but my question is this if you know....can I use good sturdy jars with screw on lids for long term storage instead of mylar bags and the buckets?....I could drop a couple of oxygen packets in there and I would think it would work great...any ideas about that?...thx
I’m chiming in with my own experiences. I’ve basically prepped for whatever hard times for over 5 years maybe? (I have always bought in bulk to some extent but nothing like now.) Already had a lot of stuff in place, live very rural, have well, heat with woodstove, etc. But 5 or 6 years ago starting thinking very seriously about various breakdown scenarios and stocking up with necessities for longer term whatevers.
I have stored bulk foods in buckets, sometimes with oxygen absorbers, usually add bay leaves (supposed to quell bugs) and have tons of canning jars, a lot of gallon jars too.
I have had two things with bugs in them in over five years. One was very old brown rice which doesn’t last long anyway, it gets rancid. The other was a half gallon jar of millet that was stuffed with bugs. Nothing else ever had bugs.
As far as things going bad - such as rancid or stale, the way to do it is store what you eat anyway, and rotate. Unelss you get already canned etc longterm food from some company. The cheapest thing is just buy food in bulk - I get a lot from Azure Standard, they deliever to the western 1/3 of the US, and immediately put it in buckets, or smaller amounts in gallon jars.
For intsance, I have buckets of rice. When I need rice, I pour into a few glass jars and keep those in the kithen, and the buckets in an outbuilding that stays cold. If you keep opening the buckets all the time, it shortens the lifespan of the food.
I don’t use mylar bags or anything expensive. I just keep eating and rotating. The best thing IMO is to store what you eat and eat what you store. That way you (a) save money now since it’s cheaper to eat that way and (b) you won’t have a shock when (I’m not saying “if”) times get rough and you have to start eating your stored food. You already ARE eating your stored food.
I usually try to have some kind of inventory so I know when I’m getting low on something, and I order another 25# bag or so.
I did buy a bunch of canned stuff initially but I hate canned food and some got really outdated and bad (opened and tried) so the best thing is to only store what you are going to eat. And it also helps to train your taste buds so you can eat simple cheap and nutritious food happily.
I hope this helps.
Yes you can use jars. I have a vacuum seal adapter so I can vacumm seal the jars plus I add in an oxygen absoreber as will. Been using the jars for lots of stuff pancake mix, small ones for spices, as well as food that I have dehydrated myself.
You also migh like to look at this my Preparednes Manual:
http://www.mediafire.com/?ojmy2z1zfin