Plan your food supply and cooking fuel for an extended power outage or SHTF scenario. Get a 7-day meal rotation, pantry quantities, fuel estimates, and total water needed for cooking.
When the grid goes down, your electric stove, microwave, and refrigerator all become useless. Successful grid-down cooking requires three things: food that doesn't need refrigeration, a reliable heat source, and enough water for both drinking and cooking. This planner calculates all three based on your household size, duration, and available cooking methods.
Cooking without electricity is one of the most fundamental survival skills, yet most households are completely unprepared for it. The average American home has an electric stove, electric microwave, and relies on refrigeration for nearly every meal. In a grid-down scenario lasting more than 24–48 hours, all of that infrastructure becomes unavailable.
The most important shift in grid-down cooking is menu planning. You're no longer cooking whatever sounds good from the refrigerator — you're working from a limited pantry of shelf-stable ingredients that may need to stretch for weeks or months. Menus built around rice, beans, pasta, oats, canned proteins, and canned vegetables are nutritionally sound and require only simple boiling or frying.
The most resilient grid-down kitchens combine methods: a propane camp stove for quick meals and bad weather, a wood fire or rocket stove for longer cooking when fuel efficiency matters, and a solar oven to extend fuel supplies on sunny days. No-cook meals (canned goods eaten at room temperature, granola bars, peanut butter on crackers) should be part of every plan — they cost zero fuel and are fully viable for occasional meals when cooking isn't practical.
Water for cooking is often overlooked. Beyond drinking water, you need approximately 1 extra quart per person per day for cooking grains and legumes, cleaning dishes, and basic food preparation hygiene. Plan water storage accordingly.
Most natural gas stoves have electronic igniters that require electricity, but the gas supply itself is independent of the power grid. You can usually light gas burners manually with a match or lighter even when power is out — hold the flame to the burner before turning the gas on. However, if there's a major disaster affecting gas supply lines, this may not work. Never use gas stoves or propane camp stoves indoors for extended periods due to carbon monoxide risk.
For a family of four cooking two meals per day, you'll use roughly 60–90 minutes of high-heat cooking per day, consuming approximately 7,500–11,000 BTU daily. A 20-lb propane tank holds about 432,000 BTU — enough for 40–57 days of cooking at that rate. One 20-lb tank per month is a solid planning figure for a family of four. However, cooking efficiently (using lids, not boiling unnecessarily) can significantly extend this. Have at least two 20-lb tanks on hand and keep them filled.
Focus on foods that are calorie-dense, shelf-stable, and familiar to your family. The core staples: white rice (25+ yr shelf life sealed), dried beans and lentils (25+ yr), pasta (2–5 yr), rolled oats (8 yr sealed), canned meats (3–5 yr), canned vegetables and fruits (2–5 yr), peanut butter (1–2 yr), honey (indefinite), sugar (30+ yr), salt (indefinite), and cooking oil (2–4 yr). Comfort items like instant coffee, hot cocoa, and familiar snacks are genuinely important for morale — especially for children.
In the first 24–48 hours, prioritize consuming anything from your refrigerator and freezer before it spoils. A full refrigerator stays safe for about 4 hours without power; a full freezer stays safe for 24–48 hours. Cook and eat thawing proteins first — they're the highest food safety risk. After the refrigerator is depleted, transition to your shelf-stable pantry. This sequence prevents food waste and stretches your emergency supply further.
No. Charcoal grills, propane camp stoves, and wood-burning stoves all produce carbon monoxide (CO) — a colorless, odorless gas that is deadly in enclosed spaces. These should only be used outdoors or in areas with full ventilation. Even a garage with the door open is not safe enough for extended use. If you must cook inside, use a small alcohol stove (like a Trangia) with a window open, or invest in an indoor-safe alcohol or solid fuel option. Butane camp stoves with adequate ventilation are marginally safer but still risky. A battery-powered CO detector is essential in any shelter-in-place scenario.