OK, I like the idea of storing in the 5 gallon pails as they are strong, waterproof,etc., and you can carry em or bury em if needed. I'd suggest mixing a variety of items in a bucket because:
1. So that you don't have to rip open 10 buckets to make a meal.
2. You could divide your supplies quickly if needed to backup locations without having to sort which goes with which
3. It's easier to plan your meals....mix beans to go with rice = protein and carbs, some cans of sardines,lipton onion soup mix,etc.
4. put a # on the pail, run inventory list elsewhere as to calories, # of meals, etc.
5. you could quickly sell/barter a pail without sorting again

Some do. I even store some of my cases of pre-canned foods in reasonable "meal" and "day" and "three-meal" or "three-day" mixes. They're a "dolly and go" supply and "easy access" supply for relocations. The caches are very much designed that way. I don't store everything that way, because you start running into the variables and factors you mention later. Buckets are basically stored to become a grocery store of sorts, to support fresh-gathered or -grown foods, and there is some variation in some of mine, but because shelf life varies (I'll hit that later), I store largely like things together.

Now for the questions: Just buy the rice in sealed mylar type bags, (Costco I think). Then why seal? The rest keeps well without, yes?

Not sure what the "rest" is. Part of that will depend on storage life of the "rest." My herbs don't last as long as my rice. Salad dressing and oil don't store as long as vinegar or Worcestershire sauce. If it's cheaper for you to buy stuff already sealed in Mylar, do it. It's cheaper for me to buy 50# rice, 25# of wheat, 10-30# of beans or crowder peas for $12 each and the Mylar and 1000cc oxy absorbers, and do it myself. Pack them and forget about them, because with baselines established, I don't have to hassle with them for 10-25 years. That lets me concentrate on other stuff.

- Why not stock up on various macaroni? They keep years, yes? And it's already formed and ready to throw in the pot.(I mean storing bucket fulls, no sealing)

Absolutely. All kinds of pasta. Depending on packaging and humidity and light and any pests, it can do 2-4 right in the original package, 8-10 in the heavier type of cellophane in a bucket. Remember that the buckets aren't 100% airtight. Yes, they float in water, but they're porous enough for oxidation. Oxidation can over time degrade the quality of foods, lowering nutritional value.
The nutritional value of cheap white flour is where some people drop off from the noodles, but it's not a personal concern for me. Fast and tasty makes pasta and egg noodles with sauce or gravy or in casseroles, pasta salad, and diti or shells in minestrone-type soup a standby in my house, and are part of what will ease a transition to a different life, makes it easier to rotate them in, and maintain normalcy during periods of layoff or after we retire and start eating off food storage more.

- If one measured the food stores by calorie count, most likely only have months worth, not years worth...so why the 10-20 year plan? That would take alot of supplies?
- otherwise, why rotate items if you have such a long expiry date?

I'm a 2-3 year proponent (of everything) to account for the first year of being spastic and unknown, and to cover a bad crop year or major injury that keeps an able-bodied adult out of the woods and gardens.
Regardless of duration, there's a couple of factors.
One, not everybody eats what they store. My dogs don't eat oatmeal, eggs and veggies (Blue Buffalo babies) but having that set aside means they're covered and I don't have to rotate more than the three stashes of bagged food. I don't eat whole wheat berries or self-ground flour all that often, but it's cheap and like white rice, is a standby in the storage, in amounts that it would be difficult for me to rotate through in 2-3 years because there are extra people in my plan than eat off my kitchen normally. My storage accounts for not getting much wildlife, and is thus much heavier in beans than what we'll eat, even though we do eat from-scratch beans and like them.

Two, I don't eat much out of a can. I eat largely fresh and frozen things, and although I do use some of my dehydrated produce (kind of regularly), I usually have multiple sets going. I couldn't rotate even the core household foods without notice and disgruntlement. Too, it's cheaper to buy fresh in some/many cases (meat, apples, carrots). Rather than open a can at the rate I would need to, and be less happy with it, it can sit on a shelf for 5-10 years or 15-25 years, be more slowly trickled out as it gets closer to expiration, and leave me a lot happier and with having spent less money in the long term.

Three, it's a lot easier for me to manage storage and rotation if the long-term hosses like wheat, oats, rice, beans, apples, carrots, and pasta can just sit there for 15-25 years. I only have to deal with replacing and using/donating and shifting around the shorter-term storage items.

There's no way I spend the $$$$ and time to seal or buy sealed stuff and then bust into it annually. Some do, though. Some want to try it. I have cans and jars that are ready to rotate because I like to test some at various stages, to see how age or conditions have changed them, and some that are just aging out because of the way they were stored.
Usually, because they were stored a certain way, I can trickle them in with little or no notice in our regular lives and diets.

I figure that one should likely have enough food stores to provide sustenance for the time being as you plant, grow and harvest a years crop.

That is a beautiful theory. I hope you were kidding about the biker plant if it's one you're going to beat a drum for.

Growing from scratch is not an automatic. Even professionals and long-term growers have bad years. If it's not in hand, it shouldn't be 100% counted on. The belief that you can open a package, stick seeds in dirt, and get food may someday cost lives. Macro and micro climate in general and foot-by-foot location, pests, and previous soil use affect gardening and farming now, with machines and chemicals at our fingertips. Floods, droughts, and pests affect food prices now, with the same, and affect small-scale family fresh-eating growers and sustenance growers. Different growing styles, location, and watering styles affect yield per plant, just like climate affects what plants grow and the general growing season. Greenhouses, hoops, and row covers have their places.

Seeds also need rotated with different types and even different manufacturers, containers and storage temperatures playing a factor, and at the end of the season, saved. Neither of those are automatic. Even the same types of plants (call it beans) have a wide variety in type (bush and pole) and each breed (fava, pigeon, lima, black, navy, black-eyed, chick) has variations in size, days to harvest, pests, weather, and soil, and there's some wiggle in how the seeds store best for later use and when you can pull pods for eating and when you pull pods for storing for the next season. Knowing how much you need to plant for sustenance only comes from practice. Knowing exactly when to sow - especially without forecasters - and how long plants take to yield, and knowing determinate or indeterminate yield for succession is critical.

Just because a bucket or can or envelope of seeds says it will store for 4, 10 or 20 years doesn't mean everything in there is viable for your soils, doesn't mean all types of seeds are still going to be viable, and your germination rates will be lower and lower. That means the package that promised an acre may plant a quarter of that. For a lot of growers, small scale grain is going to be simply eye-opening.

Without livestock, unless it's accounted for with oilseeds, the eating garden is also going to be severely deficient in fats.

Starting seeds can be easy, can be hard, and sometimes we do it successfully for a decade and Mother Nature thinks we got cocky and whaps us (me, this year).

Too many variables to consider years of stockpiling.

There are far fewer variables in a household 3-year supply, especially with replications of 7, 12 or 52-meal/day menus and a dedicated tally of what gets used over a month in 4 or 6 sample months than in trying to organize a neighborhood, trade network, sustenance garden and growing or raising, security, water and backup water and backups to the backup, and especially SANITATION. Any committtee anywhere, even of generally like-minded people, can be painful and complicated to organize. Stuff-stuff is EASY.

Even a robber isn't going to trash your garden but they will steal all they can haul.

People already steal from gardens in loose suburbs, tight suburbs and cities, and already trash the same for no reason or because they're mad at somebody. People are largely dirt bags. Put nothing past angry, desperate people, especially.

Prepping should likely be better defined as "preparing temporary measures to enable successful completion of permanent measures"!

Even "temporary" has leeway. I don't try to wedge people into my definition of faith, and I don't force my definition of preparedness on people. What everyone is preparing for and the duration of unrest and self-reliance varies. That means the time they need to cover before trying to rejoin and rebuild society will vary. For some, it's months. For others, years. Having extra isn't a bad thing even if it turns around faster or "we" believe a nuclear or chemical event (or one that triggers breakdowns in nuclear or chemical plants) that poisons the land for years and years is unlikely. Putting an upper limit to what seems reasonable is fine for an individual or family, but to me it seems pretty ridiculous to try and push it on other people as unnecessary or overly complicated.

I found some very good videos on youtube about sealing mylar for storing rice etc.

It mentioned taking a flashlight and holding it up to the bag to see if you can see the light though it.
He mentions this at about 1:50 into the video. He is using a very strong flashlight to test this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFfgVpDvQcY

He also had some short and very good other videos on different sealing methods
https://www.youtube.com/user/ReadyGoPrep/videos

I think food / water / other supplies, prepping storage has stages, as one begins to prep
and learn to get organized.

First addressing the very short term, of less than a week.

then quickly moving on to longer short term such as say 3 months
then getting to 6 months

then next you get into the years first 1 year then 2 years .
And then you decide if you want more up to 2.5 years or 3 years

In those 2 ( or up to 3) years I'm suggesting :
Store what you use
Use what you store
and replace what you use

Such that rotation is natural as your supplies become your huge
pantry . In this I would "not" be using mylar. As you will be using
these up and if you have reusable mason jars, or the food saver bags , that will
keep the 2 - 3 years on most items.

Also being mindful of expiry dates, I also use Blue Buffalo in the
mylar bags , but the shelf life is only about 13 - 14 months, as I
use the Blue Buffalo WILDERNESS and that expires faster.

Then you get into mylar for the long term storage of 5 - 10 - 20 years
for some items. Such as rice .
But you continue to use your 2 ( or 3 ) year pantry area supplies daily and
restocking that , watching for sales.

? At some point , I am not sure of are people then moving some of their
long term storage items out of the 10 - 20 years into the pantry
usage section and restocking the long term stuff again ? Or are they
leaving those mylar and Thrive tins for full 20 years ?

MrsPrep is already there by the sound of it. I am no where near .
My goal is to keep working at it.

I have not gotten into the mylar or the sealer yet. I can not see using
mylar for up to 2 years storage. Unless there is something that really expires fast
and the mylar would make it last 2 or 3 years.

I would think you want to watch the dates on the long term, and also check
that they are still sealed. I would also think you don't want to buy all
the 20 year rice at one time, or it will all expire in 20 years ? Perhaps
each year you want to add some ? so that there is always 20 years , thus
perhaps at 5 years some of that stuff gets moved down into the pantry section
that you are using, thus making room for the new stuff that will be 20 years storage ?
But when moving down into the pantry section it still would be at the back of your
pantry in rotation getting used after your current 2 - 3 years on the pantry shelf.
The very long term storage could be stored in a separate area, and this would be
the mylar inside the buckets stacked.

I am also wondering what colour lids anyone is using to colour code the
various supply items ???

So far I have orange lids for my ecozoom and fire and cooking supplies.

but there are green, red, blue, white, black, yellow

? At some point , I am not sure of are people then moving some of their long term storage items out of the 10 - 20 years into the pantry usage section and restocking the long term stuff again ? Or are they leaving those mylar and Thrive tins for full 20 years ?

Depending on how it was stored (tins or mylar bags, canning jars with O2 absorbers; temperature) I rotate before the marked expiration date. I kind of apply the MRE chart, as far as coming up with a guide for myself (using the full amount of time expected as the 100% perfect level), but I also mar my notebook at 2-5 years "early" to start rotating things from long storage into my pantries.

Not all cans and goods are created equal. Milk, butter and flour go bad faster than others. Cocoa powder goes rancid, even in number ten cans, flushed or with O2 absorbers.
The LDS order form is my personal cheat sheet. I'll also use the Augason foods pdf for a ROT. Then I'll subtract years based on the temperature, the spread of the temperature swings it goes through daily and annually, if it's in glass that allows light, that kind of stuff.

I have so far been able to find dented cans at deep discount or a pouch version of foods to try to avoid opening freeze-dried entrees and meats. I've had some of the earlier just-add-water multi-entree buckets of pouches hit the mark I'm comfortable with, which lets me try them. I also open some of my personally packed Mylar and cans early to see how time affects their textures, taste, how long they need to soak or simmer, things like that. That way I know stuff like:
...use your red beans inside 5-8 years, or start planning to grind them for flour after that; I don't think it's about the oxy absorbers so much as pure age
...LDS white wheat will sprout at least 3-5 years after you buy the can, and is inexpensive enough to run the experiment for sprouts, wheatgrass, or a grassy verge to test germination and its response to your soils

I have not gotten into the mylar or the sealer yet. I can not see using mylar for up to 2 years storage. Unless there is something that really expires fast
and the mylar would make it last 2 or 3 years.

I can't think of too much that would need Mylar for 2-year storage instead of the container it comes in, unless you're doing herbs yourself. I tend to just keep some canning jars and O2 absorbers going for dried culinary and tea and medicinal herbs, but if you're shy on space or leery of weight, you could do up a bunch of skinny packets and then stick them in a coffee tin or a big jar to keep bugs, mice and leaky roofs from hitting them.
I do my storage fruits and dry beans I grew and veggies in Mylar sometimes, but since I store and use a lot of canning jars, a lot of them just rotate through those. Too, canning jars are heavy and bulky, but it's a good size to grab apples and oats, beans and rice and carrots, and barley and a veggie blend, matches and some candles to hand leave for somebody or give to a church to distribute in sets, and they can re-seal the jars and use them for water, even cook in them in some cases.

If you have a near-religious aversion to the idea of reusing canning jar lids, skip this section.
I'll give you a minute.
Speaking SOLELY of DEHYDRATED produce being sealed with oxygen absorbers:
(Run now, last chance, slide to the end of the post)
If I did not bung up my canning jar lids opening them, I will wash them, reboil them, let them dry, and use them with canning jars for dehydrated stuff, and it lets me not throw something away as quickly. If they came off a jelly/veggie jar from a water bath or pressure canner and have that deeper ring cut into the waxy plasticy part, I will use a little melted beeswax to fill it in after they're clean and let that dry, then use them for dehydrated stuff.
I don't like to throw stuff away (greenie) and I haven't switched over to glass+rubber lids. I stock a ton of lids, but I just don't like the waste, even recycling them.

OK, it's safe again.
Done talking about lids.

so that there is always 20 years , thus perhaps at 5 years some of that stuff gets moved down into the pantry section that you are using, thus making room for the new stuff that will be 20 years storage ?

My storage ebbs and flows by years. Some years I've been fat and happy and bought more, some years less. I've never bought enough for a full year all in one year, but there's no way I would spend the time and money on a big bulk bag, Mylar, and buckets, or for-sure the purchased 20-year entrees, then bust them out at 5 years just to make room, unless I was replacing some of the sucky nutrients or sucky textures with something better or making room for something I couldn't afford.
Right now when I want to feed Mr. P beef stroganoff ('cause he's gross), I grab beef, noodles, onions, sour cream, and cream-of soup. I do not have a cow and I do not have dairy goats, and I think in a long-term breakdown, beef and deer are going to be in short supply. I might manage bunny stroganoff, but I don't count on it. So I keep decent beef (better texture and size than store-shelf and Yoders cans that last 2-8 years) set aside as a pick-me-up in two forms - one from "scratch" as much as possible, and one in a just-add-water meal that makes it a bonus for everybody, cook to cleaner to eater.
There are several like that.
Those don't get rotated. They won't get rotated until they're close to expiration. Their pouch versions were tested.
I do, however, buy powdered sour cream in number ten cans because we never seem to use it all when I buy it "fresh", I hate waste, and I like to be able to mix up just as much as I want. In the fridge, in a Glad container, it keeps just fine for a year or so (haven't gone out longer than about that, maybe eighteen months).

I am also wondering what colour lids anyone is using to colour code the various supply items ???

I don't really use lids. I have some, but I get a lot of my buckets for free and with the Mylar or because they're packed with store stuff and are just for mice and light, it works.
However, I have some marked with different colors of duct tape, which holds either a chunk of pasteboard that was spray painted with the chalkboard stuff or sometimes different colored notecards.
The chalk was a fabulous idea at the time, because it wipes off. The chalk is a terrible idea, because it wipes off.
Two bands of colored duct tape to give me a general category, with the duct tape holding a Ziploc with a notecard inside, this is my current happy for buckets and storage totes and cardboard boxes.
I can pull the notecard out, erase previous contents or dates, write the new ones in pencil (less smearing) and stick it back in. A general heading and number (the latter of which is in permanent marker) gives me a reference for the Notebook.
Almost no waste at all (happy greenie).
Easy to reorg as desired (happy semi-OCD).
No more ugly lined-through blacked-out "seemed good at the time" marker labels (because I sometimes have to see these things).

I do have a lot of them numbered in marker, and sometimes they're marked with codes to tell me they're from a general category or are on the list to go on a dolly and to a truck, to tell me they're mixed lots of semi-balanced meals and days, and to tell me if there's coffee included (sometimes I sneak coffee or well-sealed candy or well-sealed tea into other containers as well, or a fun something, as a random even-I-won't-know mood boost).

I was doing colored paper for a while, using contact paper to stick it to the buckets and a smaller "category" color to the lids.

I draw a hazard symbol on buckets that were salvaged and should stay dedicated to tools, clothing, paper, pencils, lamps, batteries, solar collectors, hardware-type stuff because I don't know what happened to it before. I stopped marking pickle containers, because so far none of the pickle smell leaks into canning jars or tin cans or Mylar (it will get through cardboard and paper).
🙂
Maybe somebody can weigh in with a simpler system for at-a-glance recognition for you.

Today I was told that we should not use mason jars or food saver for storing and only
use mylar, even though I kept saying that their usage was for storage 2 - 2.5 years. Long term yes, mylar.
But they kept saying mason jar is bad it lets the light in. Well obviously we know that and
hopefully we are doing something about the light. They didn't like it when I said one could do good storage for a 2 year storage
by using mason jar, using an oxygen absorber, and also the food saver to remove air. Then
store , protecting from light as best you can.

I think mason jars are wonderful . I have plenty in all sizes. They are reusable.

Today I was told that we should not use mason jars or food saver for storing and only
use mylar, even though I kept saying that their usage was for storage 2 - 2.5 years.
I think mason jars are wonderful . I have plenty in all sizes. They are reusable.

Stick your thumb to your nose and wag your fingers at them. You know somebody who has stored dry beans and grains, dehydrated fruit, & dehydrated veggies in them for 3-8 years, and has been eating bits and pieces of those 3-8 y/o produce for 5 years and lived to tell about it.
I used to split and dry bait fish mummichugs, cheap swai, and good-fish fish skins for my dearly departed mini-tiger, and finally fed them to my dogs over a few month about 5 years after that cat died. They were fine.

You've got the ticket - keep them dark. They won't last as long as tins or mylar, but they aren't restricted to next-season turnaround, either.
-P

I also look for foods I buy at the grocery store that actually come in mason jars .
Such as Pasta sauces, then I get to keep another mason jar afterwards !

😆

While there are oodles of videos on youtube on using mylar, this video was very interesting method
of using your vacuum sealer on very wide bags, with the vacuum sealer removing alot of the air from
that mylar bag. Interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAM3ha44C74

I use color coded gamma lids in my 6gal buckets as well as a Mylar bag. My colors are red for all beans, black for flour and oatmeal and white for sugar, salt and powdered milk. Green is for my seeds, orange for the pasta's and yellow for powdered eggs and cheese. Each bucket is labeled with the contents and a piece of tape above the item name has the date it was packed. My Mylar bags are zip lock types and I use oxygen eaters in each bag. Some of my buckets are 5 years sealed and I've checked one or two-just to see! Everything seems to be working. I'd love to be able to bucket raisins, but sadly...I've heard they don't store well. I recently bought goats and chickens to raise, so I may open one or two of the milk and eggs buckets and use those up. I rotate my canned goods but typically not my buckets. By the way..don't use oxygen eaters in your sugar, goes hard as rock! I've opened my sugar after 4 years without them and it's fine so far!

1. Brown rice only keeps for a few months unless kept very cool due to oils in it.
2. White rice gets better with age.
3. If you buy rice, try some first before buying more. I actually ate rice one time that was horrible, and I am not fussy.
4. We ate some rice and ground some wheat that had been stored for Y2K in just plastic pails recently and given to us by neighbours moving away. Yummm
5. Red lentils keep a long time without getting hard like other beans and are very high in protein.
6. Spices will be more important than you think. My husband can cook up a dish with whole wheat flat bread, rice and lentils with maybe a jar or 2 from my canned veggies and me and any of our friends are in heaven. Its the spices.

I always wonder about this mylar concept as folks who require them are then saving for many, many years down the road. I don't think that this is as logical a choice as many seem to consider it is. Old methods often keep foods to 5 years and we should be eating that which is at most 2 years old anyways. Does not even the Bible mention that grain was simply stored away for 7 years of famine? And yet no mention of mylar... With the food requirements to have a balanced diet, skills acquired today should reflect in that which is stored for the duration anyways. This means start eating that which you stored last year (or the year before) and with knowledge learned from tasting and using daily, your next stores will then be even better choices for next year. Thus all these items are up to date and a healthy balance to countering excessive paranoia is achieved too.

If proven methods such as canning and dehydrating were indeed faulty procedures, mankind already would have perished long ago. Mylar has become this excuse for folks to become excessive in such as food storage too. Many are stocking up as a means to counter other insecurities or doubts they have about today's economy and this have become a stop gap. Practicality should tell you when you have enough and focus on other areas instead, yet folks continue stocking as if this will somehow fix their other issues too.

Set limitations to say when you have enough. I'm sure that 1 1/2 - 2 years is plenty as you should have gardening and other fallbacks in play by then. If your fears are from nuclear fallout and such, realize that that world wouldn't be to pleasant a one to be worried about living in anyways....so relax and move on! Copy those ancestors who knew what they were doing instead. Start that garden out back as that too will sustain you far better than a bunch of 10 year old mylar stored foods will anyways.

I always wonder about this mylar concept as folks who require them are then saving for many, many years down the road. I don't think that this is as logical a choice as many seem to consider it is. Old methods often keep foods to 5 years and we should be eating that which is at most 2 years old anyways. Does not even the Bible mention that grain was simply stored away for 7 years of famine? And yet no mention of mylar...

What? you have a problem with biaxially orientated polyethylene terephthalate polyester film wraped around your food?, and it wasnt in the bible as it was just assumed you would use this.

Knuckle- I mostly store rice, wheat and red lentils. All of which we eat regularly and not feasible for me to grow (well, maybe some wheat). Sugar and salt (for preserving) rounds out my must haves. I don't store for 10 years but I use what I store and if I could get to 3 years of my basics, I would be happy. I garden (and I can a lot) and I agree it is necessary, but I prefer to have more than my garden since these things are cheap to buy and easy to store.

We get rice 25 pounds at a time and store it in a 5 gallon bucket with a snap on lid.
We dont use dry ice or any other special precaution and dont seem to have any trouble.

This stuff isnt set aside for extra long term storage though, Its just our normal stock.
We dont eat much rice however, our current stock is surely at least five years old.