#10 Cans Of Long Term Food Storage at Walmart!

I just got back from my monthly shopping trip to wallymart.  They are now carrying #10 cans of all kinds of goodies including egg, butter, honey & milk powders, tvp's, some fruits & veggies, oats, wheat, bisquit and pancake mixes, and a few other goodies.  I saw a few different ones a month ago, but now they have a good selection.  They even have a dinner set case of 6.  I purchased 12 #10's and a 10# bucket of oats.  I would have loved to buy them out, but I couldn't.  I'm hoping that next month they will still have some available.  Edit to add:  As a side note I just want to say "Is someone trying to tell us something buy selling this stuff at the local grocery store?  I'm personally not stocking up for dooms day or even a major economic crash.  I'm doing it for more immediate / practical everyday reasons.  With the rising cost of food it just seems right to prepare some.  But, seriously.... maybe I should be more worried?  I don't know....

Where's the photo!?  I went to take a picture of my haul only to notice that my camera seems broken.  (trying hard not to cry right now)  The screen / view thingy is just pixely green & purple lines.  I sure hope it was just the batteries and not something more. Granted, we've had the camera for 7 years now... but I really don't want to have to be without a camera right now.  Let alone try to save for a new one.

My First Thrive Foods & Emergency Essentials Orders!

I received my first #10 cans this last week.  I ordered from two different places.  First I ordered from Emergency Essentials.  I started with just some things that they had in stock and things that I knew I would want to use.  (this is apparently essential when buying food storage)  I received Chicken TVP, Mixed Vegetables, & Triple Berry Blend.  The berries were very pricey, but I thought they would be great to have.  Both the mixed veggies and berries I will be putting away.  The TVP I opened the other night for us to try out.  I used it in stir fry and we were surprisingly pleased with it.  The next night I made some tvp meatballs.  They were ok but I want to find a better recipe that will make a more moist meatball.  I will be ordering more TVP in the other types next week.  All will be great for our oldest daughter who claims that she wants to eat vegetarian.

A week after receiving my goodies from Emergency Essentials I received my order from Thrive Foods.  From here I ordered some chopped onions, green & red bell peppers and their mac & cheese blend.  I also got some small pouches of the chopped onions to use right away.  I will be opening all of these to use in rotation. I'm really excited about these three things.  The chopped onions will save me so much time when making stews and sauces.  The mac & cheese blend is said to be the same stuff that comes in certain big brand blue box mac & cheese.  I'm really excited about this because now I can make exactly how much we want and with whole wheat noodles for much much cheaper!  The bell peppers I will be ordering more of on my next order.  Have you seen prices on fresh peppers lately.  Last week the non-green ones were $2.99 each!  I about fell over in the store.  We eat those like candy around here.  The dehydrated ones will go into any mixes that I make, soups, sauces, etc.  I will only buy the fresh ones to use on salads and snacking.  Hopefully that will save me money and time.

To review both companies... I have good and neutral things to say about both.
Emergency Essentials:  The good:  They have great prices and almost anything that you could want or need.  They carry two sizes including the superpails. Shipping is super cheap and your items got to me really fast.  The Neutral: They are ALWAYS out of stock of most things.  You can order them, but they can take up to 2 months to get to you from what I've read.

Thrive Foods:  The good:  Their packaging is really pretty. (this is a totally girly thing!)  They have some different foods than some other places and shipping was very affordable.  The Neutral:  Their prices seem to be a bit higher on most things.  (compared to emergency essentials)  Shipping took a bit longer, but was still very reasonable considering they are being bombarded with orders lately due to situations throughout the world.

Overall, I will be ordering monthly from both companies.  I'm excited to build up my supply.  I'm also looking into buying in bulk locally to use in my immediate food rotation.

Simple PETE 1 Gallon Jar Labels

This is a tutorial for some very very simple labels for your food storage jars. 

Step One:  Measure the place that you want your label to go.  In my case it was the lid of my containers.

Step Two:  Cut out your labels.  For mine I used my circle cutter and cut out white cardstock at 3" circles and a fun paper for the background at 3 3/8".

Step Three:  Label and draw on your labels.  I just used a sharpie and drew some crud pics of what was in each jar.  My daughter then colored them in.  You could print yours out if you wanted.

Step Four:  Place your white cardstock with labeling on your background paper.  I used my handy Zyron sticker maker.  

Step Five:  Use tape, or in my case my Zyron sticker maker and attach your labels to your containers.

Done!  See... Super easy and cute to boot.

Is It Wrong To Get So Excited About Containers?

Last month my hubby got a gallon size plastic container of pretzels at the store. (the red lid one) During some random reading about food storage, I ran into a lengthy post about using PETE (this is the type of plastic that the container is. it's marked with a 1 on the bottom of the container) 1 gallon containers for storage. The pretzel container was one of these! When the pretzels were gone my hubby washed it out and it became a new home for our oats. I knew I wanted more, but I didn't really look into it much. Then my hubby came home from Wallymart with three new containers! They sell these containers for a whooping $2.97 each. Apparently he had to ask a lady who was filling her cart with these containers if he could maybe have a few. He said that she hesitated and asked if he would be ok with just 3. LOL!!! Sign of the times or what?! I've been to Wallymart twice since then looking to see if they had restocked. Finally on Monday they had! I bought every one they had. 9 of them. But, when I got home I only had 8. I think I must have left one on the bottom of the cart. Urrrgggg......

Just look at them on the counter drying. I couldn't wait to fill them up. They now live on our shelves full of dry goods. Aren't they pretty? I'll be doing a tut in the next post for the labels I made.

Preparedness - SHTF – We'll Be Ready For Anything!

A few months ago I stumbled into a new obsession. Long Term Food Storage. I found it purely by accident when trying to figure out how to cook beans and how best to store them after I did so. Basically food storage is just that... you store extras of the things you use most as well as things that will store for years and years. Now I realize that this is not a “new” thing. People have been storing food forever. They stocked up during the harvest time to be prepared for the winter. For the most part people have stopped doing this because you can go to the store and buy whatever you want, whenever you want. It's nice that we don't have to worry about where our food comes from, but I also think it's very naive. In these economic times I don't think we can be to careful. Why not stock up on essentials with today’s price to use tomorrow?

My favorite website is foodstoragemadeeasy.net. I even got their ebook and have begun following some of their recipes and ideas for storing stuff. My current stock is fairly basic and not to huge. But, it's a start. Check out my pantry! With the amount of dry / canned goods I've bought I needed to completely clean out my pantry and make room. I'm even going to unearth space in my laundry room for non-food items and long term storage items.

I found these on clearance at Freddies.  They were around $1.50 each.  I wish they had more.

Here is a list of some of our current supplies:
50 lbs of Hard white wheat
20 lbs of White rice
10 lbs of Oats
4 lbs of Instant Dry Milk
3 lbs Salt
26 Cans of Soup
30 Cans Of Beans
20 lbs of Various dry beans
About 50 cans veggies, cream of soups, tuna, etc.
10 bags/boxes of Whole wheat pastas


There are other things too, but not enough of any one thing to mention. I'm going to add in some hygiene things this month as well as some meds and vitamins. I would love a suture kit and a dentist kit with those stick on cavity filler things. We are also looking for some water barrels. You won't live long without water! There are many on Craigslist right now, we just have to go get some. Other things I'm stocking up on is clothing for the kids in bigger sizes, (I bought the baby some things 50% off at Goodwill the other day is size 4T) paper products, food storage recipes, etc.

Making The Best Of My Food Storage: To make the best of all the basic goods listed above (and others that I have yet to buy) I am planning to rotate my foods. Basically you actually use your stored goods and replenish regularly. This way I'm using what I store and the family is used to eating it! Supposedly it'll lower our grocery bill and help us to eat much more healthy.

Can Rotating System... I made these with the instructions here.  I'll be making more of these!

 Little antidote: The past year I have been fighting to move our families eating into a new direction. All whole grains, fresh / frozen veggies, etc. No Pre-Prepard / Boxed Food! We have been doing really well. I think the only meal we eat out of a box anymore is Mac&Cheese. Anyways... Months ago I was grocery shopping and I ran into a friend of mine. (she calls me “Betty Crocker”) My cart was ½ filled with veggies and the rest was whole ingredients for our dinners for the next month. (I was about to do my once a month cooking). Her cart was filled with boxed everything. Now I know that she cooks healthy things and her family is very healthy. She just cooks from a box. But, it made me realize how far I've / we've come in the past year. Remembering this story makes me hope that by next year I'll look into a pantry & laundry room and see a very prepared and even healthier way of cooking.

New Equipment: Having raw ingredients like wheat makes you need new equipment. We are on currently on the prowel for a grain mill. You need a way to grind the wheat into flour! We are currently looking at the Country Living Grain Mill and the Champion Juicer with Grain attachment. They are very very different from each other, but the Juicer one is electric which is nice. I also want to get a pressure canner and learn all about canning and preserving. This next spring/summer I want to can all our fruits for next winter. (my kids hate fruit from a can) I've also learned that you can pressure can meats! It makes sense that you can do that I guess I just never really thought about it before.

Talking to the kids about why mommy has just bought 50 lbs of wheat & dry beans: My oldest is very perceptive. She took notice of the extra food stores coming into the house as well as all the chatter between hubby and I about storing food, water, and other basic supplies. We told both of the kids that it was just smart planning to have extras around for many reasons. Including power outages, big storms, natural disasters, job loss, etc. (I didn't want to go into things like food shortages and major food price increases) A few days later she “confirmed” what we had told her by asking me “So all this stuff is just in case the world ends? Like in that movie 2012?” LOL! I love that girl. I giggled and told her it was more just in case of small things like storms that knocked out power, snow, etc. This was the night of the 10th. Yeah... the next morning the kids found me glued to the TV watching about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. I think this really helped her understand why it's important.

So Much Information:  There is so much to know about food storage.  Where / how to store it, how to use it regularly, when to buy, what to buy, what not to buy, etc.  Check out the internet if you want to get started yourself.  There is sooo much info out there. Of course you can ask me questions here.  I'll answer the best I can, but I'm still learning myself.