Thanks!
Oh, and BTW, I tried the ravioli just by itself.
It was fine! Wouldn’t want to try and live on it, but a little tomato sauce, or maybe some boiled spinach, (not to mention I have a couple monster horseradish plants), well worth having.
The best way to do food prep for long term is to start with 5 or 6 gallon food grade buckets. Then you get heavy mylar bags, oxygen absorbers, and a GOOD LID. Place the mylar in the bucket, place an O2 absorber in the bottom, dump your food on top (rice, beans, corn, wheat, etc.) up to about 1 inch from the top, place another O2 absorber on top, then seal the mylar with an iron (or much better is a heat seal gun). Get as much air out as you can before you seal the mylar...and the O2 absorbers will do the rest.
There are a few places online to buy bulk (Honeyville, Pleasant Hill Grain, and others)...you can also get the mylar and absorbers from the above).
I’ve purchased from both and while a little more expensive, the bulk food quality is EXCELLENT. Packaged this way, in a cool environment and with a good seal on the mylar, you’re looking at 25+ years for most of these foods.
Do your research on what foods you’re putting away since some don’t last as long, where others will last indefinitely. It’s also a good idea to keep an inventory of what you have...and make a recipe book using only items you have on hand. I also recommend a good dutch oven setup - in case your electric or gas stoves don’t work you’ll still be able to cook with the dutch oven & charcoal.
Also remember (VERY IMPORTANT) that while food is very necessary, WATER is EXTREMELY important. We have one of the Berkey Water Purifier systems that can process a few hundred gallons per day, with a water reservoir very close to the house. The unit takes up very little space in the kitchen and the filter elements are good for a total of about 12,000 gallons (and you can buy extra filter elements).
For those interested, Frugal Squirrels is a great website to find in depth info on food storage. Youtube also has some excellent videos on how to pack buckets using the method I described above...search for “The 5 Gallon Bucket Food Storage Project” - a series of several videos that will show how it’s done.
Two very important things about prepping...1) Tell NO ONE what you have and 2) Have a means to defend your preps...