storing food in buckets

[slightly disturbed]

I am curious how you store food in 5-6 gallon buckets. I had the idea of putting a weeks worth for my family in each bucket. Also I am currently building a 72hr bucket complete with cooking utensils. Add water and fire and your good for 3 days. I figured if you put 5 gal of rice in one a 5 of beans in another ,you would have to open it just to get a couple of servings.

Read More

 

[AMProducts]

Generally, when you get to the point of "storing food in buckets" you're talking about bulk foods, not just a collection of cans for a 72hr kit. If you just want to store cans, I recommend old milk crates. Don't steal them... it just makes people mad, but you can buy brand new ones from uline.

When you do get to the point of storing bulk food in buckets, I highly recommend sticking to storage foods you will eat. A lot of people get all crazy with storing hard red wheat, yet have never baked a loaf of bread in their life. The stuff I usually store: white navy beans, white rice, and along with a large collection of freeze dried vegetables from honeyville grain I have everything I need to make soups, stews and gumbo. Which, when I'm not cooking BBQ, is about all I eat.

A few of the things I would highly recommend if you're getting into storage food:

Bullion cubes - Add to steamed rice to make it taste better, also as a broth base for soups and stews
Salt - Most people don't think about this, but it's easy to store and is usually pretty cheap
Cooking oil - it's a pain in the *** to store because it has a tenancy to go rancid before you use it, so storage requires having a large rotating stock
Spam and other canned meats - makes soups better and more nutritious and cuts down on the amount of salt you need. Even canned tuna can really spice up some fried rice (pro-tip: don't drain the tuna, add the whole thing to the rice)

 

[knuckle Head]

As AMProducts stated, I have to agree, here is basically how I set up a bug out bag or 72 hr bags,

I bought a couple black and couple of woodland camo duffle bags, these are my bug out bags, they are easier to carry than a 5 gallon bucket and usually stay put when set in a vehicle. bag #1 has a change of clothes for the person, along extra under wear, t-shrits, a fleece sweater, a wool cap and couple pairs of glove, tooth brush, tooth paste, a cohglans micro stove with fuel tablets, photon flashligh, lighter, matches, 4 MRE's, two Datres bars and 2 Mainstay bars, along several 20 ounce bottles of water. Oh yeah pack of baby wipe, hand sanitizer, a bar of soap and water pur tablets, and fol open knife, teflon spoon.

Bag#2 is setup as an extension of bag #1, it has maily more MRE's, datrex bars, mainstay bars, more fuel tablets, soap bars, tooth paste, water pure tablets, less complicated but a lot more food stores.

As far as bulk food, I broke all of my food stores down to a hefty meal for one or two people, each meal is in a smaller mylar pouch that I made from 1 gallon pouches. and have put the majority of these meals into 10 gallon rubber maid containers.

I did buy some food grade buckets off carsigslist I painted them camo (as best I could) and will use them for food caches, and I have a couple I am building up trade goods, such as food, fuel tablets, rice, beans, sugar, salt, lighter, matches etc.

I might, when I decided to buy bulk food, I did it over a couple year time period and decided it was going to be very extensive. I bought a little bit of different items every pay period slowly building on what I normally use and feel would be needed for a long period of time.

 

[Sgt Nambu]

+1 on the soups, stews and gumbos, pretty much as AMProducts says. Soups have a lot going for them in that beside's the products AMProducts mentions they are about the best vehicle for scrounged herbs, plants and proteins. +1 on the bouillon cubes too. A cube in some hot water can really boost sagging morale! Hey Slightly, it occurs to me that one way to pack family meals in buckets (or packs of course), would be to use a seal-a-meal to make home made MRES as shown on numerous Utube sites and pack them in the bucket. Of course the storage life would be determined by the item with the shortest shelf life.

 

[slightly disturbed]

thanks guys. I am just having a hard time trying to justify storing 5 gal of rice or beans or any food for that matter. Cuz when it comes time to use it I will have to open so many buckets. I like the home made mre idea and Im thinkin more on those lines and then putting them in buckets for storage.

 

[Rez]

Well if you plan on staying put at home then 5 gallon buckets are a good way to go. If you get some Mylar bags you can easily cut them down and reiron them into smaller pouches. That way you can have individual meals or say a meal for 4 in one pouch. The buckets are simply a way to keep out most critters. The Mylar is what keeps the stuff fresh.

It will be a bit of work for sure but I don't think you or your family will mind when things have gone downhill and you guys are hungry.

Like my old Staff Sergeant used to preach: "The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war."

 

[Sgt Nambu]

thanks guys. I am just having a hard time trying to justify storing 5 gal of rice or beans or any food for that matter. Cuz when it comes time to use it I will have to open so many buckets. I like the home made mre idea and Im thinkin more on those lines and then putting them in buckets for storage.

Just FYI for many years I have bought 50# bags of white rice,dropped them into a rodent proof trash can and started using it. It has always kept for years. Now, my basement is very dry, otherwise I do not know if it would have worked. I don't even unbag the stuff!

 

[knuckle Head]

thanks guys. I am just having a hard time trying to justify storing 5 gal of rice or beans or any food for that matter. Cuz when it comes time to use it I will have to open so many buckets. I like the home made mre idea and Im thinkin more on those lines and then putting them in buckets for storage.

Its cheaper when bought bulk is one of the best argument I can think of, besides with food prices rising, I consider it a pretty good investment

 

[AMProducts]

As far as a "Ready meal" some of my family members have prepared ready made "soups in a jar" where all the dry dehydrated ingredients are put in a mason jar that has been sealed with the seal-a-meal attachment for sucking the air out of the jars. Again, make sure you try out the recipe first, and don't forget to put a label on it for how much water to add, and how long to cook it. The best way to go if you're doing the mason jars is to put enough food that you need X number of mason jars full of water to cook the soup.

I can't stress enough, whatever you're making make sure you like it first, otherwise all you are doing is wasting ingredients... my mom did this a few years ago, and made up a bunch of "soups" that were full of lentils and tasted horrible and had a nasty texture.

I have made a few "MRE-alike" kinda things that usually require cooking, but here are some of my favorites:

Golden rice - 2 cups white rice, 2 bullion cubes (usually chicken), 4 cups of water. (good side-dish if you don't like plain white rice) if you add chili powder and dried onions and tomato paste this becomes a nice spanish style rice dish.
Tuna Salad - Can of tuna, appropriate number of mayo packets, 1 tbsp dried onions, 1 tbsp dried celery, saltine crackers
Meat and Potatoes - Can of spam, 1-1/2 cups of potato buds (add salt when packaging), feeds 2
Chili - 1 cup sorted white beans, 1/4 cup onion, 1/4 cup celery, 1/4 cup carrots, 1-small can of tomatoes, 1 tbsp chili powder, 1 tsp sea salt (if you omit the chilli and tomatos and add peppercorns and basil it's navy bean soup) - this one requires simmering, what I do is bring it to a boil, and then pour it into a thermos bottle and let it cook itself over a few hours.

 

[knuckle Head]

I have lots and lots of both chicken and beef buillion cubes in small pouches, I also spent a lot of money on gravy and seasoning mixes.

Before putting away food stores, I suggest you consider what has been mentioned above, make sure it is foods you and your family like, easy to cook when possible and have a variety.

Have some items that are ready to eat and item that require cooking, also get some energy bars, drink mixes (non alcohol) and figure what your families confort foods are.

Lastly, keep it our of plain of the visitors and do not discuss it in detail with people unless you are planning on sharing because regardless of what everyone thinks people who think you have have food will do anything to get to it when they are hungry. Group prepping has its good points and bad, remember there is always someone who will say I will start after this vcation to disneyland and the neighbore or friends will not know, low and behold they take the vacation and come back and before they make those buys they had agreed upon, yeah you got it the ballon goes up and they are knocking on your door with every lame excuse there is, then threatening or even telling other what you have.

be careful who you trust or include, have what you need to thang onto it and prepared to do what is necessary to hold onto it, your families life will depend on it in a shtf situation.