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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Nitro-pak has lowered pricing on the following food reserves;

• Ultimate Pak  (204 #10 cans) - Now $3998 (was $4275)

• Platinum Reserve (168 #10 cans) - Now $2998 (was $3375)

These are mixed survival food reserves mostly Mountain House freeze dried entrees and sides with some bulk oats and staples.

Freeze dried food prices increased in August 2008 when supplies were in shortage situation after heavy purchases as the price of oil went up to $140 per barrel. Freeze dried food supply eased temporarily then tightened again in October 2008 due to the global collapse of financial markets. Since then the supply has eased except for a few weeks in May 2009 due to H1N1 pandemic scare.

It seems now supply is good and prices are coming down as fear and concern over the economy has subsided.

I made this short video comparing freeze dried food and MRE.

Key points are MRE is more expensive but more mobile.

MRE is good for the short term, 2-3 week food reserve, but Mountain House #10 cans which can store up to 25-30 years are cheaper and taste better.

Buying a survival food reserve bulk package can save cost if you make the right choice.

But most of that savings can be wasted if you do not get the right balance of food groups in the reserve and you have to buy more to balance it.

Nito-pak’s reserves have a good proportion of vegetables, grains, and meat, spread out over complete breakfast lunch and dinner choices. It is important that you maintain routines of your lifestyle in a disaster situation. Having regular meals can bring a lot of calm to tense situations.

Nitro-Pak has one of the best selections of survival food reserve packages for time ranges and purposes (home or office);

		***Ultimate Family Preparedness PakTM
		**Mtn. House Ultimate-Pak Food Reserve Year Supply
		**Platinum Food Reserve 4 People for 3 Mo.
		**Six Month “Gold Food Reserve”
		-Mountain House Year’s Supply - 18 Main Course Entrees
		-Mountain House Year’s Supply Entrees #2 NEW
		-Mountain House Year’s Supply Vegetable-Pak
		-Year’s Supply Food Unit, Platinum Reserve

		Group Emergency Food Reserve #1 (10 Person)
		Group Emergency Food Reserve #2 (20 Person)
		Group Emergency Food Reserve #3 (50 Person)

**”Easy Meal Security-Pak™” Food Reserve

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.

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.

Being prepared for a flu epidemic like the potential 2009 swine flu means having supplies at home for an extended period of time.

According to the US government pandemic flu website;

Store a two week supply of water and food. During a pandemic, if you cannot get to a store, or if stores are out of supplies, it will be important for you to have extra supplies on hand. This can be useful in other types of emergencies, such as power outages and disasters.

I recommend one month to 3 months worth of supplies. Based on previous epidemics there are several “waves” of infection outbreaks.  Your ability to be prepared to stay home for extended periods of time at different phases of the pandemic may be vital to you and your families’ survival.

You should be immediately prepared and have at least two weeks supply at home of food, medicine (prescription and non-prescription), and other essentials. Anything that would force you to leave your home to try to find. It will also be harder to find these items due to supply chain breakdowns during a long pandemic outbreak scenario.

Three very important points for food;

• Buy foods that are the same or similar to what you family can eat. Radical changes in diet can cause much more complications than you need in a crisis.
• Store shelves will empty within hours once it is clear that the crisis is severe,  real, and imminent,  to most of us.
• Try to get as “ready to eat” type foods as possible - you may be sick and not able to prepare foods

Fill any prescriptions you have for as long as possible. Purchase the regular medical supplies that you would consume over a 6 month period including cold and flu remedies as regular illness don’t go on holiday during a pandemic.

What foods to buy

As mentioned try not to stray far from foods your family is used to and that you know they will eat.

• Rice - most people like rice and preparation is easy as long as you have a stove. Bulk 40-50 lb bags are cheap so if you don’t need to use it the waste will not cost much
• Dry Cereals - try to stay with what your family normally eats, but healthier brands with less sugar are a better choice
• Canned meats and fish - Sardines are great and cheap if you like them.
• Canned Vegetables - Cooked is better for preparedness so they are ready to eat.
• Peanut butter - if there are no allergies.
• Water containers - I won’t spend money on bottled water, the water from you tap is good enough and you should have time to fill containers if a threat to the water supply comes into play.
• Protein and fruit bars - read the labels, make sure they are not empty calorie bars that provide no nutrition

As I mentioned above once the perceived risk level is high in the minds of a critical mass of people the store shelves will empty quickly, due to the nature of our just-in-time food supply chain. Then there will a period of time before shelves will be partially and then fully replenished.

If you want to avoid this I would suggest you shop now.

Panic could set in within a matter of hours if the situation worsens.

For proper longer term preparedness of one to six months, I recommend freeze dried food.

The main reasons are

• It lasts a long time so food will be there for a future crisis if this one, hopefully, does not materialize
• You don’t need to panic buy when a crisis hits to be prepared, you are ‘always prepared’ for 25 years
• Food reserves are ready to eat, only needing water to prepare

I just checked Nitro-Pak’s (emergency preparedness) website  and they say that as of today  “most orders will SHIP in approx. 1-3 business days. Food orders may take slightly longer.”

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?