Survival Food - Freeze Dried & MRE

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.

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.

Here is an interesting article in the Investment Executive;

Canadians recognize the importance of emergency preparedness but are not sufficiently prepared: survey

An interesting comment;

The research reveals that 86% of Canadians feel it is important to be prepared for potential emergencies — such as an extended blackout, ice storm, tornado or forest fire — and more than half of respondents believe an emergency will happen in the next 10 years. Despite this, few Canadians feel they are very prepared for an emergency, with 42% saying they are not prepared.

$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 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.

News broke a few days ago that Panasonic had advised employees overseas to arrange for their families to return home by September 2009 as part of influenza pandemic planning.

See the story at CIDRAP.

The WHO (World Heath Organization) was perplexed at the action by Panasonic.

A Panasonic spokesman quickly issued a statement that Panasonic had no “proprietary” information on an elevated risk of an influenza pandemic.

He also denied it was related to cost cutting.

In my humble opinion - this “pandemic planning” is related to costs as well as concerns over social unrest in China and other countries as the threat of a global economic depression looms.

However it is always best to be proactively prepared so that when any news comes you don’t need worry and react hastily and make poor decisions on how you are prepared.

But if you are not prepared now with the small but very significant risk of an economic depression then it is likely you will not be prepared for a sudden disaster or pandemic. Now is the time to be prepared for anything as there will be no time and little to get prepared later.

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.

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.