Pantry Pictures?

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Bean, Beans and more Beans

So, I was going to show all of you pictures of my pantry… See how huge it is. Almost looks like I have a warehouse full of goods, doesn’t it? It looks like that because it is a warehouse. These photos are from a local restaurant supply chain, “Cash and Carry”.

 

   This supply house is just one of I’m sure a dozen in our area. I just happen to be a shopper here from time to time and snapped a few shots to illustrate some points in today’s post. These restaurant supply stores are often over looked by our prepper masses. We all know about Costco and Sams but I haven’t seen much coverage of these other outlets.

 

   Like probably 90% of you, I shop at Costco for our monthly grocery supply run. I am very happy with the prices and convenience I get at Costco. They usually can beat the prices of these smaller stores as well! The prices of the smaller outfits are only slightly higher than the big chains, not enough to drive very much further to buy something at a Costco!

 

    The single best reason to shop at these places for your preps or even your day to day groceries is the selection! Where Costco only has 25lb bags of Pinto beans, these guys have 15 different types of dry beans, also in 25lb bags. My families preps have gotten much more diverse since I found this source. I have taken advantage of their large variety of rice, beans, grains and spices. We even find the supplies of paper goods in the giant packages are far superior to what you can find when shopping at Costco. Don’t get me wrong I shop at Costco and will continue to! I’m hoping to bring to your attention an asset we can all take advantage of at least for our dry goods.  

   We have all heard the bulk wheat and rice for long term food storage ideas. I’d wager many of us even have these very items put away. I wouldn’t be without them myself. What I do think is that this is a fairly narrow view of food storage. We have a layered approach to food storage at our house. I’m a believer in the “Store what you eat and eat what you store” philosophy. With this in mind we have a large amount of our pantry filled with the day to day things. Unfortunately, these have to include many canned items rather than fresh or even home canned. We would prefer to have healthier options but we do the best we can until our lifestyle will allow us the time to achieve more of what we want.

 

Restaurant supply

I had driven past these stores for years before I ever went inside. Their signs say that they are open to all businesses, I happen to be a business owner but I’ve never been asked for any information to substantiate this fact. I presume that they are happy to have business from any and everyone, so don’t be scared off by the fact they are a wholesaler.

In addition to the canned goods, we store rice, beans, pasta and even popcorn that has been purchased in quantity. We can often break these packages down to more reasonable sizes for handling. Nobody wants to be hoisting a 5olb bag of rice into the kitchen to prepare every meal. It doesn’t take much additional planning to have a couple 50lb sacks of rice on hand for day to day use than it does to have the smaller bags. Obviously the small bags work just fine but why not have a months worth on hand instead of a weeks.

 

   Another item I buy both at Costco and at “Cash and Carry” as well are Spices. Prior to finding this additional source of goods, I would put back extras of many of the common spices that Costco offered, I’m guilty of not doing enough prepping in this particular area. After finding the restaurant supply house I have been able to provide a better supply for our day to day use but also the long term storage shelves as well. They offer a much larger selection as well as larger volume sizes. We all know that the more you buy the less the per unit price is, it works with spices as well. 

Spices Galore

   About our layered storage approach. We have the items we will definitely be using in the next few months as layer one storage. Followed by items that will be held in reserve for longer periods. These are often similar items but handled differently. These would be something that I might store in a less convenient location or if it is dry goods, go ahead and package in Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers. I like to have several months supply of this layer put away at any given time.

Rice supply anyone

 

   These Meals, Ready to Eat have a fair length shelf life if stored appropriately. Roughly 5-7 years… I know this will set off an age old argument in this statements accuracy. The published shelf life is alleged to be on the conservative side, however as a conservative individual I keep these dates in mind. This said I still have some old style MRE’s from back in the 90’s. Now I am not counting on these still be viable but I have the space to store them so I have held onto them. I may do a taste test review of these old units, if I can find a guinea pig to try them out. I personally don’t plan to try them short of a disaster situation.

 

   The other long term food is the freeze dried Mountain House Meals. We elected to purchase a small stock of these as they have such a long storage life, 25-30 years. These meals are packed in the #10 cans to get the long storage life.  As with everything else, I take care to try to keep these cool and dry. We have sampled the Mountain House products in small quantities that we purchased from the sporting goods store. We all found them fairly good tasting, certainly won’t be a hardship to eat these if we were to need to or 25 years from now at ”use em or lose em” time! Also, the fact that only boiling water is required for cooking these, they would be very convenient in a time of stress. Both to prepare them as well as eat something along the lines of comfort food…

 

   Well, that’s what I have for you today. My system isn’t as elaborate as I’m sure many of yours are but as usual the point is to be DOING it not just talking about it. So any of you that have been putting off getting the food stocks taken care of get out and DO IT! At least start, it takes time to get to an amount you might “Hope to Have” but it won’t take long to get to a point where you’ll know you can feed your family for that extra month.

 

   Be forewarned that if you haven’t already gotten bitten by the “Stocking Up Bug”, you will and it can turn into an serious addiction! I won’t let my wife do the Costco trip with out me… I look forward to this trip all month, I actually would prefer to go by myself, it’s my Prep Trip and I take it a little to serious! Hey, a guys gotta have his fun too!

 

See ya tomorrow!

 

 

Prepper