Note: I am not an employee or of any relation to hormel/it's subsidiaries etc. You get the idea. I don't know them, I just bought their stuff.

So we went to the store the other night and my Fiancee stopped me and said "get some of these Hormel meals".

Here's a link to them:
http://blogs.mysanantonio.com/weblogs/nuclearfamily/images/031506hormelchicken_box.jpg

It's just a picture.. You get the idea. At first, I'm thinking.. ugh.. 240 calories and it's kind of... tiny. Then I pick it up and feel it's got some heft to it. Each package is roughly shy of a pound. The net weight is 10 oz!

So it began to dawn on me these might make a suitable staple for the backup food cache. They're pretty cheap. We got ours for 1.79 apiece. They are vacuum sealed and apparently pre-cooked. They don't take long to heat up at all.


Anyways, so here's where they apply to the survival sense:

1) They require no refridgeration. That's right. None. Just throw them in a sealable box and let em go.
2) They keep for around a year. The "best used by date" on mine was for 7/28/08 ... it was purchased roughly 4/06/07.
3) They are cheap, meaning large quantities can be purchased.
4) And perhaps most interesting: there are two sets of cooking instructions. One set is for the microwave. The other set is as follows:

"Boiling Directions".
Place unopened bowl in large saucepan of boiling water. Simmer 8-9 minutes; remove from water and let stand one minute. Carefully peel back film. Caution: Bowl and it's contents will be HOT!

So for those who aren't following this means in a survival situation you just boil some water.. drop it in, and cook. Simple, easy and keeps for a long time. Plus for 100 dollars you can purchase around 55 of these babies. So even if you're eating 3 a day, that's still a 18 day supply.

Plus the film on top is pretty thick stuff. It should hold up well to regular abuses, plus it has an additional cardboard cover. All told the survivor leaves with a ready made meal, some burnable material (cardboard) and a heavy duty plastic bowl.

It was a nice find and I'll definitely be using them to help out with my food cache!

Finally found the corporate link buried on their site with all the varieties/flavors/etc

http://www.hormel.com/brands/brandview3.asp?id=104&catitemid=3

Good for bugging in; for bugging out, YMMV.

I know from experince they might not be as durable as they seem.

Heh, I've been eating these for lunch at work lately. I have a rather big appetite, so sometimes I have to follow up with some Ramen noodles. They aren't half bad for pre-packaged food.

I imagined heating them up in a canteen cup, flip halfway through... Better make sure they fit.

Well, I see that you can get Dinty Moore Beef Stew in this kind of packaging, one of Hormel's best ever products... that's almost the perfect food for camping, I think my brothers and I lived on a couple number 10 cans full of that stuff when we were younger on a week long trip up in the White Mountains. meat, potatoes, carrots... goop... yumm. Heavy in the big cans, but, it's all you need to bring. We've even just heated it in the can on the hot coals, (make sure to open the top!)

The only knocks on this stuff are the high fat and high sodium, but, that's only a problem if you're eating them all the time. In a survival situation, you'll burn the extra fat anyway.

Of course, Hormel also provides the ever popular, SPAM!

SPAM, SPAM, SPAM , SPAM BEAKED BEANS AND SPAM

240 calories seems like it would need more calorie dense food to supplement. Upon your 18 day supply number crunching at 100 cost, that is only going to give you 720 calories a day...

I do not really see a viable long term use as other prepared foods would be cheaper and give comparable nutritional content.

Short term use would be questionable as well since our bodies may require more calories that what you get from this product.

I would not buy this product but I am also a very cheap man, but I would not refuse it and actually would be curious to try one out if they had a "try me for free" promotion

I think they would be good for stockpiling
BUT Don't buy from their web site it is double or more what you can get them for at Wally World (Wal-Mart)

Mike

Yeah I saw that. For 3.22 apiece? Give me a break. At 1.79 they're a bargain. At 3.22 that's ridiculous.

I'm glad somebody remembered good 'ol Spam. I see it is turning 70 this year...

Yes, when I saw the post was about Hormel foods, my immediate thoughts went to three basic staple items for me as a Boy Scout camping: Dinty Moore Beef Stew, Hormel Chili, and SPAM. To this day, scientists don't really understand what SPAM is composed of.
I just know that I can combine it with almost any other food product, and have some sort of meal. Maybe the Monty Python guys were right?

The politically correct, and the food police don't admit to having ever eaten SPAM... but we know they are just not being very honest.

It may take me awhile to track down the quotes, but both General Eisenhower and Nikita Khruschev supposedly credited Spam with helping to win WWII. Talk about strange bedfellows!

What a noble meat byproduct!

They know, or at least engineers do. I have a friend who works for the company that makes the machines pull the "pulled meat". Wow, the web clip of what was happening to those chicken carcasses was disturbing. I had to settle my nerves with a fried Spam and cheddar sandwich.

I have included a couple dozen of these in my long term food storage. I also eat four or five a month for lunch. Good value for $1.89 each at WM.

"Good value for $1.89 each at WM"

So why am I paying $2.12 here in WA?

The flavors I tried are tasty, but kind of salty.

If you manage your salt intake, they have between 1,600mg and 1,800mg salt per container, depending on the flavor.

Regardless, we keep a few in the cache for snacks too.

They rotate well.

Store what you eat. Eat what you store.

They were $1.85 when I started rotating them about 18 months ago. You guys in the far Northwest have more freight than us low landers.

Ah, in college I live off those and ramen noodles.

The joys of college life Dinty Moore beef stew, Mac & Chez and cold pizza for breakfast What could be better?

Finding the last can from last night's 6-pack to wash it down with?

Oh, or what that a rhetorical statement


buckeye

I thought it was lips and ass. Ooops, thats hotdogs, my bad.

The same can?

Yes. The same extraordinarily large can.....

I drive a truck over the road for a living and I eat them fairly regularly. I usually supplement them with a dinner roll or two, a piece of fruit and maybe a granola or power bar. I have eaten some that were over 1½ years old and they tasted fine although I have no idea how they stacked up nutritionally.

In an emergency situation, I’d replace the dinner rolls with home-made hardtack with colloidal minerals baked in and replace the fresh fruit with dried fruit or “fruit leather.”

I think the best option is a multi-faceted approach to stockpiling ... a mix of options ...and clearly "eat what you store, store what eat" says it best. But these kind of meals, Ramen, MREs, SPAM, Canned stuff etc are all good and should keep well for several years and able to rotate with your every day pantry supplies.
Having been recently concenred with sodium, carbs, sugar and calorie intakes I'm always on the lookout for stuff to store that can help moderate these excesses even in my emergency rations...but lets face it.... one may not be able to have long term storage and best nutrition together. Which I guess can make emergency ration storage more of a problem for diabetics etc.
But hey ...you are way ahead of the average person already just because tyou're thinking about it ... store anything for an emergency and you're more prepared than 75% of the nation.