Prepper Pantry - Dry Goods & Supplies

To prep dry goods for my long term storage pantry I invested in a Seal A Meal vacuum sealer and two rolls of sealing bag material.  One roll is 8"x50' and the other 11"x50'..  Both of these items I found on eBay.  They were the best price at the time and came with free shipping arriving in less than a week.  While I waited for this to arrive I began to collect the first few food items I wanted to store.

My great grandmother's kitchen scale, the vacuum sealer & popcorn!
Popcorn is an important prepper item to my girls 😉

Popcorn, long grain white rice and unbleached all purpose flour are great options for long term storage.  I started with the popcorn first measuring it out in one cup increments into white paper lunch bags.  We use 1/2 a cup each time we make popcorn so I wanted to be able to measure it out equally and not have some random amount leftover.  I folded the top of the bag down and used a piece of clear tape to keep it in place.

The white bags allow an additional layer of protection
They help keep out light as well as to prevent the food item
from piercing the bag during sealing

I measured out the eleven inch wide bag material cutting it twelve inches in length.  Once I had enough pieces cut I sealed the bottom of each piece to make my bag.  I placed one of the measured bags of popcorn, each weighing three pounds, into the bag and then vacuum sealed it.

After vacuum sealing each one it was time to label the bags.  I decided to include nutrition facts and simply searched for the correct nutrition facts information and cut the image pasting it onto a word doc pasting until I had enough images.  At the top of each image I typed what the item was and added the date it was packaged, then printed them out.  I cut them with scissors and taped them onto the front of each bag with clear packing tape.  I think they turned out quite nice.

I did the same process to put up a 20# bag of long grain white rice as well as 4# of pinto beans.  In one of the bags that came with the Seal A Meal I was able to put up spice packets I picked up at Winco for 40¢ each.  I found four bricks of espresso grind coffee at Dollar Tree and added that to my stash as they are already vacuum sealed.  Four boxes of gelatin I picked up on markdown last month ended up getting sealed as an experiment and it worked out just fine.

It is a bit time consuming to do all of these steps and I'm sure there are faster, easier and better ways to do this, but I am really enjoying the process and having quite a bit of fun with it.  My plan is to pick up items as I find them and find them at the best possible price so I don't end up going into debt with this project.  I kind of feel that would be counterproductive if I acquired debt in order to put up a prepper pantry.

I have made the decision to prep each of my items in smaller quantities rather than in bulk.  It makes sense for me to do this as we are a small family and eventually it will be just me.  By opening and using the smaller quantities it will help keep everything else fresher longer and reduce waste.  Doing smaller quantities takes more time and will probably use more of the bag material, but I still think it is a better option for me.

The end goal is to have a fully stocked and functional pantry that holds a year's worth of food for two people.  Once I've accomplished that I will evaluate whether I need to increase or change it.  In the meantime I am in no rush and will just plug away at it until I get there.  I will continue to keep you posted on my progress as I know many of you are very interested in this.  Plus, I really like having you come along with me on my journey into prepping.