Best Food storage solution

[bryanrheem]

What is everybody doing? Do people here buy their own grains/foods or just already completed/assembled food offerings?

What is the typical cost for a year supply of food? What brands are considered the best?

[mamabearCali]

Well right now what I am doing is storing some grains that I know how to use and cook (oatmeal, and rice). I am buying 1.5 cans per month that I need. So say in a month I use 6 cans of black beans, I am. Buying 9 cans a month. Additionally I have started to add freeze dried foods into the mix.

So for example next week when we get paid I will get $50.00 in freeze dried fruits and vegetables from honeyville, about 1/3 of that is for ordinary use, the rest is for stores. I will go to Costco and buy a bag of dry milk and oatmeal. The oatmeal comes in two bags container. One is for immediate use the other goes into a bucket for storage.

Next month (when my husband gets a bonus--we hope anyway!) we will get a case of freeze dried dairy and a several cans of freeze dried meats. It is slow, but it builds quickly and you never know when you will need it.

For example this month we had a $600 car bill and Christmas and a trip to N.Y. Since the beginning of the month I have spent $30 on groceries and will spend another ten this week. W have been living off our stores, and it has worked remarkable well. Not perfect. I still have not found a way to make dry milk palatable for drinking, but it is perfectly fine for baked goods. I could really use the freeze dried eggs about now, but we are surviving.

Start by putting away mostly the things you eat. Then add on and add on. This is a long term thing. I usually budget in an extra $60-$80 a month and have been doing so for about a year.

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[ShotgunBlast]

Buy a case if you can, and a can if you can't.

[mamabearCali]

Amen shotgun.....this month is a can month...hopefully next month is a case month

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[Palladin]

I was rearranging the pantry the other day and found a can of diced tomatoes that I bought in 2006... no rust, still had a good seal, and is smelled jut like tomatoes when I opened it.

I put it in a pot of chili. Waste not want not. I do resolve to keep my rotation a little more up to date.

[bryanrheem]

What about prepared dry foods like mountain house or chefs banquet? While I like the idea of doing it myself, I'm thinking of purchasing an immediate supply as I start my process.

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[Purdune]

Howdy,
Haven't really started yet but here is what I'm thinking.

First ways to store.
Using nitrogen for storing unsealed food stuffs. Rice and beans gets you just about everything you need. Usually these come in flimsy packaging. You can get a cheap nitrogen tank for paint ball use, and get them refilled there too. Beer supply places have them but usually more expensive. Speaking of beer I brew or at least used too. So I have four 5 gallon carboys used for fermentation. Fill these up with water.

What to store.
Vitamins. I don't see much on storing these but my thought is, if you store up on correct ones you could live for a while on them, starch/sugar, and small amount of protein. When SHTF all kinds of disease we don't have to worry about will come back without these. Vitamin C and Iodine are the two top things.
Salt. Speaking of Iodine... Salt will also be a key thing I don't see many people talk about. From basic need to preserving.
Oil. Great food source as well as cooking. Will buy in gallon tins.
Rice, beans, jerky, peanut butter, and chick peas. The combination of these provides most of what you need.
Everything else will be freeze dried to include powdered milk. Extreme long term storage and the ability to store niceties. Let's face it you will want to give your family something to smile about. A treat like strawberries and ice cream could come in handy. A large block of hard candy and or honey would also come in handy. You can use both as a preservative. Quick and easy energy source and again a treat on a bad day.

Just my thoughts. I don't have a big storage of these things. I have kept my pantry full of the above. Most of that stuff you can use in real meals so you can rotate stuff without getting odd looks at the dinner table.

[Reverenddel]

The two big sites are "The Ready Store", and "Emergency Essentials"

We have a combination of their foods stores, stuff we buy at the store in bulk that I vaccuum seal, and canned goods from the grocery.

With 5 people, we rotate things fairly well.

Don't discount MRE's as well! For $60 bucks, you get a case of 12, and just use one a day for disasters, and you get your daily calories. Just check the date on them, but I ate an MRE from 1984 the other day, and the candy, and gum didn't hold up, but everything else was perfectly fine.

[ShotgunBlast]

All this talk about Mountain House and MREs is great if you already have a nice supply. If you're just starting out, you'll get a better bang for your buck with beans/rice, pastas, and canned goods.

Skip the Nitrogen tanks and order mylar bags and oxygen absorbers.

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[Reverenddel]

Agreed, but overall, you have to mix, and match your food stores. That way you are not depending on one source.

Usually I go like this:
Refridgerated goods
Frozen goods
Canned goods
Dry goods
Freeze-Dried/Dehydrated goods
MRE's.

You can mix them, but start with a primary-secondary, so you're not burning thru one source, and left eating oatmeal, and beef jerky.

[GeneFrenkle]

But I like oatmeal and beef jerky.

[ShotgunBlast]

Wait, so I shouldn't have 6 full shelves of tactical bacon?

[Palladin]

But I like oatmeal and beef jerky.

Haven't seen that flavor... is that Quaker or a house brand?

[Reverenddel]

Great Value, Wal-mart found the hillbillies, and waterbillies love it.

Yoder's tactical bacon is the BOMB!

Love that stuff in a can, PLUS! You have the "grease" in the can for freeze dried green beans, and that makes them "SOUTHERN"

[mamabearCali]

Y'all are killing me!

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[GeneFrenkle]

Rev, don't forget that grease can be used on okra and fried eggs.

[Reverenddel]

Hells yeah! And if you vaccum pack some Bisquick w/ powder milk mixed in, you can use the Red Feather canned butter, and have some Biscuits as well!

All I need is some possum, polk weed, wild onions, acorns, and a cast iron dutch oven... Make ya' meal so good? The angel's weep cuz they can't have any!

[dorminWS]

Speaking of camp cooking and the kind of talk that makes your tongue like to slap your brains out, you can also take a few slices of that bacon, dice it up, fry it in the bottom of a pot, then put diced onions & peppers into the grease and cook them a little, then dump in a can of plain old beans or pork & beans, some ketchup, a little Tabasco and some mustard and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes. Results are as good as any beans your momma ever baked for an hour. It’s just more of that good old bacon-fat magic southern cooks have been practicing for centuries.

[GeneFrenkle]

Good Lord no! King Arthur flour as the base for biscuits! Add in some fresh laid eggs, fresh cow (fresher the better, if you know what I mean) or goat milk... good stuff.

Possum - honestly, never had it.
Polk salad - oh no. LOL
wild onions -
acorns -
Dandelions -
Mulberry jam/jelly - (picked from a tree)

Man, I'm getting "hongry" LOL

[dorminWS]

Hells yeah! And if you vaccum pack some Bisquick w/ powder milk mixed in, you can use the Red Feather canned butter, and have some Biscuits as well!

All I need is some possum, polk weed, wild onions, acorns, and a cast iron dutch oven... Make ya' meal so good? The angel's weep cuz they can't have any!

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I can +1 all of that but the possum. In my experience, the only people who ever speak with anything but disgust and revulsion about possum as food never actually tried to eat one. I'd sooner chew the @sshole out of a rotten groundhog.