Shinester's cheap-as food kit.

LOL, now I know your real 'secret' to your claim of not being a prepper. You really were [which is why you're here] you're just trying to keep it from your wife

We should start a thread on it.
- You're not a prepper your a survivalist.
- It's not prepping it's food insurance
- It's not prepping it's food hording
- It's not prepping it's getting ready for the inevitable zombie incursion
- It's not prepping it's flood charity packs

Speaking of that, I think if I have food that needs cooking, I'd be throwing in one of those small portable stoves with the necessary butane for the food I put in, to make sure it's all there.

I prefer the term 'collecting' to hording.

I'm just an anarcho-survivalist collector/homesteader with alt hobbies... Right?

After 15 years together I suspect she's onto me anyway, just better if most of it takes place 'behind the scenes' people question things less that way.

As for fuel storage for buckets you could go the metho/tin can stove to keep costs down. I'm thinking this way as Ive already got a few alcohol stoves and metho is cheap

Another task to add to my list of things to do!

Thanks, very informative from all involved in this discussion!!!!!
Now to hunt down some buckets!!

Most of my pantry buckets are the 11L food grades from bunnings at $10 a piece. I prefer the smaller size for strength and ease of movement.

These are however inappropiate for long term as they have no O-ring.

Anyone know a good source for new quality buckets, o-ring sealed... Price is less important than quality.

All my old milo tins are either full of coins or spent brass. I really like your candle wax idea, I'll try filling one with reloaded ammo, drop a moisture absorber in there and sealing with wax...

The storage of coins is more a bi-product than an conscious activity. I'm concerned about tracking and data mining so I pay with cash wherever possible. I'm also usually in a rush trying to get lots of things done so I rarely count out coins to pay. When you do 20-30 transactions a week this way the coins pile up quick.

The coins in milo tins was started by my wife who was sick of finding coins EVERYWHERE... Whenever she picks up my jeans for washing and coins fall out, they go in the tins. I do a run to the bank when I get a full tin or two and end up with hundreds in cash.

As for the ammo in tins I'm not sure, Jim on the reloading podcast talks about storing his SHTF ammo in coffee cans and he's been around a few years... Maybe a zip lok bag liner would make sense for extra security.

Shelf life.
Well unfortunately the 'best before' dates don't give an indication of it's longevity. They represent when the milk is at it's best, if it's based on anything at all [there's best buy dates on some water which is hysterical]. It doesn't mean that the food isn't edible.

From what I can tell, based on anecdotal evidence of what people have written, from looking at channels of people eating cans of food that are 20-60 years old from MRE packs and from deduction, that is it's processed at high temperature in high sugar [like jam which lats a very long time sealed] and in a sterile environment [in the can] I think the cans will be 'safe' forever, so long as the seal is intact. Definitely don't eat leaking cans!

That's not to say that the contents will be enjoyable, as food degrades over time, it will lose it's color, flavor and nutrients slowly. They are 8% fat and that fat could possibly go rancid, spoiling the flavor somewhat though with a small percentage and being sealed, it ought to do 'ok'. Ultimately it's an educated guess, with as much info as I could get and it's a food that complements the rolled oats very well. I've planned on it lasting 10 years and I'll probably pop them open every couple of years and take a sample to be sure. The rolled oats should last a very long time, I have great confidence in them actually after eating 4 year old rolled oats stored in a roof and has better evidence for it, so even if the milk was unpalatable, there's still plenty of food.

Diversity
I think diversity is a good plan too, since if you have issues with one form of storage or location, you have back up and whilst us humans very much can and will eat the same food every day, if we need to, variety does tend to add to it.  I have 14 of these bins now [and I had heaps of food otherwise] and as such I think that's probably enough for now  I'm working on [researching] some other cheap ass food ideas to complement this and I'll add them as I finalize them and put them together.   

I love alcohol stoves and have a couple bought ones. I got these off ebay for $12 each delivered.



Quiet, cheap, no smoke... Whats there not to love?

Really look forward to seeing how you get on with the DIY ones as it really fits into your modularity concept which I love as you could have one with a couple Ls of metho in each bucket.

Only issue I've found is they're more sensitive to wind than butane and a breeze can double the time it takes to boil your tea! I have a folding aluminium wind break which works really well and I wrap it around the pot. Have to think of some DIY options!

Rice pack - 60L - 75 days.

As part of this on going series, I've been working on other combinations of packs.  I've got a few to come over the next few days and they're all in 60L drums which gives you a little more bang for buck as well as being about as big as you can still manage.  They have a similar ethos, cheap, self contained and nutritious.  

First up is a basic rice pack.  Rice has a decent compliment of amino acids and with some vitamin tablets will keep you going for a very long time.  The amount is a calculation, though it ought be fairly close to that in practice for 60L.  You could work out other sizes depending on the container you have and the proportions/day are on the side.  I've added a little sugar and soy for some kind of rudimentary flavoring.  Fat is necessary in your diet and ghee seems to be the longest lasting fat out there.  It's a little short on fat [adding another ghee would help] and protein for an 'ideal' diet, though humans are fairly adaptive in terms of diet and the amounts are recommended daily, not minimums.  Ghee is available from Indian food stores [it's part of their religion btw] and most of the other contents are readily available at supermarkets or kmart.   

The entry of water purification is going to be pool shock granules trapped in a glass ampule [small sealed tube].  This is necessary as it will readily degrade over time if it takes on moisture from the air and it's reactive to most containers you can put it in.  Seeing ampules from WW1 of the same chemical being dug up reassured me that storing that way is perfectly fine that way.  You could obviously boil water with the pot also, though there's not enough fuel to do both per day, though you would need about 30mls/pot to boil the water.  Getting 2 more liters would do that, though you'd sacrifice 3-4 days of food, I could go either way on that, you might for instance add in some vacuum sealed tea bags to make up a cuppa [not that I have cups in the kit lol].  I suppose if desperate enough you could drink the water you boil with the rice, a little high in starch but hey.  The drum would be useful for rain water collection if put under a spout or a tarp were used to direct the water to it.  Even sitting outside would provide 'some' water collection from rain. 

As rice has to be cooked to bring out much of it's nutrition, I've included a small cat-can stove [free] and enough fuel to make up one hot meal a day. The pot is a basic Kmart one. Multi vitamins are important as there's missing nutrients in rice alone, though this could easily be supplemented with a basic veggie garden if need be.

Fuel, I've used metho from Bunnings as it seems to be the cheapest and works very well.  Alcohol vaporizing easily and being very water soluable would allow you to re-use the containers in an Austere environment if desperate enough for a container.  [Obviously I wouldn't do that in a normal situation!].  80mls of fuel, which is almost up to where the holes of the cat-can stove are will give you about 25mins of fuel and takes about 8mins or so to boil 1.5L of water.  That's enough for the 500gms or so of rice. 

The making of [easy] - ultralightbackpackintips.blogspot.com.au/2011/03/tip-number-120.html

The zip lock bag is for utility as are the plastic shopping bags and the bin liner.  There are a great number of things these items have uses for, the shopping bags for instance could be used as a type of chord if need be. 

Using one roll of toilet paper for 25 days might be a bit more challenging than we're accustomed to, though that's a bit over 10 sheets a day.  The info sheet will have much of this as well as information on portion sizes, age and approximate metabolism as well as potential recipes and further info.  I've included 2 bowls and plenty of spare spoons in case one pack is feeding up to 3 people [one using pot].  The spoons are quality disposable, easily reusable for some time.  The soap for personal hygiene as well as washing, the large zip lock back or bin liner could be used as a suitable sink if need be or even the bin itself if emptied.   Small cuts can be washed with soap to prevent infection quite well.  I've forgotten to add a tooth brush in this kit, a good idea as dental health is best achieved via prevention.  The candle as mentioned earlier for burning much of the oxygen. 

Shelf life; ghee is still an unknown for me, it certainly lasts longer than other fats, and we have places say only a few years, there's many anecdotal reports of it lasting a very long time indeed, [some Indian sources say indefinitely] if sealed.  I'm a little dubious, though my plans are to check it in 5 years and see how it's going and whilst it's better for nutrition, you could throw it out if you had to and eat just the rice and survive for a good while.  The vitamins also might degrade, I've had mixed reports on their longevity, seeing some opened after 70 years seems to suggest they last physically, sugar coated [not the gelatin] apparently the better of the two.  Soy is supposed to last a very long time, though it's mostly flavoring and salt here.  Food nutritional qualities degrade over time, so my plans are to build another pack every 5-10 years or so.  The total cost for a year for one person is close to $586 and if it lasted 5 years [should easily], the replacement cost is only $100/year or $2/week.  Aka very cheap life insurance.   This is in effect replacements for my oldest stored food, though of course I will keep the original food and just add to my total.  I have a few months in the pantry that I consider my go-to food, this is about long term cheap backup as well as previously mentioned situations.

   As per before, lighting a candle to burn the O2 is a good idea and if you wanted to you could throw in O2 absorbers.  I'm not planning to use mylar bags as the plastic drum is more air tight [thicker and everything leaks slowly] than mylar is anyhow. 
 
   I've got some other versions of packs already worked out on paper and Ill post them up over the coming days.  I'm also picking up some drums tomorrow so that I might put together a few packs.