Best Survival Food Companies???

BigSkillet wrote:
I'm looking for opinions on taste from the various companies. I'd buy a bucket to keep on hand to throw packs (or the bucket) in my rv for any trips out of town. I'm not a great cook and these meals sound like something that wouldn't take up room and easy to fix, since it's just me. That way fast food won't tempt me.

As a bachelor I'm in the same boat. The problem I've noticed is price and nutritional content. Especially the salt. The ones I've seen at places like wall mart and so expensive and so unhealthy for you that might just as well be eating fast food.

But, I've really not checked into it that closely.

If you are buying strictly for camping convenience and not neccesarily for long term survival storage, there are actually a number of good vendors to buy from. Some of the ones I've bought from without any issues are Epicenter, The Ready Store, Emergency Essentials, and Nitro-Pak. They all carry an assortment of brands and types. I would suggest that you buy small amounts of what you think you would like and sample them before buying a major quantity. I've had some good, some okay, and some really bad. But it's all a matter of personal taste. The one thing I will highly reccomend is Ova-Easy egg crystals. These are not dehydrated scrambled egg, but real raw egg that when reconstituted look, act, and taste like you just cracked the shell.

Thought I would point out that calories are important when comparing survival rations.

For an adult male, 1,200 calories are considered the minimum needed if sedentary. An average male consumes 2,500 to 3,000 per day under normal conditions. In a real survival situation you may be burning 4,000 or more. Keep that in mind when a package says XX days of food. Can you really live on the amount of calories they consider a "day" of food?

The three major companies I've purchased from in fairly large quantities over the past several years are:

ThriveFreezeDried.com

Food Insurance.com

Costco Emergency Kits & Supplies

Most of what we buy is in the #10 cans and have a 20-25 yr. shelf life. I haven't had any problems with either of the above vendors. Depending upon the food, the taste ranges from "OK" to "pretty darn good". Eggs, for instance, just don't see to every reconstitute very well, but if you mix them with the pepper, onion and cheese, it's not a terrible tasting omelette. So it pays to sample some foods. The veggies do pretty well. Meats are generally pretty good. Deserts are usually pretty good too. (The kids like the freeze dried ice cream.)

Occasionally we'll get smaller sizes to sample a particular food.

My suggestion is to purchase products over a period of time. Most companies will have "specials" on various foods or types of foods periodically. We take advantage of these times to purchase at a pretty decent price.

If you're going to store the freeze dried foods, remember that most of them take a lot of water to reconstitute, so you should have a reliable source of available or stored water as well.

~Rick

wbwood wrote:
Just looked at the Wise Food Storage website again. Looks like they have a sale going on. If you can afford to spend a few thousand dollars on it, it 's not a bad price. I was thinking it would be a lot more expensive than what it is. A years worth for a couple is a little over $2500. That comes down to just a little over $6/day, which is good food budget. The only thing is that it only includes 2 meals a day (breakfast and an entree). They do have a 3 month supply that includes extra meals for lunch. They are $325 for one person. I would imagine you might get tired of same stuff. It is a variety, but only so much. But to be honest, that is a great price. That one comes out to less than $4 a day.

My experience with Wise Food is they are all vegetarian - not a morsel of meat in them. They're OK, but a little expensive compared to others that include meat like Mountain Home.

This is definitely a thread that I'm learning a lot from. I think I'll try dailybread.com as well. I have no dog in the hunt when it comes to companies, but I should see about having a long term food stash as well as short-term MREs.

Just looked at the Wise Food Storage website again. Looks like they have a sale going on. If you can afford to spend a few thousand dollars on it, it 's not a bad price. I was thinking it would be a lot more expensive than what it is. A years worth for a couple is a little over $2500. That comes down to just a little over $6/day, which is good food budget. The only thing is that it only includes 2 meals a day (breakfast and an entree). They do have a 3 month supply that includes extra meals for lunch. They are $325 for one person. I would imagine you might get tired of same stuff. It is a variety, but only so much. But to be honest, that is a great price. That one comes out to less than $4 a day.

My Daily Bread (Add www. and .com and delete spaces) offers a wide variety of freeze dried food..... Packed in Tins... Just add water and heat.

Modern military rations are not nearly as bad (MRE) as they used to be in days gone by.

I'm looking for opinions on taste from the various companies. I'd buy a bucket to keep on hand to throw packs (or the bucket) in my rv for any trips out of town. I'm not a great cook and these meals sound like something that wouldn't take up room and easy to fix, since it's just me. That way fast food won't tempt me.

Mainevacationer wrote:
I have been buying from Emergency Essentials since 1999. www.beprepared.com I can affirm that the Mountain House freeze dried food is very good and has a great shelf life if you get it in the #10 cans. The pouch freeze dried food from Mountain House only has a 5 year shelf lifeshelf life. As others have said, order small samples and try it out. If you like it then you can buy in bulk. Be very diligent in your research of the companies and their products.

I also went to a Mormon Cannery back in 1999 and worked with my friend to seal up lots of food for long term storage. Of that food we loved the apple and banana slices, onion flakes, potato pearls, rice, grain and the Maple Island Milk. Wow, that milk was really good...it tasted just like skim milk.

Good luck to you in your quest for long term food storage.

It has been 7 years for a long time, then about 3 years ago it went up to 10......now I just looked it up on their site.......

Pouches — 12-Year Shelf Life *Mountain House Pouch

Based on our ongoing sensory and nutrition testing of actual Mountain House products, in 2014 the shelf life was increased by an impressive 20%, from 10+ years to 12+ years! We add the "+" to let our consumers know that our food will taste virtually indistinguishable from new for at least 12 years and probably much longer than that! We've tasted pouches that were 30 years old and the food was still quite tasty!