Long Term Food Companies

[Jasonanddeonna]

This is kinda've a complex question and really depends on a lot of factors, when it comes to "storage food" and "food that is almost ready to eat" these are very different angles. If you're looking at storage food, beans, rice, spam, oils, etc are going to be your go to, you're going to have to cycle this food every few years, however it's cheap, it's fairly nutritious, and it is easy to augment with other things, like freeze dried onions, or fresh vegetables, or some bonus meat from hunting.

I tend to depend on Mountain House for camping food, it's fast and easy to prepare and provides a good number of calories. (figure you're going to be eating a double "serving") If you're looking for something easy like this, I totally like MH, however it's use is very much limited to Heat and Eat application. Wise is another company that advertises extensively, however I would not recommend them, they like to play little games like having very small "servings" usually 200-300 calories, wise foods also tend to be nothing more than soup mixes, which both require a lot of water to prepare, are more difficult to handle, and require more cooking infrastructure. Half a canteen cup of hot water makes a full sack of MH. The MH meals are also usually about 300-400 calories per serving, and usually 2 servings per bag.

Good info and thanks!

 

[tourproto]

I hate the MH scrambled eggs. They taste more like freeze dried pancake syrup. Why can't they just freeze dry plain old scrambled eggs? If I want to add cr@p to it I will just add cr@p to it myself.

On my recent trip to Montana, I had the MH "breakfast skillet" which did have eggs in it and I thought it was very good. Shared it with my brother and cousin (who we were staying with and pretty much kills all his food: elk, deer, moose, antelope and fish) and they both loved it. My cousin is going to buy some for his next hunting trip. He loves the fact that you only need to add boiling water, eat out of the bag, no dishes to wash other than licking the spoon clean and very easy to pack out the trash.

Maybe the scrambled eggs all by themselves taste funky but the breakfast skillet was A-OK for me.

 

[cigars]

Freeze Drying scrambled egg is easy! Do I need to get you a batch done once we are past the fruit season?

I was actually thinking of getting a small freeze dryer unit and doing some freeze drying on the side.
But I tell ya though, there was nothing like those chow hall scrambled eggs. Made from powder, had that greenish tint to them. I could eat those all day.

 

[LuckySG]

I was actually thinking of getting a small freeze fryer unit and doing some freeze drying on the side.
But I tell ya though, there was nothing like those chow hall scrambled eggs. Made from powder, had that greenish tint to them. I could eat those all day.

I am happy to help when you want to start that journey. I got a lemon and had to go through and replace everything short of the little pillow in the window to get it where it is today.

 

[IdahoBangBang]

Careful on MREs .... there are stories of 30 year old ones still being edible, and other stories about MREs that are only a couple of years old that have gone completely to ugly dark mush that you wouldn't feed to a hog! They are good to keep around for short- to mid-term emergencies (say 18 months or less). Their best feature is how easy they are to bring with you if you have to. Only dried and freeze-dried last for the long long term. For short- to mid-term food that you may or may not bring with you, you may consider canned foods and frozen foods in addition to the long-term dried foods. It's not cheap to get started in canning because for 'real food' that has meat in it, you have to have a pressure canner ... not just a boil canner, but what you buy will last a lifetime. Presto pressure canners are pretty cheap and last a long time if you buy a spare seal / pressure plug for it. We have an All American canner for pressure canning meats, and the All American flywheel hand crank can sealer. We pressure can a variety of meats and dinners in both glass (cheaper) and lined steel cans. We've got many buckets of dried foods in mylar bags w/O2 absorbers. We have a 25 cu ft chest freezer full of food. Between glass canning, steel canning, dried goods, and frozen ones, we're pretty ready for a variety of scenarios and periods of time without outside help. We also have our own hand-powered (AND electric) meat grinders and a Country Living Flour Mill (currently powered by pulleys, belts, and 1/2 hp motor - I'll take a pic if someone's interested). Lots of it can be grabbed and hauled away fast and is organized that way. Also have two 55-gal new food grade water barrels w/spigots that are kept full, drained and refilled every 6 months, and treated with chlorine at time of refill and once in between. We have a generator and keep several weeks of treated gas in storage (and propane and propane adapter for the generator). The gas is poured into my truck's tank once a year and replace with ethanol-free StaBil-treated new gas.

And ... we live in the city (our biggest risk factor). To help with that, we have 5 acres on a dead end road that butts up against state lands in a different part of the state ... only 3 neighbors (spread out) that think like us and have our 6 and we have theirs. We're planning on a cabin-esque wood-heat small building on the land to begin with, but will build a house there later and the cabin-esque building will likely turn into storage and/or garden shed. We'll see.

Brian

PS: We also know where all the Mormons live ... LOL ... just a joke

 

[Jasonanddeonna]

I am happy to help when you want to start that journey. I got a lemon and had to go through and replace everything short of the little pillow in the window to get it where it is today.

It seems the cost for the size of the unit, in addition to the cost of food and time, may be cost prohibitive unless using it all the time. It seems that for the price, one could store a huge amount of prepackaged or stored food, but I am not sure. I definitely could use more information on this.

 

[LuckySG]

It seems the cost for the size of the unit, in addition to the cost of food and time, may be cost prohibitive unless using it all the time. It seems that for the price, one could store a huge amount of prepackaged or stored food, but I am not sure. I definitely could use more information on this.

You are correct, for $2K-ish you can buy a lot of food. I am past that phase and now upgrading what I bought with what I really want to eat. It does not pencil out well when you are just comparing the cost of calories, definitely a winner when you are focused on quality as you can control your food from seed to freezer.

 

[Defense Minister]

+1 for Mountain House here. However, it is expensive as pointed out, so I bought a bucket of Auguson Farms lentils to mix with it and stretch it. I bought the lentils when AF had 50% off the entire site with free shipping. Also, calorie per dollar, this is the best deal on the internet when they (regularly) go on sale for $99, and most reviewers rave about the good taste. Can't hurt to try a bucket

 

[Jasonanddeonna]

You are correct, for $2K-ish you can buy a lot of food. I am past that phase and now upgrading what I bought with what I really want to eat. It does not pencil out well when you are just comparing the cost of calories, definitely a winner when you are focused on quality as you can control your food from seed to freezer.

Agreed. Thank you for the honest answer regarding this as it is something I have thought about for some time and if the investment would be worth it or to begin by buying emergency food storage. This helps to sort that out for the immediate future.