Prepping hysteria is out of control – I refuse to join in

For the second time in recent memory I find myself forced to ask: can everyone please, please stop stockpiling bog roll? Seemingly the emptied shelves of the Covid era weren’t enough to remind people that panic-buying is neither useful nor necessary. Yet, since the Government shared new disaster-prepping advice two weeks ago, bottled water, canned food and wind-up radios have in many places sold out, according to the retailers likely rubbing their hands with glee. The Be Ready campaign was intended to get people to prepare enough supplies to last 72 hours – but messaging around it has felt wall-to-wall, triggering a wave of mass panic reminiscent of March 2020. The Government’s checklist advises three litres of bottled drinking water per day, per person (really overestimating the nation’s hydration levels here), plus extra for washing and cooking; non-perishable food, wind-up radios and power banks, and more. Shorts While this may have been well-meaning, the Government has forgotten something vital: that ‘keep calm and carry on’ is no longer a national mantra, just an aphorism slapped on tote bags and coasters. Authorities in France, Ireland and the Netherlands have given similar advice to residents, who have seemingly managed to take it in without ransacking the tinned aisle – but here, no such luck. Though the UK’s guidance was apparently timed to go out ahead of storm season, it’s hard not to see the whole thing a bit more cynically; a pre-Budget push for a Doom Boom to stimulate some frenzied spending. A colleague reports friends stocking up on antibiotics, paracetamol, and ‘grab bags’ of important documents and clothes. The only time I’d ever heard the words ‘grab bag’ prior was from a man whose house burnt down. No matter, people are now buying as if their home, too, has been razed to the ground. The wastefulness is what gets me, because once the stockpiling mentality has set in, when is enough, enough? If you’re that worried that the end is nigh, will one Andrex megapack really suffice? Buying a few extra bits to have in your cupboard is fine, obviously. But the shelf-clearers among us are not only creating pointless scarcity but triggering panic in the would-have-been-normals, encouraging those who had retained their heads in this non-crisis to fear they’ll starve while everyone feasts on baked beans as the end times approach. They also expose an inherent selfishness among the people willing to fill their trollies so that they have enough for themselves (and then some), without a thought about what might be left for others. Surely someone trying to feed their family, who works shifts and lives in a flat with minimal cupboard space, deserves the chance to buy a meal when they go to the supermarket without worrying that everything has already been consigned to the overstuffed larders of militant preppers for a disaster that has not yet struck? The whole thing screams of middle-class anxiety, fuelled by people who have the time and money to engage in futile hysteria – and enough outbuildings to store three pallet’s worth of five-litre water bottles. The current situation feels all the more bonkers given the comparative calmness of New York during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. I was living in Lower Manhattan, where mass electrical outages meant no power for a week, an entirely flooded subway system and phone signal only if you walked an hour uptown. On day one, we ate defrosted fish with an almond crust (not a natural combo, sure, but it was what we had); day two, featured some vodka-infused gummy worms, the provenance of which I am glad to be unable to recall. The other days are a blur of walking up seven flights of stairs to my apartment (the lift returning to life after a week was practically a religious experience), and spending a lot of time in the dark with my roommates. It was mad, challenging and kind of wonderful. Granted, not everyone hit by a major disaster is a 21-year-old unpaid intern with an already-poor diet, but tough times can sometimes have unexpected upsides – no canned soup necessary. While life has changed somewhat significantly for me in the intervening 14 years (I’d be fine living off the unidentified fish and vodka gummy worms again, but it’s probably best not served to my small child), has my approach to prepping? Simply, no. My couple of jars of chickpeas, half-pack of oatcakes and a granola bar may be considered irresponsible by Government standards, but would 72 hours’ worth of lentils really be enough to radically change my chances of survival? Unless something truly perilous happens, I’d like to hope that we could walk to a shop and acquire what we need, when needed. Besides, while I have a higher acceptance for pulses than most, it’s hard to conjure a more depressing mental image than one’s last meal being a can of beans eaten by torchlight. If there can be anything good to come from this nonsense, let’s hope it’s that the nation’s fibre intake might at least increase.