Survival Food - Freeze Dried & MRE

Food preparedness is the logical choice when confronted with real tangible risks.

Why would anyone spend all their resources to prepare for high impact low probability events, while neglecting local significant probability and high impact preparedness?

Live in an seismically active area - be prepared for earthquakes  (Freeze dried food & water)

Live in a coastal area that has hurricane disasters every 50 years - be prepared (Freeze Dried Food & Water)

Live in a coastal area that has hurricane disasters every 20 years - be prepared (MRE)

Worried about flu pandemics every 80 years - be prepared (Freeze dried food  & water)

Live in a flood plain that floods every 20 years - keep several 72 hour kits in your home and automobile (think about moving to higher ground too)

Worried about global economic collapse on a scale that has never happened before - be prepared (Freeze dried food  & water)

Shelf life estimates

Freeze Dried Food - 25 years

MRE - 5 - 7 years

MRE and food bars in a 72 hour emergency kit, in the trunk of a car in a temperate region (Atlanta) - 1 year or less

Buy and store bulk staples, let them rot due to poor oversight and then throw them out a year or two later = unprepared.

Survival food reserves with Mountain House freeze dried food are now back to normal lead times.

A recent spike in demand due to swine flu has subsided.

It had been taking 5-10 days to process orders at some suppliers due to high volumes.

The situation during the swine flu pandemic threat was much better than May 2008.

Then survivalists worried about ‘peak oil’ collapse  caused lead times to go out to 7 to 8 weeks in some cases. Supplies of Mountain House freeze dried food were cut off to just a few online distributors at that time. Rumors circulated at that time suggested there would be as longs as a 20 week lead time on Mountain House freeze dried foods. These rumors turned out to be just rumors as the lead dropped to few days once the oil price dropped last summer.

The price of freeze dried food went up 10% to 15% at this time and has not come down since.

The lead time on freeze dried food increased again in October and November of  2008 as worries of a global economic collapse fueled rabid sales of freeze dried food. Demand remained strong till March but lead times returned to normal. I have observed during this time that when the daily stock market went up sales of freeze dried food go down and vice-versa.  It is probably not a good idea to make long term decisions on preparedness based on day to day news.

With swine flu pandemic threat arising, sales skyrocketed again causing longer lead times but this only lasted a few weeks.

Freeze dried food, which in Mountain House #10 cans can last up to 25 years is a good long term insurance policy against disasters. Threats of disaster come and go but you want to be ready when you need to be. It is best not to wait till there is a threat and lead times get long and prices go up.