You guys remember a few months back I posted about a guy who was crackin’ open some decades-old Mountain House and having himself a little taste test experience? Well, he’s at it again.
He’s got himself one of those buckets that claims to have X amount of days worth of food in it. Read it at his place…….
I’ve been ‘into’ food storage for twenty five years….and I’ve done tons of research on the subject, bought and tried all sortsa food, and created darn near Montana’s largest privately owned Safeway in my basement…..so I feel fairly qualified to say that this will end badly.
Here’s the thing: these types of kits are usually calorie-deficient, somewhat monotonous, and often not terribly appetizing. It is (in my opinion) a panacea to people who want to be prepared but don’t want to have a lifestyle – theyre for someone who just wants to make a quick online purchase, stuff it in the garage, and feel like they’re ready for the crash.
A guy I know was just telling me that he was thinking about purchasing such a kit ‘just in case’. I’m trying to steer him towards a more practical, albeit more expensive, route using regular off-the-shelf stuff from the supermarket.
You know who has this figured out? The Mormons. (No surprise, right?) These guys literally have graduate-level research labs working on just this sort of thing. And having done the research, they actually package and make available these storage-suitable foods. Go read their list of what you can get from them. And they sell it cheap enough that even the most niggardly ‘poverty prepper’ can afford it.
I have a lot of freeze dried Mountain House here for my future needs. But it’s not my primary ‘go-to’ food in a crisis. What is? My stash of ‘everyday’ food. The pasta, rice, canned tomatoes, spices, cooking oil, canned and frozen meat, flour, cornmeal, canned and jarred vegetables, oatmeal, hash browns, etc. that I have in large quantity. All things I use everyday and all things that store well.
But, to be fair, a ‘bucket’ as mentioned at the opening of this post, makes it’s strength on the portability and convenience. In theory, you can run out the door with it and know you’re not gonna starve for a month. Perhaps. I’ve taken it a step further and just put together my own ‘bucket’ for those moments when you need to run out the door…specifically, a couple 15-gallon ‘blue barrels’ loaded with freeze drieds.
Reviewing what I have in storage, post-apocalyptic meal planning would look something like this: pancakes, hash browns, scrambled eggs, biscuits, pork chops, strawberries, orange drink, milk, and oatmeal. And thats just breakfast. Lunch and dinner would be equally as broad, equally as long-term, and equally as tasty.
Just write a list of everything you’ve eaten in the last week and figure out if you could recreate it using foods that store well in the long-term. Then go buy those foods. Then when the wheels fly off civilization you’ll be eating pretty much just as well as you were beforehand. Heck, considering the erratic and horrible diet I live on now, I’ll actually eat better after the apocalypse.
My long winded point, though, is this – before you get lured into these sorts of ‘bucket kits’ do some research on calories, taste, and texture, and then see if you can’t put together something on your own. When the apocalypse hits, I have no intention of eating 3/4 of a cup of cheesey broccoli soup every lunchtime for thirty days. Given the stress and physical strain that the end of the world will put you under, I think you’re going to want more ‘stick to your ribs’ fare.
Conclusion: ‘Food buckets’, like first-aid kits, are better for your needs when you assemble your own.
Cans of V-8 juice make a good soup base and keep you covered vitamin wise. I make a lentil stew with V-8 and dried veggies about once a month. It’s healthy stuff and pretty quick and cheap.
I thought that I was the only one that used V-8 for a soup base. I make either beef/noodle or beef/dumpling soup with it………
I had been to the LDS online store before but a long time ago. I just went there again after ready your post and was (pleasantly) shocked at their prices. The selection is very small but the prices are ridiculously cheap. $3 for shipping and not tax (not stores in my State might be the reason)???
I cannot believe I didn’t use their services sooner.
Thanks for the post!!!!
I’m with you 100% on your conclusion. I’m a meat and potatoes guy, so those freeze dried meals don’t appeal to me in the least. My buckets are very close to yours with the eggs, hash browns, etc. Now if I could figure out how to freeze dry a double pepperoni/mushroom pizza and be able to reconstitute it I’d be in hog heaven………………..
If one stuck to the supermarket canned foods for short term (2-4 years), supermarket dry food (pasta, some instant stuff, etc.) for longer term (3-10 years) – assuming they vac-packed it – and commercial dehy and freeze dried (Mountain House) for meal random insertion and additions to the SM dry stuff over the period (as in MH ground beef to add to the pasta sauce for protein) and loaded up on what’s available at stunningly cheap prices from LDS stores, they’d be pretty much all set. $500 at an LDS store goes an amazing distance. Pro Tips: You’ll need a grain mill, recipe experience and a fairly wide variety of spices and seasonings, and there’s probably an LDS store, or two, in your state. Mine’s ~100 miles away and well worth the round trip 2X a year.
That said, I do have a couple stacks of the Wise and Brand X “survival buckets;” I buy a couple online whenever they turn up extremely cheap and keep them as trade fodder.
Orville,2-4 yrs canned goods? 10yrs dry goods? You must have a warehouse and a sophisticated rotation and inventory system. Just the salt,sugar,rice,pasta,beans,etc would weigh tons and require a forklift to rotate(I have done USDA and grocery delivery and know the weight+volumes you descibe). You can replace 60% or more with just some seeds and long storage fertilizer plus be much healthier(canned goods have a lot of additives). Gotta go,store has a pasta sale that is much lower than LDS or even the Commanders deal a couple posts ago.
An ISO conex box 8′ x 20′ with a 4′ wide center aisle, holds enough space for canned goods for 20 months for 1 person.
If you get a high cube, and put in a raised floor, you can store another 320 5-gal buckets of dry goods, which would feed a family of four for two years.
If you added 5 standard IBC bulk liquid totes in that center aisle, that’d hold 1375 gallons of water. You could stack them double height for double that capacity. That’s enough water for drinking and cooking to last 2 years for a family of four.
In a space slightly larger than the average SUV.
This isn’t hard, if you do it.
And unlike seeds, your stored hard goods won’t let you down if there’s an early frost, or the seeds don’t sprout well.
Whereas a 25# bag of uncracked wheat is 6 months’ bread, even all you have is two rocks to grind it with, and it’ll still deliver 100% of potential from now until 2038. For $10-$12, and no wondering whether the crop will yield anything or not. You’re also not tied down to one location waiting for it sprout, grow, mature, and be harvested.
Seed is nice, but it’s a lot iffier than bulk or canned actual food. Belt and suspenders isn’t a bad idea, sometimes. Even if you just wanted a choice.
You makes your choices, and you takes your chances.
Excuse me, make that 160 buckets, and one year x 4 people.
For the above numbers of subfloor storage, you’d need a 40′ conex, not a 20′.
The canned goods and IBC quantities are correct as posted.
BLUF, you can store a helluva lot, in not much space.
For great Freeze Dried check out THRIVE in Salt Lake. You can even become a distributer and get better discounts.
Be careful with the canned tomatoes. They have a nasty habit of eating through the cans. Doesn’t take all that long either — 3 or 4 years is enough. Don’t ask me how I know…
This is true. My experience has been about 3-4 years. However, jarred tomatoes last indefinitely it seems.
Something about glass not rusting out, I suspect. 😉
And with tomatoes it’s the citric acid.
If you flip the all metal cans every 6 months, you’ll get a more harmonious outcome, and a longer shelf life.
For glass canning jars, just leave ’em be right where they are.