Grounded and Ready for Whatever

From Rice To Buckets: Building A Practical Emergency Pantry

• Shay • Season 1 • Episode 7

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0:00 | 27:04

We lay out a practical food-prep plan that saves money, avoids waste, and keeps you nourished. From bulk staples and smart storage to gardening, fats, and the overlooked tools that make it all work, this guide focuses on real-life steps you can take today.

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SPEAKER_00:

Peace, peace to all my good people out there. Welcome to another episode of Grounded and Ready for Whatever. Today's episode is a good one, an important one, I think, and one that um a lot of people ask me about all the time. That thing is food when it comes to prepping and food and food storage, and what should you get, and how much of a thing it can be very um kind of overwhelming because you don't want to get a whole bunch of stuff and thinking it's safe or you know suitable for the situation, and then you come to find out it's all garbage and there's nothing you can do about it at that point. So I am here to help and just to give you a couple things to um be aware of, especially when you go to the grocery store, and I know, oh, I know the grocery store uh bills lately are expensive at best, and at worst is borderline criminal. But hopefully, if you do go to the store and you know you're shopping and you might see a thing or two, hopefully, after you uh listen to this episode, it gives you a pause to be like, ooh, Shay mentioned rice. Do I have a little bit extra for rice? Do I have somewhere safe that I can put that? Yeah, I do. Let me go ahead and get that because today it might be there, but we all know in this day and age of the year 2025, anything is possible, and tomorrow that rice might not be there. So take all the notes uh you think are applicable to you, and as always, I am not an expert in any form of fashion, these are just shit that I noticed that I think I would share to the people. So take the notes, and um, hopefully some of this resonates with everyone. So, first, rice, as I just said, and this one is well known, but it should be a staple. You could store an awful lot of rice in a five-gallon food grade bucket, and you can buy these buckets, or you can buy like the pre-packed buckets of rice, or you can buy it in bulk from Costco or Sam's and transfer it into buckets yourself. Um, because properly stored rice has a very substantial shelf life, and take note, brown rice will store even longer than white rice, because white rice, white rice is bleached to a certain point to give you the white color, but brown rice is in its natural state, most of it is so brown rice for the win. If um you can find it in bulk, and honestly, if you like brown rice, now ain't no point of you having a whole bunch of a thing and you don't like it because you're not gonna eat it. And I know survival situations, you know, mindset changes, but it'll make it easier for you to develop a disaster prep, especially for food, if you're prepping the things that you ultimately like and are gonna want to save. Uh, next, dry beans, once again, a well-known staple, but important enough to note here beans too can be purchased by the pre-sealed five-gallon bucket, or you can buy it in bulk and transfer two buckets, same way as rice. So, between rice, beans, and this next thing I'm gonna tell you about, you can have a very good start on the basics that will provide a livable, if not an interesting, diet. But you'll be able to survive with rice, beans, and oatmeal. Now, oatmeal is a great bulk purchase, and if you're gonna look for it, look for it in the sealed five or six-gallon buckets. Now, oatmeal is a great um nutritious food, but it's also high in fiber. Now, a properly moving digestive system is very good to is a very good thing in regular terms, but in a serious situation, a high stress situation, when a changing diet can cause issues, let's let's keep the things flowing. So, um, you can get a large stock of shelf stable oatmeal at a very reasonable cost, depending on the size of your family. So you're gonna have to make decisions for yourself and and those around you. If you're a family of two, you don't need five gallons of of oatmeal unless you know you're gonna be sharing with your community, or there might be thoughts of other people coming to join you if um you know a situation isn't is necessary. So if you're doing that for you, then that's great. But you don't want to store more than you're actually capable of storing for whoever's in your household as well. Uh, next point wheat. Wheat is a much better choice for storage than flour because processed flour has uh reduced storage life in comparison to unground grains. Wheat will last for 20 years if properly stored, whereas flour is only good for a year or two, and if you do store grain, it should be stored in an airtight and oxygen oxygen purge container for the best result, but that's just for wheat. Buckets. So, as I said, you can't have a whole uh you can't have too many buckets, and if I didn't say that, I'm saying that now. Buckets can be used for a whole bunch of different stuff in the in the um prepper world, it just doesn't hold things, it can be used to transport things, it can be used to grow things in the food safe buckets, but you can use them for storing your bulk bulk foods if necessary. Now, again, don't forget that they need to be clean food-grade buckets for storing your bulk foods, and that's the only choice. Um, and it's the same thing for food as well as water. If you really want to go out, look into a gamma seal lid, these make your storages much easier to access and reseal, and are great for like supplies you'll be dipping in frequently. If you keep, you know, when you seal something once, it's kind of hard to get that tight reseal again. But if you get a seal like a gamma seal, it's used for that, it's used to actually make the ease of transfer of opening and closing, but also making sure a seal is is still there. Now, mylar bucket liners, O2 absorbers, and tea light candles. Okay, food gray buckets with tight sealed lids are adequate for storing bulk foods, however, they are not optimal on their own. Even the best plastic buckets are not impermeable to oxygen, and oxygen along with moisture is the the main culprit for the degradation of stored foods most times. If there's water and then there's oxygen, moistures there, and that's when you know, mold and all the things start to develop. So, in order to make the most of your buckets, my lar bucket liners are a good item to have because the liners go in the bucket, which prevents you guessed it, the oxygen and the moisture. T light candles can be used to purge oxygen from your stored foods before sealing your buckets. And this is just an overview of what that process goes to. You can look it up on your own. But place the mylar in the bucket, the mylar liner in the bucket, add your bulk food, place an oxygen absorber in with your food, and then close the liner. An oxygen absorber is like those little packets that you get in shipping or sometimes with food, they they absorb the oxygen and up they absorb moisture in the air. So if you can get those O2 absorbers, you put that in with your actual uh bulk food, and then you close close it with the liner, or you close the liner that's around the bucket. Now, the tricky part is you'll need to place the tea light candle on top of this, ensuring that there's enough room in the bucket that the candle flame won't burn the lid when you place it on top. Light the candle and when it's burning well, place and seal your lid. The candle will burn inside the bucket until all the available oxygen is used up and then will go out. Then the oxygen absorber will take care of any of the remaining oxygen as well as any that makes it through the bucket and the liner. When you dip into these supplies, you need to only light the candle again before sealing the bucket to re-purge your supplies of oxygen. And this process will greatly increase the storage life of your foods. However, it is kind of detailed, so please do your research and please um be comfortable with what you're actually doing because you don't want to do a process and you don't do it right, and then all your food is spoiled or it's not stored properly. So, moving on. Cooking oils. If you're relying on freeze-dried foods to get you through whatever situation, it's important to know that most of them will have a very low fat content. Fats and oils are essential to proper functions of the body, particularly the nervous system, joints, and cardiac functions. Everybody needs the healthy oils and the healthy fats in order to function properly. So you need to be sure to include them in the diet of your preps. Frying is a good means of getting some of them into your body, and you know, fried food is great when you can get it, but just be aware of that. Uh, next, peanut butter. So, depending on how you feel about peanut butter, peanut butter is one of the greatest survival foods there is, it's a great source of fats and oils, and it's a very good source of protein when you need it. And for a lot of kids, if you have kids, it's comfort food as an adult, it can be a comfort food, and something that you know it gives you a sense of normalcy in a highly stressful situation. So, keeping peanut butter um could just be a comfort factor, honestly. Uh canned tuna and other fish. So, don't neglect this category if you don't if if you really don't uh fuck with seafood too hard, especially canned seafood. Remember, you need all types of vitamins and minerals in your body in order to function properly. Canned fish does that when it's because those are wit rich in fats and oils, and you need those. And then certain kinds of fish has a particularly high concentration of omega-3 fatty acids, and these are essential fatty acids that, among other things, reduce cholesterol and inflammation in the body, and omega-3s it um are also needed for brain for the brain to function properly, and that's never a bad idea in a survival situation, if you especially if you are the thinker in your situation. So the canned tunas, the canned salmons, um, all of that. Don't not think about it just because you might have a preconceived notion of, you know, I don't want no tuna fish in my um disaster prep. Because it does serve a purpose. Um, dry mixes, you know, water is great, but drinking water all the time gets boring really fast. Kids especially like a little bit of variety in their drinks, so pay particular attention to sports drinks like the Gatorades. You know, these drink mixes have an added uh bonus of replacing electrolytes and maintaining balance in the body during sweaty times. But don't ignore the vitamin drink mixes like the emergencies, these are a great way to build up your vitamins and maintain a healthy uh immune system. Now, I know there are other alternatives out there to the Gatorades and the Emergencies, but I'm just giving you an idea of something that you can put with this particular uh for your food storage to supplement water. Get what you like. Just giving you examples of stuff. Um, and you can get good old-fashioned Kool-Aid, it's cheap, kids love it, serves the purpose of breaking up the monotony of just drinking water, and you know, it it something different, and ultimately, if you can have water taste better, infusing it with Kool-Aid in a stressful situation, highly stressful situation. I mean, it might help alleviate a little bit of the situation, just a little bit. Uh, canned juices. Canned juices will stretch your water supply, and they're not only good for drinking, but for cooking as well. Coconut and pineapple juice, for example, are great in many rice dishes, and uh you can just have a can of that if you don't have any potable water available, just in case. Okay, so canning. Even if you don't know how to can, somebody else probably does around you. And if you don't know how to can, you should learn. I'm trying to learn how to can myself because that is one of those skills that when shit goes left and you know how to do it, and I'm pretty sure a whole lot of people don't. And if you can, you got one step up on your survival that some people don't, but storing canned stuff or keeping canned items, the jar, the lid, the rings can be used as bartering items as well. Too, we're gonna have an episode about how to barter. Um, but it can be used as a barter item because even if you're not a canner, you can barter that to somebody else who might be. So um, yeah, it's a great skill to learn, and if you can learn it, take advantage of it. And if you do know how to can teach someone in your community, because that is one of those skills that it's not being told enough, I don't think. But anywho, coffee, more specifically, coffee beans. Now, this might this this might be not a big item for everybody, but if you're one of those people that need coffee, it's probably a mandatory thing. So, depending on the nature, the extent, and the duration of what you're prepping for, the benefits of caffeine for staying up on watch should not be overlooked. Just saying. And coffee, like other bulk items, lasts longer when it's stored in its whole form. So if you can get coffee beans, they'll last longer. Granted, if you have coffee beans, you're gonna have to have something separately to ground them if you want them the way that you need it for, for caffeine purposes or whatever. So, but again, coffee beans can be purchased in bulk too and stored in oxygen-purged food grade buckets. But coffee beans, and then have the whole you can get a hand grinder, a hand coffee grinder to store with your coffee beans. Because if they're in two separate locations, what's the point? Put them together if they're gonna be if you're gonna put coffee beans in a bucket, put the grinder next to the bucket, or at least somewhere in the vicinity. Another thing, can openers. Lots of can openers, you know what I'm talking about. The hand ones, the hand uh openers. Most people have an electric can opener. Lots of people don't know how to use the hand one. If there's no electricity and you have a whole bunch of can goods, how are you gonna open those cans if they don't have a pop top? A lot of cans have a pop top now, but a lot of them don't. So if you don't have a can opener, get some can openers and learn how to open a can with a hand can opener. Just saying. Uh camp style cookware. Now, given that in a long-term crisis, you'll be doing a lot more cooking over fire. So you probably want to have some cookware that's actually made to be cooked over a campfire. Um, cast iron cookware is good, you know. You should have skillets, griddles, and at least one Dutch oven made of a heavy cast iron. And in addition to your cast iron uh cookware, you should have a couple of large durable stockpots. And these are great for for outdoor frying, boiling large volumes of water, making a big batch of hot water for bathing and washing. So camp style cookware and large durable stockpots. Uh, pet food. If you have pets, take care of your pets in your prep. Um, you know, you don't want to leave them hanging, and especially if they need certain kinds of foods. I don't know if that'll actually be a sustainable thing, but at least think about your pets when you're making um your preps. Uh seeds. Now, face it, in order to maintain long-term health, fresh foods are of utmost importance. Utmost importance. It should also be evident that storing all the food you need for more than a year or so probably not the most realistic goal you could set for yourself. And now, in order to make it through a true collapse, a true shit going left, one that could take years or even decades to bounce back from, not saying anything is, but just in case it was, you will need to have the ability to produce food. And the best way to do this is becoming a master gardener. Not really, just saying, but you don't need to be a master gardener, and you don't need to store seeds, start using them now. Learn what vegetables do well in your garden, plus how to maximize yields and how to store your surplus. This is the time to learn now exactly how to garden. Now I understand you don't know you um you know what area you're in or what your soil is like or anything like that. You don't need to know all that. Get a bucket, get some soil, plant some seeds, see what grows because remember that if shit goes left, you will not be able to get a fresh supply of seeds for each gardening season. So you are going to have to learn how to harvest and store the seeds from your vegetables as well. Your very best bet is to steer clear of any hybrid vegetables, stick to heirloom varieties, and this will ensure consistency through generations of seeds and decades of gardens. So everyone should get some seeds and learn how to grow your own food, if it's possible, or at the very least, know somebody who gardens and try to learn from them because the way the grocery store is popping lately and the um the prices and the recalls of all of the things, like we might be safer at this juncture to just grow it yourself, if it's possible. I understand everybody doesn't have the ways or the means, but if you do have the ways or the means and you just nervous because you've never grown anything before or you just don't know where to start, YouTube is a wonderful thing. So, um, just like the seeds, fruit trees, fruit bushes or berry bushes, vines, edible landscaping. Fruits from trees, shrubs, and vines are a lot easier to get production from than a vegetable garden once it's established. Now, the time to establish your fruits and production time is now, though. It could happen today, depending on where you live, because we know the winter doesn't really do well for um fruit tree trees and berry bushes, but you could think about the things now because spring is coming, and and it might take years for tree shrubs, for trees, shrubs, and vines to reach maturity to even give you a fruit or a berry from. So you really don't want to be putting them in when shit's going left because they're probably not gonna grow. But if you start today, tomorrow, this weekend, something that gives you a step up. You know what else it does? It gives you the opportunity to start. Because sometimes all you need is that opportunity to start. Now, this last thing might not be for everybody, but I'm gonna talk about it just in case it's for you. Field dressing and game processing equipment. Now, although walking into the wilderness and living by hunting is really not a viable option for everybody, wild game may well provide opportunities to supplement our protein supplies in a situation going left. You have a whole bunch of rice, you got a whole bunch of beans, you got a whole bunch of oatmeal, and maybe a whole bunch of peanut butter, too. But if you need a different type of protein, you might have to go out there and start hunting, depending on where you are. Now, now I'm not saying big game hunting out there, getting the bucks and the mooses and all of those things, but learn how to recognize a squirrel, a rabbit, maybe, a bird, depending. That's if you are put into the situation that you need to actually go out there and hunt wild game. Now, be absolutely certain that you have both the knowledge and the tools for processing any game that comes your way. Because if you sit here and take them, build yourself up to go shoot the squirrel, and then you shoot the squirrel, or you arrow the squirrel, and then you got the squirrel, and now it's like, now what do I do? You should have a knife, a good skinning knife, look that up, what that is, a good field dressing knife, and proper knives for the local game in your area. You should get a meat saw or a meat or a bone saw for obvious reasons, a hand meat grinder, and the knowledge on how to use said meat grinder. Also, knowing how to preserve meat by drying, smoking, or canning is another um high key tool to have, especially when it comes to wild game processing. And then don't forget a healthy supply of game bags. These are large like claw sacks that will keep flies and other egg-laying critters off your meat when it's hanging to dry for whatever purposes. Um, and that's all I got today. I know that was a lot of um, that was a lot of stuff to go over, but again, everybody's prep is different, and I was just um trying to share different things that if you see it in the store and you feel like hey, I'm gonna pick this up and add it to my preps, or I'm gonna go get these oxygen absorbers uh or these mylar bucket liners, or I'm gonna get a five-gallon bucket of oatmeal because Shay said it, and I'm trying to be grounded and ready for whatever. So I really hope each and every one of you have a great rest of your day, rest of your evening, and I will catch you on the next episode of grounded and ready for whatever. Peace.