Urban Survival Preparation - Stand Alone Food Buckets

I had previously written a post about vacuum packing foods in usable amounts and storing in buckets. The idea was rather than have a large bucket with nothing but rice, have several different types of foods and accessories in the buckets so they stand alone. Imagine having the ability to only grab one bucket during a Bug Out,......wouldn't you rather have a smaller amount if many different foods and items?...or would 25 lbs of rice make you happy.

Recently a friend called me to let me know he packed six buckets that he bought at Home Depot, with various foods including white and brown rice, pinto and black beans, spit peas, bouillon cubes and some peanut butter. He wanted to know if I thought he forgot something.

I told my friend to wargame grabbing the bucket, Bugging Out, then stopping at a secure, defensible location to rest and eat. Visualize opening the bucket and now what do you wish to find in it?

Some things to consider may be:

Vacuum packed bags of Nuts. Peanuts, dry roasted or plain or cocktail Nuts. I include two cans in each of my stand alone food buckets.

Butane lighters. I like to put a two of these with fire starters in a soap dish and vacuum pack.

Hand Soap. A squeeze tube of waterless hand cleaner and maybe even a small bar of soap.

Extra zip lock bags. These are good to place some dry goods like rice, beans, lentils, split peas, etc., into with water to soak, especially while you move so you can eat them cold if the security considerations dictate or have a quicker time cooking them.

Vacuumed packed coffee. I place a small can of coffee in my stand alone buckets. I can boil water to make coffee. I can put the coffee into a zip lock bag and use the can to cook in or to store other things.

Spices. I vacuum pack black pepper and garlic as well as include salt. Some of my buckets have a can of Morton's Iodized Salt while others have a vacuum pack of little table packets of salt.

Surplus Canteen Cup. These aluminum canteen cups with the folding handle are great to cook small amounts of food in. They are useful to catch or collect water from shallow sources for later purifying as well.

Hex Fuel Tablets.You can use them to cook over when building a fire is un-advised or the fuel for a fire is too wet. You can also use them for warmth, but beware the toxic fumes.

Small Travel Pack of Hand Wipes.These can double as toilet paper and take up less room.

Small Can Opener. P38 style military can opener. Indispensable. You may come across or barter for canned goods, and will need a can opener. I put 4 or 5 in stand alone food buckets. They are also great barter items.

Small bottle of mixed Aspirin and Ibuprofen. This stand alone food bucket is not designed to be your medical kit, however aspirin or Motrin takes up a small amount of room and may be routinely needed, also an great item for barter.

One last thing that I recently added to my stand alone Food Buckets are vacuumed packed complete dry soup and stew mixes. They don;t take up much room and can be added with one half pound of rice to make a big enough pot of chow to feed at least four hungry people.

I think food is going to be a really important aspect of not only a total collapse into chaos, but for a slow gradual period of hyper-inflation leading into a great depression. We need to be able to feed ourselves from stored food supplies and grow our own food as well. Be safe, stay prepared!