best bulk dry foods long term food storage prepper pantry stockpile DIY food storage how to build food storage pandemic why stock up on food
hi it's AlaskaGranny Alaska Prepper whether you're a brand new prepper
someone who's adding to your long term food storage stockpile or just someone who's already prepared for emergency survival situations
but you are uncertain what the future is and
you're trying to make sure you're doing your best to stock up on long term food storage supplies
today I wanted to talk about the best bulk food for long-term food storage
before this covid 19 coronavirus pandemic
you could go to the store they had nice aisles of bulk foods
you could go and choose the foods that you want those are no longer available
due to this pandemic that we're not supposed to be near each other
touch anything and it's harder to find the foods that we want
then if we go to the canned and packaged aisles we find that
a lot of the foods that we may have bought before are not
as readily available or the price is extremely inflated
you add to that people who've lost their jobs there's been an
economic slowdown and everywhere in the world they're having hardships food shortages economic problems collapse crop failures
so making sure that you have a supply of the longest lasting
bulk food can really make a difference in long-term food storage long term
emergency survival situations no one really knows what the future holds but
we do know that there are global food crises there have been
floods in China there have been explosions in Beirut Lebanon
even in the united states meat food packing plants have been shut down
animals have been slaughtered because there was no market for them
or they didn't have the food supply workers to work restaurants and schools have been closed
so then bulk foods went to waste things like milk were dumped on the
ground they didn't have the capacity to
repackage some of the food while it was fresh
to send it to the actual marketplace you combine that with the amount of
people that are going to food banks food insecurity and hunger can be a
reality at any time the best strategy for the
least amount of money is to find the longest lasting bulk
foods food lasts longest when it's stored in a
cool dry place you also need to store it out of the light because
sunlight degrades your food what are the top foods that we can find
that are inexpensive and easy to store for the longest amount
of time we know about beans and rice because
it's true white rice can last for at least 30
years and the same with beans there are lots
of different varieties of beans i prefer pinto beans
white beans and black beans because they're one
step cooking place them in a pot add water and cook them until they're
done if you have something like red beans or
kidney beans those beans need to be soaked and the water
poured off and more water used because they have some sort of a
chemical in them that can actually be sort of poisonous so iI will buy
red or kidney beans in a can but I don't try to store a lot of them
simply because they require an extra step in preparation
in a long drawn-out emergency you may not have additional water
for soaking and pouring out and then more water for cooking
so I try to limit the amounts of resources that I need
to provide the basic foods long term food storage lentils and split peas are also great they're
full of protein just like beans but you don't
need to soak them and they don't take nearly as long to cook it can take
all day to cook pinto beans black beans white
beans and it can take an hour or two to cook your lentils or split peas
that's also a way to add variety to your best
bulk food storage that'll last the longest
the next best food for your long-term food storage is
oats oats oatmeal can last for nearly forever at least 30 years as long as you store
them in a cool dry place they're easy to prepare
you can even make overnight oats you don't even have to cook them
you can add water and let them soak overnight there are all kinds of recipes
out there of all kinds of fancy additions to overnight oats
but even if you had nothing else but some water
and some oatmeal you could still provide an emergency meal
it may not be your favorite meal but it could certainly fill you up in times of
hardship and need sugar is a great food to store long term
but you need to keep it dry if sugar gets damp it turns into a
solid rock and it's almost impossible to chip it
all apart to use it so store your sugar in an airtight
container and it'll last for decades the same thing with salt
we need salt in our diet lots of times we don't even think about the additions
of salt because so much of the foods that we eat on a regular basis
are processed and include a lot of sodium
in fact some people are told to go on low sodium diets
the same as sugar salt needs to be kept in an
airtight container I've had salt stored in just the cardboard container
out at my Granny Camp which is my Alaska off-grid remote cabin and when I came
back after the wintertime it had absorbed so
much moisture it was as hard as a rock and it wasn't any good anymore the next
best bulk food for long-term food storage
is pasta pasta can last forever you do need to store it in a
container where it's airtight and it can't be
chewed on or infested but it can last forever and ever I've
said in many of my videos that I've stored
pasta long term and used it 15 years after I purchased it and it still was
perfectly fine you also need to pay attention to the
types of pasta that you want to store
egg noodles are not going to be the same as pasta or macaroni because it has
eggs in it so if you want to have a supply of things like egg noodles
make sure that you rotate them sooner than you would
things like spaghetti macaroni linguine or penne pastas
these are all great bulk foods dry foods that you can store for a long long time
but when you bring home your foods for long term food storage what do you do with them to make sure that they're
going to last as long as possible best ways to store food for long term food storage so it lasts the longest if you want to store rice
make sure that you get white rice brown rice has oils in it and
it will go rancid after several years you can still have
brown rice in your food storage stockpile but you
need to rotate it and use it up in a shorter amount of time one of the
strategies for rice is to make sure that it doesn't have any weevils in it
place the bag in the freezer for a few days
so it'll kill anything that's living in it then take it out and let it
thaw out completely then I like to freeze and thaw it twice
because if you have eggs in it the eggs aren't killed
by the freezing and when you bring it out again they may
hatch so if you put it rice back in the freezer a second
time and then get it out and thawed out again you shouldn't have
any problems with any weevils or pantry bugs
hatching out in your rice I also do the freeze and thaw with my pastas
but I don't worry about it with the other ingredients
it's grains that you have a problem with the pantry bugs
I've never had a problem with weevils or bugs infesting
my food storage but it can certainly be a problem especially if you live
in a warmer climate then you need to package your bulk foods so they last best ways to store long term food storage bulk foods
one of the strategies is to get a bucket sometimes you can get the food storage
buckets for free at the grocery store I haven't been to the grocery store in
several months so I don't know if they're still available
I know the last time I asked before this pandemic really got going
they didn't have any or they weren't giving them out I don't know if they're
more popular more people want them they're
just making fewer cakes at the bakery I don't know
but they were not available but that doesn't mean you can't find them
you can go somewhere like to the hardware store
and you can buy a 5 gallon bucket you can also find them at places like
walmart and then you can also find the lids when
you buy the lids make sure there's the rubber ring gasket
around the inside of the lid that's what's going to seal it so that it's air
tight if that's missing you're not going to be able to seal out as much of the
air as you want so look carefully when you choose your
lids if you have extra cash and you can find
them look for the gamma lids it's a two-part
lid
the ring snaps around the edge of the bucket
and then you can open and close it with the tight fitting
gamma seal lid it has a rubber ring it seals it up airtight but you can
easily access the food in the bucket
if you're just sealing your bucket with a regular lid make sure that you get
a bucket wrench once you seal it up tight it can be extremely difficult to
get it open but if you have the bucket wrench
you just put that along under the tab pull it up
and it's easy to open your bucket
if you don't want to go with the bucket simply because they're too big they're
too bulky or you don't have that much food
you can put your food into mason canning jars
fill it up put on a lid and a ring and that can be enough or you can add an
oxygen absorber and then tighten up the lid or if you
have something like a foodsaver jar attachment vacuum sealer you can
vacuum out the air in your jars they're going to be fine if you don't have
oxygen absorbers or a food vacuum they're still going to
last for many years you don't need to worry about that if you can't get those
things or can't afford them you can still seal them up in the jars
and put them away in the cool dark pantry or in your store
room wherever you choose to store your foods and they're going to last
for many many years i have a lot of buckets of dried foods you can just
pile the food into the bucket and add the lid
that will keep your food safe for a long time it's better if you conceal them
into mylar bags and add oxygen absorbers because that removes
all of the oxygen but you can't just store it in a mylar bag because they get
punctured and then they can get chewed up by little rodents and things but the
mylar bags can get torn and chewed open by pests in your pantry so you would
still need to put it inside of a bucket and the best way to
do that is insert your mylar bag into your bucket
and fill it up while it's already in so that it curves around and shapes to
the bucket and you use up the most space in your mylar bag as possible
add your oxygen absorbers seal up your mylar bag
and then put on the tight fitting lead and set your food away
for long-term food storage there's added complications in our world right now
with coven 19 coronavirus pandemic including this second wave some areas
like where I live we're having basically a second wave
where we've had a second shutdown and we're supposed to remain
home again we don't want to fall into an attitude
of gloom and doom but we don't want to be complacent you
want to be ready to take the next step to make sure that you provided the
things that you need to the best of your ability
then it doesn't matter what comes along you have
foods that are shelf stable they'll last for years and years
and you'll have enough of the things you need
to help you through whatever situation comes your way
if you liked my video i hope you'll share it with someone else who might enjoy it
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