That's a pretty unfair comparison Byrd. Turkey spam does not equal mountain house turkey or beef. You are also comparing a ready-to-go meal just add water, to one you have to "MAKE". That's like comparing prices on a hamburger you make vs one at Red Robin, or In-n-out.

With that said- I have both Mountain House meals, and canned food (among many others). They both have their place, and you are paying for convenience, quality, and storage period to name a few when you buy mountain house.

I don't think you can go wrong with either as long as you pay attention to expiration dates, and know what you are getting and how to properly utilize them.

Glad you made it back in one piece. I have been in the BWCAW during stormy weather...very memorable, especially the ping pong sized hail and the trees crashing down in our camp followed by two days of howling winds.

About the food, I don't argue with you when in the woods. I was talking about long term storage of food at home, not wilderness survival food. I agree with you that lightweight dehydrated rations are great when in the woods or on the waters. In our part of the world, we have a lot of water. In some other areas, not so much. If you use the minimum amount of water to rehydrate the food and don't have any to drink, you will become a 'brick layer' for the next 24 hours.

Byrd..my reply went a bit astray,as some do.i look over the site late at night waiting for my pain meds to kick in so i can go to sleep..no big deal,just DJD in a knee.but as for long term storage i think the thing to do would be to make a big buy of your normal food and when you shop take from the front of the stored food and put the new in the back.if you want just a heap of food put away i would do the rice,beans,flour,canned meat,--so on, route.just looking around the web for camping food i have run across too many to count suppliers of all sorts food for long term storage.
as i'm sort of fuzzing out now i'll leave with an idea that just came to me..get a bread machine,i found a good one at a yard sale for $5,and set aside several ten pound bags of real flour and yeast packs.if the grid is down you can make bannock.
my only issue is short term wilderness survival so i don't get too deep into this subject.

"This meal is best presented with a green and orange garnish on a blue, fine-china plate lightly warmed, however an inverted Frisbee works good too."

You forgot a bit of detergent to wash off the dog spit...

Sue

Why isn't anyone storing Ghee, which is clarified butter? This lasts fairly well, I am guessing fats really only last about a year anyway before they go rancid. I was reading off of an lds site that shortening will stay for several years. When it comes to a fat I would go with the shortening.

We on this forum have divergent opinions and survival strategies, and there is no perfect answer, as we all are dealing with different facts, assumptions, needs, and scenarios.

In our household we shun hydrogenated shortening, as we aggressively avoid trans-fats. There's nothing wrong with ghee, but it's very expensive, we don't use it in our daily diet, and so we feel that we don't need it in a survival situation. Any food oil will do in an emergency.

Having heard about the results of long term static food storage from the 'bomb shelter' days, we select standard dry and canned foods with long shelf lives of 1 to 3 years and store those in sufficient quantities to survive for thirty days or more. For example, Skippy Natural peanut butter; No trans-fats, shelf is a year or more and it requires no refrigeration when opened. Dense in food energy, it is a great survival food. We maintain a full year's supply of it. Add par-boiled rice, dry pasta, honey, canned meats, dry and canned beans, oil and flour, and any variety of canned veggies and you have a full survival pantry. The trick is to use it daily by freshness date, and replenish it in quantity when you see it on sale. We also maintain a 100 roll supply of toilet paper; use some, and buy more. An added advantage is that you can replenish everything at sale prices, as you never have to 'run to the store' for the things you have in your cache.

A word on 'expiration dates". Those dates are 'freshness dates'. The 'human consumption dates' are much longer and vary by food type.

We feel that the best food to have on hand is the food we eat anyway. We calculate that based on our location and the risks that we perceive and plan for, it is most likely that we would 'shelter in place' (80%) as opposed to 'bug out' (20%). The one concession we make to 'bug out' scenarios is that we keep half of our water in five - 7 seven gallon totes for portability, and we have the means to transport our entire food supply if we had to.

I totally agree with you on keeping the food you eat around. As far as the Ghee goes, making it is much cheaper than purchasing it. My thoughts on that would be that it would be a nice treat for bread. 4 pounds of butter from Costco is reasonable. I have been tempted to put some up for storage to see how long it would be viable.

So do oils have a longer date than 1 year? I was watching a couple of videos put on by the LDS, and their comments were they don't save oil because it goes bad. I personally don't think I have had shortening in the house for years now.

Love that you keep that much toilet paper. I have something very close to that in my garage. If I thought it would store ok up in the attic, I think I would store it up there as well.

The canned KTC Ghee available in the UK has a best before date of 2 years from purchase. I would expect that it would be usable up to 3-4 years from date of purchase.

2Kg can costs around $15. 15,000 calories for $15 is very cost efficient in terms of survival food.

Butter in a deep freezer can last around 6-12 months but is best stored in a stackable food grade airtight containers within the freezer.

Good quality extra virgin olive oil again has a shelf life (best before date) of around 12 months. Glass storage bottles are preferable. A 500ml bottle typically costs around $3.50-$4.00 in the UK.



Shopping Pantry list for Survival Ration for 1 person for 10 weeks for around $15/week.


Edit - Forgot about canned Duck fat. Again a very long shelf life and makes the very best roast potatoes.

Whoa, Stephanie, just back up a little: you can MAKE clarified butter?

That's new to me. Cough up the details SVP!

Doug,the folks over in India have been making that for--ever,i guess.it's called Ghee and it keeps in the hot weather.Google Ghee and stand by for heaps of info.