Get Your Basics

 

Don’t know what to get or where to start, well you aren’t the only one. I would recommend first starting with what you have the money, time and room for. So whether you start with 1 week for 1 person, or 1 year for 8 people, just get started!!! FEMA recommends that the average household obtain 2 weeks worth of food, but the average person only has 3 days. We can do better than that, just start doing a little each month!

“Church members can begin their home storage by storing the basic foods that would be required to keep them alive if they did not have anything else to eat. When members have stored enough of these essentials to meet the needs of their family, for one year, they may decide to add other items that they are accustomed to using day to day.” (The First Presidency letter, January 20, 2002)

Basic Recommendations for 1 Adult:

Grains 400 lbs (wheat, flour, rice, corn, oats, and pasta)
Legumes 60 lbs (dry beans,lima beans, soy beans, split peas)
Milk/Dairy 16 lbs (nonfat milk, evaporated milk, butter, eggs, cheese)
Fats & Oils 10 quarts (oil, shortening, mayonnaise, peanut butter)
Sugars 60 lbs (brown sugar, molasses, honey, corn syrup, jams)
Salt 8 lbs
Water (2 weeks) 14 gallons (2-week emergency reserve)


The cannery is a great place to purchase food for very cheap. It is run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but is open to the public and available for anyone to use.

BUCKETS

If you want to order bulk or don’t want your food tasting like metal, buckets are the way to go. You can order from a lot of places, but the cheapest and closest around that we’ve found is Baytec Containers. Make sure if you go the route of buckets you get:

• Bucket (5 or 6 gallon) – I personally prefer a 5 gallon bucket over the 6 gallon ones, they store & stack better and fit under my pantry shelf. Also, buckets can get extrememly heavy so take that into consideration!
• Lids (Regular or Gamma Lids) – I only use Gamma lids for food in the pantry that I need access too, the rest have a regular lid.
• Mylar Bags  (Zipper or Regular) - These give the extra layer of protection for your food and helps keep oxygen and bugs out.
• Oxygen Absorbers 2000 cc   - You will need 1 2000 cc oxygen absorber to put into each bucket or about 5-6 of the 300 cc ones.

How Much Can You Store In Buckets?

This is a good question, because having too few or too many buckets can be a problem. Here is an ESTIMATE of about how much you can put into buckets (don’t get mad if I’m off :). These 5 things are what I put into my buckets, the rest of the food I use #10 cans, except for Spaghetti, I put that in a pouch so I don’t have to break it into pieces. The cannery and other supply stores usually sell most of these items in 25 lb bags.
Food Item #10 Can 5 Gallon Bucket

• Wheat 5 lbs 37 lbs
• Oats 2.5 lbs 20lbs
• Rice 5.3 lbs 36 lbs
• Sugar 5.7 lbs 35 lbs
• Flour 4.5lbs 33 lbs

These are some other options of what you can put into buckets:

• Cornmeal 4.3 lbs 33 lbs
• Popcorn 5 lbs 37 lbs
• Spaghetti 4.3 lbs 30 lbs
• Macaroni 3.1 lbs 21 lbs
• Dried Beans 5.6 lbs 35 lbs
• Lima Beans 5.4 lbs 35 lbs
• Soy Beans 5 lbs 33 lbs
• Split Peas 5 lbs 33 lbs
• Lentils 5.5 lbs 35 lbs
• Brown Sugar 4.42 lbs 33 lbs
• Powdered Milk 3 lbs 29 lbs
• Powdered Eggs 2.6 lbs 20 lbs

So figure out what you need and good luck with the math!