Bucket Food Storage and The New Prepper, Part 1 of 2

There are many people who want to be prepared but are overwhelmed by the choices they have to make that they simply put off starting. The #1 question asked by most want to be Preppers is; What do I store in buckets and how many meals can be made from a bucket of stored dry bulk food? I’ll try to simplify the answer here.

Below are six of the most important and common dry bulk foods stored. Let’s see how many two (2) cup *prepared servings you can make from each 5-gallon bucket below. [Note, a 5-gallon bucket contains 80 cups]

**Wheat Grain, Hard White or Hard Red (a mill required for flour) equals 40, loaves of bread or 320, 4-inch diameter hamburger buns or 80, 2-cup servings of cooked cereal for breakfast.

**All Purpose White Flour = 23, loaves of bread or 184, 4-inch diameter hamburger buns or 80, 4 stack pancake servings.

          Beans, Great Northern = 80, 2-cup servings

          Rice, White Long Grain = 80, 2-cup servings

          Pasta, Elbow Macaroni = 80, 2-cup servings

          Rolled Oats, Oatmeal = 80, 2-cup servings

These six buckets will provide one person with 160 days or 23 weeks or 5½ months of something to eat 3 times a day. Pretty amazing what you get out of just 6 buckets!

The servings they provide may not sound appetizing and very plain by themselves, but if you had absolutely nothing else to eat it will keep you from begging or dumpster diving in the already pick-over dumpsters by the rest of the unprepared population! You don’t have to be one of them, but it’s your choice!

         

Notes:

** You may have noticed the amount difference in the number of loaves or burger buns between wheat grain and AP flour. 100% whole wheat grain needs only 2 cups of grain milled to produce a loaf. AP flour needs 3½ cups of flour to produce a loaf.

1. As you can see, every ‘Meal Portion’ is measured by cups. This will eliminate taking bigger portions then called for because you feel extra hungry at the moment. This will lead to running out of food sooner than planned.

2. “Prepared” means ‘Cooked’ food. Typically, the common stored foods like the above, all double in volume when cooked. Example: 1 cup of dry after cooking yields 2 cups cooked and ready to serve!

3. Since you wouldn’t eat that many loaves of bread the excess flour or wheat grain milled into flour or cooked as a cereal also makes pancakes, hamburger buns, biscuits etc. Rolled Oats for an oatmeal breakfast.

4. To best use any dry stored foods is to have in stock supermarket can meats and veggies. Combine those with the dry food making tasty meals such as combine 2 cups cooked rice and one can of Campbell’s Chunky Soups makes a good meal for two people. This is why it is important to stock can foods that partner with the dry.

 5. This example does not include your stocked supermarket canned foods, which when added to the bulk dry foods will yield filling and familiar tasting meals for you and your family.

6. Average bulk cost in 2019 for 5 gallons of:

$45.00 - Wheat Grain

$21.00 - AP White Flour

          $33.00 - Beans, Great Northern

          $37.00 - Rice, White Long Grain

          $55.00 - Pasta, Elbow Macaroni

          $14.00 - Rolled Oats, Oatmeal

Total: $205.00 for 23 weeks or 5½ months of eating!

7. Part 2 of this post will come shortly. It deals with supermarket can foods that partner with the Part (1) bucket storage.