What kinds of food to store in 5 gal buckets

[Allen]

I just got a bunch of 5 gal buckets dirt cheap and have been looking into packing them with dehydrated food in food saver bags.My question is what and how much in each bucket should I prep any info would be great

 

[old_anorak]

Allen, it depends on how you and your family eat and what they like. Is this dehydrated food you've made yourself? If not and you are planning to purchase the dehydrated foods that are available online, I would suggest ordering a sample pack from the companies and seeing which ones your family finds palatable. You're also going to want to keep a close eye on calorie counts, the more the better in an emergency situation. You will most likely be burning more calories during a clean up after storms or riots, doing guard duty if needed, doing any hard labor.

Once you've found the foods that your family likes and will eat and that provide the calories you will need, then I would pack several buckets to hold X amount of meals. Only you will know how much you'll need. I would advise to pack enough to feed at least one extra person because you or someone in your party may need those calories if doing particularly hard work. I would put a variety of meals in each bucket so you aren't stuck eating the same thing if you are only opening one bucket at a time.

I would also suggest taking a few of those buckets and packing them with canned foods that do not need to be cooked or rehydrated in order to eat. Things like ravioli, spagettios, spam, hash, fruit cocktail, peanut butter, etc. This way you have immediate food on hand that requires nothing but opening, because sometimes that is all you have the energy to do.

Make sure you are storing plenty of extra water to rehydrate your food and not be taking it away from your drinking water.

 

[Trapper]

I come from the belief "store what you eat, eat what you store." You wont have diet shock when under stress. I have put away pastas, oatmeal, kidney beans, navy beans, sugar and salt. I don't pack can goods in buckets. Cans are on shelves and rotated when used.

Something else to consider is putting multiple items in buckets so you have a variety of things to eat. I also try to pair items for meals and include recipes. If needed ta bucket can be given to someone in need without showing everything you have. You can also slip in some bic lighters, 22lr shells and other goodies.
Here is the place I get stuff, shipping is cheap and the best prices I have found.
www.usaemergencysupply.com

 

[old_anorak]

Trapper, one of the reasons that I put canned food into buckets is to just hand a person who needs help without them knowing what else I have. I also do it because I keep a few of those packed buckets in the barn, the shed, the chicken coops just in case something happens and I can't get to what I need in the house for some reason. I also have extra clothing and shoes in buckets in the outbuildings as well for that reason. If a tornado comes along and blows the house away and leaves the coops, we at least have a change of clothes and some food on hand.

 

[Trapper]

That makes perfect sense. Having backup preps is always smart. I keep a few things at my parents. They are 30 minute drive away. You can't have enough buckets of stuff put away.

 

[Come and Take It]

I shop at Winco who sells
5 gal food grade buckets
And gamma seal lids and
Oxygen absorbers.
I buy dried staples in bulk
Put them in Mylar bags with
A fist sized chunk of dry ice
Then seal the bags with a hot
Iron

I do have combo buckets
as mentioned enough variety
To make beef and chicken stews
I Probably have 100 pounds of
13 green and bean soup mix
With the needed spices in a separate bag
Also Have dehydrated garlic in the buckets
Definitely double bag the garlic

I have flour, corn, oatmeal,
Sugar, salt, Gravy mix, Amongst
Many other dried goods

 

[Dani]

In my five gallon buckets, I would defineatley store sugar, flour and cornmeal. One for water and the other for dehydrated foods. I tend to make from scratch here and as both Anorak and Trapper pointed out, it really depends on how your family cooks and what they like. You really don't want to sway them from their normal eating style, unless absolutely nessesary. It could actualy cause some health problems, not anything that can't be overcome eventually, unless they are already on a special diet for health reasons, then I wouldn't try to alter too much.

 

[jayjay1]

Rice.

 

[Trapper]

Guess I forgot my rice! Next Im working on getting a grain mill and planning on 6 pails of wheat berries. That should be about 200 lbs. That will be my long term reserve and keep another 100 lbs for milling as needed.

 

[WilliamAshley]

I just got a bunch of 5 gal buckets dirt cheap and have been looking into packing them with dehydrated food in food saver bags.My question is what and how much in each bucket should I prep any info would be great

imo the two cheapest items to buy that go a long way are rice and flour, major staples. You can do sooo much with flour. Rice can be made into a lot of different dishes and is filling. I also think having a good protein powder supply is good but I'm thinking just storing it in its natural containers might work. not sure what the shelf life is sealed.

I'm also a big fan of salt and sugar but keeping the salt in the container you get it in should be ok. The sugar will be ok too it will just harden. yellow rock sugar like honey I think can last forever. no need for storage containers. The other basic staple is oil. It should be changed up every 3 to 5 years though so keep a running supply. It is safe to use after 5 years but it starts to degrade and becomes less healthy.

 

[Trapper]

Depending where you get your info flour only lasts 6 months to 2 years. Grinding your own flour as needed is the way to go. Wheat berries last indefinitely until ground. I buy sugar in 50 lb paper sacks. Not a good long term storage container. To store it properly it must be put in buckets and mylar gives a higher degree of protection. For the little cost of buckets and mylar its a small price to pay for your work and investment.

 

[WilliamAshley]

you can always turn your flour into hardtack as it reaches the end of its storage life and carmalize it with sugar to make it outlive beatles. no buckets or mylar needed.

it doesn't need to be as fancy as this.. with the added carmalization it will outlive you

http://sites.mnhs.org/civil-war/videos/150-year-old-civil-war-hardtack

the century old ones are tastey if you add them to a dish after boiling them for a bit. Yum.

save your buckets for water... if you survive a year and there is no flour to replace it you have bigger problems, and chances are you will either have a source of food or it will be very very ugly outside.

IMO only one scenario maybe two make sense for multiyear storage. epidemic that the global CDCs / who cant handle and nuclear war.

Today mosses in the arctic that came out from under a glacier last 500 years and started growing again when the glacier melted enough to uncover them.
I would say yes vacuum sealing stuff would work but why not just wrap your stuff in cellophane sheets or plastic wrap them for air seal?

Also bury your food underground if it is waterproof, or in the coolest point as the colder your food is the longer it will last. (this is due to thermal molecular action being slowed down leading to less degradation in the chemical structure of your food also the more radiation shielding it has will also extend its life for much the same reason)

 

[Trapper]

With wheat berries you keep the ability to make any recipe that uses flour. You also get the nutritional quality of fresh ground flour which is by far much better than store bought flour that is over processed and has to be enriched. You could not store enough buckets of water to make that big of difference.. I can store a lot of food in 20 buckets. In those same buckets it would only keep a family of 4 in water for 20 days if they are lucky. Better to have food storaged and find a reliable water source.
Plastic wrap is no guarantee it will store any better. I cant believe it would be more cost effective either.
In most climates bury food is not practical. Again, buckets would provide the best protection even if burying it is done.

 

[WilliamAshley]

yes but stores sell store flour as opposed to not selling wheat berries. The price of shipping them up here would probably be more than buying 2x the amount of flour. They probably are better nutritional value as whole foods usually are none the less, the probably cost twice as much. If I'm not right on this post up the links to $1/kg with shipping wheat berries?

What is the strategy to get over the shipping costs..

how much would it cost to get a ton of wheat berries shipped up to Longlac P0T2A0 ... if I'm paying $10 for 10kg of flour can you offer a similar pricing or what type of pricing would it be? Looks like 2x the price of flour and you only get 80% the volume of flour on weight ratio.

I'm still sold on the nurtitional value however, pricing seems to be way higher. like 2 to 2.5 times the price of flour.

 

[Trapper]

In WI I can by wheat berries for the same amount as flour at Walmart and my local bulk food store. That is sacked and "food grade clean". If purchasing through the Feed & Seed the price is even cheaper by about 1/3. There has to be a place locally you can by wheat and avoid shipping costs. With a grain mill I can grind corn, beans and rice into flour. Its a very versatile piece of equipment.

 

[WilliamAshley]

In WI I can by wheat berries for the same amount as flour at Walmart and my local bulk food store. That is sacked and "food grade clean". If purchasing through the Feed & Seed the price is even cheaper by about 1/3. There has to be a place locally you can by wheat and avoid shipping costs. With a grain mill I can grind corn, beans and rice into flour. Its a very versatile piece of equipment.

I just think I found a great resource on seed, just a question of how much it costs to ship.
There is a government website called " Grain Seed Canada " http://www.grainscanada.gc.ca/faq-faq/buy-acheter-eng.htm that gives a list of liscended distributors of various types of seeds. I think part of the issue if finding wheatberry up here is that it isn't called wheatberry it is called whole wheat grain or wheat seed, not berry.

None the less I've contacted the local supplier about 150 miles away (300km) so I am hopeing I can get some sort of pricing back on their lowest quanity shipment. I have the feeling it will be a larger amount than I want, but perhaps I can make some sort of DIY grain mill?

This is a really good link though I may contact other distributors, but I'm geussing that they only do large bulk shipments, which would require me to pay high shipping costs meaning I'd have to get way more than I need.

I am in a very small community only about 1000 people up here and 5000 people year round in an area larger than may US states. There are no walmarts up here only one small grocery store with the floor space of a house.

I'm thinking though I could load up on wheat grain in my baggage next time I head down there and back, I figure I could bring back a years supply no problem. Also I'm considering for my next replacement vehcile to get a winnebago or other RV, and I can probably load that thing up pretty good with grain seed out of the closest city distrobution center and make my gas worth while. I think this will be next May, as I can get flour up here just not seed in bulk at a good rate.

Also the flour up here is enriched by law I think so it is relatively nutritional as long as it isn't all you are eating. I'd plant the stuff myself. I planted wheat grass last year and have some growing again this year. I use wild grasses to top my pan breads, and bake the husk and seed as a topper.

 

[Trapper]

Do you have and Latter Day Saints in Canada? They have canning stores available to the public and you can have food shipped from them also. Already for long term storage. I attached a link but you need to choose the Canada side for info. Im not a LDS but I know of others that use their stuff and it gets a good rating. Something to look into.

https://www.lds.org/topics/food-storage