What I want is food storage I can leave to my children when I die :P

Just kidding. My question is this.

Is that alot of sodium content per meal for adults and children, or is that normal?

I wouldn't consider it horrible. It's less than fast food.

Good point....very good point

I don't know if your family prefers nuts but I imagine you could vacuum seal them to last quite a while. Great source of energy, and pretty cheap to buy in bulk. Or, if you're lucky, you've got a pecan, almond, or walnut tree in your yard.

In regards to the sodium content, it seems equivalent or slightly lower than most canned goods. It wouldn't be a sensible diet during regular times. However, I think that in a survial situation eating with that much sodium is better than not eating at all.

In the 80's and 90's I was concerned about sodium intake and my blood pressure. There are quite a few products (soups, vegetables) that are canned with less sodium. Also, foods like oatmeal, rice and pasta usually don't have a lot of sodium in them (it's usually the sauces that load up on it).

I haven't seen any freeze-dried or dehydrated conterparts. Do you have space for a garden? I'm assuming that you're keeping this food around for a "dig in" situation. Keeping a small garden, and a store of non-hybrid seeds, may be another option for supplimenting your diet.

Please do tell.

For the record, I've stocked MREs since 1990, and never had a bad experience.

I keep 3 months worth for 3 people on hand, in a cool basement.

regarding sodium content FDA says:

"American adults, on average, eat too much sodium--between 4 to 6 grams (4,000 mg to 6,000 mg) daily"

"Under FDA's food labeling rules, the Daily Value for sodium is 2,400 mg. (Daily Values are a new label reference tool. See Daily Values' Encourage Healthy Diet in the FDA Consumer Special Report "Focus on Food Labeling.") FDA established this value because it is consistent with recommendations and government reports that encourage reduced sodium intakes."

Those "rules" are based on the theory that you are "average" (sedentary) in activity with an "average" metabolism. I have a friend who is a fellow console jockey who eats a lot more than I do and is about half as big around as I am- and I eat less than most people do becuase I'm just not that big of an eater.

If you are active, you do need more salt. And to be perfectly honest, most preservation methods use salt to create an environment hostile to microscopic life. The other option is to completely and total dry something, but it doesn't have the same ease of use or long term performance, or to freeze it. (Yes, Chris, I know about the 200 year old pemmican. All I can say is, you eat it. :P That's like a thirty year old fruit cake.)

For the scenario that Toasters is talking about, your sodium intake, honestly, is pretty far down the list of concerns.

Also on the salt issue, a lot of other cultures eat a WHOLE lot more sodium in their diets than americans... hmmm, maybe it's not such a problem.

The Japanese eat roughly twice as much salt in an average year as do residents of the US...but their diet also tends to be lower in saturated fats and overall calories. IMHO you can't easily look at just one component of a diet and pronounce it good or bad.

Frank2135