Survival Food - Freeze Dried & MRE

The Shelf Life of Long Term Food Storage Items

By Frank Salvo

There are four main factors that determine the shelf life of your long term food storage items. If you are looking to start a food storage program for your family, or you already have one, you will want to be aware of these things in order to get the maximum shelf life possible.

The four factors are as follows. The temperature of the storage area, the moisture content of the food, the atmosphere in the storage container, and the storage container itself. Let’s look at each of those factors.

1) Temperature of the Storage Area

Temperature has more to do with how long storable food will last than anything else. If you are planning on storing your food in a warm environment, it will only last a fraction of the time it would last in a cool, dry place. Some feel that the optimum temperature is 40 degrees F or less. However, not everyone will be able to achieve that. Another factor is that you have a place where the temperature is relatively constant. Frequent temperature changes can also shorten the life of storable food.

Remember to choose a cool, dry, dark place, where the temperature remains relatively constant, for storing your food.

2) Moisture Content of the Food

Foods with excess moisture can spoil in their containers. Food chosen for long term storage should have a moisture content of 10% or less. This is hard to achieve because most people don’t have access to specialized equipment.

An alternative is to get freeze-dried food, which has been specially-prepared for this purpose. The moisture content of these foods has been taken care of in the preparation process.

3) Atmosphere in the Storage Container

Oxygen oxidizes many of the compounds in food, so foods packed in air in storage containers will not store as well as Nitrogen, which is a popular gas for storing food, and one that works very well.

Some people use oxygen absorber packets. You simply place one in the storage container and seal. When you use these, you must have a storage container that is able to withstand some vacuum pressure. This is because the absorber packet will create a slight vacuum as it absorbs the oxygen.

Most food units that are packaged and sold for long term food storage have been packed with nitrogen in the #10 cans.

4) The Storage Container

Storage containers should have a hermetic seal (air tight) in order to get the longest life out of your stored foods. #10 Cans and sealable food-grade storage buckets work very well for this.

You must make certain that the storage containers you use are food grade containers. #10 cans that are used for food storage often have an enamel lining for this purpose. You can also buy plastic food-grade 5 gallon buckets.

If you buy a commercially-prepared food unit with #10 cans, then the second, third, and fourth factors are already addressed for you. In order to satisfy the first factor, you will still want to store the food in a cool, dry, dark place.

If you decide to buy plastic buckets, add the food, and seal them yourself, you will need to rent a nitrogen cylinder to fill the airspace in the buckets. When you do this, the oxygen will be displaced leaving only the nitrogen. Again, make sure that you purchase food-grade quality buckets. This is very important.

Remember these things when purchasing or creating a supply of long term storable food for your family.

Frank Salvo has been involved in food storage and emergency preparedness for the past 20 years. To learn more about these topics, please visit: http://www.freezedriedsurvivalfood.com.

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Small scale disasters happen often affecting many but usually in a small geographic area. A pandemic is a global threat that occurs irregularly and severity is variable. It will take a rare course of events to make the type of global impact you need to take diasater food preparation for.

Depending on where you live there are usually several types of disasters that you need to food prepare for. But what are the chances any of these disasters will occur in your lifetime? Did it happen to your parents or grandparents or previous generations who have lived in your area?

What is the chance of a disaster happening this year? This month? In 10 minutes?

The probability gets smaller and smaller. So why devote continuous and significant effort to be food prepared?

And if you are like most people who get concerned by a disaster threat and react by buying some bulk staples, what happens to the food when the laws of probability play out and nothing happens? The food rots and gets thrown out.

Why not be food prepared for 25-30 years with a one time action? The probability of a disaster occurring in that time frame is much higher than in one or 2 years, so if your goal is to be prepared whenever, you will be.

What is it about freeze dried food that makes it a better choice for survival food?

• Freeze dried food is an “always prepared” survival food choice. Threats of disasters come and go and if you bought extra food that is not long storage, chances are you will throw it out or have food you can not eat when a disaster strikes.
• Freeze dried food is a “one time” food preparedness purchase. Until a disaster strikes you do not need to use it. You can wait up to 25 years for a disaster to strike before you will want to throw it away.
• Freeze dried food reserves are prepared meals where you only need to add water to eat. No other preparation is required. This is of great value if the energy source you need to cook is not available or you are too weak to cook.
• Food is closer to what most what most American’s eat. Radical changes in diet can cause added stress and eating problems in a crisis.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised the swine flu alert to level 5 out of 6.

Margaret Chan Director-General of the WHO stated;

This change to a higher phase of alert is a signal to governments, to ministries of health and other ministries, to the pharmaceutical industry and the business community that certain actions should now be undertaken with increased urgency, and at an accelerated pace,

Certain actions should be taken now by individuals to be prepared.

The possibility of a serious impact caused by the flu is growing each day and as more information comes to light.

Being food prepared means having a one month to a six month long term food storage, preferably freeze dried food.

Why freeze dried?

Freeze dried food reserves lasts 25 years.

Meals are ready to eat just by adding water.

While the possibility of severe impact from a swine flu outbreak is higher now and growing, it is still not certain nor even likely yet to become severe.

If your long term food storage plan includes bulk bags of staples for an immediate threat, like swine flu, and that threat does not materialize what happens to the bulk staples?

The bulk food will sit in storage for awhile then they are thrown out.

Then one day a disaster does materialize and you are not prepared.

There is still plenty of time to order online and have freeze dried food delivered to your house.

Order lead times are currently one week to 10 days. But the lead time has been getting longer each day this week.

$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.

Sorted through 50 blog and forum posts that refer to freeze dried food in the last week.  Selected 3 below that  have meaningful information on preparedness and freeze dried food references;

Food Storage Dilemmas -Freeze dried Vs. Dehydrated-both flawed!

This is a terrific forum discussion with a lot of great opinions on pros and cons of freeze dried food versus other survival food storage approaches.  Concerns with high sodium levels of prepared food are expressed.  If you can adjust your lifestyle to eating rice and beans and storing these food regularly than there is an advantage in price and health. However the fact is that most people are not likely to adjust to the change and be left later in an unprepared state. The value of freeze dried food reserve is you “don’t have to eat it till you need it”. So people who buy freeze dried food have less risk of being caught unprepared. However if you can adjust “rice and beans” it will decrease the amount of freeze dried emergency food you need to store.

Survival Kits

“Target Woman” talks about things you need to take into account in preparing your survival kit.

the key to survival in the wild is preparation. Where to start and what are the factors that influence purchase of survival products for outdoors or wilderness travel?

Emergency Preparedness - It’s for You (And Me)

This blog post has a section at the bottom “5 MISTAKES PEOPLE MAKE WITH EMERGENCY SUPPLIES” that is worth reading.

Back in the ‘Y2k’ days, our family prepared and urged others to do the same, not because of fear but so that we could help ourselves and others if there was a need

If you have a good article, blog post, or forum discussion on freeze dried food you would like me to point out please let me know in a comment or in an email to servu@bulk-survival-food.com. 

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?

The US Department of Agriculture publishes a report monthly titled “Cost of Food at Home at Four Levels”.

This report shows the monthly food cost for individuals of various ages and for a family of four.  The budgets are calculated based on the nutritional requirements for dietary intake reference guidelines. In the USDA’s reference document “The Low-Cost, Moderate-Cost, and Liberal Food Plans, 2007″ the “food baskets” chosen are all representative of the requirements except;

To meet the recommendations for vitamin E, potassium, and sodium would have resulted in market baskets that are very different from typical consumption (in the case of vitamin E and potassium) or would require changes in food-manufacturing practices (in the case of sodium).

What they are saying is that what Americans typically eat and what is available from producers at the supermarket is too far off to select a basket that meets the Vitamin E, potassium, and sodium requirements.  These exceptions, while interesting to note, tell us that all the other dietary requirements have been met in these food baskets.

The “thrifty” food plan on the other hand;

Having more vegetables, fruits, and milk products and less other foods
in the TFP market basket for the family of four, compared with their reported consumption,
is not surprising; because, the TFP represents a nutritious diet.

The monthly home food “moderate plan” budget for a family of four, with older children, in January 2009 was $973.80.

The “liberal plan” January home food monthly budget was $1182.50.

For 3 months the home food budget  comes to $2921.40 and $3547.50 for moderate and liberal plans respectively.

Compare this to the 3 month Platinum reserve from Nitro-pak that cost $3375.  The platinum reserve supports four adults at 2000 calories per day.

Some people erroneously think freeze dried food is very expensive.  But when you look at the facts the cost of a freeze dried food reserve is no more expensive than the average food budget.

Even more important, most freeze dried food reserves offered are prepared meals so no effort to cook them is required. Adding hot water is all it takes to have a hot meal in minutes. Even if you don’t have hot water you can still eat the food cold.

I have previously shown the cost of bulk staples is deceptive once you factor in the cost of cooking and preparing meals. You need effort, equipment, more time, and more fuel.  Any of these can be a precious commodity in a disaster.  How valuable will your time be in a crisis? Freeing up time to work on other challenges could make a huge difference in your survival.

Finally a bulk staples only food plan always has the risk you will get caught with low inventory, your re-order point,  just at the time a shortage of supply occurs. With  freeze dried food the reserve is not touched, never depleted. Only when your normal food supply is disrupted do you draw on it.

Having a diverse food storage plan is wise. Bulk staples, MRE, freeze dried food all have their different benefits. But do not make a poor decision on the balance of these choices based on a wrong perception of cost. Value is more important than cost, looking at facts for the total cost of an option is vital to making the correct decision on your long term food storage plan.

One challenge for having an effective food reserve plan is “up front” cost.

Although freeze dried food in a bulk food reserve package will cost the same per meal as the average cost of a home cooked meal, buying a 3 month or 6 month food reserve is a large “up front” investment.

However there are ways to purchase gradually over time.

Mountain house freeze dried food can be purchased in boxes of six #10 cans.

Mountain House Variety Pak

These boxes contain up to 30 meals and some online suppliers offer free shipping for a single box.

The cost per meal compared to buying a 3 month or 6 month food reserve at one time will rise 25% to 40%.   So the best economical choice is still to buy a large reserve at one time.

However if you want a long term food reserve you can build up gradually, Mountain House cases are an option.

You could lower your daily food cost by buying several months supply of bulk rice and grains. As long as you use them regularly and don’t let them go to waste. However it is impossible to know just when you are going to need a food reserve, will it be 5 weeks or 5 months or 5 years? So if you have a food reserve that lasts 25 years you have a better investment as it will be ready when you need it.

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.

Richard Mitchell Jr., professor emeritus at Oregon State University and author of “Dancing at Armageddon: Survivalism and Chaos in Modern Times.”

Two people concerned about risks in life and active in preparedness efforts for their families are Bob and Gary.

Bob has created a food storage room. It has racks stocked with canned food, shelves with carefully stored bulk grains, sugar, etc he and his family needs for survival. He has planned and worked this out over a long time and has built up a 6 month supply of food.  He has 30 and 55 gallon drums of water that store enough to supply drinking and hygiene water 6 months as well.  Bob carefully manages his inventory and makes sure the family eats the food regularly so that nothing expires and goes to waste.

Gary, who is also very concerned about preparedness and risks, did some research. Gary thought through what were the best and appropriate choices for his family. Gary decided to buy 6 months worth of freeze dried food which amounted to two pallets he stored in his house. He decided not to buy drums for water but instead purchased and stored five 100 gallon pillow tanks and a 5 gallon collapsible container. Gary also had a water purification filter and a rainwater collector. He had an attachment for downspout collection of water.

A crisis occurred (what kind does not matter if you are prepared for anything) that caused both Bob and Gary to be thankful they had prepared. Bob continued using food from his storage. Gary started to use his food reserve when food supply became intermittent. Both were able to help family, friends, and neighbors who were not prepared at the times when they were in dire need.

Then power from utilities started to become intermittent and fuel was scarce. Bob and Gary both had solar ovens they used to cook and heat small amounts water and store in insulated containers. However Bob and his family were challenged because at night and cloudy days the hot water they stored could not cook the food in their reserve. They began to grow worried. Gary and his family only really needed the hot water to make their freeze dried food hot, a real morale booster.

Due to the stress of shortages, social order was starting to destabilize. As the risk of staying where they were grew higher both Bob and Gary thought about their options. Fortunately both had remote cottages several hours drive away where they had long term relationships with other cottagers that would be a safer place to be.

Unfortunately as is the case in a prolonged crisis, events become unpredictable. One day it became urgent to leave their locations for their cottages immediately. Within an hour the highway would be jammed with drivers in a state of desperation, highly stressed out and emotionally charged.

Bob needed to pack as much food and water in the family van in next 30 minutes. Bob and his wife had packed clothes and essentials for the kids in case they had to leave quickly, so that was in the van in minutes. However Bob’s food reserve of canned food was large, heavy, bulky. Worse water weighs 8.3 lbs per gallon so Bob’s filled 55 gallon drums weighed 458 lbs each. Bob had no idea what to do in this short time. He decided to drain one of his tanks but there was no easy way to do this and avoid electrocution. So he shut the power off and dumped the water out on the floor ruining some grain, after removing enough with a hand pump to tip the tank over. This still took 40 minutes and when he put the empty drum in his van it took up too much room. All he could do was take his 5 gallon collapsible tank and fill it. Meanwhile Bob’s wife was loading cans of food in the in the van but was unable to choose a balance of food they needed. She hurt her back trying to lift bulk bags of wheat and was now writhing in pain. In the end they were only able to get effectively 3 weeks worth of food in the van but drove off because they had no other choice, leaving 4 months worth of food behind. Bob also did have a weeks worth of MRE which hopefully will buy them enough time to figure out how to survive at their cottage.

When Gary realized he only had 30 minutes he knew exactly what he and his family had to do. They had also packed an emergency clothes and supplies bag to leave quickly. Since the boxes of freeze dried food weighed little, with 98% of the water in the food removed, Gary was able to cart out his remaining 5 months supply on a dolly in 15 minutes. There was just enough room in the Van for this much food. More importantly his wife had already brought out an empty 100 gallon pillow tank and put it on the floor of the van (2 seats removed) and filled it. Gary had put the food, solar oven, rain water equipment, empty pillow tanks, and emergency supplies on top of the filled pillow tank and next to it.

25 minutes later Gary and his family were in the Van on the road to their cottage.

Flexibility and mobility are important to preparedness.