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Why would anyone store "years worth of food" unless they're preparing for the end of the world??
And I have to admit, I get a little nervous around TEOTWAKI-types.
They tend to be well-armed, and a half a bubble off plumb. Like I've said before, sanity is good.
I like sanity.
Aw, ItsMeFred, do I make you nervous?
I'se sorry.
I consider myself a TEOTWAKI-type, but mostly with emphasis on the latter "As We Know It" part - we've lived over 50 years and a lot of things we've worked for, believed in, and trusted in have failed in the past 20 years. What can "end" someone's "world" is a sudden crippling injury or illness, career loss, death of family members - "ends" are often not pretty, especially if you haven't prepared for them. So yeah, I prep, I'm armed (and legged) and I like to hunt and fish and stock up and can and store and create something from nothing. I keep my pantry stocked and am always busy, thinking of the future and trying to prepare for - whatever.
That doesn't mean I cut myself off from the world, 'go native' or try to intimidate any and everyone at my door - it just means I'm content working towards being able to support myself no matter what - or to leave something to my kids in case they need it.
"Prepping" shouldn't be some loony-tune off the wall hysterical response to some dreaded or foretold 'end', but a calm, collected, planned and purposeful self-protection... from whatever potential personal, local, state, national or even global occurrence, to the best of one's ability. Our grandparents would just call it "common sense" - too bad it isn't so common any more.
Our grandparents wouldn't have thought it common sense to "prep" for a day when there was no food, transportation, or social order for years on end.
To the rest, maybe re-read my post...
You're saying the same thing I already said.
Ummmm...yeah... I was agreeing with you....For the most part...
Except that I was sharing that losing a job, home, lifestyle, can happen swiftly - and can last for years on end, as one tries to recover from it. Like some older folks say out here - "My family didn't even know that there was a Depression... we kept living the way we'd always done."
For those who have literally no idea what can happen, and who are suddenly realizing that things might not be as rosy as Mom, Dad, Politician, and Teacher promised them, their sudden fear and panic is dangerous to themselves and others.
It's about knowing what can happen, and planning to mitigate the outcome.
The likelihood that TEOTWAWKI will happen in any of our lifetimes is somewhere between slim and none. Preparing for such an event is kind of silly...particularly since there are so many possible scenarios! You'll make yourself crazy (not to mention convince those around you that you ARE) trying to "prep" for all the possibilities.
On the other hand, for all you that think global economic collapse, environmental holocaust, nuclear war, global pandemic, alien invasion, or the inevitable zombie apocalypse are looming just over the horizon, I can hook you up with some Y2K survival kits on the cheap.
"P.T. Barnum once said 'there is a sucker born every minute.' With the current population explosion, I'd put that figure at 5 every 20 seconds."
-Anton Szandor LaVey
Our grandparents wouldn't have thought it common sense to "prep" for a day when there was no food, transportation, or social order for years on end.
I'll assume that your grandparents are probably of the generation of my parents. If so, I will agree with you. My parents had a cupboard full of canned foods and some stuff in the freezer/fridge. It would have sustained us perhaps a couple of weeks. They were the first generation of dominant normalcy bias. And nothing really bad happened during the time of their generation. They were lucky. But how many other generations back through history were not so lucky?
On the other hand MY grandparents were a completely different story. They had a cellar and root cellar chock full of goods they had canned themselves and "fresh" vegetables in the root cellar. The granary was full of wheat for both making bread and feeding chickens. And of course they had chickens, cows, pigs, etc; my grandfather used a team of horses to take care of his fields, rather than a tractor. I was quite young, of course, but I know they could have survived almost indefinitely on what they had on their farm--they did it through the depression. They didn't even have indoor plumbing or electricity until the late 1950's. My grandmother showed me a check for their entire harvest for a year during the depression--it was something like 8 cents, IIRC. For the year!!! But she never cashed that check. She didn't have to. Their food storage was easily three or four years worth. Of course, they also had the resources to "supply themselves."
But you see, I do not. Thus I store more food than my grandparents may have because at this point, I cannot grow it or slaughter it. I'm not living on top of my food like they were. They had the acreage. I do not. Indeed, it was my grandparents who inspired me to "prep." They were the ultimate type of "preppers" in my opinion. They would make most modern preppers look like fools. And yes... they had lots and lots of food stored up. From what I can vaguely recall, so did my great grandmother.
Disclaimer: my paternal lineage is from good Mormon stock. The LDS church STILL teaches to have at least a two year supply of food. Damned good advice in my opinion. It's easier here in good 'ol Utah, because lot's and lot's of folks do it.
On the other hand MY grandparents were a completely different story. They had a cellar and root cellar chock full of goods they had canned themselves and "fresh" vegetables in the root cellar. The granary was full of wheat for both making bread and feeding chickens. And of course they had chickens, cows, pigs, etc; my grandfather used a team of horses to take care of his fields, rather than a tractor. I was quite young, of course, but I know they could have survived almost indefinitely on what they had on their farm--they did it through the depression. They didn't even have indoor plumbing or electricity until the late 1950's. My grandmother showed me a check for their entire harvest for a year during the depression--it was something like 8 cents, IIRC. For the year!!! But she never cashed that check. She didn't have to. Their food storage was easily three or four years worth.
Which was EXTREMELY unusual.
Homesteaders generally stocked up for no more than 6-8 months. There was simply no reason to stock up for longer.
They knew they would have next year's garden, calves, etc.
And they would go to "town", wherever that might be, at least a couple of times a year to stock up on dry goods.
Which was EXTREMELY unusual.
Homesteaders generally stocked up for no more than 6-8 months. There was simply no reason to stock up for longer.
They knew they would have next year's garden, calves, etc.
And they would go to "town", wherever that might be, at least a couple of times a year to stock up on dry goods.
Not always.
My family wasn't Mormon, but where they lived made it difficult to go to town more than once a year, usually to sell calves in the fall, so they would buy tons of flour etc at a time because it would be at least a year until the next trip, and if the calf crop failed or the prices were down, they couldn't afford to buy as much so in good years they bought extra because they may have to stretch for a long time.
Weather, droughts, late freezes, floods could all impact the harvest or when the garden went in, so they had to be sure they could survive even if the crop failed for the year. That means putting it away when you can, leaning out when the crops aren't there and you have to live on your storage.
They had livestock, horse drawn equipment, and huge gardens plus they utilized wild foods in the area.
Having a huge root cellar, canning or drying just about everything they could and not depending on any "store bought" supplies was a way of life.
The winters are long and cold here, the growing season is short so you have to have at a minimum a years worth of food stored until the gardens come back up or the next harvest.
I still have a years worth of supplies stored usually, sometimes more, (even though I live in a small town and can get to a store when I want), sometimes a little less, but I hold the tradition of keeping enough on hand that I don't have to rely on getting to a store.
Having a year or so of food isn't that crazy, especially when you produce much of it yourself. Storage becomes the big issue, but that can be handled with a little ingenuity.
You just have to be sure to rotate your stocks, using the oldest first which isn't difficult in my situation because we use our stores daily, and at the same time we replace as the crops ripen or the next hunting season or butchering.
You never know when a drought might cause the crops to fail, or an untimely frost will destroy fruit for the season. It sure would be a shame to finish off all the flour a week before the grasshoppers came to eat all of this year's grain. And it might be a hard to tell a hungry child to tough it out till the next growing season, when things will be alright again.
Of course I am the person in charge of setting up the sustainable habitat that is BOL for more than just my small family unit, so maybe I'm biased.
So a year's supply of food is A-okay with you... but a year and a month's or two year's supply is not? Why is that?
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It sure would be a shame to finish off all the flour a week before the grasshoppers came to eat all of this year's grain. 
And it might be a hard to tell a hungry child to tough it out till the next growing season, when things will be alright again. 
