Survival Food - Freeze Dried & MRE

Good article on hurricane preparedness for upcoming season on the Florida Times_Union website jacksonville.com;

Hurricane Preparedness and Updates on Your Mobile

A free public service website designed for mobile phone viewing, http://evacuations.mobi delivers up-to-date hurricane conditions from NOAA as well as maps and directions for evacuation routes, links to coastal states emergency sites and more

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.

Preparedness is not just for threats of mega-disasters that are far less likely to occur or impact you. It is the once in 10 year or 30 years or 50 year disasters that you are more likely to experience.

Wildfires, floods, earthquakes, pandemics, and hurricanes are things that, depending where you live, you are likely to experience in your lifetime at least once.

To prepare for these disasters you need to think long term. Life time preparedness needs resources that last a long time.

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.