With four kids and a spouse, buying mountain house in the cans might be cheaper than the individual packages. I would think that with six people you could go through a can before the food would spoil. There's just my wife and me in our household, we might not be able to get through the can fast enough (before spoilage or food boredom).

If you do go with MH foods, you might want to include them as part of your regular meal plan (perhaps 1 or 2 times per week). Then your family will be used to them and switching to Mountain House won't be an additional stressor during a disaster.

You also may want to look at buying beans, rice and noodles in bulk (say in 25 pound bags). You could then repackage these items into smaller vacuum sealed bags. If you toss in some freeze-dried vegetables with beans and rice, you'd end up with a simple meal that's nutritious.

The last recommendation that I can make is to store some general multi-vitamins. Your diet doesn't have to be perfect, but if thinking long term the multi-vitamins would cover scurvy and other diseases related to vitamin deficiences.

Best of luck. Let us know what your plans are, because I might want to borrow some ideas.

- Brian

ps - The word "toasters" also refers to the old cylons in "Battlestar Galactica" (1978 - 1979)