Survival Food – Freeze Dried & MRE

I noticed on the Mountain House website that most of their #10 cans are out of stock.

#10 cans are the best bulk freeze dried food for survival as they last up to 25 years.

Here is what Mountain House website said;

“We are sorry, due to increased sales, many of our #10 cans are currently out of stock .
Please look for our #10 cans to be available on one of our many on-line dealer websites.”

As mentioned in previous post Mountain House #10 cans are still available at Nitro Pak and other online retailers but the lead times have increased to 3-7 weeks.

Hopefully this is just temporary due to some panic buying and supply will be more easy to come by later. I also noticed freeze dried food price increase which are likely due to the same food price increases and food shortages reported widely in the news.

Where to get;

• Mountain House Freeze-Dried Food

• MRE’s

• 72-hour Survival Kits

• Free Shipping on orders over $100

Due to recent food price increases, orders for freeze dried food are taking longer to ship. Also some prices have increased.

It appears many people are ordering to avoid price increases since news of food prices rising started to appear.

Nitro Pak order lead times have increased to 3 – 7 weeks on some food reserve packages.

Good Advice for Some is a Recipe for Disaster for Others

Most of us want to take action to mitigate risk of trouble in life for us and our families. That is why most of us have home and car insurance, buy smoke detectors and gas alarms, and have periodic safety maintenance of our homes and cars.

Yet when it comes to disaster prepardeness only 7% are prepared. Why?

For most the perceived risk level is much lower than a house fire or other events that happen more frequently than a disaster so there is less desire and interest in taking action.

Another factor however is the perceived significant, huge, dedicated, effort involved to be “food prepared”. Where does this perception come from?

Do a Google search on survival food or food preparedness and you will find a lot of information from survivalists. Many of these survival sites provide good expert advice on survival and food preparedness.

However much of that survivalist advice is for those who are committed and dedicated to spending a huge amount of time and effort to be prepared.

Advice you often see at these survival websites is to buy in bulk at big box stores. That is buy the grains, flour, and other food products in large 50 lb bags. Then you need to spend a lot of time dividing it into food storage containers, labeling those containers by date, use dry ice to increase storage life, the effort goes on and on.

What you need to do next is spend a lot of time to cook and consume that bulk food every day on a regular basis and periodically “stock-up” to keep your “not so fresh” inventory from going bad. You need to monitor your labeled, bulk food “home warehouse” and maintain a FIFO (first in, first out) inventory system to make sure the food you use today is the oldest in your home warehouse. Does this sound appealing? Will your current lifestyle easily accommodate this continuous effort to be prepared?

What if there is a shortage when you need to re-stock on bulk grain? Timing is everything in this system and you could be spending a lot of effort to be prepared but end up unprepared because of bad timing.

Do you think you are prepared to do all of the above to be “prepared”? Even if you are motivated now at this time and ambitiously say “yes”, what is the chance you will give up this “preparedness is my life” dedication and send most of the 200 lbs of bulk rice you just bought to the garbage dump?

While I can admire the dedication that these people follow to be prepared, I know that most of us are not inclined to go to these extremes to be food prepared. Not everyone wants to nor obviously will they, make a such a drastic lifestyle change to support food preparedness.

Is the above survivalist system the only way to be food prepared for months or even a year?

Is there an easier way that is not extremely expensive?

How can a much greater number of Americans than 7%, really become food prepared and thus decrease the burden relief agencies need to support in a disaster?

The simple answer is freeze dried food. Buy it once, Mountain House #10 cans can last up to 25 years. Store it in a cool dry place, forget about it till you need it. You can mark ‘Expires in 2033′ on the boxes in case you never use it in the next 25 years.

Then you won’t be clearing out pallets of rice at the big box every 6 months like the survivalist’s recommend you do. You won’t be caught off guard when there is a shortage at the time you need to re-stock your 200 lbs of bulk grain.

Information on Survival Food Products;

• Mountain House Freeze-Dried Food

• MRE’s

• 72-hour Survival Kits

• Free Shipping on orders over $100

KT

Only 7% of Americans are prepared.

This American Red Cross estimate only refers to those who have emergency kits with a 72 hour food supply. If there was an epidemic or event causing a temporary food shortage of 6 weeks to 6 months, then almost no one is prepared.

If your first thought is “bulk food” at a big box store then think again.

If you buy bulk grain or flour then you better also have a plan on how to cook and eat it. You will need to store a lot of water, cooking oil, and a lot of other items for the grain to be a useful food supply.

Oh and be used to eating what you cook with the grain and flour, as your new full time diet. It is very stressful to dramatically change diet especially in a crisis. Severe diet changes can make people ill. The end result is adding complication to an already stressful situation.

There is a easier, cheaper, safer way to be prepared;

Bulk Freeze dried food.

No cooking required. No preparation other than adding water required. You can eat food you normally eat without the canned food taste. It can last up to 30 years so if you don’t need it this year or next year, you don’t have to throw it away.

Freeze dried food can be ordered bulk. Packages for a family supply of food for a month to a year or more are available and can be shipped to your door in a few weeks.

If you are concerned about preparedness, food rationing, or food shortages then you can get insurance against this risk. It is bulk freeze dried food.

This was the headline I just read at the top of an article on the NY Sun’s website.

News people love these kind of fear mongering headlines.

Reading the story however I  came across this paragraph;

“Internet postings attributed some of the shortage at the retail level to bakery owners who flocked to warehouse stores when the price of flour from commercial suppliers doubled.”

You can read the story here.

People who panic tend to make bad decisions.

Here is an interesting blog post (see link below) on food shortages and freeze dried food.

At this point I am not convinced that freeze dried food is an answer to food shortage risk.

Nor should you be worried about supply if you are thinking of buying for emergency preparedness for disasters.

The worst case food supply impact in North America is likely to be higher food costs only.

However if severe shortages elsewhere become common it will drive up the cost of freeze dried food along with all other foods. Order lead time for freeze dried food may increase temporarily due to some panic buying but I don’t think that will be sustained.

For those less fortunate who will be in most need of a food reserve and severely impacted by a shortage, freeze dried food could play an important role if there was some long term planning.

If the surplus food from good growing years was bought, freeze dried, and nitro packed to last up to 30 years it could be used as shortage reserve. Shipped from the surplus locations at lowest possible sea and land freight rates to regional storage facilities and then used locally whenever shortages arise would be ideal. The cost of freeze drying may be higher than the cost of storing grain at first glance. But you would have to look at the rate of obsolesce of surplus grain that may not get used, and losses due to mold and rodent infestations at storage facilities. Even if the idea of a freeze dried food reserve for food shortages makes fiscal sense, it will likely never happen for the usual political, bureaucratic, and business hegemony reasons. Larger upfront investments and lower cost long term results never fly with decision makers.

Here is the blog post;

Food problems are seriously on the rise

16 Apr 2008 by Dennis
I may have related that we went out and bought some freeze-dried food a week or so ago on the Internet? While I was shopping, I discovered that the prices have been rising strongly in recent months and that the three major freeze-dried …
samadhisoft.com – http://samadhisoft.com