The ones that have the smaller openings are able to be vacuumed and is where I am putting all the rice and beans for storage. The larger mouthed ones are being used for all the pasta. I also put in a oxygen absorbing pad in each one to help keep the contents fresh. I was starting to panic about mice. If just one mouse found my stash, it would run back to the mouse cave and tell them all that I have a Mouse Walmart just ready for the taking. The glass jars will make it where all they can do is just window shop.
I found a place where I can buy the powered cheese, eggs and butter I was wanting but after doing some research, I now plan to powder my own eggs and can my own butter. I know what your thinking, yes you can can butter and it has a shelf live of 3 years. Go on u-tube and type in canned butter and you can see just how it's done. It is the same process as canning vegetables without the water bath. Go figure!
Here is lesson just learned.
Our food storage was up to around 7 months last month and now we are back down to just 5. What happen is we got comfortable. Instead of putting a huge amount of money into the food budget like we always had, we decided we could just get the necessities and live on storage for a month and save the money. The problem is that if you do not have to ration food then you wont. We ended up eating about two months worth of food in a month. If this trend was in the "IT" times, we probably could have made that two months worth of food last three.
Knowing all this I now need to go back and re-figure the quantities on what is the most important and what is used the most. It also looks like I need to increase the maximum on some items and decrease on others.
I have to be selective on what I get because I do not have the room for stacks and stacks of 5 gallon buckets.
I have accepted the fact this project is on-going, ever changing and will never be done. I guess the feeling of accomplishment is in whatever your comfort level is with your supply on hand.
You're right about the on-going, ever changing part. Just as soon as you get it figured out, your 'family' will shrink or expand and you'll be back to square one. I wish we had some of those gallon canning jars ...those would be GREAT! We do have some gallon size plastic (heavy food-grade clear) jars with screw tops. Great for storing all kinds of things.
ReplyDeleteWe had to live on our stores on and off for a week or two at a time when Yeoldfurt was out of work. It was a personal let down to have to do it, but a blessing that we had the option when things were so tight. Keep in mind that in a real mid- to long-term crisis, you WOULD be rationing and your one month supply might last five or six weeks. Like most things, attitude makes all the difference in the outcome.
: )
Would love to find some of those jars somewhere. Plastic is way to prevalent these days and I am trying to avoid it as much as possible. What do you use for things like flour and sugar?
ReplyDeleteHow are those Sebastapols doing? And your wifes cute house for them? LOL!