Best Freeze Dried Food experiences? (prices, heater, buy, sale)
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I'm sure that freeze dried food has evolved over the years to taste decent. As a long time back packer, I gave up on freeze dried foods for my trips long ago because it was god awful tasting. I think the breaking point was when I cooked up some blueberry cobbler and it tasted horrible. Looking at the ingredients, there wasn't a blueberry in it. The main ingredient was apple, with blueberry flavoring.
I don't subscribe to the theory that SHTF and all food will be gone, and we will only be able to survive eating the packages we have stored for years in a secret location.
That said, I did use a dehydrator for fruits and some vegetables.
Modern dehydrated food is nothing like it was even a few years ago.
When my parents started having trouble with things like cooking, (my mother has Parkinson's and dad never could cook), and before they went into long term care and were living at home, I'd buy cases of Mountain House for them as they just needed to heat water to make it.
That way they could have one good hot meal a day with sandwiches or canned soup it kept them going until my father developed Sundowners and they needed round the clock care.
I was usually able to buy case lots shopping around for sales from various mail order suppliers and get the meals for around $6 per bag, or $3 per meal.(2 servings per bag).
They loved them, and I still stock my cabin with them, ( in steel containers because of mice), and really enjoy some of the meals.
There are several good brands out there now, and in bulk, the cost per bag is a lot cheaper than individual meals from the sporting goods store.
In the old days a lot of the freeze dried meals were made by freeze drying the components separately and then "making" the meal by putting proportions into the bag. Example: Take freeze dried beans, freeze dried onion, tomatoes, spices etc (all freeze dried) dump into bag or can and calling it "chili". Modern freeze dried food they make chili, and then freeze dry that. It takes longer but tastes a lot better.
"I don't subscribe to the theory that SHTF and all food will be gone, and we will only be able to survive eating the packages we have stored for years in a secret location."
The food might not be gone, maybe you won't be able to afford much of it, or eat what you like. What if, over the next 20 years food prices go up 10,000% ? Would be nice to have some freeze dried food that was "practically free" when you bought it, compared to the then-current price. Freeze dried food has almost doubled in price over the last 5 years. Grocery store food is going to catch up eventually.
The important thing is to buy the kind you like to eat. Not all the MH entrees are for me. I plan on eating all my stored food eventually, SHTF or not. I consider it food, not disaster food.
I'm sure that freeze dried food has evolved over the years to taste decent. As a long time back packer, I gave up on freeze dried foods for my trips long ago because it was god awful tasting. I think the breaking point was when I cooked up some blueberry cobbler and it tasted horrible. Looking at the ingredients, there wasn't a blueberry in it. The main ingredient was apple, with blueberry flavoring.
So, you gave up on freeze dried foods, because you chose poorly?
Most of the FD stuff I've eaten (beginning in 1975) was passable, but chosen for cost and nutrition, rather than taste. Basically, if you were hungry, it was good.
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I don't subscribe to the theory that SHTF and all food will be gone, and we will only be able to survive eating the packages we have stored for years in a secret location.
That said, I did use a dehydrator for fruits and some vegetables.
Just because you don't believe it, doesn't mean it won't happen.
Lot of people didn't believe Al Q'ada would fly planes into skyscrapers.
There were people who didn't believe Hitler would attack Poland and France.
There were people who didn't believe some guerrilla army could take down the Chinese government.
There were people who didn't believe Mt St Helen's would blow up.
And the list goes on...
Everybody's situation is different. I live on an island in the middle of the Pacific and it has, more or less, 7 days worth of grocery store food on it. The barges come from the west coast. A big earthquake in California and the ships will stop coming for awhile. A lot of different scenarios can stop the ships from coming. Food can be airlifted in, but not in any quantity, because there is also only a few days worth of jet fuel on the islands and air freighters need fuel to get back home. So every jet with food and medicine needs an accompanying fuel freighter to come with it, assuming the mainland has food and fuel to share, these things will be rationed. That means food lines, fighting, curfews, etc. And no variety. If the jet only has beans and rice, that is what's on the menu for people who are only accustomed to getting food from stores and drive throughs.
Our plan all along is that we can produce enough food to feed ourselves indefinitely. It's one of the benefits of living somewhere with 4+ growing seasons. But chit happens. Maybe a pest wipes out some crops. Maybe I break an ankle again. Maybe the goats break through a fence and eat an entire crop of corn (it's happened to us). For all of those reasons and others, it makes sense that we have food stored to bridge those gaps. We currently don't can any of our food, we actually scaled down food production so that we only grow what we can eat. But if TSHTF we can turn that around very quickly and start storing our own food again. There is no point in canning green beans when we have more fresh green beans than we can eat, and they grow year round. Another way to "store" food is to feed it to animals that become the food when the feed runs out.
We don't do this because we think the barges will stop coming, we do it because we enjoy the lifestyle, and the community within the lifestyle. The fact that we are prepared for TSHTF is icing on the cake.
If your plan involves counting on somebody else (including the government), for anything, the only plan you've made is like the old saying: you've planned to fail. Get a real plan, get a backup plan for that, a backup plan for that, and a backup plan for that. That is a good "starting point".
While almost always applied to communications (a search for the terms turns up hundreds of links discussing communications) I don't see why it can't be applied almost universally.
Primary: Go get groceries
Alternate: Pantry full of rations
Contingency: Cache full of freeze dried stuff, and "beans and rice"
Emergency: break out that book on foraging for veggies and snares for small animals.
OK, oversimplified (maybe stupid), but it gets the point across.
Mountain house chili mac is super spicy, their breakfast scramble never softens...no matter how long it steeps.
But their chicken fajitas are off the chain awesome.
"Emergency: break out that book on foraging for veggies and snares for small animals."
Venezuela is there now. Cuba has been there. The USSR too. At least there isn't a pattern!
Yeah, the pattern is quite clear, but off topic, or so I am told
Mountain house chili mac is super spicy, their breakfast scramble never softens...no matter how long it steeps.
But their chicken fajitas are off the chain awesome.
I have a #10 can of chili mac, but I haven't tried it. I also haven't tried the chicken fajitas, and don't have any. Thanks for the recommendation, I will try them both.
I've never heard of the breakfast scramble, maybe the breakfast skillet? I tried some due to it being very highly reviewed. I don't remember it not softening, I just remember that I didn't like it. Though, I'm not a fan of freeze dried eggs, and wouldn't purposely buy them considering that we sell fresh eggs. Sometimes we have so many that we have to feed them to the dogs.
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