Food prep

[dschflier]

I have been organizing my food prep over the past couple of months. It has become more and more comprehensive and I believe not only is it good to have a food storage plan but also to incorporate the food stores into your daily lives. I find it is healthy and comforting at the same time.

I have access to good quality bulk foods and was interested if other people from Northern Va would be interested in coming along to pick up some stores for themself. I will not be picking up for people unless I decide to make some sort of business out of this down the road.

I currently pack my stored food in 1 gallon myler bags and then put them in 5 gallon buckets.

For now the idea is to just get like minded people together and get some food and maybe discuss ideas. This also allows people to get food together. For example I buy my beans in 25 lb bags but would prefer to get 1, 50 lb bag and split it. Everyone saves this way.


Anyone in the Northern VA area that might be interested send me a PM.

Thanks,
David

[danman]

Hi, can you tell me the best and most inexpensive places or sites to obtain bulk foods such as beans, rice, grains and other such items.

Thanks, danman

[CowboyT]

Costco, if you want big honkin' bags of rice. They may have big bags of beans as well. Shoppers Food Warehouse also has the 25 pounders.

[zephyp]

Hit the Asian/foreign markets for grain especially rice...they carry plenty of big bags and they are cheap. Several large super markets here in Nova.

[Shortstow80]

I know I am coming in from the NW and have not had the chance to shop VA, but you might want to try to look at a place called Bob's Red Mill in Oregon. Thats where I have gotten almost all of my stuff. I pick up in person but I also know that they ship(no clue of the cost). If you get orders over $500 at a time you can get it for wholesale. If you place a wholesale order it is milled fresh so you are not getting stuff that might have sat around on a pallet somewhere. I know myslef and a couple of friends have saved big by doing this.

They carry pretty much any type of grain, bean, rice, along with a lot of other items.


Steve

[dschflier]

I hadn't checked back here for some time sorry for the lack of response. I do BJs for some stuff but the majority of my bulk foods I get from restaurant depot. You need to have a business and show the business liscense then they will give you a card to shop.

This is where I get all my Beans, Pasta, sugar, salt, Olive oil, instant milk, honey and any thing else which I can use. The prices for this kind of stuff is better then at BJs and costco and you can get even larger amounts. If anyone from the area is interested in going some time I would be happy to take like minded people. I have stocked up a good amount of stuff but I also incorporate the food into my families eating. My wife thinks my preping is a bit nutty so I dont really fill her in on it, but she is aware I do it to some extent. She makes an excellent bean dip using the beans I store. I have found that a pressure cooker is an excellent way to get beans soft in under an hour. This is a huge time saver. You can get a cheap pressure cooker for $30 at Bjs. Anything that I store away that is strictly for my wife or kids I put somewhere that they wont generally look. This way it will be available if we ever need it.

I get bushels of Hard red winter wheat at a feed store and have been using it to make bread and pancakes for some time now. The wheat has nothing put on it and it is really the same stuff you can buy at whole foods except it is not threshed as much. I have planted some this past fall to see how it does I am curious to see the results.