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So I found this website with a list of food preps showing their long term storage life... (LTS)
Long Term Food Shelf Life

So I was at the store and looked at a large bag of plain white rice (25+ years LTS) but noticed it had a "best buy" date of Dec 2018. Well thats not very long term. Yes I know this isn't the exact date it suddenly goes bad, but when I think of long term I'm thinking of indefinitely.....

Anyways I thought Id start out with a base of rice and beans as a main SHTF staple, then later add some other various food preps to break up the base. Ideally I'm planning on filling up 5 gal buckets, labeling them and putting them away properly (cool dry location) and forgetting about them unless SHTF. So if I cant just buy the bag and put it away unopened, whats the best way to go about long term storage for food preps?
 
As far as rice Koda, always throw it in the deep freezer for a few weeks after you've sealed it in individual (sizes you've deemed) packages.
There ARE critter larvae in there, make no mistake about it.
The last thing you want is to open your sealed buckets when you really need them to find it unusable.
 
I've got about 60 1 gal can of Walmarts Auguson Farms 10 year food. It's reasonable, it doesn't taste terrible...nor is it great. But with it's reasonable price I always grab 3-4 can's when I go.
 
I've got about 60 1 gal can of Walmarts Auguson Farms 10 year food. It's reasonable, it doesn't taste terrible...nor is it great. But with it's reasonable price I always grab 3-4 can's when I go.

I did not know Wally sold that. I hate going in that damn store any more as it raises my blood pressure but I do end up there with Wife from time to time. Will look for this next trip. Thanks for the tip. I know they are not all laid out the same but what part of the store are you finding it in? May save me wandering all over the place to find it.
 
Alternative to the freezer method.

Cook your rice in batches and dehydrate. My rice cooker will make 3 cups cooked rice at a time and each of my dehydrator trays takes that easily. Depending on your situation you can cook and dehydrate a 50 pound bad of rice in a couple weeks. Now what you have is instant rice. IF a SHTF situation comes to fruition I do not want to spend 30 minutes watching rice cook, with this method it is basically minute rice....two minute rice to be fair.

BONUS, this is excellent material to use in DIY backpacking food packets.

~Whitney
 
They have to have a Best Buy date for everything for the gov'ment.

Most food is good much longer then the exp date.

If there are critters in there would the lack of oxygen keep them from hatching?

Also, Asian stores sell 'much better' rice & Costco has it in bulk for cheap although I've never tried it.
 
...my spelling escapes me now and then.

I liked the tip on freezing the rice before storage to kill any larvae, but was also wondering about how any bugs could grow without oxygen?

it sounds like I don't need to worry about any "best by" date and can just move forward with buying bulk and storing them. I bought some mylar bags and O2 absorbers just need to get going on this...
 
Couple years ago, was feeling worried over doom n gloom.
upload_2017-2-23_22-5-16.jpeg

Went to Home Depot, bought 4 Homer buckets
Went to Costco, bought bagged rice and beans, cans of chili, cooking spices.
Went to Fred Meyers, bought 10 pounds of dry ice.
Rice and beans, big can of chili and spices in the top of each bucket
2.5 lbs of dry ice on the top. Lid to cover, not seal.
Ice vaporized, carbon dioxide gas sank to the bottom of the bucket, displacing air.
Next day, seal the lids. Felt less worried, unprepared.

Since then, buy freeze dried camping food when on sale, Buy stuff kids don't like...
 
Couple years ago, was feeling worried over doom n gloom.
View attachment 345005

Went to Home Depot, bought 4 Homer buckets
Went to Costco, bought bagged rice and beans, cans of chili, cooking spices.
Went to Fred Meyers, bought 10 pounds of dry ice.
Rice and beans, big can of chili and spices in the top of each bucket
2.5 lbs of dry ice on the top. Lid to cover, not seal.
Ice vaporized, carbon dioxide gas sank to the bottom of the bucket, displacing air.
Next day, seal the lids. Felt less worried, unprepared.

Since then, buy freeze dried camping food when on sale, Buy stuff kids don't like...

I've heard of the dry ice method, we might start using it. Supposedly works "better" using large Mylar bags lining the bucket, then sealing the Mylar bag up after the ice has completely gasified. Plus add moisture absorbers & O2 absorbers -> I'd think you'd have rice & grains good for 20+ years. The Mylar bag just ads that extra bit of sealant to the 5 gallon bucket is all.


As far as store bought rice, there's plenty enough air in the bags to allow for usual weavels to grow & chomp away. Perfectly normal in any rice / grain. Just takes a while & good conditions for them I'd think.

Have also read on the freezing the rice first method, but haven't followed enough to see how real world successful it actually is.

We'll "probably" stay away from precooking most of our rice, for now anyways. It's a weighted decision, how much time vs will something happen where we NEED a quick meal...
 
The carbon dioxide (dry ice) is heavier than air.
As the dry ice melts, the carbon dioxide sinks to the bottom of the bucket
It's gaseous goodness fills the bucket from bottom to top, pushing the air
up and out the top. The precious grains and bug eggs are enfolded in a smothering surround of CO2. When the lid snaps on, you are good to go.
 
Bob's Redmill in Milwaukee used to have mylar bags, o2 absorbers and buckets with lids. Bob's also had gama lids, threaded bucket lids that have an o-ring seal, which seem like a good idea. I remember Winco having all of this too.

For food storage I recommend Making the Best of Basics by James Talmage Stevens.

I've been reading The Resilient Farm and Homestead by Ben Falk which is probably the best "survivalist" book I have come across yet. I found it at the library. Mr Falk grows rice in Vermont. I'm going to try growing a variety that comes from Northern Japan this year.

As an aside I had been saving and replanting sugar peas going on 6 years and lost the whole batch to some little bugs when they were in dry storage, a cardboard box in the garage. This was only $10 or so worth of seed but it only happened because I was careless. If I had given them some co2 and a sealed container I am sure they would have been fine.
 
Winco still has Gamma seal buckets, mylar bags, O2 packets and Freeze dryed #10 tins for sale at a respectable price. Stuff is in the back near the bulk food bins. For myself, I didn't want to go the whole LDS thing (not that it isn't a good thing but simply that I'm lazy) so I bought cases of the Mountain House freeze dried #10 tins (my taste preferred freeze dried food) when they were on sale and chucked them into the basement in a cool dark dry corner. Then I forgot about them. They are listed as good to eat till I'm either really old or dead. I wrote the expiration dates on the outside of the boxes with a large felt tip pen.

Mountain House has been refining how they pack their food and it is better now than in years past. The large cans, the #10 tins, use to outlast a foil packet by many many years (25 years to 7). Old foil packet food can taste disgusting -FACT. Mountain House foil packets use to be avoided by me except as great backpacking food as they had a 7 year life. So I'm talking trying to eat it after 14 years or so. Now the shelf life of the small foil packets is 30 years claimed, same as cans. Shelf life of dehydrated food is still a function of how it was stored (cooler is better), what the food is (some of it is palatable long time after "expiration date" and some isn't). Then we also did a 5 gallon bucket of beans which we have been eating off of for 2 years now or so and set up a small pantry to rotate canned food and have extra on hand. Rotation doesn't apply to the beans:)

Here's a link to the LDS (Mormon) long term food storage. These folks are the masters at it and they have it down to an art form. If you ever get a chance to see a Mormon family's food storage preps, do it, it's so impressive: https://www.lds.org/topics/food-storage/longer-term-food-supply?lang=eng&old=true

Anyway, here's a link to a decent article about food storage expiration dates: Is Your Food Expired? Don't Throw It Away Yet

And the obligatory Mountain House link: <broken link removed>
 
[QUOTE="billcoe, post: . Then we also did a 5 gallon bucket of beans which we have been eating off of for 2 years now or so and set up a small pantry to rotate canned food and have extra on hand. Rotation doesn't apply to the beans:)

Here's a link to the LDS (Mormon) long term food storage. These folks are the masters at it and they have it down to an art form. If you ever get a chance to see a Mormon family's food storage preps, do it, it's so impressive: https://www.lds.org/topics/food-storage/longer-term-food-supply?lang=eng&old=true

Anyway, here's a link to a decent article about food storage expiration dates: Is Your Food Expired? Don't Throw It Away Yet

And the obligatory Mountain House link: <broken link removed> [/QUOTE]

The rotation thing is how we have long done it. Caned and dry foods. Plenty to last a good while if we ever have the big shake here. Of course if the house falls down it will not help. If we are just cut off from the store we are good for weeks. Just keep rotating the stuff. I found yesterday that Amazon sells the stuff Wal-Mart does for the same price. Am going to try a can or two of it to see how it tastes. If it is ok will lay in a few of those too. Have one that is a cream of potato soup. Something I have always liked. If it's not too bad I can even rotate some of that in and out. Even found powdered sour cream. Had never heard of that. LOVE sour cream on a lot of stuff. Will try some and see if it works too. If it does it would make a lot of this stuff much better tasting.
 
As an aside I had been saving and replanting sugar peas going on 6 years and lost the whole batch to some little bugs when they were in dry storage, a cardboard box in the garage. This was only $10 or so worth of seed but it only happened because I was careless. If I had given them some co2 and a sealed container I am sure they would have been fine.
Re; replanting sugar peas: I would think germination would be terminated from a Co2 bath. Seems contradictory to expect bug life and plant life to be different but life is a wonderment for sure.
Anyone knowledgeable on this?
 
...that Even found powdered sour cream. Had never heard of that. LOVE sour cream on a lot of stuff. Will try some and see if it works too. If it does it would make a lot of this stuff much better tasting.

There are all kinds of nice & interesting freeze dried or canned foodstuffs now a days.

Canned butter, handy if you do not want to clarify your own and put some up.

Canned butter powder, handy in all kinds of ways.

Canned cheese ready to eat. Freeze dried canned cheese, cheese powder.

Canned honey powder.

Canned tomato powder.

Freeze dried canned yogurt. Supposed to be really great as treats, haven't tried them yet, it'd be interesting to see if any of the pro-biotics survive the process.

Etc.

Most of above are handy to add to recipes, stretch out meals, combine with others etc.
 

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