Freeze Dried & MRE - Survival Food

Nitro-Pak offers several food reserves but their premiere food reserve is the Ultimate-Pak™.

The Ulitmate-Pak™ is a one year supply for one person or 3 month supply for 4 people. It consists of 204 #10 cans, about half of which is Mountain House freeze dried food. FYI - #10 cans are 5/6th of a gallon restaurant size cans that most long storing food reserves come in.

The Ultimate-Pak™ supplies an average of 2440 calories per day which is above the RDA requirement and much higher than most other food reserve packages sold online.  As you can see from the analysis chart below the diet is a big breakfast, light lunch, and large dinner.

Ultimate-Pak

One thing that sticks out in this food reserve is it’s completeness and variety. It has good variety of vegetables and fiber as well as carbs and protein. There are 18 #10 cans of Nutty Breakfast Granola, 12 Cans of  6-Grain Cereal Blend, and 12 Cans of Quick Cooking Rolled Oats in the breakfast part of the reserve. This variety also lowers the average daily sodium intake that other food reserves run into trouble with (Detailed contents of the food reserve are list on Nitro-Pak’s website).

Also important is that it has 20 cans of beverage mixes, something that other food reserve packages overlook or have too little of.

The 38 cans of dinner entrees come in 18 different varieties. Having variety will help keep morale up in a stressful situation and this amount of variety is probably as much as most people eat normally. However to take advantage of this variety of entrees it will be better if you are using the food reserve for 3-4 people. Once you open a #10 can, it will last only a few weeks. So if you are using it for one person don’t expect to have cans of each of the 18 varieties open at any one time and expect the reserve to last a year.

Especially of great value is that all the contents of the food reserve are no-cooking, no-preparation foods that can be ready in a few minutes. Your time will be much more valuable in a disaster to be used in other activities than cooking meals.

Other food reserves choose lower cost raw ingredients so may have a lower average cost per #10 can, but have an enormous total cost in terms of your time.  Also a food reserve of raw ingredients instead of fully prepared Mountain House freeze dried food will require cooking equipment and energy (gas, oil, electricity)  that might not be continuously available or even desirable to use in some situations. Mountain House freeze dried food requires only water to prepare the food. If hot water is available so much the better but it is not necessary to have anything else other than water.

The Nitro-Pak supplied contents (indicated by “NP”) of the food reserve that are not Mountain House freeze dried food will have a shorter shelf life than 25 years. Most of these NP items being sealed in #10 cans will have 10-15 years shelf life. However items such as the breakfast grains mentioned above are items you can consume periodically (8 -10 years) and re-order with the cost not being much more than what you would buy from the grocery store. As indicated in the chart above all these “NP” items are also instant no-preparation foods other than adding water or hot water which is what makes the food reserve so useful.

Overall I can easily say that the Ultimate-Pak™ food reserve from Nitro-Pak offers the most complete food reserve online and has the highest value of food reserves I have looked at to date.

The ReadyStore is forecasting an increase of 30% on September 1st, 2008 for #10 cans of Mountain House freeze dried food. The notice on their website says this is a mandatory increase for all retailers so it sounds like all will be affected.

Previously Nitro-Pak, forecasted 15% increase in Mountain House #10 cans on August 1st. Prices did go up, but for food reserves which have a mix of other food the observed increase was about 7-8%.

Nitro-Pak has stated a further increase of 5% would occur on September 1st.

Some of the increase can be attributed to higher food costs, but I wonder if the heightened demand caused by survivalists buying on speculation of nearness of the economic collapse they predict has played a major role.

According to the ReadyStore’s comment “If you haven’t placed your order, now is the time!” it appears if you place your order before September 1st, you can avoid the price increase.

I just received the email notification from Mountain House below, confirming only 3 online dealers are being supplied, Nitro-Pak, The ReadyStore, and Emergency Essentials;

Updated: 7/31/2008

Dear Valued Customers:

This is an update on Oregon Freeze Dry’s #10 can situation. Because sales remain high, we continue to be unable to meet all #10 can needs. OFD is continuing to allocate as much production capacity as possible to this market segment, but we must maintain capacity for our other market segments as well.

We are able to meet demand for Mountain House pouches and most of these products are available for purchase on our website. For a list of locations where you can purchase #10 cans, which should enable you to obtain product from reputable dealers NOW, or at least in the very near future…click hereWe also want to again clarify inaccurate information we’ve seen on the Internet. This situation is not due to sales to the government domestically or in Iraq. The reason for this decision is solely due to an unprecedented sales spike in #10 cans sales.

We expect this situation to be necessary into 2009. We will update this information as soon as we know more. We apologize for this inconvenience and appreciate your patience. We sincerely hope you will continue to be Mountain House customers in the future.

Sincerely,

OREGON FREEZE DRY INC.
CUSTOMER SERVICE DEPARTMENT
1-800-547-0244

The 3 online distributors on the list Mountain House provided are;

• Nitro-Pak
• The ReadyStore
• Emergency Essentials

I have seen reports on various sites that say that Mountain House will not be selling #10 cans on their website until the end of 2009.

This statement is correct.

I called Mountain House customer service and they confirmed this is the case. An updated notice should appear on their website soon.

However it was also being said that dealers only had limited supply of Mountain House #10 cans and after that dealers could be out of stock for as long as 20 weeks!

The above statement is not correct!

Mountain House customer service confirmed that they would continue to supply their TOP DEALERS.

The supply is limited and on allocation to these dealers due to high demand.

I called Nitro-Pak customer service and they confirmed that they will continue to take orders and shipping lead times are at present 2-4 weeks and will continue into the foreseeable future. This applies to #10 cans sold by themselves and special food reserve packages.

However since the supply of #10 cans from Mountain House is on limited allocation to dealers, if demand increases even more, the lead times will only get longer.

However you will still get freeze dried food in #10 cans if and when you order from their dealers, the question is just on how long it will take to get delivery.

Awareness of the need for pandemic flu preparedness came 2 years ago when the risk of a pandemic outbreak from the avian flu virus (H5N1) escalated.

Fortunately, a flu pandemic did not materialize and the risk has abated somewhat.

However there is always that risk present as there were 3 pandemic outbreaks that occurred in the last century. And present conditions, even with the technology and medical knowledge available today, make the occurrence of a pandemic flu no less likely nor the impact less severe than in the past.

From a preparedness point of view what can we expect and plan for?

Here is a statement from the PandemicFlu.gov website;

A pandemic may come and go in waves, each of which can last for six to eight weeks.

An especially severe influenza pandemic could lead to high levels of illness, death, social disruption, and economic loss. Everyday life would be disrupted because so many people in so many places become seriously ill at the same time. Impacts can range from school and business closings to the interruption of basic services such as public transportation and food delivery.

With possible reductions in the food supply and a general desire to limit your exposure to other people and thereby risk of infection it would be highly desirable to have a food reserve of up to even 3 months for you and your family.

While it may be tempting to think that you will have time to prepare if the threat escalates again in the future, the fact is many preparedness food options will quickly become difficult to obtain.

Recently with the awareness of food price increases and as well as the threat of food shortages, which for the US became somewhat exaggerated for a time in some circles, the result was survival food quickly went out of stock with long lead times of 6-8 weeks.

While the availability of freeze dried food in #10 cans has come down to 2-4 weeks lead time now, based on this recent experience you can imagine what will happen when a future pandemic flu threat escalates and starts to get more and more news coverage long before the actual pandemic occurs.

So why wait?

Freeze dried food reserves for 3 months can be had for as little as $2.90 per meal.

Here is the latest on #10 can price increase, it is expected to be as much as 15%.

Per Nitro-pak

P.S. PRICE INCREASE NOTICE- All Mountain House #10 can freeze-dried foods & units are going up August 1, 2008 by as much as 15%. HURRY, Order NOW and Save!

Nitro-pak’s Mountain House #10 Can Selection

This message is still on Mountain House’s website;

The reason for this is sales of #10 cans have continued to increase. OFD is allocating as much production capacity as possible to this market segment, but we must maintain capacity for our other market segments as well.

Just read on Nitro-Pak’s website that Mountain House freeze dried food prices will be going up July 1st. This is the statement on Nitro-Pak’s site;

**PRICES GOING UP JULY 1, 2008:Mountain House has announced that prices will be going up on JULY 1, 2008. In order for our customers to “lock-in” todays lower food prices, we will honor the current lower prices on all orders received before this date. ORDER NOW!”

The food shortages reported in the news have resulted in increased lead times and now the food price increases are starting to be seen on survival food’s such as Mountain House #10 cans of freeze dried food and pouches. There is no indication how much the prices will increase. As the note says orders placed now will honor the current prices. Since prices tend to go up fast but back down slowly I expect the higher prices on freeze dried food to last for some time unfortunately. Single mountain house #10 cans are orderable again on Nitro-pak’s site but based on this news I think most will be stocking up on bigger food reserve packages before the prices increase.

Below is an updated survival food comparison chart.

Freeze dried food, MRE, and canned food are compared in catagories to determine their merit as a survival food.

In my opinion (and scoring of course) freeze dried food is the clear winner. However it is important to note that MRE is very useful as an initial emergency food and a mobile emergency food. So you should have both MRE and freeze dried, but mostly Freeze dried food.

Only the small percentage of us who utilize bulk grains for our cooked food on a regular basis, have reliable heating alternatives for cooking, and ample food and water storage space could rate canned food/bulk grain higher.

Due to recent food price increases, orders for freeze dried food are taking longer to ship. Also some prices have increased.

It appears many people are ordering to avoid price increases since news of food prices rising started to appear.

Nitro Pak order lead times have increased to 3 - 7 weeks on some food reserve packages.

How much space do you need to store an emergency food supply for a family of 4 that will last 3 months?

4′ high and 6′ long by 18″ wide.

It can easily be put along the wall of a storage room in any basement or utility room.

This is 204 Mountain House #10 cans of freeze dried food that are breakfast, lunch, and dinner for one person for a whole year.

Here is a picture;

Variety is important to any survival food strategy. So this “ulitimate” survival food pak has a selection of 19 different Mountain House freeze-dried entrees.

Facts and where to buy the “Ultimate Pak Food Reserve”;

• 204 #10 Cans Mountain House Freeze Dried Food
• 2440 calories per day
• 19 different entrees
• Free Shipping
• 120-Day ‘No-Risk’ Guarantee
• On Sale Now at Nitro Pak