Earlier this year, I got involved with my local CERT (Community Emergency Response Team). you can read about it a my previous post here. One of the first things you are taught is; In the event of an emergency; take care of yourself and your family first. You are not going to be a lot of help to others in your community if you are worried about your own families well-being.
Part of taking care is preparation. FEMA and the Red Cross tell us to have food, water, and other supplies to last 72 hours. The reality is that if a major event where to occur, it will likely be much longer than 72 hours until any type of assistance arrives. Living in Southern California, and basically ON the San Andreas fault, a major earthquake will likely take out all services, including every major highway in the area. It could be weeks before ANY assistance arrives, and history has shown the assistance will be insufficient, ineffective, and the distribution will be chaotic to say the least.
There has been this idea of the $20 food bucket bouncing around the internet for quite a while. The idea is that you don't need to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on commercially available emergency food supplies. some basic staples and a 5 gallon can be enough to get you through an emergency or other 'tough time'. I read a few lists, and watch a few videos of people putting together various buckets and decided to give it a try.
There are various ways to store food long term. you can buy air tight buckets and purge all the air out with an inert gas (co2 or argon, for example) and this method was appealing to me, but i could not source food grade buckets with air tight lids locally (and shipping 5 gallon buckets was not appealing). Another way is to use Mylar bags and oxygen scavenger packets.
5Gal bucket with Mylar bag
You can seal the Mylar bags with an iron, and the scavenger packets remove all the oxygen and helps preserve the food.
Freakishly small iron
The foods we are taking about here are just simple staples... beans and rice.
20# of rice in the bag
Beans
My first bucket ended up consisting of the following:
- 20# Rice
- 5# Pinto Beans
- 1# Red Beans
- 1# Kidney Beans
- 1# split peas
- 26oz salt (iodized)
- 1pk (3.4oz) spice mix
oxygen scavenger packet
metal level used with the iron to seal the Mylar
The salt and spice mix stay outside the Mylar as the Oxygen scavenger will turn the salt to a solid brick
salt and spice outside the Mylar
Date and list of contents
This bucket could probably have used another pound or two of beans, but this is a good start and is technically enough for one person to live off of for a month, or our current household of 3 for about a week. Its not gourmet, and definitely not an exciting prospect, but its better than going hungry or fighting for whatever food FEMA eventually provides. The spice mix is one that my family really likes (Montreal steak), and should help make the beans and rice more palatable. I plan on adding different spices to each bucket to add some variety. I will also be including a sack of sugar in at least one of the future buckets. We have chickens at home (for eggs), and are preparing to add meat rabbits to the 'farm'. The garden plot is also coming along, so that will also go a long way.
So, the real question... what did my "$20" food bucket end up costing me? It was bit more than $20, but still not horribly expensive. The total cost was about $35.00 (see breakdown below). That could have been reduced by buying some of the items in larger, bulk quantities (the pinto beans and rice, specifically) but I still don't think it would have dropped it to the $20 mark. Sticking with straight pinto beans would also have reduced the cost some, but i think having a small variety will go a long way in 'quality of life'. Some examples also do not count the cost of the bucket, lid and Mylar bags, but I don't think that is realistic. You really don't want to be using some old bucket that has been kicked around in the garage for a couple of years. You need new, preferably food grade, buckets for this. Even the 'minimal' supplies, Rice and Pinto Beans, and not including the bucket and Mylar I would still be looking at about $25. I would have to find a really good deal on bulk rice and beans to hit the $20 mark.
| Item | Cost | ext (1 bucket) |
|---|---|---|
| Bucket | $3.25 | $3.25 |
| Lid | $1.58 | $1.58 |
| Mylar/o2 (10pk)) | $20.99 | $2.10 |
| Rice | $16.99 | $16.99 |
| Pinto (10#) | $7.49 | $3.75 |
| Red Bean | $1.49 | $1.49 |
| Kidney Bean | $1.49 | $1.49 |
| Split Pea | $1.69 | $1.69 |
| Salt | $0.89 | $0.89 |
| Spice Mix | $1.89 | $1.89 |
| Total | $57.75 | $35.11 |
