle I think many in more rural areas do routinely... Urban areas, not so much.
al
I know people who have been through several wars - you won't catch them dead without enough non-perishable food and water for at least a month. On the other hand my grandparents lived in post-war Spain where rationing was in effect (we still have the rationing stamp card from 1943); at my grandma's house there have always been some liters of oil, a dozen kilos of rice and flour combined, and a chest freezer more or less always full.
Curiously, "simple" hunger lead to freezer stock up (at least in my family - although freezers weren't a possibility for decades afterwards), while war teaches you to get room-temp-storage food because infrastructure can get damaged more easily.
In my case, a month of food would barely fit the pantry, but I do have enough stuff for a week or so - it's anyway stuff that I end up eating regardless, so it's a matter of rotating it out while keeping a stock with months or more of remaining shelf life.