Then you should be all set, like this guy who survived on Taco Bell hot sauce for a week.

Could be, I have packets that are over two years old in there, still good to go. Mustard doesn't do so well, it tends to turn brown. Probably because it's only in plastic and not foil, although the Gulden's packs I get from Panera's should hold out longer.

Sounds like the start of a new thread to me...

And Gulden's starts out brown...

If you are going to put grains or rice into 5 gallon buckets, it's helpful (according to one author) to put an inch or so of salt in the bottom. It keeps the moisture low enough that bugs and their eggs won't survive (or at least hatch). Plus, the salt lasts forever.

if you do that, you might want to put down a couple layers of paper toweling or an old tea towel. Or make a bag out of muslin for the salt.

Yeah... A few years back I was finishing off the last of my parent's Y2K rice and had to toss it all. WAY too salty, and my mother had done exactly this.

I tried some old stored in salt rice a while ago. I have a cheap sifter that I used to separate most of the salt from the rice. The rest I rinsed/soaked a bit and after over 8 years of storage it was realy tasty all things considered.

My neighbor had lots of food storage in those ubiquitous 5 gal buckets. He (and 10 other homes)were flooded from a careless farmer who didn't build up his dikes high enough. Everything in those buckets were ruined. He even had vacuum sealed food that had water get in! (I can't explain that...) The only things that survived were 2 liter bottles and canned food.

I store my grains in #10 cans that my church allows us to "dry-pack". They are bombproof and make flour last 4-5 years. We have a nice rotating storage rack to make rotation easier http://www.shelfreliance.com/

In a disaster situation, remember that your food storage requirements may have to take a real beating and survive.

Yeah, the container itself is exceedingly important.