How to cook without power: what’s allowed indoors, what isn’t

Indoors or outside: the table

With the electric hob off, the question after every long power cut (power outage) is what can be lit inside. The authorities answer it differently, and only one of them, Germany’s civil protection office, the BBK, names appliances you may cook with indoors: a tea-light warmer to warm food, a fondue set with burning paste for small amounts, and a gas cooker if it is approved for indoor use.¹ Everyone else lists what has to stay outside.

A gas hob on the mains is the one thing that often carries on: the BBK says you can often still use it, and the UK’s Food Standards Agency that gas cookers may continue to function.¹⁷ What Ready.gov and the CDC rule out is heating the home with the hob or the oven, because of carbon monoxide.³⁴

The camping stove, the barbecue and the generator go outside in all four countries of the table, and elsewhere the line is the same. In Spain, Murcia’s health department says never to use a charcoal barbecue or a portable camping stove inside a house, and Madrid’s emergency agency that it’s advisable not to heat or cook with other sources, especially outdoor ones such as camping stoves or barbecues;¹¹¹² Spain’s health ministry wants generators kept outside homes and garages, away from doors, windows and vents, and gives no distance.¹³ New Zealand’s civil defence agency says not to use camping cookers and barbecues indoors.¹⁴ If you cook outside on a camping stove, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service adds, never change the gas cartridge indoors or near anything that could light it.¹⁵

Three days without lighting anything

You don’t need a flame to eat well for three days. Ready.gov says commercially tinned (canned) food can be eaten straight from the tin, and the FSA that tinned food is safe to eat without heating through.²⁷ The FSA’s order is to eat the chilled food first and the cupboard food after;⁷ the hours are in how long the fridge and freezer keep food in a power cut.

• Day one: what’s in the fridge while it’s still cold, which the FSA puts at up to 4 hours:⁷ cheese, cooked meat, yoghurt, salad. After that, bread, fruit and whatever never needed the fridge.
• Day two: tinned fish or beans on bread, tinned vegetables as a salad, fruit, nuts.
• Day three: the cupboard and the pouches: muesli or a cold-water porridge, a cold-water main, dried fruit.

The cupboard part of that menu is in the non-perishable food list. Britain’s Be Ready asks for exactly that kind of food, three days of it: food that doesn’t need refrigeration or cooking, such as tinned meat, fish or vegetables, dried fruit and nuts, and food you’d usually eat.¹⁶

With cold water: which meals, how long

A freeze-dried meal is cooked food that comes back with water, and the water doesn’t have to be hot. Most of ours work with cold water, 20–30 minutes depending on the meal: Chicken & Rice takes about 20 minutes, and Porridge & Fruit about 20 minutes. Made cold, meat and potato stay a little firmer and a little liquid may be left; stir it in. Guacamole is cold water only. The broths are the other way round: Puchero Broth is hot water only, so it waits for the gas hob or a stove outside.

Water and minutes, hot and cold, for a no-flame menu

Pouch	Water	Hot water	Cold water
Chicken & RiceLarge	370 ml	8 min	about 20 min
Porridge & Fruit	250 ml	5 min	about 20 min
Guacamole	120 ml	Cold water only	5 min
Puchero Broth	250 ml per cup	1 min	Hot water only

Water and minutes, hot and cold, for a no-flame menu

• Chicken & RiceLarge

  Water

  370 ml

  Hot water

  8 min

  Cold water

  about 20 min

• Porridge & Fruit

  Water

  250 ml

  Hot water

  5 min

  Cold water

  about 20 min

• Guacamole

  Water

  120 ml

  Hot water

  Cold water only

  Cold water

  5 min

• Puchero Broth

  Water

  250 ml per cup

  Hot water

  1 min

  Cold water

  Hot water only

Make a pouch up when you’re about to eat it. Why cold water works, dish by dish, is in freeze-dried meals with cold water; which foods soak on the trail without a stove, and how long they take, is in cold soaking.

What to have in the drawer

Carbon monoxide, in the authorities’ words

If you suspect it, do what your country’s authority says. Britain’s NHS: stop using the appliance if you can, go outside, call NHS 111 if you think you have symptoms, and 999 or A&E for the signs it lists in someone who has been exposed, such as finding it hard to breathe, sudden confusion or loss of consciousness; if you think a gas appliance is leaking carbon monoxide, it says to call the National Gas Helpline on 0800 111 999.⁶ In the United States, the CPSC: get outside immediately, then call 911.⁵ Health Canada, if the alarm sounds: leave the building immediately, call 9-1-1, don’t go back in.⁹

In the German-speaking countries the numbers change. Bonn’s fire service, following the German fire brigades’ association: leave the room at once, open the windows if you can, switch off the gas appliance if that’s possible without danger to yourself, and call 112.¹⁸ Austria’s public health portal: open the windows, get everyone into fresh air if you can, and if the danger to yourself is too great, call the fire brigade on 122 and the ambulance on 144 first.¹⁹ Switzerland’s poison centre, Tox Info Suisse, writing about charcoal barbecues indoors: leave the room quickly, get fresh air, and go to hospital immediately, by ambulance on 144 if the symptoms are clear.²⁰

Fit an alarm before you need it. The CDC asks for battery-powered or battery-backup alarms near every sleeping area, the NHS for one in each room with an appliance that burns gas, oil, coal or wood, and the BBK for approved carbon monoxide alarms.⁴⁶¹ The water for those three days, country by country, is counted in how much water to store per person.

From our range

72-Hour Food Reserve

9 pouches for 3 days: a porridge and two mains a day.

€112.90Hear from us before the shop opensSee the box