We are on the outskirts of the blizzard that is sweeping up the East Coast, bringing two to three feet of snow to some parts of Long Island. While I will be surprised if we surpass six or eight inches of snow here (we have two to three as I write this), we are getting wicked winds and our lights are flickering multiple times per hour. We expect to lose power before too long.
Since that will knock me back to Starlink in Standby Mode, I’m getting a short post up Sunday night while I still have bandwidth instead of waiting until early Monday.
They called last week’s warmer temperatures a “false spring.” Mother Nature is proving that tonight.
Be safe, everyone!
The Mylar and Bucket Brigade
Ten days ago, I posted how I converted $100 into 200 survival meals. This weekend, I did the work to make those meals last at least ten or twenty years by sealing them in Mylar bags in plastic five-gallon buckets.
As you can see in the photos, I vacuum-sealed the pasta in one- and two-pound packages. Because there was room in the buckets, I added some ziti we had in our prepper pantry to the penne, spaghetti and elbow macaroni I had picked up at Walmart for 98 cents per pound. That sounds like a good price—and it is, these days—but not long ago when you could get two pounds of pasta for a buck.
From a storage density perspective, both the ziti and penne were a bad call. The spaghetti is your best bet for cramming lots of pasta into a 5-gallon pail, and the half-length spaghetti I purchased is easy to fit and seal into an 8-inch wide vacuum sealer bag. Macaroni isn’t bad; it’s far more efficient than penne, and it comes in two-pound and even larger boxes.
The 20 pounds of rice fit well in the bucket, although I could probably fit another five pounds and still close the lid. The beans also had room to spare.
More to Come
I didn’t seal the Mylar bags for the pasta. I may buy another four or six pounds of half-length angle hair pasta and squeeze them into the buckets. That will give me 22 pounds of pasta in two buckets.
When I look at the 98-cent cost for a pound of pasta versus the $1.24 for 4.4 ounces of flavored pasta in a pouch from Knorr, it reminds me how important it is to shop wisely to get the most out of your prepper food dollar. The pinto beans are also a great buy, and you can package them yourself far cheaper than you can buy a pre-made bucket of beans.
When I was done, I had three unused five-gallon pails, so I am planning on picking up some oatmeal on my next trip to Sam’s Club. I’ll buy three ten-pound boxes and see how much fits. I expect at least 25 pounds will; maybe all 30. That would be 330 servings or about 51,000 calories, but I’ll be conservative and say we can get 160 servings of 320 calories each. If we can add some wild berries or apples, some dried fruit, some nuts, or honey, we can probably boost that to a breakfast bowl of 400 calories.
I am not a huge fan of oatmeal, but I’ll eat it, and it’s better than going hungry. It is also light and easy to pack for bugging out or when on patrol.
