I am alittle addicted

[airmanwilliams]

I may be alittle addicted to mylar bags and dry food storage right now. Some of this may be due to twins coming soon but man I am having fun with this. I picked up 75 pounds of rice, 100 pounds of hard white wheat, 50 pounds of potato flakes, and about 50 pounds of nonfat dry milk this week and have nearly all of it done but 25 pounds of potato flakes and the milk.

So far in the past two weeks I have done in Gallon sized mylar bags 10 potato flakes, 15 white rice, 7 hard white wheat, 17 dehydrated apples, 6 dehydrated bananas, 2 nonfat dry milk, 5 salt, 2 smoked ground black pepper, 2 sugar, 2 fruit drink mix.

I ran out of bags so later this week I will order more of the gallon sized mylar bags with zippers and 300cc oxygen absorbers so I can do more potato flakes, milk, bananas, refried beans, and oats.

So simple to get into and do if some of you are interested in it. I bought a hair straightener iron for $11 to heat seal the bags and use the little jar sealer tube on my Food Saver vacuum sealer to pull a bunch of the oxygen out before sealing.

 

[jeeper]

Are these foods in your regular diet and food rotations? Are you going to be rotating through the food on a regular basis?

 

[airmanwilliams]

Yes we use rice and potatoes in many of our meals right now. The apples and bananas will be nice for snacks on long trips to help us from buying lots of crappy junk food to snack on. The dried milk, salt, pepper, and sugar will be nice to help with cooking/baking if we ever need more. I am not getting anything that I dont think we will rotate through because I really dont see much of a point of getting things that we wont use in our food storage. I also discovered that the dry pack canneries have excellent prices on alot of this stuff compared to some of the local stores we buy from and thought it would be beneficial to buy it bulk now and rotate through it than to just go to the store and say get 5 or so pounds of rice for nearly $10 when I can get 25 pounds for $9 at the cannery.

 

[airmanwilliams]

I still need to get more of a variety but only as our budget allows since we will be paying off this invetro for some time. This is a good start though and once I start getting a paycheck from my third job I started last week I will be putting more of that into food storage and preparing for the babies.

 

[Troop92]

Where are you getting all the bulk food from before you seal the pouches?

 

[airmanwilliams]

Where are you getting all the bulk food from before you seal the pouches?

Rice and potato flakes I bought from an LDS dry pack cannery. Bananas and apples I dried myself. All others I have been buying from stores on case lot sales.

You can go to providentliving.org and get a Home Storage Center Order FOrm and see what you can get from the cannery and at what prices.

 

[Troop92]

Nice. Had a job scare a few weeks ago, really made me think about things. With my wife being gluten-intolerant, this seems like a really solid idea...

 

[Jinx]

Had a job scare a few weeks ago, this seems like a really solid idea...

I never put it together before I had "reduction" in pay after I had made some pretty big $ commitments. My food storage got us through pretty easily.

Could have been bad but it wasn't because we had some food on hand. Now we just rotate through some core items.

 

[Troop92]

I never put it together before I had "reduction" in pay after I had made some pretty big $ commitments. My food storage got us through pretty easily.

Could have been bad but it wasn't because we had some food on hand. Now we just rotate through some core items.

This. Many times over. While things continue to be stable I'm going to build ours up. Still looking for a new job and a new situation, but not going to wait until "things are better."

 

[Kevin B.]

Is the mylar better than regular vacuum bags?

 

[airmanwilliams]

Food saver bags are great for short term but mylar bags are primarily for long time use. https://www.survivalistboards.com/food-and-water/205755-mylar-vs-food-saver-bags.html

 

[airmanwilliams]

Here are the smaller bags and oxygen absorbers I used for snack items such as dehydrated bananas and apples http://www.ebay.com/itm/321508251640?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

Here are the gallon sized bags I bought. I am partial to using these ones since they have a zip on them and they can be resealed with that and put in the cupboard but you can get some from the cannery for much cheaper that do not have the zip on them. http://www.ebay.com/itm/171156752513?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT