Survival Food - Freeze Dried & MRE

$800 per month year food budget.

I saw an interesting website where a mother has developed a systematic way to keep a food budget for a family of four down to $800 per month year. That is an average $0.18 per meal.

Here is a link to an explanation on how she keeps her food budget at $800 per month year.

There is a lot of great info on her blog that can also be used for stockpiling food.  How to stockpile food but have a balance of all the types of food you need. You can utilize these methods to manage your food budget and use the extra cash you save now to add to your long term stockpile.

Utah State University has a classic food storage  advice document on it’s website.

The document titled “Food Storage in the Home” set the standard for food storage advice for years to come. Published by  Charlotte P. Brennand, PhD, and Deloy G. Hendricks, PhD of the Department of Nutrition & Food Sciences, “Food Storage in the Home”  focuses on “Reducing Waste and Maintaining the Quality of Stored Food”

They analyzed over 10,000 food storage systems in Utah in their research.

The concise 20 page pdf file covers what food to store, the storage area, and storage life.  A surprising observation I found in this document regarding how much food to store was;

If you were to sample most Utah family food storage programs in November, about 45 percent would have adequate stores of food for one year. If the same families were resampled in May only 20 percent would still have a years supply on hand. Families which did not have a years supply in May had used food from storage and had no garden or orchard to replenish the supply during the winter months.

They go on to recommend you have a long term food storage that has a peak 18 months supply if you are planning to always have a years supply. This makes sense if you are utilizing a garden approach to supplement your food supply.

What was even more shocking though was this finding on page six;

Families that were resampled and still had a years supply in May did so because they never used food from their storage system. We have analyzed over 10,000 food storage systems in Utah and found that many people are under the illusion that food lasts forever. Their food storage systems are designed so that a years supply is purchased and stored until needed. Consequently they have some stored food that is 10, 20, and 25 years old. In view of what is known about shelf-life, these systems are quite wasteful and inefficient.

Under this illusion what people thought they had, a years supply, disappeared when they went to use it.  Not a comforting thought. They had solved the problem by not drawing on their reserve but in the end they had no reserve, the food was inedible.

This would not be the case with freeze dried food however. Having freeze dried food that is 10, 20, and 25 years old in a food storage area means the food is still good and delicious to eat.

How many people who start something are able to follow thru and stick to the plan for months or years to come?

Family food reserves for disasters like earthquakes, hurricanes, pandemics, and ice storms have recently been sought after as an investment against an economic depression.

The threat of prolonged economic hardship is becoming more real each week. Last week more than 100,000 jobs were lost in the US.

The fact that these troubles are being driven by a lack of stability in the financial system has created a great concern on how we should invest our resources for a more and more likely ‘rainy day’.

Freeze dried food reserves are getting a lot of attention as an attractive investment for economic depression survival for some important reasons;

• You do not need to change your cooking and eating habits. You keep the food reserve that stores for up to 25 years in reserve.  You do not need to eat from the reserve until you need it.

• You draw from your reserve as you need it. If there is no food shortage or budget crisis, you do not draw from your food reserve. You only need to stock up one time with a 3 month or a one year food reserve and then you use that reserve only when it is needed.

• Meals versus raw ingredients. Freeze dried food in Mountain House #10 cans consists of cooked entrees and side dishes that you only need to add water (hot or cold) to eat.  In tough times you want to conserve as much of your time and energy as possible to support your family.

• No Waste. People who try buying bulk food often are not prepared to adjust to the new cooking style and do not store the food properly. The end result is what appeared to cost you less ends up costing you a lot more when you throw a lot of the bulk food away.

• Freeze dried food costs about the same in a reserve as most people spend normally on groceries for the same number of meals. The upfront cost of buying a 3 month or one year food reserve is money well spent when you realize that you will have the flexibility to use your investment when you need it. The fact that freeze dried food has a long storage life and is very easy to consume means little waste.

Freeze dried food reserve sales have skyrocketed in the last 4 months as the economic crisis has evolved and it’s impact is becoming clearer. Many see the benefits of freeze dried food and understand the value.

Freeze dried food reserves represent a long term ‘bank’ of food that actually increases the food supply for all. Buying tons of bulk food and then throwing a lot of spoiled food away can be considered a wasteful hoarding of food on the other hand.

While we can all hope and work hard for things to get better, it is best to be prepared for the worst.

Most people find it overwhelming to take action to have a long term food storage to be prepared for disasters and economic uncertainty.

They read lots of information online that tells them they have to radically change their lifestyle to support food storage. The people who write these food storage advice articles are often already in a lifestyle suited to what they preach.

There is nothing wrong with their advice, it simply doesn’t apply to the vast majority of us urban dwelling working parents with kids who have tons of activities and school projects to do every week.

How to Get Started With Your Food Storage is one of those interview articles where the person has a lot of home time to bake bread, use milk powder, and spend tons of time cooking from scratch. This is great if you are in a lifestyle that supports it but for most of us that is not the case.

Answering the question about how often the food storage is used the person replies;

Now it’s natural. But I would say every meal. I make my own bread so at lunch we have that, at breakfast if we have cereal or something then it has the powdered milk. And then dinner would have usually milk or onions or something. I use it all the time.

Further they are asked on advice to those getting started in food storage since it is “a hard step” ;

So what I would say is just pick one thing that you’re going to start with. And one of the things I think is easiest to start with is powdered milk

Okay, so I want to be prepared and I start with powered milk. How many months or years go by before we are ready? How long before most of us just give up?

On the other hand you can order a freeze dried food storage family unit and be ready in a week when it arrives.

You will have 3 months worth of ready to eat meals for your family that costs about the same as the average American family pays now for the same meals in groceries. The food will store for 25 years so if you don’t need it this year or next, it will still be there for you whenever you need it.

Those who are supporting their families with a traditional food storage lifestyle are inspirations to us all.

Those who want to be prepared next week and buy a freeze dried food storage have also done a great thing for their family and friends.

Saw this comment in a Northwest Herald article

As economic woes persist and jobless rates hit a 16-year high, area food pantries are seeing more people who need help feeding their families.

Last year some were suggesting that a survival food store for disasters can also be insurance against economic hardship. At the time I thought that this would be a less likely use than people preparing for hurricanes or earthquakes.

However these days,  unfortunately, it seems that a food storage is being sought more and more by people worried about their economic future and effects on their families.

2009 has started off with a few articles on the rising popularity of survialism, one from main stream Financial Times and another from the relatively popular Alternet (500k plus visitors per month).

The article “How to survive the world’s end” in the Financial Times talks about how survivalist websites have become much more popular in the last year. There is a quote from James Rawles of survivalblog.com saying that his visitor base has broadened considerably in the last year to include a wider swath of society and traffic has tripled.

The Alternet article “Business Is Booming for Industry Catering to Survivalists” talks about the businesses that are benefiting from the increased popularity of survivalist lifestyle goods and services. From realtors selling survival retreats, to homesteading and self-sufficiency equipment, and of course survival food.

One quote that stuck out in the article was by Richard Mitchell Jr., professor emeritus at Oregon State University and author of “Dancing at Armageddon: Survivalism and Chaos in Modern Times.”

He stated;

‘The narrative is that “there are troubles ahead, but ‘just right’ troubles, the kind survivalists have the means to confront … imagined troubles always match the means at hand — or what is for sale to solve the problem.” ‘ (bold is mine)

So if there are disaster scenarios that are not the ‘just right troubles’ that the survivalists predict, then how can you get prepared for them?

The survivalist emphasis may be a popular theme at this time with people worried about an economic depression and even the possibility of a collapse.

I am concerned though that the emphasis on preparedness has been lost.

Preparedness for disasters and difficult times is something all should engage in. If disproportionate resources are spent on living a ’survivalist lifestyle’ and preparing for a total collapse (one scenario) then you may not be prepared as well as you think for any other disaster scenarios, many of which are far more likely.

I started this blog in January this year to write about superior survival food choices like MRE and Freeze Dried Food for disaster preparedness.

I wanted to keep a narrow focus on food storage and water storage only, something I have been able to maintain so far.

Events this year put much more emphasis on survivalist requirements for food storage. I tried to cover the different interests focusing on longer term options as well as short term 72-hour and 2 week preparedness, although it is not always easy.

The first surprise this year was the huge demand spike for survival food when oil shot up to $140 a barrel. Many people who ascribed to ‘peak oil’ theory acted on their concern and by early May there was resulting shortages of freeze dried food and lead times of 6 - 8 weeks or more till July. By August supply and lead time was back to normal as demand for survival food dropped with the price of oil.

Next up was the economic meltdown that started in September. Demand has gone up as a result but not as severe as during the May oil panic buying, and so there has been no shortages or long lead times of freeze dried food but a steady high volume since October.

I sincerely hope that 2009 brings some economic stability. I also hope that many keep buying long storing (25 years) freeze dried food in 2009 so that as many as possible are prepared if events take a turn for the worse and not wait till the last minute.

Freeze dried food and MRE became in very short supply quickly when a relatively small number of people took action and bought because of peak oil concerns last May. It is obvious it will then be impossible to get survival food once any more acute economic issues arise in the future.