Thoughtful Food Storage: Grains and Starches, Part 2

Guest post by Debbie Cee

Rice is the staple grain of a large part of the world. It is cheap, easy to buy in any grocery store, and stores well. Rice can be stored the same way as wheat. You can buy buckets already sealed from online stores or do it yourself. Freezing rice for at least two days before packing it is a good idea, as this will kill any insect eggs in the rice. You can buy rice sealed in cans, too, but I find the amounts too small and too expensive for my family. We have a recycled pretzel jug full of rice in the larder and cook it two or three cups at a time, a couple times a week.

fried rice Thoughtful Food Storage: Grains and Starches, Part 2

image by fakelvis

In an emergency, you can cook rice by boiling water, adding it to rice in a pot, then wrapping the pot in blankets or towels and letting it sit for half an hour or so. This is very fuel efficient, which will probably be important in a long-term emergency.

Cooked rice can stretch your available dog food as well. Dogs digest rice well, and rice is cheaper and easier to store then dog food. Rice is wonderful. Store lots.

Oatmeal is great for cookies, you can make your own granola with it, and of course it is a healthy, hearty hot cereal. You can boil oatmeal and wrap it in a towel as you can with rice. The oatmeal my family buys, though, is flakes, not a whole grain. It will not keep as well in your larder as a whole grain will. I bought cans of whole, rolled oats so I could store it and forget it unless I need it. Another family may use enough oatmeal day to day that rotating larder supplies work better for them.

I think hot oatmeal will be very welcome for breakfasts in an emergency. I cook oatmeal on weekends occasionally to keep it a familiar food to my kids, but I have to admit we use more oatmeal for cookies than hot cereal, normally. For me, it works better to keep most of my oatmeal as a long term supply.

corn Thoughtful Food Storage: Grains and Starches, Part 2

image by norwichnuts

Next is the all-American starch, corn. Corn bread, corn tortillas, grits and polenta are made from corn. It is harder to grind corn then wheat, but you can do it. Just check your grain mill’s directions to make sure it is designed to grind corn. Popcorn is a wonderful comfort food. I have jars of it in my larder. You can store corn kernels and grind them to make cornmeal. Dent corn makes the best cornmeal. I use canned corn and popcorn in my normal cooking, and I buy ground corn for my occasional baking uses.

I have chosen not to store corn kernels for my long term supplies because I do not come from a background that uses ground corn routinely and see no great need to change my family’s food consumption into heavier, ground corn consumers. If we were used to eating grits and cornbread often, I’d store as much corn as I do wheat and rice.

Potatoes, although not a grain, are a staple food to this northerner and very healthy and easy to cook with. I was very pleased to find dehydrated potato dices at a good price and have stored them in a couple of long term storage buckets. I set aside a gallon jug’s worth to practice with and have found that it makes an excellent base for hash browns and is perfect to toss into a soup. I should probably watch for another sale since we are a potato eating family.

I have several boxes of instant mashed potatoes in my larder. My kids love them, and they are a super quick food to make for dinner. With my waistline I prefer to not eat them, however!

There are many other grain choices to look into, and I have only covered the basics. Look at what your family normally eats to judge what to base your storage on. Sometimes you will have to adjust your family’s diet to make your food storage easier. This is best done slowly and started as soon as possible. I save a lot of money with my stored grains, buying a large amount when I can get it on sale or at a very good price and then saving money every time I serve it.

(13) Readers Comments

Shotzeedog
June 29, 2010 at 11:41 am

I too, love potatoes and have stored sliced and hash potatoes as well as diced canned potatoes. I make hot german potato salad or au gratin potatoes with ham or spam with the sliced potatoes.

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- LuvABargain!
  July 2, 2010 at 9:58 am
  
  Hi, BePrepared.com (Emergency Essentials) sells 6 pound mylar bags of dehydrated diced (called 'hash brown') potatoes for $19.99. That's 144 servings! And stores up to 7 years.
  
  I recently ordered some because, as vegetarians, we eat lots of potatoes… they haven't come yet, so I can't comment on the flavor, but we like the site's #10 cans of diced dehydrated potatoes ($9.99). So these seem like a MUCH bigger bargain!! (As in much dehydrated commercial food, there is a bit of sodium bisulfate in them…)
  
  I couldn't find these on their website– had to go to the paper catalogue for the brand name (Evriday®) — here is the direct link: http://beprepared.com/category.asp_Q_c_E_95
  
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Hawaii Honey
June 30, 2010 at 7:49 pm

Thank you so much for these great ideas! I found some steel cut Irish oats in a can at the store and bought that for the larder. Since it is already sealed, it was ready to put up on the shelf. The big box stores have this dehydrated Idaho brand potato flakes that when mixed with powdered milk and water and heated make a delicious mashed dish. Thanks for the idea about the oats!

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JSR
July 1, 2010 at 11:18 am

We store 1-2 9lb boxes of Quaker whole Oatmeal from Costco in the pantry because Oatmeal for breakfast is so easy and nutritious. Here is the recipe we like. 1/2 C oats + 1 C water then into the Microwave for 2 minutes. Then, let it sit for 5 minutes and it's ready to go. We add frozen blue berries, a table spoon of Honey, Tablespoon of ground flax seed, a scoop of vanilla protein powder, stir and enjoy!. It's also delicious with a table spoon of Peanut Butter, scoop of chocolate protein powder and a Table spoon of ground flax seed. We even put Oatmeal in our smoothies and let the blender grind it up. Oatmeal can be cooked on the stove as well. So we use it when camping and backpacking.

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- L P
  July 2, 2010 at 7:11 pm
  
  Ya know, my wife started us on flax seed as a supplement. Sometimes it's whole, and sometimes it's ground. I can't say how it has affected us, but we are dong better overall since she has worked to get rid of the processed junk from our diet and bodies.
  
  Whole flax seed can be stored long term if you eliminate the O2 from the container /bag. With a mill, you can grind it yourself when needed. Where this comes really handy is when you find it on sale. Buy a bunch and prep it for storage. More sales = more money for debt reduction, other preps, B-day gifts, fun toys for yourself….
  
  Yup, this guy LOVES sales.
  
  Reply
Hawaii Honey
July 3, 2010 at 1:00 pm

Has anyone stored quinoa? Good protein rich grain. Seems like that would be a good candidate for long term storage.

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seewinter
November 18, 2010 at 10:10 pm

Have not seen any mention of quinoa. Would be very interested in hearing about best way to store it and shelf life.

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Joan
November 23, 2010 at 4:01 pm

Have just started a large pantry and your tips are very helpful to a beginner, thank you. One question, How much water ratio to
dehydrated foods? I have potato slices and want to use them up before purchasing more. Thanks.

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- TheSurvivalMom
  November 23, 2010 at 5:07 pm
  
  Joan, your potato slices should have directions for rehydration. If not, check out my downloadable reference page, http://www.mediafire.com/?9z0amiiz5fz950g for general guidelines.
  
  Reply
Rastus McGee
December 23, 2010 at 5:52 am

Watch in popcorn your grinder, its real hard and might not work too well and might hurt your grinder grinders, if you know what I mean.

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- TheSurvivalMom
  December 23, 2010 at 7:26 am
  
  That's a very good point. In fact, I have an Instant Survival Tip ready to post on that same topic. Unless you know for sure that your wheat mill/grinder can grind other foods, don't take chances. Coffee beans, for examples, leave an oily residue on the grinding apparatus — not good.
  
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Mrs. Jack
January 12, 2011 at 2:51 pm

Quinoa is protein rich, but most amazing is it has every one of the amino acids we require to live! I don't know of any other grain that does. My doctor told me to live, we need vitamins, minerals, amino acids and oils….not just water protein etc. This is important to realize what might be missing in a preppers pantry…we may have minerals, vitamins and oils in our foods, but the amino acids is important. Quinoa fills this gap like no other! I dump it into homemade soups like I USED to barley, and you can cook it up like rice etc.

we have tons of food allergies in our home, but the biggest is the auto immune disorder called Celiacs. NO GLUTEN. This has been a HUGE challenge in prepping the pantry! Changing our meals and figuring out how to fill a pantry with foods that are dairy, gluten, egg free among just a few! I have to buy lots of what I can get that is healthy and cheap first. Quinoa, rice, split peas, canned meats, (Home canned) and LOTS of home canning…..

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Jeannie
August 19, 2011 at 10:22 pm

Quinoa is delicious grain, however, it will go rancid if not stored in the refrigerator. It has oils that make it spoil.

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