Not sure about the flour, but the salt and sugar will keep pretty much forever in buckets. They may cake, but that should be the worst of it.

 

flour doesn't store as well as many items, having a relatively short shelf life. However, if you are planning to use the foods you store on a regular basis, then store flour. I have flour, but rotate it out regularly. For long term storage, I keep wheat, not the flour. Wheat, packed in a bucket will last for 30 years, but you need a grinder to make it into flour. Sugar, salt and rice will last FOREVER (properly packed).

 

Actually, flour stored in mylar and using o2 absorbers, the LDS is now saying you'll get 10yrs.

Rice should be stored in mylar due to oxygenation.

But salt and sugar, just in freezer bags in buckets or storage totes.

 

Sugar lasts forever in the form of honey... That's what I keep a ton of around. Good for other health factors too, vitamins, enzymes, etc.

 

honey can last for hundreds or thousands of years, they've found it in Egyptian tombs. However, honey can also mold if it is not sealed. It can also crystalize (but then, you just have to heat it and melt it again)

I've read that processed honey loses most of it's vitamins and enzymes during the heating and straining processes. raw honey is best for you in terms of vitamins. I suggest keeping your own bees

Granulated white sugar will last virtually forever too though. Just make sure it's sealed from moisture and insects. It might clump together if it gets moisture in it, but then you just have to break it apart again.

the same is true of salt. it never goes bad. If you're storing salt, be sure it is iodized salt. The human body needs iodine and iodized salt is likely the only way most people get it. iodized salt can turn yellow over time because of the iodine, but it is only a cosmetic change and doesn't affect the taste or usefulness.

 

get straight up grain and not flour. its better for you and lasts longer. you only need to invest in a hand mill.

 

i have this meat grinder i bought off ebay, i jams up when i grind meat. can i use it for grain milling?

 

Taste wise, if you grind your own wheat into flour, is it similar to what you'd buy in the store? (So sad that I'm not too many generations away from wheat farmers - and I'm learning all this stuff fresh)

 

it will be nuttier. and oh so much more flavorful.

 

In my experence beans do not store well. They seem to become hard even after cooking for days. They might make refried beans, which I haven't tried yet.

 

Don't forget that Wheat....

Can be sprouted and then become a fresh supply of greens full of vitamins. Or you can add the sprouts to a stir-fry.

I have seen youtube vids where people are sprouting wheat to feed some fresh greens to their chickens during Winter..


Sierra Dave

 

Flour doesn't last as well as whole wheat, isn't as versatile or as nutritious.

Salt and sugar will last forever without any special storage other than keeping it dry and keeping ants out of the sugar. Don't put an O2 absorber in with them or they turn into bricks. It's not needed anyway since O2 is not their enemy like it is with foods.

 

Fellas, how about grits???? Store sealed w/ o2??

 

Grits store fairly well with O2 absorbers. They don't have any oils to go rancid. But being a cracked product, don't store as long as the whole grain would. I have some I put away 10 years ago or so and they taste fresh. Who knows about the nutrition level. But they're plenty edible.

One thing I know from experience, in a worst case scenario, let's say you are 100 miles from nowhere, and you can only carry 200 pounds of dried goods and you don't know if you are going to be able to get a moose or something similar, one thing I know for a fact is that you can live on beans and squirrels/rabbits/grouse. you could even live on beans alone. but you are not going to feel too good living on wheat berries that you are grinding up for flat bread, or a hundred pounds of pancake mix, or a bunch of rice.

The reason for the bean/grain combo is nutrition and protein. When you combine beans and grains, their different amino acid makeups form to combine complete proteins. They also each contain different nutrients and grains are higher in calories. There's a reason that some grain was always the staple of the local diet, whether wheat, barley, rice, corn or whatever. "Bread is the staff of life."

You'll live better on a bean/grain combo than just beans along. Ask the native Americans.

 

another thing that stores really well is dried corn (not on the cob), soybeans (which I wouldn't have personally), and a huge bucket of lard. Butter will go rancid after a short time. Forget flour of any sort. Garlic, especially dried, can last a really long time. So can dried onions.

One thing I know from experience, in a worst case scenario, let's say you are 100 miles from nowhere, and you can only carry 200 pounds of dried goods and you don't know if you are going to be able to get a moose or something similar, one thing I know for a fact is that you can live on beans and squirrels/rabbits/grouse. you could even live on beans alone. but you are not going to feel too good living on wheat berries that you are grinding up for flat bread, or a hundred pounds of pancake mix, or a bunch of rice.

There is a lot to be said about the old "bullets and beans" survivalist mentality. The good stuff like canned peaches and beef jerky and sugar will be long gone when you still have a real food like beans. corn and wheat and rice are just fluff.

 

I totally disagree with what you're saying. While beans are a good source of protein, wheat (ground into flour and made into flatbread, etc) and rice are also needed to help balance out your diet and give you nutrition. Beans are classified as a vegetable and that falls into the 3-5 servings per day category. Flour/rice is the base of the pyramid, at 6-11 servings. Simple math shows you are to eat twice as much flour/rice than veggies per day. It's the base of the pyramid and that should say something.

Im not saying that beans shouldnt be considered, we all know how good they are, but you shouldnt discount the other items. Why not add rice to your beans and have a good meal? Besides, rice is a good source of carbohydrates and enriched rice (mostly what we buy in the US), has had a lot of its nutrients lost during the milling process, but is re-added, per FDA requirements. Pasta will keep for a long time and should be considered as well.

While flour may only keep a few years if stored properly, wheat will store 10-15 years (some say longer), if stored right. With a hand mill, you can create flour, which in turn, makes bread, cereal, etc., further helping you eat properly and will fight malnutrition. I supplement my emergency food rations with a supply of Centrum vitamins, just to be safe. Plus, Ive heard of people planting their wheat and making their own crops. With this and an emergency seed bank, you can start to get yourself back on track, if its a prolonged SHTF or EOTWAWKI event.

Eating a "beans only" diet is going to lead to malnutrition. Im sorry, but your "beans and bullets" only advice could get someone in a serious predicament during a SHTF moment and anyone reading this post should take what you said with a grain of salt (and salt is its own topic....)

 

things like herbs and sugar can be left out. keep seeds instead. fresh herbs go farther. also items with low nutrional value should be left out. you want high calorie high protien foods stored. things with good nutrion. so check your stores and start using up those with very little nutrional value and start increasing those with good nutrional value.

 

Thanks Mike!

BTW, being from N.O., I have no problems eating red beans and rice!! Ate some for the past 2 days!!! MMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm-GOOD!!!

 

Beans and rice stored in mylar bags with oxygen absorbers are supposed to be good for around 20 years.

Instead of flour, store oats and grind it into what you need.

Sugar and salt stores well with no oxygen absorbers

Honey stores good for just about forever.

Those same questions have been posted here hundreds of time. Please read through this list of thread about stockpiling food - http://www.survivalistboards.com/tags.php?tag=stockpiling+food

 

Do you need the O2 absorbers if you vacuum seal them?

 

Thanks for all the advice. I appreciate it all very much. Just a little comment on some of the discussion about beans. For the most part we as Americans can only theorize about sustainability and nutrition in a long term survival scenario, but this is not true for central and south america. Having lived for over twenty years south of the border in Mexico, Guatemala and Brazil, I can tell you that beans are a primary part of the daily diet of hundreds of millions of people that survive and work very hard on nothing but a diet of mostly beans, corn tortillas and or rice. They eat very few vegetables and fruit and only on rare occasions. This is not to say they are perfectly healthy or that they could not be better nourished, but only that they survive all of their lives this way with no major problems. It is important when theorizing to remember that there is a big world out there with a long history and many have gone through and/or are currently right now going through what we in the US are preparing for.

As far as for me personally, I am better set then most. I moved to 10 acres last year that is 20 miles from any town. I am in the process of installing 6000 feet of underground drip irrigation on one acre for a garden area. I have located 3 wild honey bee hives which I plan to capture as soon as I get some boxes. I have a chicken flock and a years worth of stored feed for them. I also have a small 1/3 acre water tank that is the only water for miles and have a good wildlife population coming to it. It had fish in it but the extreme drought here caused a drop in oxygen and they all died. I plan to restock once it rains again. I am currently looking for a diesel generator for back up electricity should there be a power grid shutdown. I have access to crude oil and free natural gas (oilfield byproduct) to run my generator off of. By years end I will have a water tower with a 1000 gallon tank that will be filled by a solar pumping system. I also have complete BOB's for each person in my family if our home site should be discovered and envaded and we need to flee to the woods. Each BOB has all essential survival tools for a long term scenario and weighs 32lb without clothes, gun and ammo. These things are not unusual for me as I have lived very poor countries where survival was just part of life and I learned true survival skills from the best survivalist on earth, the natives (Indians). As I said before, I am better prepared then most.

 

Oh one thing that I want to mention is Cassava Flour. In the Amazon, this is the primary dietary food source of the Amazon Natives. It is a dehydrated meal substance like corn meal. It can be used for an almost unlimited number for meal options and it will store for years if you keep it dry. It has much more nutritional value then wheat flour and has a lot of fiber. The problem is that it is expensive to acquire in the US because it is imported from Africa. I am trying to acquire some cassava plants to experiment in growing the planted here in the US. If I am successful I will be more then glad to not only help other grow this plant, but also teach you how to make your own cassava flour. The other benefit is that the leaves of the plant itself it very useful. The leaves are very nutritious and can be eaten life spinach or collard greens. The plant does not grow from seeds. The actual stalk of the plant is sectional and each section can sprouted out for a new plant. So far I have been unable to find a source for the plant, even though I have seen some information about people growing it in Florida. This plant could be an essential part of survival for thousands as one plant can produce 100lbs of tubers in a season. The tubers can be used like potatoes right out of the ground, or your can turn them into flour for long term storage. During the dehydration process the by product is pure starch. This starch is used in the US under the name of "Tapioca", but it is the same thing as corn starch and can be used for many other things and is an alternate source of carbohydrates. So essentially, every part of the cassava plant has useful. There is no waste.

 

Not really. Your grinder is probably clogging because you are putting too big of pieces of meat in it. Try cutting you meat into cubes and chilling them before you grind them. I grind several hundred pounds of wild game (deer & pigs) a year with a home built grinder system. I used a 1/2HP evaporation cooler motor and a large hand meat grinder. I bolted both to a 4 foot section of a 2X12" pine board and attached a 12" pulley wheel to the grinder and 2" pulley wheel on the motor with a fan belt drive between. This slows the grinder down and gives it more torque.

 

Just out of curiosity, about long will flour last if stored properly?

 

LDS' website says you can get about 10 years storage out of it, properly stored with mylar and 02 absorbers, of course.

I just packed some sugar and flour in mylar/02. Ive noticed that it doesnt get as "hard" as rice does. What I mean, is the bag doesnt seem to suck down on it as much as rice bags do. I dont know if my 02 absorber didnt do what it was supposed to, or I didnt put enough 02 absorber in with it....the bags have a good seal, they just didnt "implode".

 

I'm sure this situation varies from person to person, too. You know, the whole beans vs. rice vs. combination...

It's like working out. There's no single workout plan that works for everybody. Everybodys body functions differently and responds to different things. Find what food source(s) works for you. What makes you feel energetic, what you don't get sick of, and what you can digest well. We have time now to experiment with these things. Then stock up on what you need, instead of guessing.

 

Okay. I am going to repost this question because I did not get an answer to it.

How long will wheat flour stay good if stored properly? Will it stay good for 6 months, a year, 2 years? I already know that wheat grains last longer, so please do go there. I am just wanting to know how long I can expect normal all purpose wheat flour to last, if I choose to store some of it as well.

 

Forget this question. I found a great site that as all the information on food storage I need. Some of you might get some useful information from it as well so I will post the link.

https://www.usaemergencysupply.com/information_center/storage_life_of_foods.htm

 

Soooo question...

This stuff seems to be good for a great period of time.

But what about when you actually need to dig into it, and you open and close these bags/barrels on the daily? You're introducing fresh oxygen and possibly humid air into the container on the regular.

I feel like this has to affect it in a negative way, and possibly shorten it's lifespan?

 

Sifting is the best way to restore 'fluff' to flour. The loss of fluff is basically just caused by the particles settling over time. Sifting it fixes this.

Of course, if you're going to mix it with water and make dough, it won't make much difference other than you'll have to work a little harder to knead it at first.

 

Problem solved then. For most of my baking, I end up sifting the flour any way, so that takes care of that. Since I dont currently own a grinder, I believe that instead of stocking wheat, Ill just stock flour. As it was stated earlier, its cheaper and easier in the long run to do that.

 

I hate the time and effort that goes into grinding wheat as much as anyone, and I store some flour for convenience. But wheat is too versatile to replace entirely with flour in my opinion. You can make it into hot cereal without grinding. Make it into bulgur for quick rehydration for fast meals. Sprout it to change the nutritional profile and provide a source of greens and live enzymes in the winter. Sprouting all sorts of seeds is a good idea anyway, not just wheat. But most importantly, if this were to go long term, wheat can be planted, to provide more wheat.

 

Right on! Most people here are either wheat grain or flour people. I think the real solution lies in storing both. Store flour for a short term event and wheat grain for long term event. Nobody knows for sure what the future holds, so It is best to prepare for the worst and be wrong then to prepare for something small and be wrong.

 

If you eat what you store, store what you eat. None of these are an issue as you will store the right foods to get proper nutrition in enough quantity to survive whatever period you want. ie if you use 2 pounds a rice a month you know you need 24 pounds per person per year. Ten years means 240 pounds. Use your two pounds per month from out of your stores and replace it when you shop. Same formula works with beans, sugar, coffee, salt, can goods.

The added benefit is you will not have diet shock / depression if it hits the fan as yo will continue to eat a diet of what you are accustomed to.

Again look into Diatomaceous Earth( D.E. ) it will prevent and eliminate any and all insect infestation in stored dry goods.

 

If you eat what you store, store what you eat. None of these are an issue as you will store the right foods to get proper nutrition in enough quantity to survive whatever period you want. ie if you use 2 pounds a rice a month you know you need 24 pounds per person per year. Ten years means 240 pounds. Use your two pounds per month from out of your stores and replace it when you shop. Same formula works with beans, sugar, coffee, salt, can goods.

The added benefit is you will not have diet shock / depression if it hits the fan as yo will continue to eat a diet of what you are accustomed to.

Again look into Diatomaceous Earth( D.E. ) it will prevent and eliminate any and all insect infection in stored dry goods.

Excellent advice. I tend to live on fast food because I'm lazy, but when I do cook for myself I tend to stick with staple foods, mostly rice, beans, etc., as well as foods made from those like canned soups, stews, and chili. Therefore, that's what I have in my food stockpile: Dehydrated potatoes, beans, rice, pasta, SPAM, canned beef stew, and some extra non-essentials that can be used to make staple foods more palatable like sugar, salt, pepper, mustard, pasta sauce, and the like.

Add to that the fact that I don't get "food boredom" and can literally be content eating the exact same thing for months at a time and I'm fairly well-off food wise.

 

Hey everyone, I just purchased buckets, mylar bags and oxidizers. I am not sure what my next step is to prep my flour and sugar for long term. Does anyone know. I heard I need to get all air out using vaccum, but not sure how to do this. Any help is appreciated. I also would like to meet up with other preppers in my area, to ensure a few like minded buddies.

 

No vacuum is required. Just put the food in the mylar, drop in the O2 absorber and heat seal the bag. Simple as that. Though there are some tricks to getting the seal right and such, and it's important to make sure you use the right size of O2 absorber. There's an amazing mega thread full of info on mylar and food storage in the Disaster Preparedness section. It gets bumped regularly, so it will always be on the first page or two of the forum.