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What dried good items do you folks purchase for your food storage?

8K views 61 replies 27 participants last post by  kappydell 
#1 ·
I was wondering what you folks by dry good wise for your food storage system? Do you buy like oats, beans and spaghetti.
 
#2 ·
Yep. We do.

Hundreds of pounds of dry beans, white rice and wheat and pasta are pretty commonly used as the core of a long term food store. Usually heat sealed in mylar bags with an oxygen absorbers, which greatly extends their shelf life.

Of course its more complicated than that, you need spices, salt, oils, vegetables, meats, etc to add in to make decent meals.

And of course, water, cooking fuel, etc.

But if you can store about 35lbs of mixed rice and beans per person, per month, you will meet most of your caloric and protein needs.
 
#5 ·
Heat accelerates chemical reactions, chemical reactions are what slowly destroy the nutritional qualities of rice over time. You would need someone else to tell you exactly what the timeline on that is. But generally if you can keep things at room temp or below you can get a long life out them.

Rodents can eat through mylar without difficulty. All that mylar food bags are really is just heavy duty potato chip bags. If your storage area is not pest proof you need a secondary container. Commonly five gallon buckets are used. You through a bag in the bucket, fill it, add your o2 absorber and use a clothes iron and 2x4 to seal the top, put the lid on the bucket and its usually pretty safe. The bucket does not have to be food safe because the food is not touching it, however, its handy if it is so once you open up the bag you can poor the food into the bucket and use it from then on.

More efficient are heavy duty storage bins. If rodent damage is a big issue in your location, metal barrels or garbage cans can be used.

There are different options, but generally mylar alone is too vulnerable to being damaged to use by itself. The mylar protects the food, another container protects the mylar.
 
#4 ·
Not being a smartass, do you have a cat? My cats recently took out a rodent for us. Also traps couldn't hurt but I believe you have toddlers so have to put it behind the fridge, etc.

I have beans, rice, canned protein. I also have things like canned macaroni and beef, etc. Lots of seasoning as well. If you are a caffeine user you will want some on hand. I also have 3 months of prescriptions and a generous amount of OTC headache pills.

My understanding about the rice, and other foods, heat in storage makes the proteins break down faster. That's also why you need to pack it airtight for the long term.
 
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#7 ·
You definitely need something to protect the mylar. I forgot to do that with some dried corn once. I hadn't been having a mouse problem but I sure got a big one after a mouse got in and found it.

I buy bulk, usually 50lb sacks of rice, beans, lentils, dried potatoes, powdered milk, sugar, salt, potato gems, oats, quinoa, and many other things.
Depending on density of the food, I usually get one 5gal bucket and three 1gal mylar bags full. Most of the bags weigh in around 5lbs each, depending. The buckets get the mylar sealed with the appropriate O2 absorber and a gamma seal lid. The lids are a little spendy but I much prefer them to the snap on lids. Especially once I open a bucket and start using it.
What I do with the one gallon bags is that I assemble sort of a meal plan of different items. Like oats, milk, dried friut for breakfast, rice and beans for lunch, rice and/or potatoes and beans or lentils for dinner. Some bags of dehydrated vegetables as well. I also mylar up smaller packages of things like cinnamon, sugar, salt, pepper, spices, butter powder, garlic, etc. and add them to the pile. I usually toss in a couple packs of pork/fatback or whatever it's called that store for a good while at room temperature. You find it out in the aisle in the meat section of the grocery store. That's for some fats. But they have to be changed out periodically. There's more but I can't recall all of the contents at the moment. There is enough room left to throw in a couple cans of chicken, tuna, ham or beef at the last minute.
All of this gets stored in a number of sort of a half size heavy duty storage bin with lid. I figure each one of these totes has enough food for two people to eat pretty well for two weeks.
The intended purposes of these (aside from needing to store the gallon bags in something anyway) are to give us somewhat a complete diet for a period of time that we can toss into a vehicle(s) if we suddenly saw the need to vamoose. Grab a couple, few of those and bolt. They may also be a parting gift for relatives or friends who show up but that we had not planned on feeding long term. Maybe for a good neighbor or other ally to keep them going while we figure things out. At least I can give them something.
Or we can just eat out of them ourselves, maybe in the beginning.
As mentioned, you will want to start looking at a water plan as well.
Have fun and I look forward to reading about your progress!

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
 
#8 ·
Well, what you have is what you have...

500lbs of rice in a hot garage would be better than 500lbs of rice you never buy because you don't have an ideal storage location.

A five gallon bucket will hold about 33 lbs of white rice.

Keep balance in mind.

If you are prepping a full year of calories in rice alone, that also means years of water, fuel, security, etc. It means surviving in a world where you can't go shopping for years. It means prepping everything else you will need live long enough to actually need that 500lbs of rice.

Once you start thinking on that scale, I think you will realize that its probably worth it to build an underground storage bunker for your rice anyway and solving multiple problems with one operation.

Or in other words...its unlikely your ONLY problem will ever be that you don't have 500 pound of rice.
 
#16 ·
Well I already have a pretty decent LTS inside the house. And I have enough water and wood fuel / propane to last more than a year.

Right now I’m up to around 6 months of food storage for my family of 4( 2 adults 2 small chicken ).

The issue with the rice in the garage is complicated.

One I don’t want another rodent problem.

Two it’s expensive to bag all that rice up in Mylar with oxygen absorbers. That’s worth doing for 10 years of storage. Maybe it’s worth doing for 5. It’s NOT worth it for 1 or 2 years.

An alternative to bagging and sealing everything would be to just get a big metal airtight ( ish ) container to keep the rats and bugs out. Fill it with 50 lb bags of rice and then rotate them out every year.

I can for example buy 3 , 32 gallon metal garbage cans for less than 90 bucks. And rice is like .40 cents a pound or less.

If the rice will last 2 or 3 years that way I can just give the stuff away every couple of years to charity, or maybe make booze with it ?
 
#10 ·
Aer, you can't do anything underground in Houston, the water table is too high. We are pretty much stuck with house/garage/outbuilding/storage unit.
 
#13 ·
For "dry goods" I store various grains (wheat, oats/oatmeal, barley, amaranth, quinoa, etc.) several varieties of dried beans (pinto, kidney, white, garbanzo, red, black, and tepary) and lentils, rice, potato flakes, various types of pastas, salt, sugar, LOTS of herbs/spices/seasonings, freeze dried proteins (beef, chicken, turkey, pork, eggs) some powdered milk, butter powder, freeze dried/dehydrated cheese, "pantry staples" such as baking soda, corn starch, baking powder, corn meal, SOME flour (not much, just enough to keep in rotation, because I have wheat and a grain mill to grind my own flour), coffee, and tea (including herbal teas.)

I don't keep a whole lot of dried eggs, cheese, or milk in my stores, because I have dairy goats that keep me well (over) supplied with milk that I use to make cheese and other dairy products, as well as a few cattle, and fresh eggs from my chickens.
 
#15 ·
Right now my main dry food preps are 19 #10 cans of Mountain House food, in different varieties, plus about 10 or 12 of the individual meal packets in various flavors. My #10 cans include three with strawberries, and three with green peas. I also - though not "dry" storage, keep two tins of canned butter, and two DAK canned hams. In addition, we keep a lot of boxes of Triscuits crackers for my son (who has Autism) and several boxes of dry cereal. We keep these replenished and rotate them all the time. I also have a case of military MREs. Hoping to add more stores soon when I have more space cleared.
 
#24 ·
Yeah I really like buckwheat also, it is one of the things I stock ,and the groats can be sprouted/grown, so it is in my list of "seed foods" that can sprout, microgreen or grow from the foodstock that is store, my current maxim.

I got lucky with buckets from a grocery store bakery section as they sold their buckets for $1 when they emptied the icing out of them. Got a bunch of them so its nice to have the buckets available to store stuff in that isn't canned. (bear in mind rodents will eat right through plastic containers... so unless you are coating the buckets in rat poison it is not something you can leave and forget about. I hate rodents they have ruined so much of my stuff over the years. Traps are set here. In the country you can probably get away with eating any rodents you trap in hard times or use for bait for carnivores.

To be honest though I can't really fathom a long term survival scenario eventually I may get to that point. I can see the benefit of buying early to avoid food cost hikes down the road when food supply causes costs to increase. From an emergency standpoint I don't really bother beyond a 6 month scenario. Beyond that is lifestyle prepping imo.

I am not going to talk in detail about any of my food preps because there are people out there that would log that info and try to use it to my own detrement down the road. Too many people out there to cause other people harm and hardship.
 
#19 ·
Last spring, I had about 50 pounds of birdseed left, so I stored it in a metal garbage can in my garage (on concrete floor). When I opened it this winter(6 months in can), there was an inch thick layer stuck to the metal side, of molded seeds. I suppose the can "sweated" and the seed got wet. My garage is very well built and insulated, but does get damp from parking wet cars in there. I live in Mid-Missouri, so higher humility throughout summer is normal.
Anyway, none of the seed was useable, even for birds.
 
#21 ·
They sell 55gal mylar for that purpose. Be wary of large container storage as damage or human error in storage usually results in loss of the entire contents. I do store in drums I have several and some are designed to be stand alone with some first aid, clothes, assorted mylar foods, hygiene products, etc. Others are set up for emergency store and forget, designed to be out of any planned rotation, salt, sugar, etc.
 
#22 ·
I’m in the Houston area and decided to go with honeyville foods in cans. I figured it would keep dry, free of insects and rats plus easier to move around. Easier to store under beds. 5 gallon buckets are heavy and big. Last time I checked they were mostly sold out. They have a store north side of Houston with some basic foods such as beans, rice, Oats, flour and sugar.

Not sure but assume they are sold out. Cost may be more than Mylar and buckets but it was worth it to me. Use to shipping was free but they started charging a nominal fee. I’m an ingredient cook so store ingredients. My pantry has 25 pound bags of flour, sugar and rice I pull from daily. LTS is left alone. I use some of their freeze dried veggies for soups and such.
 
#26 ·
I have 1 lb. boxes of pasta. They say 8 servings on the box, but for me I think it's 7. On sale at Shop Rite, you truly can get them for $1, or not much more.

If I had 10 boxes, then, that would be around 70 times that I was eating out of them. If I eat it once a week after the apocalypse, that's 70 weeks. Just for spending $10. Again, no mylar and oxygen absorbers needed, if you're just keeping it on the level of 5 or 10 boxes.

If there's one other person in your household, that's still 35 weeks for each of you. So it's a great idea.
 
#28 ·
and that's a good way to look at it. I have a cereal container for my elbow macaroni, it holds about 8lbs, my ready to use mac sits in a quart jar on my kitchen cabinet. I have about 5lbs of spaghetti in a bread loaf container as well. the other pasta i buy as needed. I do use macaroni for lts, i have one 5 gal bucket and 6 2lb coffee cans. if i recall correctly the coffee cans hold between 3 and 4lbs each. but I am not certain at the moment.
 
#27 ·
Stuff I pack myself: spices, M&Ms& chocolate ( experiment), nuts ( experiment), backing soda, cream of tarter, spices, salt (W and W/O iodine), sugar, brown sugar, oat groats, soy, beans, wheat ( Durham, hard red, hard white, soft), rye, buckwheat, corn, quinoa, pasta (elbow, fetachani, and angel hair), potatoes, milk, rice, basmati rice,

55 gal open head drums can be used- but they are going to be very heavy. I often put multiple non mylar bags each with their own O2A, inside a 5 gallon bucket with Mylar bag, and then pour a bulk Ingredient over it. So I end up with say 10 pound of lentils, 10 lbs of pasta, and the rest is soy Or rice ( or elbow pasta works good) . Also handy because it’s hard to match 25 lb bags of beans with ~37 lb bucket capacity. You can do this with steel drums, or plastic ones with huge Mylar, but I’m not a fan. I have some corn in 55 gallon grams for animal feed with a combination of O2Aand nitrogen purge.

I’d also warn that most open head steel 55 gallon drumS I have seen were not carrying food grade products- the ones with a phenolic liner are often food grade, but you need to think of the previous contents. I can get them washed from a local foundry, and I have the SDS on the contents- not worried about their use for animal feed or when lines with a liner, but be very cautious.
 
#30 ·
They are 55 gallons, I will take a photo and put one up maybe with a cat for reference. :rofl:

22 inches diameter 36 inches tall

The butthead with the drone has already blown my OPSEC having them in the yard so I might as well give them away if I am being spied on, no room in garage, and difficulties finding a good pump solution led to this.

Like I said they are in great shape, only held tap water, and I will be going to 7 gallon totes for my water from here.
 
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#31 ·
Get as wide a variety of dry goods as you can. Also get as many spices as you can. If you are trying to force down 6 pounds(3400 calories of cooked rice) every day you will very quickly(like in the first day) become sick of it.

Some of the dry goods I have on hand

Wheat, field corn, popcorn, rye, oats(whole, rolled and cut) soybeans, pinto beans, navy beans, great northern beans, kidney beans, 4-5 types of lentils, seeds for sprouting, lots of salt, lots of sugar, lots of spices,

Then for "quicker meals"

noodles in every shape, dried fruits, jello packets, kool aid packets, 1000+ tea bags, flour, corn meal, baking soda and powder,

seasoning packets for: tacos, gravy, ranch, italian.

cake and brownie mixes, boxed side dishes like stuffing and potato powder.

As purple kitty said, cats keep the rodents away(so far) We rotate through all our stores within a couple years so nothing is packed for long term storage.



The biggest suggestion I can make is to PRACTICE cooking with whatever you store. That way you know how to cook it, what to cook it with to make it taste good and become acclimated to it. My family probably eats rice and/or beans as a part of a meal around 7 times a week. With that much practice cooking it we know how to cook it and what to add to it so the kids like it as well.
 
#32 ·
I second the practice element..this week I made a point to cook more rice than we needed Monday night to go with my Asian Crockpot Chicken(which was made up on the spot using some Asian spices I had and drabs of several Asian sauces in my fridge). It was delicious, btw..and was incredible with the rice and a bit of store bought kung pao sauce over all.. hubby says next time serve peanuts with and he'd be happier... anyway, next night, I made Chicken Fried Rice using leftover chicken and some of the rice..with some more experimentation with those sauces from the fridge. Yum. Lunches for me this week included two days of splitting a can of Campbells Chicken Tortilla soup, served over about a half cup leftover rice.. again, Yum. Dinner for hubby and I Wed night was leftover Asian Chicken and rice.. last night I made beef taco filling using dehydrated onions, peppers, and corn..turned out pretty good. Enough left for enchilladas tomorrow night. Tonight is Brinner night. I would say to stock up on various sauces to make playing more fun and tasty. Oh, that leftover rice? Just now, my 7 yr old grandson asked for plain rice with some kung pao sauce on top, finally using up that batch. Might not do Asian next week, but I will sure make a good batch of rice for the fridge. Practice with preps is not that difficult..
 
#35 ·
Get the Goya Ham seasoning packets if you can, they are great for any sort of bean dish (do have msg).
 
#36 ·
If you want good nutrition, store powdered, not instant milk in #10 cans with anti-humidity packets. And dried eggs. With those two, oatmeal (not instant), flavoring, reconstituted dried fruit, you can make baked oatmeal and your family will love it.

Beans are difficult to get down without bacon or ham. Lots of garlic helps and adding rice to the mix helps. And be sure to store a 2-3 quart pressure cooker for older beans you may acquire. If you store wheat, you can learn to make meat substitute with wheat gluten and beef bouillon.

I store dried apples I buy 25 lbs at a time, add these (reconstituted) to my flour (home ground with various grains), add dried eggs, dried milk, a bit of oil, handful of raisins, and make waffles (pancakes if electricity is an issue) 4 days a week. Good tasting and very nutritious. I use fresh eggs if available.
 
#37 ·
I like rice with thai peanut sauce, chicken or spinach is good with this, too.

Ground who!e cornmeal does not keep very well. It's the only ground grain I keep in the fridge or freezer. Degerminated cornmeal keeps longer but has fewer nutrients and doesn't taste as good.

Some buckets are handy for water if you have to dip it. Much cheaper than jugs, too.
 
#45 ·
Some years ago, I was blessed finding a salvage place with a semi-trailer load of stackable nesting food grade open top 4 gallon steel drums w/lids and clamp rings. I bought 100 for $400 bucks. (they preciously contained maraschino cherries)

Pressure washed & air/sun dried them all & good to go.

Near bullet proof bulk food, ammo & gun-powder storage.
(coffee can is for scale)

 
#46 ·
Not purchasing, exactly, but more like gleaning.

A couple of months ago I tried something I'd read about: I saved the skins, peels and ends of the purple onions we were pickling, or using in pickling recipes. I dried them then ground them up in the blender. It made a beautiful and flavorful onion powder, purplish in tint, a full but sweet flavor, not bitter or pungent.

At first I was simply making it for Husband to use in his grill rubs. It's so good and so easy that I've kept on accumulating it. We can use it in soups, stews, casseroles, etc. It can stand in as onion flavor if we do not have actual onions. Of course it will never take the place of an actual onion but at least we can have the flavor.

Just yesterday I ran across a forum post from a home canner who was doing the same thing with her tomato peels, as she processed her tomatoes for canning. DARN IT, missed opportunity, I've already processed several many tomatoes! But I did process a batch of tomatoes today, steamed, peeled, cored and frozen to accumulate for canning recipes. The peels are in the dehydrator now. I plan to grind them up in the blender as tomato powder for soups, stews, sauces, etc.

Oh well on the missed opportunity. Those earlier peels went in the composter and fed the worms.

We recently pulled our carrots, sliced them thinly using our Kitchen Aid mandolin slicer attachment, and dehydrated those. Worked out well. A sink full of carrots reduced to three pints.

When we had devoted enough freezer space to summer squash we started slicing, spicing and dehydrating squash slices. It worked out well. The spiced squash slices are tasty as is, or rehydrated.

When we were overwhelmed with cherry tomatoes, we spiced and dehydrated those. Sometimes they do not make it into storage. :) :)

All of this was done with food from raised bed gardens in our front yard (fenced and sunny) and a second hand Nesco dehydrator purchased on Craigslist over 10 years ago.

Truth in advertising, the tomato peels are in our new, first 'store bought' Nesco dehydrator.

I've dehydrated potatoes and celery in the past and I really didn't enjoy the reconstituted product.

Right now I have a small amount of commercially dried green and red bell peppers, tomato powder, cheddar cheese powder, powdered eggs for baking, some powdered milk and powdered sour cream, hummus powder, and commercially dried carrots on the shelves. All of these are in fairly small denominations.

Adding the dehydrated peppers and a spoonful of tomato powder to the powdered hummus when reconstituting it, along with some granulated garlic, cayenne pepper, chili powder, cumin, chili oil and olive oil is divine.

Oh, and we also have home grown, home dried crushed cayenne peppers stored.

None of this is in the hundreds of pounds. Mostly I store in canning jars.

Prior to moving to this house, I had three (3) second hand dehydrators off of Craigslist for pennies on the dollar. I often had them all cranking when I was drying large batches (typically store bought apples and bananas.) We had a whole house, stand up attic with shelving in that house so I had ample storage. (In terms of cabinet space, dehydrators are space hogs, it's true.)

We don't have that kind of attic space here so I donated two of those dehydrators when we moved here full time.

This is the first year we've had a raised bed garden and I missed having more than one dehydrator, so I cleaned out some cabinet space and bought a second dehydrator on sale at walmart.com.

I did check several online resale resources first. Around here, used dehydrators are slim pickings at the moment.
 
#47 ·
I think I've said this before that I tend to buy stuff that I can sprout or grow in terms of dried foods, it is mostly seed type foods.

This video goes into more detail on specific food items.




Also this video may provide some non seed food items that are part of my "dry food" that is mostly "powdered food"



add baking soda or chalk in small amounts, and some multivitamins and supplements (also dry)
 
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