Survival Food – Freeze Dried & MRE

Here is a great comment on being prepared from Tricia. We all learn from experience, and those who have experienced the worst are wisely the best prepared. Thanks for sharing, Tricia.

Hi, my husband and I have been building up a supply of food for about 8 years. After Hurricane Ivan hit and left us with nothing we had to start over. Red Cross didn’t get to us for over a week, when the military came in they passed out mre’s and water. We ate the mre’s and going on the second week I was having trouble getting them down. I found it very hard to continue eating them. When we finally found a home (8 mths later) we had been lucky enough to have a whole lot of space (we had to start over). We purchased freezed dried #10 canned ( Honeyville) of veggies (onion, carrot, celery, peas, corn, potato flakes) fruit (strawberries, apples, peaches, raspberries, blue berries, bananas), eggs (egg whites, egg yolks, whole egg). I filled the pantry with alot of things like Olives, large can chicken, tuna, #10 canned tomatoes, chili, all kinds of canned fruit, baked beans, our thing was we need enough for family, our animals and neighbors. We buy rice in 50lb bags and we vacuum seal gallon size amounts along with oxygen removers (this is very important), we do this for noodles, sugar, flour, grits, dry milk, etc… Next is the beans, every kind, beans go along way we put them in a quart size zippie bag and again we vacuum seal with oxygen removers. We stocked up on everything we use from bathroom supplies, toliet paper, toothbrushes, soap, shampoo, etc… to cases of canned bread (special order) & cases of canned butter (special order) I think you get the point. We vacuum seal everything but the cans. I have everything we need to enjoy our meals. I bought Bulk Foods (sams club & other stores that sell the #10 cans). We have the convenience of not needing to go shopping for 7-10 years. Since we lost everything we started over with furniture, we did not buy any end tables, etc.. instead we bought those nice big blue buckets with lids. I have stacked (2 high) 8 full containers behind my sofa (the fit was perfect just under the full length of the sofa) my husband cut a pcs of plywood to fit the top next I put a nice cover (sheet) over it and put some nick nacks on top so you don’t even know its there, did the same thing with the love seat and my end tables are containers. When our pantry was loaded and my laundry room cabinets where full I had to put the food some place. I also use a dehydrator for jerky and fruit (short term). For the question about how would we move this if we had to move no problem, because of Hurricane Ivan we had to purchase an RV (30′) it would be easy to move these items into the RV. Anything major hits us either by Mother nature or by Man we have our list, Animal & Things (every day items), Medication, Cleaning Supplies, Emerg 1st Aid, Emerg 1st Aid for snake bites, bathroom items, Lots of Bleach, Food, Water Purifiers (2), Rechargeable Batteries, Extra Gas, Elec & Duct Tape, Flash Lights & Lanterns, Propane, Propane Heater, RV and/or Tent & Supplies, Tools, Solar Panel, Camouflage Clothes & Nets, Generator, Oil/Gas, Candles, Matches, Batteries AA, AAA, D’s, C’s,
Extra Water Filters for Purifier, Entertainment (brd games, dice, cards etc…), Protection (ect….). We do expect the worse to happen and I have an evacuation plan list that we sent out to our close friends and family that is more detailed (a place to meet up, road maps that are marked and several ways to get where we need to go. Some people may think this is really bad but thats okay because there are a whole lot of people like us doing the same thing (food for thought).

The ReadyStore is have a National Preparedness Month Sale now until September 30th.

You can save 20% to 30% off everything including one year supply food reserves.

MREs, Survival Kits, Mountain House #10 cans, are all on sale at The ReadyStore.

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Back in January I did a price comparison of cases of MRE. Below I have updated that comparison with today’s pricing. I used a Tampa Bay, FL zip code for 3 distributors that charged shipping costs depending on zip codes.

MRE is available now to order at these associated distributors;

• Nitro-Pak

• The ReadyStore

• Amazon.com

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina there was a severe MRE (meals ready to eat) shortage for months and prices went way up during that period.

Hopefully Hurricane Gustav will cause as little damage and loss of life as possible.

But if there is need again for MRE to support disaster relief please be considerate of those who most need it.

If you were planning to order MRE for general preparedness and see that it is in short supply, you may want to delay ordering and making the supply situation worse, at least until MRE that is needed immediately has been made available to those who need it.

For the same reasons as hurricanes, and a few more, the best Earthquake preparedness food is MRE.

MRE (meals ready to eat) or military rations are just that – ready to eat. They are a complete meal with no water needed to prepare.

Most importantly they can be heated with “flameless” ration heaters which is much safer than using an open flame or other cooking equipment after an earthquake.

Since you may not have utilities for weeks in some areas after an earthquake it is much more convenient to have ready to eat meals for this period.

Since you can buy MRE in 12 meal cases with 6 different meals in each case, the variety offered makes them a better choice.

MRE is not the tastiest food and some people have difficulty digesting them so I don’t recommend using MRE as a survival food longer than 3 weeks at a time. This however is hopefully much longer than you will need an emergency food reserve after an earthquake.

According to Nitro-pak, each of their MRE’s typically include;

1. Soda type crackers and a spread, like cheese, peanut butter
   or jelly as an appetizer
2. A main course entree, like beef steak, chicken & noodles, turkey breast, etc.
3. A complementing side dish like fruit, rice, soup or potatoes
4. Some type of dessert, snack or candy
5. An accessory packet which includes: matches, spoon, wet wipe, salt, pepper,
   coffee and sweetener (some may include an alternative beverage powdered
   drink, too).
6. Military versions also include a mini roll of toilet tissue.

MRE lasts 5-7 years if stored in cool place below 80 degrees fahrenheit.

If you store a few cases in a basement, it would be best to have them under a table near an external door that you can break down if need be. That way you can access the MRE meals after an earthquake.

Three places you can order MRE online;

Nitro-Pak
The ReadyStore
Amazon

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I strongly recommend MRE for Hurricane preparedness because it is truly ready to eat and can be heated with a flameless ration heater or “FRH”.

Electricity can be unavailable for weeks in some areas after a hurricane so the ability to have a hot cooked meal with no equipment required is a huge benefit.

Commercial MRE comes in 12 meal cases usually the FRH is included. The meals are usually 1000 – 1300 calories (check this before you buy MRE) so 2 meals per day will be more than enough to get by.

Don’t wait till there is a Hurricane approaching to buy MRE though, as local stores will sell out of MRE quickly.

MRE has a 5-7 year shelf-life if stored in cool place below 80 degrees Fahrenheit, so you should plan to stock up every 5 years or so and always have 1-3 weeks supply .

You can buy online at Amazon.com, however with shipping the total cost from Amazon is over $89 per case. This cost is higher than most other online outlets, but you are probably not as familiar with the other small ones, so you may trust ordering from Amazon more. However, when you buy MRE from Amazon, it is not directly from Amazon you are buying but rather their “Amazon Prime” partner, which is in fact a smaller outfit than the 3 retailers listed below.

I have had good experiences with these online MRE retailers to date and have seen only positive reviews on them from others;

Nitro-Pak
The ReadyStore
MREfoods.com

I recieved a phone call and email from a Texas radio station this morning. They talked about the chaos going on with Hurricane Dolly and how their listeners would be very interested in survival food products.

It was someone from the advertising department, not the newsroom.

After I told them my website is a blog and that I don’t actually sell products they quieted down a bit.

I told them anyone advertising now would just be selling on fear, but I guess that is what they were interested in.

I also said it is too late anyway for anyone who is not prepared with their own food supply. Hopefully there will be little or no damage and disruption from this hurricane.

If you live in an area that has risk of hurricanes, the best course of action is to decide on your preparedness plans now and not wait. You will make the best decisions when there is no rush and panic and not be at the mercy of people trying to profit on your fear.

As mentioned in a previous post the best survival food for hurricanes is MRE. It is ready to eat and does not require water to prepare. If you have to travel away from the coast before the hurricane hits the best food to carry with you is MRE.

Commercial MRE is available at camping stores, some department stores and online.

I would avoid military MRE on auction sites as it may be compromised by how it was stored previously, and there is a chance it was stolen or improperly obtained or is specified not for re-sale by the government.

Although MRE has a long shelf life of 7-8 years if stored in a cool place, there is a desire by some to make it last longer.

The belief by some is that if you freeze MRE, it will be edible longer and therefore not needed to be replaced as often. That is if you are fortunate not to have a disaster where you will need it in the course of 7-8 years.

There are several reasons you should not to do this.

Over a long period of time (years) you are likely to have power outages. While they may not last long enough to ruin your regular frozen food, each time the MRE is partially thawed and re-frozen the more likely the packaging will delaminate and contaminate the food.

Also meat products, as we all know, should not be thawed and re-frozen. But you won’t be able to tell if there was any re-freezing until you open the MRE when you need it. And since the food will be stored over long periods it is more likely a thaw will go unnoticed.

What a time to find out your food is inedible.

Finally, whenever you freeze food a lot it’s nutritional value is lost, so it is better not to freeze food especially food that stores at room temperature a very long time.

There is no benefit at all to freezing freeze dried food on the other hand, as it lasts longer and freezing it would only degrade it’s quality.

If you have done a bunch of searches looking for survival food online distributors/retailers you will know there are quite a few specialty sites in this area. There are also quite a few blogs like this one and forums focused on preparedness or survivalism.

One way to gauge how significant and trustworthy these sites are and their relative online presence, is checking to see how popular they are. I am doing this for online stores first since that is mostly what visitors to this site are looking for. Compete.com provides a website analytics tool that helps gauge how much monthly traffic a site gets. This is a good measure of popularity.

Below is a graph of the Top 5 or what I call “first tier” survival food distributors. The monthly site visitors are listed in thousands (K).

The “first tier” top 5 Survival Food sites as of May 2008 updated each month automatically;

1. Emergency Essentials (beprepared.com)- Sells both commercial MRE & Freeze Dried, and dehydrated food mostly “À la carte”. Some mixed food reserves with a mix of long life freeze dried food and bulk foods.
2. Nitro-pak - Sells both commercial MRE & Freeze Dried Food, variety of bulk 3 month and one year freeze dried food reserve units,  wide variety of preparedness products (Note: We have an affiliate partner relationship with Nitro-pak).
3. The ReadyStore – Sells both commercial MRE & Freeze Dried Food, variety of bulk 3 month and one year freeze dried food reserve units. (Note: We have an affiliate partner relationship with The ReadyStore).
4. Long Life Food Depot – Sells mainly commercial MRE
5. The Epicenter -Sells both commercial MRE & Freeze Dried Food in pouches (recently stopped selling most #10 cans due to availability), camping gear.

The “second tier” top 5 Survival Food sites as of May 2008 updated each month automatically;

1. MRE Depot – Sells non-military surplus MRE, canned staples, freeze dried staples.
   
2. Survival Acres - Sells Freeze dried food and dehydrated food.
3. MRE Foods - Sells commercial MRE. Lowest delivered price for an MRE case I have found online.
4. Are You Prepared – Sells commercial MRE and freeze dried food.
5. Meyers Custom Supply – Sells commercial MRE, also has an AlpineAire page but no products on it at the time of this post

There are other sites, some I listed below that had significant monthly traffic, but their product focus was not centered MRE and freeze dried food, but more on either other survival products or survival information in general.

Camping Survival - Wide variety of survival & camping gear, some MRE.

Captain Dave’s Survival Center – Wide variety of survival gear, some MRE

The Survival Center - preparedness books, food storage advice, canned food and also some MRE & freeze dried food.

AAOOB Storable Foods – specialize in grain mills, other bulk food storage equipment, but some MRE and freeze dried.