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!