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I know prepping is a bit of a meme, but what are some of the best food items to store long term?
Is rice one of the best emergency foods? It’s cheap, it lasts for a very long time if kept somewhere dry (relatively easy to store), and a person can survive off of it in dire situations.
What does /diy/ think?
Showing all 79 replies.
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Rice is not bad to have on hand, but it has basically no nutrients, white rice at least. Beans have protein, vitamins and minerals and basically store just as well as rice. Ask your local bakery, or the bakery in your local walmart for food grade 2gal and 5gal buckets. They usually just toss them away
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>>2982808
Just run a buffer of foods you already eat.
Do you want to eat 11 year old rice that smells like plastic bin if you get into a storm?
I don't think so either.
Just buy 2x as much as you need and replace when you are half way out.
Also if you are even slightly overweight or anyone in your household is.
Do not stockpile food.
In fact buy 1/2 of what you need.
You will just eat more if you have more available.
You are guaranteed to be debilitated by fatness, and food running low for a few days is only an inconvenience.
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>>2982818
A lot of the bagged white rice sold in the U.S. is "enriched", so it has vitamins,etc added.
The smaller packages of 15 bean soup mix store easily in a 5 gallon bucket, with smaller bags of brown/whole grain rice and bullion cubes/powder. A good volume to make a large number of meals will fit in a lidded 5 gallon bucket that you can purge with nitrogen for long term storage.
>>2982822
>Just run a buffer of foods you already eat.
This is honestly the best method. Establish a base pantry sufficient for 3~6 months and rotate your stock.
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>>2982808
>what are some of the best food items to store long term?
Look for protein items. Liver, ground beef, eggs, etc. Refrigeration is a meme. They'll last years at room temperature. Advice you can take to the bank.
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>>2982822
> 11 year old rice that smells like plastic bin
I’ve eaten that 11 year old rice. It was absolutely indistinguishable from “new” rice.
Keep it in it’s original bag (or use ziplocs) if need be. Use polyethylene or polypropylene containers (buckets).
Brown rice will go bad quickly, like a year. white rice is good for at least 25 years I reckon.
Don’t throw bare rice into a rubbermaid tub to store…Those degrade and turn sticky over time (the plasticizers leach out).
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>>2982808
Beans, cereal, dried fruits, preserved meats, preserved vegetables and honey. Beans and cereals can be used to grow more food, aside from providing you with carbs, fiber and some protein. Meats will give you protein and fats, fruits and honey are there to diversefy your diet, and to treat yourself to something sweet from time to time, lastly preserved vegetables, can help with scurvy, some fruits will help with this. There are fruits and vegetables that can be kept for longer, like potatoes, quinces, some older varieties of fruit, root vegetables and nuts, you can also save seeds for growing more food, or just replant root vegetables. The problem will be water, since you need to drink more often and water can go bad, so you would need a filtering system, a clean source of water or you could try the old sailor method of adding strong spirits to water to keep it from going bad. A good place to learn more would be looking how people in the past survived.
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>>2982808
Vacuum sealer and mason jars.
Rice and beans. Hard tack.
Coconut oil. Tallow. Lard. Ghee.
Spices. Spam. Sardines. Herring. Anchovies.
Evaporated milk. Tomato paste.
Chocolate. Crackers. Pretzels. Tea biscuits.
Bulk tea and coffee. Tobacco.
WATER(!)
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>>2982808
flour, beeans, protein powder, cheese, etc. few bottles of multivitamins and such too. clean water is gonna be more of an issue though, start distilling your own.
>>2982822 says it best, just store what you eat normally. if what you normally eat doesn't keep well store the ingredients to make it and if its something you normally get pre-made start making it yourself. if the normal way of making it uses ingredients that don't keep well then try and experiment with substitutes before picking something else. have your food on a rotating queue such that you eat the oldest stuff first but buy extra every time you go shopping until you feel like there's enough buffer.
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>>2982849
Wow. Btfo on two boards now. Maybe if you studied "commitment bias" harder than you've studied the arsenic content, as well as the prepper value, of white rice, you might realize that you've looked like a fool for some time now. I'm sure you'll come back with something snazzy, guys like you don't seem to be able to take being wrong.
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>>2982808
More of a second thought, but keep a stock of Vitamin C, D and B12. A dire situation is pretty much an end to most fresh fruits but apples and you don't want your physiology turn into that of a mediaeval peasant.
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Buy a dessicator I just got one on Amazon. You can make jerky and dried fruits etc. Also look into canning and smoking etc. to store stuff you buy fresh. I also did not realize that regular flour spoils after a bit. So to have that consider them buying a hand powered grain mill and getting unground flour. It's more work but it keeps for longer. Don't forget water too. I'm also looking to get a big tub of lard soon.
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>>2982834
Having 2 weeks of food/water/medicine is good practice, but if you're ever in an event where society has broken down enough that 2 weeks of supplies isn't enough, prepping will just make you a target for looters and joggers.
I remember reading some blog my a guy who lived during the Yugoslav wars who said that prepping just food is retarded because your neighbours will still be around with their own stockpiles, bartering will be commonplace and that bartering for food with cigarettes, alcohol, drugs and gasoline is a much smarter move. If you really want to prep for SHTF scenarios buy a bunch of cartons of cigarettes, some handles of cheap vodka and a couple jerry cans filled with diesel and gas mixed with stabilizer and you'll have no problem finding food.
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the real prepping is to insulate your house until its a passive house, have a vehicle that uses less fuel, like a moped or even better an electric one and having some solar panels.
to lower your needs is the best way to prepper. its also actually useful before shit hits the fan
most prepper shit is hoarding or larping as traditional farmer and shit which is absurdly inefficient energy wise. copy modern industrial agriculture and farming, not traditional, as they use less resources per kg of output. a greenhouse will be easier to tend, produce in winter, have less problems (plague control is way easier there, its an enclosed space)
other than this is sane >>2982822 maybe make it 3x
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>>2991682
it may depend on climate but I don't think you can create a passively heated and cooled space through insulation
a heavily insulated home has no drafts and needs active heating and cooling to maintain the right temp, provide airflow and reduce moisture
the high insulation value means the energy required to maintain it is low, but once you stop conditioning the house, from a prolonged power outage, it's going to mold up and heat up from body temp
passive homes need to be designed to be passively heated and cooled from the start with strategic insulation and ventilation
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>>2991790
passive houses normally uses mechanical ventilation to get fresh air with an energy recovery system. which sound complex but in the end its just two fans and some fancy duckwork and filters
the idea is that you get bellow 10w/m2 of maximum usage, and this is perfectly reasonable, i know an actual example in an area with pretty harsh winters, i think all it had was two 500w heaters in a 120ish m2 detached house
cooling is again not that much harder, bc you are lowering a ton the needs.
just get a small non grid tied inverter. hell you could use a dc heater. and even a balcony solar system would work for a passive house.
and you can use still use any fuel stove in a passive house, you are not limited to electricity, a hobbo alcohol stove will be enough to heat it
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>>2982808
>Rice
Almost all rice you can buy (And many other grains) is infested with weevil eggs straight from the farm, so it has a relatively short shelf life until whenever they decide to hatch and start eating/egging your supply.
Keep that in mind and have something big enough to freeze the fuckers for a few days or a week at hand if you do decide to stock up on it.
Or embrace the free extra protein in your food, i dunno.
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Buy a dog food container. Fill it with a bag of rice and a bag of beans from costco or sams club or whatever. It will cost you less than a hundred dollars and you have months of food stock. This is your best prepping ROI.
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>>2982808
Prepping for the apocalypse is weird to me, like you're spending so much money hoping the world will end just so you can say your obsession was worth it.
Sensible preparedness for reasonable circumstances on the other hand makes all the sense in the world. Once a decade ago I went to the kitchen sink, turned on the faucet to get a drink and nothing happened. I sort of stared at the tap for a second confused why there wasn't water coming out and not knowing what to do. It turned out to be a burst pipe, and everyone had the same idea to go to the supermarket to buy bottled water, but it too was shut as it also didn't have water.
Based on that experience I keep 2 weeks worth of bottled water and tinned and long life food, plus enough fuel to heat the food in my garage, as well as a supply of cheap lighters, some hygiene stuff like dry shampoo and a tent/sleeping bag in case its winter without central heating.
I do two weeks because it can apparently take up to a week for power to be restored in the event of a total grid blackout and restart, and just in case I have a guest. But anything more than that is just silly to me, because if civilisation is gone for more than that, its probably not coming back and I'd rather just use some disposable bbqs and go out in peace rather than fight to rebuild or whatever.
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I have 150lbs of beans/ 150lbs of rice(white), atleast 50lbs of udon noodles and 10lbs of pasta.
What is the best way to store bread flour(white). It's getting expensive and my habit of hoarding a couple hundred pounds to burn through and restocking has paid off tremendously in the meat/butter/seasoning department.
I also have a ton of bar soap/hard shaving soap/safety razor blades, floor cleaner(ammonia), 1000 trash bags and 8 large containers of Ajax soap. 150 lbs of laundry detergent and 500 rolls of toliet paper.
So far my habit of hoarding a little then burning through supplies has saved me plenty with inflation in the last 2 years.
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Looking for a box that's fireproof, waterproof and EMPproof to store important documents, hard drives and sentimental items. Something reliable but that doesn't break the bank. Any recommendations?
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I want to start prepping/becoming more self-sufficient because I don't really like how the potable water situation is looking in the US. I'm on the same aquifer as Corpus Christi so who knows how everything is gonna be looking in 30-40 years, should my city not be totally assfucked by a hurricane by then. Is building a well really enough if an aquifer runs totally dry? Even if I move out of Texas it feels like water mismanagement is an issue country-wide. I just want water security for my home and immediate area for generations to come. As you can tell I haven't done any research at all.
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>>2983124
I just don't think most Japanese would live to be over 100 and able bodied if rice was bad for you. Signs would seem to indicate that eating a diet that largely consists of rice, fish, and tea is the best one for you.
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>>2994469
Unless your passive house is actually an underground mine or cave, most climates will require some kind of heating or cooling.
The official passive house standard is something like no more than 15 kWh per year per square meter for heating/cooling.
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>>2994444
Bricks have basically no insulation factor. They act like thermal batteries. That's helpful if you live somewhere that has warm days and cool nights, as the giant thermal mass will absorb heat during the day and release it at night, but if you're in an area where it gets cold and stays cold, solid masonry walls will be constantly radiating out your heat.
Super thick masonry walls make your house extremely solid and quiet inside though. I have to have a camera pointed at my driveway because we literally cannot hear any cars driving in.
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>>2994502
you get that with solar panels, that is the thing, to dimension if possible your needs so solar can supply those. like 360 days of the year
a regular wood stove is really high output, several kw of heat, needs storage for wood, its overkill and absurd in any passive house.
as i said >>2991854 you can go way way less, just a really minimum stove, to burn some thrash in case of emergency. or just use a gas kitchen, burning is burning, its double purpose with just one system.
>>2994444
anon you are mistaking thermal mass with insulation. the ideal is to have both. a external single layer in the exterior, a vent chamber to deal with the humidity, big insulation and the structural interior wall
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>>2994511
I have a 5kwp solar array. During the overcast months in the middle of winter, I can go a week straight where the array generates about 1 kwh/day because it's so overcast and the days are short.
But I have kind of the opposite of a passive house. It's 77 years old, mostly-solid masonrys and on top of a hill. I can run the 35 kw woodburner at full blast for a while and the structure will soak up the heat. Since firewood is virtually unlimited and free here in rural PA, I'm fine with this.
So I guess the moral of the story is that if you're going to have a leaky house, do it where you can get really cheap energy.