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Old 01-02-2011, 07:51 AM   #1 (permalink)
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Food storage?

Mods, I believe this is the correct place for this thread if not please feel free to move it, and accept my apologies!

How many people here have put up food? Now when I say put up food Im talking about food storage. It could be long term longer than 6 months, intermediate 1-6 months, and short term about a month. Now before you all go saying that im crazy im not doing this for any other reason than im cheap and buying in bulk now when the prices are lower is a sound investment!

I right now have approx 3 months of food stored up. I would like to stretch that to 6 months, and eventually to a year.
Right now my main problem is finding the 5 gallon buckets that are food grade.
I have tried burger king, the bakery at Wal-Mart, and I really dont want to have to buy them, when places are just throwing them away. What do yall suggest?
I have given thought to storing cornmeal, red wheat, and rice. My wife isnt a big fan of beans, but it may not be a bad idea to have some of those as well.
Also anyone got any tips to storing water? I know that is the main thing to surviving, especially if there is a natural disaster, I just dont want to be caught flat footed, and have to rely on the red cross or FEMA to take care of me, when I can be in relative comfort myself.
Anyway I may seem crazy but its just a thought, what do yall think?
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Old 01-02-2011, 08:43 AM   #2 (permalink)
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so this is for the apolocalypse/terror attack/nuclear war etc right?


its an interesting concept. i think most people have at least thought about it at some point, but i wonder how many people would go ahead and plan and implement it.

i know my wife would personally think im nuts, but i dont think its such a bad idea.

have you tried storing food before? food with either high sugar or high salt content tend to store best for a few months at least. i have no idea about long term storage though. usually food with that has been vacuum-formed is used in long term storage because its free of bacteria.

i guess someone like starkizzer would be an ideal person to contribute here. my mrs is a nutritionist and dietitian so i'll ask the brainstrust when it comes to these sort of questions.
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Old 01-02-2011, 08:59 AM   #3 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by dlish View Post
so this is for the apolocalypse/terror attack/nuclear war etc right?
That is one possibility, but not the main reason I am doing it. See im very frugal, like counting pennies frugal. Cant help it, just the way I am, and when I see prices of all food going up, it makes me want to store food, so I can buy it cheaper, then when I need it open one up and use it.
I grew up dirt poor, and have made a little something for myself, so I want to make sure to keep what I have. Thats why I learned how to can, Fruits vegetables, and some meats.
Ive not had much luck w/ the meats yet, but im still working on it.
I can even remember a bunch of my relatives getting together and smoking a hog and we have smoked a deer before as well (once you get it lit, its smooth sailing from there)
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Old 01-02-2011, 09:30 AM   #4 (permalink)
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When I was brining a turkey, I used one of these buckets from our kitty litter. I used to keep them in the garage for car washing functions, but if you clean them well, they might suit your purpose for grains. Hopefully, either you have cats or know someone that does.

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Old 01-02-2011, 09:33 AM   #5 (permalink)
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The Mormons are serious about food storage. Here is a link to some of their tips to their members. One of the things I noticed on my quick glance over is making sure you rotate the food. There are also water storage tips here.

Family Home Storage
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Old 01-02-2011, 09:36 AM   #6 (permalink)
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Before you go all nuts with food-grade buckets, realize that there is little you cannot can with a boiling water canner and a pressure canner, so keep canning. I've yet to get into pressure canning (which is what you'd need for meat), but every year, I teach myself to can another couple of things on my list. So far, I can can fruit, tomatoes, and applesauce. We put up a lot of tomatoes and applesauce this fall. I usually end up with more than a year's supply of applesauce this way, and end up giving some away to friends. Canning allows you to preserve things at the peak of freshness.

Also, utilize your freezer. It is really surprisingly easy to freeze your own fruits and vegetables. I need a bigger freezer, because I'm running out of space for all the stuff I like to freeze. For example, I have one shelf in my fridge that is all desserts--apple cake, zucchini bread, and cookie dough. I have another shelf that is all frozen vegetable stock. How do I make stock? I save the trimmings from clean vegetables--peels, ends, whatever--in a ziploc in my freezer. Obviously, the freezer isn't so useful for a survival situation with no power, but you'd be sitting on at least a month's worth of food, especially if you had a chest freezer in a cold location that you kept mostly closed.

Realize that some things cannot be stored for long periods of time without them turning rancid, specifically things that have any bran or natural oils left in them (like coarse cornmeal, whole wheat flours, steel cut oats, or oily nuts). They need to be in your freezer or fridge or somewhere cold.

Given the chances of spoilage from not storing things correctly, I honestly think it's better to buy some things in smaller amounts. There are a lot of nasty critters that can get into your food stash if you're not careful about it. Think about that--how much would it suck if you opened up your five-gallon bucket of flour to find it full of flour moths?

Root cellaring is another possibility depending on where you live. Root Cellaring - Modern Homesteading - MOTHER EARTH NEWS - Root Cellaring

But to answer your question on food-grade buckets: you can buy them at a brew supply store. Here's a place online that has some: Plastic Fermenters for Beer and Wine | HomeBrewIt.com Places don't "throw them away." Food grade buckets generally get reused, and reused, and reused by the restaurant who has them.
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Old 01-02-2011, 09:56 AM   #7 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jewels View Post
When I was brining a turkey, I used one of these buckets from our kitty litter. I used to keep them in the garage for car washing functions, but if you clean them well, they might suit your purpose for grains. Hopefully, either you have cats or know someone that does.
Does that kitty litter box have an o ring rubber seal? That maybe a good idea as well.

Snowy,
I know I need to keep canning, but I can get more stuff in bulk, and it would make it easier to store. For instance I can get 5 5 gallon buckets stacked in my storage closet. It is harder to get that many cans, in bulk, stored in the same location.
I also plan on burying some of them.... dont judge me, just realize this works for me. Having the food in Mylar bags, inside the 3 or 5 gallon buckets would need to be something that would help keep rodents from actually getting inside.
I would also like to know what you guys do to help convince your significant other about storing food? My wife kinda understands the idea of being able to have some food put aside. But how do I help convince her that we may need a longer storage idea?
Thanks guys, the info has been really helpful!
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Old 01-02-2011, 11:21 AM   #8 (permalink)
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Resident chick with Mormon upbringing speaking... Eeeek! No!!!!! Don't use just any plastic bucket for your long-term food storage! Buckets from scented clumping kitty litters are especially dangerous. Do you have any idea what crazy chemicals are involved -- and they have unavoidably leached into the plastic! Not to mention the fact that since they're not food-grade their production quality controls did not take into account the toxicity of their components.

We go for the 18 quart food grade buckets which you can find at Smart & Final for fairly cheap. For smaller quantities I especially like the BPA-free plastic snap-top boxes with rubber seals, Lock & Lock brand. When we live in something bigger than this ~300 sq. ft. apartment, we're going to invest in more. That bucket size is big enough for a 20 lb bag of rice, which we typically go through in 6 months. We also have dried pinto beans, chickpeas, split peas, powdered vegetable broth, and a few other things in our wimpy excuse for stores.

I'd also like to have large amounts of flour, sugar, and dehydrated milk on hand, but I'm still warming up my husband to that idea. I make the argument that it's always good having the basics for a meal handy in case we don't want to go shopping. It's especially nice in the wintertime when we don't want to dig out our cars for a trip to the store.

I grew up in a house where we had a garage with huge stores. Buckets of red wheat grains (accompanied by a grinder), buckets of honey from my dad's bee-keeping days, barrels of water, buckets of dried beans, peas, potato flakes, tang, dried milk... We also had seeds, plant hormones and fertilizers for emergency planting, spare bottles of propane, a propane camping stove, and canning supplies which we used for our bumper-crops of Apricots. Oh, and our backyard had a vegetable garden along with a veritable orchard over 20 dwarf and semi-dwarf fruit trees that were carefully planned so something was fruiting no matter what time of the year (1/2 acre lot in California). We would rotate out our stores every few years. I do recall times in my childhood when Dad was out of work, the food banks weren't welcoming, and we were utterly dependent on our stores and garden for survival. It was actually pretty fun coming up with new recipes for the same old stuff...
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Last edited by genuinegirly; 01-02-2011 at 11:24 AM..
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Old 01-02-2011, 03:07 PM   #9 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by woohog1 View Post
Does that kitty litter box have an o ring rubber seal?
It's a tight seal that definitely kept things dry so I think of it as airtight, but more than likely it's not. Unfortunately, I no longer have one around or I'd check for you.
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Old 01-02-2011, 03:25 PM   #10 (permalink)
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If you want food for emergency purposes, you could get MREs. (Meals Ready to Eat) These have a very long shelf life.
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Old 02-14-2011, 12:12 PM   #11 (permalink)
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Here's an article from thekitchn with tons of tips: How To Start a Food Storage Plan On $10 A Week | Apartment Therapy The Kitchn
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