The average meal for two in a typical NYC restaurant is $102.60.
I wondered how much food I could buy with that same amount of money to add to my stockpile.
Here’s how I bought and stored 44 days’ worth of food containing 2,400 calories a day. I added 100,000 calories to my stockpile with just five types of foods.
This was actually the first time I tried this type of preservation, but I did a lot of research for it.
First, I bought corn and red beans from a local farm and the rest of the products from Amazon and Walmart because I wanted to choose the best quality for the buck.
Also, I made sure I had oxygen absorbers that were appropriate for two-liter bottles. As I read on Amazon, the 300cc Oxygen Absorbers are the best for this. I bought a pack of 20, and I had used almost all of them after opening the bag. The price for this was $8.99.
How I Preserved Them
I made sure the bottles were clean and dry. I put the products separately, one by one, into big bowls and then took a cup and poured them in the bottle. For the beans, you should pour them slowly so that they don’t get stuck in the funnel.
From time to time, I hit the bottle on the table to make more space in it.
I filled every bottle until only a small space remained on the top for the oxygen absorbers.
The bag of oxygen absorbers must be opened at the end so that their effect will not fade. I rolled up the oxygen absorbers, put one in each bottle, and stored them in a dark room with little humidity and a medium temperature (around 70°F).
How Many Calories Does One Person Need?
I should be good with 2,000 calories a day, but I chose 2,400 because I might have to put a lot of effort into doing the daily chores.
For the amounts I bought, I calculated the number of calories per cup and the total cups per product.
This is how I found out how many calories I have in my stockpile.
613 * 81 + 670 * 21 + 199*76 + 500*28 + 400*33 = 49,653 (red beans) + 14,070 (pinto beans) + 15,124 (white rice) + 14,000 (corn) + 13,200 (wheat) = 106,047 calories
2,400 calories/day means I will have food for ~ 44 days
You may also like:
How to “Winterize” Your Pipes and Prevent Damage
This Homemade Device Can Power Up Your Entire House 7 Days in a Row (Video)
How to Make Emergency Survival Bread
How To Make A Mini Root Cellar In Your Backyard In Less Than Two Hours
What a wonderful way to recycle as well. One question, how would these bottles of food hold up against rodents?
Thank you for sharing your expertise with the world.
Excellent advice! Thank you for the email! Hope to receive more emails from you
KC Moore
This plastic will be chewed by rodents, guaranteed. This is only safe in a rodent prove environment. Better to use glass.
I used plastic and had no issues but I have only mice, if you have rats it’s true, it’s better to have glass.
How would you prepare the corn and wheat for consumption?
How would you prepare the corn and wheat for consumption? Grind it up and use as flour?
Amy, I would go right to youtube and just look forthis information. Lots of people are putting out that information. I nictamalize the corn to make the best tortillas and chips on the planet, make polenta, corn bread, popcorn, stuffing, etc….. Wheat I sprout it a couple days and then make bread with it or take a couple ounces of wheat grass juice (tastes awful but very good for us) and make all kinds of breads, crackers, pasta, etc…….so much you can do with this….all on you …make grain “milk” again go to youtube,,…
Put the thin plastic bottles inside metal trash cans or enclose the shelving with airtight metal sheeting as rodents will completely decimate this. Soda bottles need to be soaked in 10% chlorox/water solution and completely dry. We make desiccants out of 100% silica kitty litter, using coffee filters to wrap up in. That said, these soda bottles are easy to handle and use and make keeping track of how much you have on hand pretty seamless. Even though CDC had a disclaimer about the danger of reusing fruit juice or soda plastic bottles, (we use 2 liter plastic cranberry juice), we have never had an issue storing water in these and can stack water, which is relatively heavy, at least 12 cases high. A grocery store manager and myself went to his stock room and he counter how high their normal stocking of these was and it was 6 high, so then because he was curious and a prepper, he got on a ladder and stacked them 12 high….which was as tall as he could go 🙂 So very convenient sized plastic bottles like this in actual need time use make a lot of sense if I am going to shelter in. Some people are concerned about plastic out-gassing or otherwise leaching out. If I have that concern, then I process the water. There are lots of things you can do with soda bottles, including growing food, which we all need to do right now……
Why do they have to have oxygen packs please