If one does not want ...MRE's as long term food storage...for food needs..long term. What would be a good lisgt of items to get from the local grocery... off the shelf items?

You might want to look at various LDS sites for ideas.

http://lds.about.com/library/weekly/aa112202b.htm

has some suggestions on it. Depending on what your definition of long term is you can adjust the amounts they suggest.

The one suggestion I would make , is to save food that you will eat , because you should rotate your food stocks

Good Luck

How many people, how much storage space do you have, and are there any dietary issues that need to be kept in mind? Bugging out or digging in?

If you are restricted to a week out of the grocery store, you really aren't restricted. For this mental exercise, I'll assume you don't have a gourmet grocer around, where you can do things like by whole chickens in a can and loaves of bread in a jar. If you have one, take advantage of it. You will wow them at your next dig in. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

For fruits and vegitables, the canned stuff is obvious. Dried stores better, but it means you need more water. I suggest a mix.

Starch:
Crackers, thin bread, motzah
Rice (lots of varieties)
Instant mashed potatoes
Ramen cups

Meat:
Canned (not just tuna and spam- you can get canned beef, turkey, chicken and ham)
Hard sausage (summer sausage, hard salami and pepperoni)
Bacon bits in a jar- find them in the salad dressings, mix into stuff for flavor
Velvetta, generic processed cheese
Powdered milk

Non-meat protein:
Nuts
Dry or canned beans, lentils
Whole grain noodles- save the water for soup stock if you start it almost immedicately, or use it as part of your grey water reserve

Spices, tea and bagged, unground coffee beans are good for a year or so. Coffee in a can, a couple years. Flour, salt and sugar, so long as they are kept in a dark, cool, dry, bug and mouse free location never go bad. Cooking oil, vinegar, hot chocolate, tang, good for about a year unopened.

If you have the gourmet food store I mentioned, you can get cheese and butter powder which is good for 6-12 months, and even both in cans. Check out the Vermont Country Store online. Canned beef, chicken, pork and turkey in BIG cans, and other goodies.

Look for freeze dried food in number 10 cans from Mountain House and others. There are tons of suppliers, beprepared.com is popular. It looks pricey, but when you realise there is something like 10 servings of beef stew that will never go bad so long as the can stays sealed, it really isn't that bad.

Even with just your standard grocery store, it's easy. The questions you need to ask before you start shopping are, (a) bugging or digging, (b) how will we cook it, and (c) how will we store both the food and the cooking fuel. And where to stash the water that should go with it.

It really isn't that hard.

Does that freeze-dried fruit from Mountain House taste alright, and provide the same amount of nutrients as fresh? I ask because if I can actually use the stuff on a regular basis, it'll be good to just have around when our fresh produce runs out.

I love the freeze-dried bits they now have in cereals like Special K, and I hope the Mountain House kind are similar.

I'm not sure, but probably. I just use normal dried fruit, myself.

Idea for an emergency ration: Something with twice the bulk of the Mainstay, made of the same material as the Mainstay but in small nuggets. Bind it with chopped dates. Yummm.....

What, no oatmeal?

Salesguy

Why would you prefer groceries to MREs?
I'm not looking to contradict you. Just need to know how you chose your parameters.

There is a difference between living and surviving.

Actually, IMO, oatmeal isn't that great of a survival food. Gram for gram, instant rice is just as effecient on water and time and contains more usable calories. The only advantage that oatmeal has is that is a paste, so it will bind you up if your water purification is iffy. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

"The only advantage that oatmeal has is that is a paste, so it will bind you up if your water purification is iffy. "

Amen to that! I actually live on the stuff to reduce my LDL and triglicyrides (sp). It would be my luck that my survival food cache wouldn't contain berries and brown sugar. <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

On the other hand, with enough oatmeal, I could use it as mortar when building my log cabin.

If I had to guess, price and availability. The grocery store route doesn't have the shelf life, but it is a fraction of the cost. If you normally keep, say, three weeks of non-refigerated food on hand (eat the stuff in the fridge on day 1, the freezer on day 2) and have rotation shelves, you are eating what you store. I can do that for one person for about the same cost as two cases of MREs which gives you about 12 days if you only eat two of them a day.