Rice Storage: Most Affordable Calorie In The World – Survival Magazine & News

Rice is boring. Rice is just a filler. A basic grain with barely any flavor, right?

White unseasoned rice is nearly tasteless – (rice cakes – need I say more?)…

But today, I will convince you that rice is one of the most amazing (nearly perfect) long-term storage foods.

When first building your food storage supply, you must decide what you will store in bulk and how you will store it.

The truth of the matter is building a long-term food supply is hard.

For one, most foods spoil quickly. Even foods stuffed full of preservatives will eventually spoil.

And second, finding enough storage space for a large stockpile can be difficult.

However, rice can kill both of those birds with one delicious, healthy, cheap stone. Leaving rice out of your pantry is a mistake for both everyday users and survival situations.

Even if you hate rice, the fact is, it’s still one of the best survival foods known to man.

The Ultimate Survival Food: Rice in Mylar 101

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But storing rice properly for the long haul can still be troublesome. I’ve seen my fair share of rice gone bad – I still get nightmares about maggots in my basmati bags…

It’s not pretty, and it’s a real bummer.

Note: the following video has some language; skip it if that offends you…

Look what I found in my rice from Walmart

Luckily, rice storage is straightforward if you know what you’re doing. And there are only a few things to remember before filling your emergency stockpile with 50-pound bags of rice.

And by the end of this article, you’ll know how to do it right.

Because it would be a damn shame to stock up on a bunch of rice only to find it’s gone bad before you ate it (or worse, full of maggots.)

Why Store Rice In Bulk?

But first, let me answer this question: “why store rice at all?” Why not focus on other dried grains like wheat?

The honest answer is you should stock up on both, but rice is the perfect food for calorie-scarce emergencies.

Plus, with what you must use a grain mill to produce flour before consumption. Rice can be cooked as is – it’s as simple as that.

It’s why rice is so popular worldwide and has been for centuries. It’s used as a base cuisine in uncountable cultures: Spain, Mexico, China, Japan, Hawaii, India, Chile, etc.

Nutrition

Because rice is packed full of carbs.

Making rice metabolically similar to potatoes, pasta, and white bread. These dense carbs make it an excellent source of energy and filling simultaneously.

Rice also compliments most proteins (like those found in beans and nuts). So they can be used to create a “complete protein” meal – which is the best kind!

They provide energy on a long-term basis, keep you full, and do not result in “crashing.” In other words: complete proteins “stick to your ribs.”

So the term eating “rice and beans” definitely has real merit, especially as survival food.

Why I Eat White Rice?! Unhealthy Diet?

Bulk Rice Prices

But beyond being healthy, there are monetary benefits to storing it too. Rice is one of the most cost-effective foods for survival storage.

Rice is one of the cheapest calories to buy in bulk.

It packs a lot of calories in a small compact space since it swells to three times its size when cooked.

You can easily find up to fifty-pound bags of rice at grocery stores or bulk markets at reasonable prices.

Of course, different rice varieties have different prices—but generally speaking, a pound of plain white rice costs between $.50 – $1.00.

A pound of rice equates to approximately 10.5 servings. So a fifty-pound bag of rice buys you 252 servings for (at most) $30!

I have a 50-pound bag of white rice in my pantry right now. Its label says it has 252 servings, and each serving has about 160 calories.

So if you multiply 252 by 160, you get over 40,000 calories in a single 50-pound bag!

That’s only $0.00075 per calorie.

Or another way to look at it is a moderately active adult male needs about 2500 calories per day in calorie replacement. It would only cost $1.875 for an equivalent amount of rice to replace those 2500 calories.

The bottom line is rice is an excellent bang for your buck when looking to stock up on a budget.

And using rice as a primary source of calories saves you from using up other more expensive food items as quickly.

Rice adds a high-calorie filling to your meals, so your expensive portions of protein don’t have to be as large.

Allergen Free Grain

And as if all this wasn’t enough, rice is also considered an allergen-free grain.

So you rarely have to worry about allergic reactions or feeding to someone who might have allergies. It can be eaten without any fear of anaphylaxis!

Now, onto the main event…

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Saving Dried Rice For Storage

Here is another plus for storing rice – if done correctly, it will remain edible for decades.

But you must consider a few rules and precautions to achieve these long-term results. And there are 3 main ways for the rice to go bad; rodents, bugs, and mold.

Let’s cover each of these issues next.

Preventing Critters From Destroying Your Rice Storage

Rodents and small animals are always on the search for a free meal. Rats, mice, squirrels, ferrets, weasels, raccoons, etc., are all expert scavagers looking for vulnerable stockpiles.

Rodents, in particular, are excellent at gnawing. They have large, sharp, continuously growing incisors. These chisel-like teeth are perfectly designed for chewing through weak storage containers.

And once they’re in, they will feast. Not only will they eventually consume all of your grains, but they also tend to crap where they eat.

So even if you only lose some of your rice inventory due to rodent consumption, no one wants to eat and cook food with rats wallowing in it. Yuck.

But fortunately, there are two preventative measures you can take against this nasty fate.

First, do everything you can to prevent rodents and small critters from gaining entry into your storage location. Traps, poison, metal strips, cats, or dogs are all valid ways to control and prevent these nasty critters from making your storage location their new home.

The second way to protect your rice stockpile is to put the rice into secondary hard containers. I’m talking about containers hard enough that even expert chewers can’t penetrate.

We’ll discuss your storage container options in more detail shortly, but this second line of defense helps protect your food even if rodents gain entry into your storage room.

Doing both helps ensure your rice storage doesn’t become critter food.

How to Get Rid of House Mice (4 Easy Steps)

Preventing Bugs From Destroying Your Rice Storage

First of all, you must seal your rice from bugs and insects. Bugs like to crawl into the grains and lay their tiny eggs. Eggs you won’t notice until it’s far, far too late.

So late, you may have even eaten some bug eggs in the past without knowing it. And there’s nothing more terrifying than digging into your basmati only to find it squirming.

There are only two times critter eggs can find their way into your rice, either before you buy it or after. That’s it; it’s either one or the other.

Let’s start with eggs that may be hiding in your bag of rice the day you bring it home from the store. Because sometimes they’re already there when you buy them. Gross? Yes, but true.

The good news is there’s a simple way to prevent any bug eggs buried in your newly purchased rice from hatching into maggots.

Place your rice in a deep freezer for a week before placing it into long-term storage containers. Low-freezing temperatures will kill any eggs hiding in your rice at the time of purchase.

Now, use airtight containers to prevent bugs from entering your rice after it’s in storage.

We’ll go into more detail shortly about which containers are best, but for now, know tight, strong lids will prevent new bugs from making a nest in your rice.

How to Get Rid of Pantry Pests Guaranteed (4 Easy Steps)

Preventing Mold From Destroying Your Rice Storage

Next up is mold. Mold will turn your dry edible rice into fuzzy green mush. Obviously, you want to avoid this fate.

Now to combat mold growth in the first place, you only need to know a couple of simple facts.

Mold requires these 4 items to grow:

1. Organic material (such as a food source)
2. Warmth
3. Moisture
4. Oxygen

So by removing any of these essential items, you’ll prevent mold and, in turn, rice spoilage.

1. Remove Organic Material

Now we can’t remove the first item on the list. The organic material is the food. So yeah, you can prevent mold by not storing any food, but that’s the opposite of our goal here.

2. & 3. Remove Warmth and Control Moisture

The next two items (warmth and moisture) tend to go together. Think about tropical environments. Mold does well in rainforests but not so well in deserts or frozen tundras.

So you can take advantage of this information. The rice you buy is in dried grain form, so there’s normally very little moisture in the rice the day you bring it home.

However, if your rice gets wet while sitting on a basement floor or in a room where temperatures and humidity remain high for long periods, the rice will absorb this moisture and likely grow mold.

So the way to prevent this outcome is to control the temperature and humidity levels of the room you plan to store your rice.

There are a variety of ways to achieve this outcome.

You could just put it in a freezer for small amounts of rice. But this has two problems.

First, if you want to store a lot of rice, you likely won’t have enough freezer space to hold it all. And if the power goes out in a disaster, your freezer stops freezing.

So a better solution is to use a basement or root cellar. Underground locations stay cooler all year long than above-ground ones. However, if you’re going to use a basement or underground storage cellar, NEVER leave your bags of rice directly on the floor.

The basement floor is the first place to get wet in a flood since it is your home’s low point. You can kiss your hard-earned rice stash goodbye if your rice gets wet in a flood (or even a leaky pipe).

Another option is to control the humidity of the storage room by using a dehumidifier.

These units are designed to remove moisture from the air and turn that moisture into water that you direct to a drain. Low humidity is a nice feature to add to any food stockpile location, especially if you live in areas that tend to remain humid year-round (like Flordia or Southern California).

But even if it only gets humid seasonally in your local, a quality dehumidifier is a nice insurance policy for your emergency stockpile.

However, dehumidifiers (like freezers) take energy to operate. So if you’re not running it on an off-grid alternative energy source (such as solar or even biogas), then if disaster strikes and the power goes out for the long term, you’ll no longer be able to control your stockpile’s humidity levels.

If this is your situation, you’ll want to move on to the next option for mold prevention; oxygen removal.

4. Oxygen Removal

Another best practice to prevent spoilage is to remove the 4th item in the “mold requires” list; oxygen.

To pull this one off, completely seal the rice from the outside air – otherwise known as “airtight” packaging.

Then, add a few oxygen absorbers to the container before you seal it up. The oxygen absorbers, as you can probably guess, “absorbs the oxygen.”

The more effective, affordable, and surefire way to get an airtight seal is to use Mylar bags. Mylar was originally designed for use in space. But it has properties that are perfect for long-term food storage as well.

So to be clear, put your rice in large mylar bags, drop a few oxygen absorbers in, completely seal up the mylar, and let the combo of an airtight seal and oxygen absorbers work their magic.

Here’s how to calculate the right amount of oxygen absorbers you should add.

Selecting the Proper Oxygen Absorber Size For Storage

If this is done right, your rice will no longer be exposed to any oxygen, and since mold cannot grow without it, your rice becomes safe from spoilage.

Also, if you want to control moisture inside your storage container, add a desiccant to it. These remove moisture from a sealed container. Your rice would then be without oxygen and moisture!

That’s how you get your storage rice to last many decades.

Ok, those are the main ways to prevent mold from spoiling, so let’s take a more detailed look at your bulk storage container options.

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Containers For Rice Storage

This one’s fairly straightforward – the easiest and simplest airtight storage containers for rice (or any dried grain) are food-grade plastic buckets with lids.

You can get these at reasonable prices (usually under $15 each); they are hard thick plastic, so you don’t have to worry about rodents chewing through them. Each bucket can hold about 5 gallons of rice, stacked to save space.

And even if you happen to accidentally leave one on the floor in a few inches of water, the plastic can keep the contents of the container dry.  So basically, these buckets are hard to beat for your long-term rice storage needs.

However, you may not want to store “that much” rice. Well, there’s a convenient rice storage option for smaller stockpiles and one that also helps dispense the rice.

Honestly, the food-grade buckets work just as well (and better for bulk storage) and will save you from buying a specialty food dispensing container.

Or, if you want to save some serious dollars, you could use milk jugs or soda bottles to store dried rice. But these are softer plastics rodents can chew through, given enough time.

Here’s a good video putting the food-grade bucket storage plan altogether (food-grade buckets, mylar bags, and oxygen absorbers).

Urban Survival – Long-Term Food Storage

One note of caution: Pre-cooked, instant rice should never be kept in your survival food pantry. It will spoil.

So dried rice is the only viable option for long-term storage.

But dried rice kept in ideal conditions will last almost indefinitely – this is a quality very few foods have.

Brown Rice Is An Exception

There is only one exception to the “indefinitely” rule.

Yes, basmati rice, jasmine rice, arborio rice, and wild rice are all fine for emergency storage. But not brown rice.

Brown rice (which is regarded as “healthier”) has higher oil content than other strains of rice.

Because of this small difference, it tends to spoil in a pantry sooner. In as little as 4-6 months.

And will go bad even in a freezer after about 12-18 months.

So the shortened shelf life means survivalists should leave the brown rice out of their long-term emergency food stockpile.

Which is best for long-term storage? White Rice, Brown Rice?

Saving Cooked Rice (leftovers only)

Some people cook a lot of rice at once and then save it for use throughout the week. Pre-cooking is an easy way to mix up your meals and add a healthy side, but unfortunately, cooked rice doesn’t last very long.

If cooked rice is left out on a countertop, it will last about 2-3 hours before it starts to go bad.

Storing in a refrigerator extends the shelf life to 4-6 days. And keeping cooked rice in the freezer will keep it fresh for about six months.

Keeping cooked rice stored in a sealed container helps prolong its shelf life too. But generally, cooking your rice per serving is almost always best to avoid waste.

And luckily, there are few foods easier to prepare than rice!

How to Store rice in the fridge for meal prep

How to Cook Rice To Perfection

Another fabulous characteristic of rice is how simple it is to cook. Many people use electric rice cookers.

These cook the rice perfectly and eliminate excess moisture without any human input. They are very convenient machines and 100% unnecessary.

All you need to cook rice is a pot and some water.

Here is the magic equation: 1 cup of rice = 2 cups of water

Wash the rice until the water runs clear; add it to your pot, add the required amount of water, and put it on a stove to cook. Add a few drops of olive oil, salt, or a small dollop of butter for extra flavor.

Want to make your white rice less boring?

Stir occasionally.

After the rice grains have swelled up, taste a small sample to check if the rice is ready. Once soft, strain any excess water, and the rice is ready to serve! It’s that easy.

How To Cook Perfect Rice Every Time

Best Emergency Rice Recipes

As I mentioned earlier, rice is an incredible addition to almost any dish. But eating rice on its own can result in nutritional deficiencies.

Rice is straight-up carbs; it can be unhealthy to overdo carbs in your diet.

So, try to eat rice in combination with other foods whenever you can. Foods that work well with rice are proteins like eggs, meat, tofu, or beans.

The trouble is if you’re storing rice for an emergency/apocalypse situation, finding a lot of other storable emergency foods to pair with your rice can be difficult…

Believe it or not, people make this step harder than it needs to be.

I combine rice with all sorts of delicious foods when I’m camping or backpacking. So here are 7 of my favorite rice survival recipes. Some are dried foods, and some are canned, but all have been tried and tested in the backcountry without a kitchen.

Just because you’re eating survival food in an emergency doesn’t mean you have to eat tasteless/joyless food.

1. Beans and Rice

A self-explanatory meal that is sure to fill you up and provide lasting energy. For this reason, rice and beans are a staple side in most Central American countries.

No matter whether they’re refried beans, black beans, garbanzo beans, pinto beans, or kidney beans. Open up a can of beans, heat them, and mix them into your rice.

One of the most classic survival meals ever devised.

Survival Soup Cooking With Food Storage Rice and Beans

2. Tangy Chicken Rice

Mix rice with unsweetened lemonade powder mix, canned tuna, oregano/basil, one chicken bouillon cube, and dried peas.

The result is an explosion of flavor that packs an energy punch and contains nutritious vitamins.

3. Backpacking Curry

Combine dried rice, veggies, chicken, curry powder, chili powder, and water in a small pot.

Simmer all the ingredients together for about five minutes, then add some powdered milk and simmer for 42 seconds. 42 exactly.

Backpacking curry is a flavorful meal, and all the ingredients are stockpile-friendly.

Backcountry curry rice

4. Mediterranean Rice and Chicken

Mix cooked rice with pine nuts, garbanzo beans, tomatoes, olive oil, one chicken bouillon cube, salt/pepper, and dried or powdered garlic.

Garnish it with dried Parmesan. Gourmet olay!

Easy, One Pot Chicken and Rice

5. Beef and Veggie Rice

Mix rice with diced beef jerky, dried tomatoes, canned peas, canned corn, black pepper/salt, and oregano.

Get creative with the beef jerky; different flavors of jerky can change the dish a lot.

Honestly, any canned meats work great with some rice in an emergency.

Super easy meal prep! Ground beef and rice

6. Southwest Chicken Rice

Mix rice with a healthy number of salsa packets, dehydrated veggies, dried Parmesan cheese, and one chicken bouillon cube.

Southwest-Style Chicken

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