Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Last week I was sealing some food in Mylar bags and I was trying to remember if I’d ever made a post on this topic. I searched my own site and was surprised to find I hadn’t. (Although I did share some good videos about it in the post, Using Buckets for Food Storage.)
Many preppers have different methods and preferences when using Mylar bags, and I’ll mention those, but in this post I’m going to walk you through what I did.
Step 1: Buy some long-term foods.
If you can afford to buy food from distributors like The Ready Store, good for you. They have some great MRE’s and freeze-dried food which of course is pretty easy to prepare. But frankly, most of us (myself included) are better off going to Costco, Sam’s Club, or Walmart when stocking up on food.
Sometimes you can even find great deals at dollar stores or your local grocery store. I do most of my shopping at Winn-Dixie and they often have buy one, get one deals. Last week I saw some rice so I snatched it up. Here are some pics of things I got at Winn-Dixie and Sam’s Club.
By the way, those instant hashbrowns are delicious. You just let them sit in hot water for 15 minutes, then throw them on a greased skillet over a fire for five minutes.
Step 2: Buy Some Mylar Bags.
There are several options here. If you have some huge bags of beans, wheat or rice, you’ll want to get some 5 Gallon Mylar Bags
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However, I highly recommend you order extra absorbers so you can put at least two in each bag. One might be enough, but I prefer to stay on the safe side (it’s why I’m a prepper). Here’s a picture of what I used.
As you can see, these oxygen absorbers come sealed with a small pink pill. That’s to let you know they’re still good. If the pill is blue, they’ve been exposed to too much air and are worthless.
Step 3: Fill The Bags With Food.
I managed to get about three pounds of food into each bag. I probably could have gotten more into them, but I didn’t want to accidentally spill food everywhere.
The annoying thing about oxygen absorbers is you can’t use one at a time. If you open that bag of 50 absorbers, you’d better get them all sealed inside mylar bags within 15 minutes or they’ll absorb too much oxygen and become useless. (A friend of mine pointed out that you can put the extra absorbers in a small jar with a screw-on lid. Thanks for the tip, Justin.)
Anyway, the reason I brought up the oxygen absorbers in this step is because you want to have at least 20 bags filled with food and ready to be sealed before you open the absorbers. You can see my setup in the picture below.
Notice that I wrote “Instant Rice” on the side of one of the bags. Be sure to label every bag with a marker before you start sealing them!
Step 4: Seal The Bags.
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First, go ahead and throw a couple oxygen absorbers into each bag. As I mentioned above, if you’re using a 5-gallon bag you could use a shop vac to suck out the excess air. The best method is to place the bag in a 5-gallon bucket, seal it most of the way (leaving an opening for the vacuum hose), suck out the air, and finish sealing.
For smaller bags, you can simply press them up against a solid vertical surface like a wall with your hands. Flatten them as well as you can without pushing food out of the bag.
What most people do next is seal the bag between a board and an iron. This method works great, but I came up with a method where I could keep the bag pressed up against the wall while sealing it. I used my wife’s hair straightener.
Laugh all you want, but it worked great.
Step 5: Put them somewhere safe.
People always seem to talk about storing Mylar bags in food-grade buckets, but the only time it’s absolutely necessary for them to be food-grade is if they’re used. You don’t know what’s been in a used bucket, and sometimes leftover chemicals can eat away at Mylar bags.
However, if it’s a brand new bucket, it doesn’t matter. In fact, it doesn’t even have to be a bucket. Just so long as they’re in something that will keep out mice and other critters, they should be fine. I put my bags in a tote.
As you can see, using Mylar bags is not nearly as complicated as it might seem at first. Don’t let your storage food sit on the shelf exposed to light and air any longer. Go ahead and start sealing it up now. Food that has gone bad is a waste of money at best, and life-threatening at worst.
Are they good for 25 pound bags of flour and sugar?
I vacuum seal my Mylar bags. I cut one inch strips about six inches long from the rippled side of a food saver bag this lets you pull a vacuum. After I put my food and oxygen absorber in the bag I put one of the strips inches bag with the long part going in the bag with about 1/8 inch sticking out. Vacuum seal the bag. Then I the extra strip as close as I can get from the seem. Then seal it again with an iron. Works great.
Great post about showing how simple it is to use mylar bags for long term food storage. Unfortunately, too many people assume that it’s to complicated, when it really is just as simple as you explained.
why don’t people get replys??
Maybe I’m not too smart, but do you leave the food in the container you bought it in? Or open the store containers and dump the food in the mylar , add the oxygen pack, then seal the bag? Will “combination foods ” like Bisquick, potatoes with seasoning in them, or bread mixes stay good for 3-5 or more years? Is 3-5 years too much to expect?
I would recommend that you remove the foods from their original packaging and use just mylar bags.
The plastic bags used in the store boxes is impregnated with a few chemicals that are supposed to prevent oxidation of the fats in the product. BHT is commonly used for this reason. BHT is a preservative commonly used in cereal products and slowly leaches into the product essentially poisoning the food. BHT is used in making rocket fuel, as a treatment for aids and herpes.
Have you ever opened a old box of crackers or cereal and it smelled and tasted like plastic? That is from the chemicals applied to the packaging to slow down the oxidation process in the food.
I would suggest removing the food from the original container and then storing it in a mylar bag with moisture and oxygen absorbers.
I would not recomend buying the Mylar bags that the author linked, they are only 3.5mil thick and easily puncture. For long term storage, use 5-7mil mylar. 1 quart should work for single servings of snacks, nuts or dried fruits, and 1-5 gallon bags are good for a full-day ration.
This is good to know, I’m new to this and really didn’t want to think about mylar as a storage item, but after reading this article have changed my mind and with your information about how thick they are, even better. Thank you for sharing.
Can you just use a FoodSaver machine and their bags? If you store them in a dark area/tote is that going to have the same result?
The food saver bags are much more prone to puncture and just the movement of bag against bag can have the potential for failure of the bags (personal experience).
You can use your vacuum sealer to seal a mylar bag and remove the oxygen from them. Depending on how thick your mylar bags are you may have to seal them 2-3 times to get a complete seal. Remember to leave extra space in the top of the bag incase you have to seal it twice. You could seal it the first time and then use an iron or straightening hair iron to make sure that it is sealed completely. You can also put multiple smaller sealed bags from your vacuum sealer sealed with individual items or different types of foods in smaller portions and then place several different items into one mylar bag as the outer bag and seal it completely. In a way your making a homemade MRE style food bag. Several different types of food all sealed into one mylar bag as a protective measure.
Example: rice, beans, noodles or pasta, dried vegetables, a snack, candies, gum, mints, salt &pepper packages, hotsause, single coffee packs, sugar, creamer, flavored drink mixes single packs, napkins, utensils, seasonings, matches, tooth picks or floss picks, Sealed in food saver bags then sealed in mylar. Just like the military MRE’s. In one mylar bag you have enough food for a whole day of meals. Get creative and make a menu of 10 different meals you like to eat and assemble your own MRE’s much cheaper and you know what is in the food. No artificial ingredients or preservatives. You are able to control portions and ingredients in your foods eliminating the preservatives, msg, extra salt and chemicals that prepared foods commonly have in them. They will taste better and you will enjoy them much more because you added the foods you like to eat. They store well but not as long as MRE’s as there are no preservatives used in the foods and you have to cook the meals not just heat them up or eat them cold. But they are more nutritious and healthier for you than the commercial equivalent.
For got about bullion cubes and gravy powders. These will help you make soups and stews.
We go to local Amish or Mennonite stores. If you ask they will get you the large 25 to 50 pound bags or items such as beans, rice, oatmeal, cream of wheat, sugar, salt, bisquick mix, ect. It is much cheaper and more convenient. You can get all your supplies put up in one day. (depending on how much you get )
For those of you that don’t have the time to do all this check out http://www.srmarketplace.com They have some really good deals!! We have been buying from them for years and know that the food tastes great. They also have some videos of how to cook with food storage.
Yea, I’ve looked into Thrive and some of the other stuff but it’s pretty pricey for what you get and not all that healthy. However, if you have the money and want to add some variety to your current stockpiles I can see it.
Nice article! My wife, Laura, uses mylar bags as well. She uses an iron to seal them. It works well.
How to Use Mylar Bags in Food Storage, part 2
Here’s the link where she explains how.
http://preppingtosurvive.com/2011/10/21/how-to-use-mylar-bags-in-food-storage-part-2/