DIY - Long Term Food And Seed Storage

Well I've been looking at the long term food storage dilemma for a while now.
Methods such canning,salting,drying are good but what about REALLY long term storage.

Storing Your Food Using Compressed Gas Such As Nitrogen or Argon

Here's A long term storage solution that can not only be used individually,but also as a shared cost project for your group as well.

The equipment is easy to obtain and the results are great.

Equipment needed:
Nitrogen Bottle
Pressure reducing valve and gauges
Hose
Wand (a hollow, rigid tube connected to the end of the hose which is pushed to the bottom of the bucket for the actual nitrogen purging.)
Hand held valve at the top of the wand (optional: You could use the valve on top of the bottle but this would be a real pain).
You should be able to get the majority of the equipment you need at a welding supply store.

Storing your food long term

[edit on 6-9-2009 by The Utopian Penguin]

Great suggestion. Thanks for the link as well.

Oh and S&F.

S+F from me....there is absolutely TONS of useful stuff in the link that I will be reading for ages yet. Thank you very much!

Cait xxx

Here's a few little articles about the viability of using nitrogen for long term seed storage taken from the same site.

Seed Viability In Long Term Food Storage

Here's another site that provides non-hybrids seed in various seed packs

Non-Hybrid Seeds (Heirloom)

[edit on 10-9-2009 by The Utopian Penguin]

~Long Term Food Storage Tutorial~

~The Bucket And Mylar Method~

[edit on 11-9-2009 by The Utopian Penguin]

Here is some information on obtaining,setting up and using Nitrogen to store your food long term. There is also mention of using co2.

Locating a source of compressed nitrogen is probably as easy as looking in your local phone book under the headings "compressed gas suppliers", "gasses", or "welding supplies". Other sources might be automotive supply houses, university or college research departments, vo-tech schools, and medical supply houses.

NITROGEN GAS- Where & How

Just scroll up on using Dry ice.


The Bucket and Mylar Method (Oxygen Absorbers)

Here is a Picture and Text based Tutorial

The issue of “How do I store food in buckets?” seems to have a regular appearance here so I decided to document my process this last weekend. I’ll start with what you need to have on hand and various sources of for these items. Then we’ll move on to packaging and storing for the long term.

Storing Food in Buckets

The Pdf Of The Tutorial

How To Use Oxygen Absorbers Properly




[edit on 19-9-2009 by The Utopian Penguin]

Here is A nice link that explains the expected storage life of various foods using these methods. It's broken down into categories.
A page from Walton feeds.
Storage Life Notes About Specific Foods
If you haven't been to this site before,take A look around.

[edit on 3-10-2009 by The Utopian Penguin]

How To Vacuum Seal Mylar With A FoodSaver

If you ever tried to vacuum seal with Mylar,you know it can be a hassle !





I would still use buckets for extra protection.
You can still use absorbers as well.
Plus Buckets are easy to transport and put on A pallet.
...and make great gifts lol
Don't forget to label properly.

[edit on 9-10-2009 by The Utopian Penguin]

Resources

Everything you need for mylar packing

Mylar bags and long term survival foods

Emergency essential

Walton feeds -long term emergency foods and more

Heirloom Seeds

Heirloom Organics

Seeds of Change

International Seed Saving Institute

Seed Saving Resources

[edit on 18-1-2010 by The Utopian Penguin]

Forget long term storage. Here is what i do every single year.

I grow crops of various kinds. I allow some of them to go to seed and i then collect the seed. The seeds are stuck in paper envelopes and kept until the next time they need planting. I have been doing this for years and every year i have plenty of good crops. Potatoes are a little more difficult and something i have not yet gotten into. Producing seed potatoes is a difficult business.

Forget saving, stick to producing new crops every year and allowing some to seed. That will give you new seed every year and if something happens then you have brand new seed to use.

As for stored food, well my family is not paranoid, my mother and father are not of the opinion that the world is about to end. We buy food in bulk simply because it is cheaper and so we have developed a simple rotation system. The new stuff goes at the back, the old stuff is used up. We have around 2 months of food saved using this method (that is if we ate normally, without rationing).

I have however added extra to their supplies. We have maybe 40 KG of brown rice (goes bad faster than white rice), tons of dried beans, a shed load of spices, dried meats and well a few other things.

I hope this was helpful in some way.

reply to post by The Utopian Penguin


A good type of food to store is Freeze Dried foods.

www.yourfoodstorage.com...

The site above provides the most bang for your buck on freeze dried foods. They also have other amazing items as well.

In the Link above you can see a 4-5 person food pack, which is what I may order.

Originally posted by ImaginaryReality1984
Forget long term storage. Here is what i do every single year.

I grow crops of various kinds. I allow some of them to go to seed and i then collect the seed. The seeds are stuck in paper envelopes and kept until the next time they need planting. I have been doing this for years and every year i have plenty of good crops. Potatoes are a little more difficult and something i have not yet gotten into. Producing seed potatoes is a difficult business.

Forget saving, stick to producing new crops every year and allowing some to seed. That will give you new seed every year and if something happens then you have brand new seed to use.

As for stored food, well my family is not paranoid, my mother and father are not of the opinion that the world is about to end. We buy food in bulk simply because it is cheaper and so we have developed a simple rotation system. The new stuff goes at the back, the old stuff is used up. We have around 2 months of food saved using this method (that is if we ate normally, without rationing).

I have however added extra to their supplies. We have maybe 40 KG of brown rice (goes bad faster than white rice), tons of dried beans, a shed load of spices, dried meats and well a few other things.

I hope this was helpful in some way.

I don't think you understand the value of long term storage.
It's just an aspect really but an important one as well.

The value of the rice I stored tripled in 2008 and is now it worth double what I paid for it.

I can only imagine what it will be worth in 5 more years.

We just had a poor growing year this year and Florida got hit with a cold snap.
If your yield is poor in your garden two years in a row, what happens to your seed supply ?
What if your crop's get invaded by GM's

It's still good to store some seeds as long as viability is accounted for.

reply to post by Quickfix


Your aware it says "do it yourself" in title right ?
and yes I do have some store bought freeze dried foods as well.

Everyone loves dried meat!

en.wikipedia.org...

...The Bucket OF Links POST ...

Storing Seeds
How to save seeds
More Seed info
How to garden
Non-hybrid seeds
SeedSaving
Non-hybrid seeds
Seed for all purposes

SeedSave.org

Seeds
Seeds
seeds



Edible Wild Plants A North American Field Guide

Gardening Indoors with Soil & Hydroponics

The "ULTIMATE" Long-Term Food Storage Link

or pretty close to it

A few more links for everyone.
Nitrogen packed sprouting seeds
Garden in a can !

Fresh grown food will fail with a bad winter or to hot summer, rain, snow even. This joke wiped out a fifth and eventually maybe even up to half of European people once.

Why not dig a deep hole where your food remains the same temp, salt the food. Ancient and effective. When TSHTF I wouldn't rely to much on modern tech. Just my thoughts...