The easiest way to make sure you eat well in any survival situation is to stock pile food but the problem with stockpiling enough food is shelf life and if it has a long shelf life does it still taste good enough to eat after years?  There are actually several options when trying to feed you and your family during emergency situations each option has its pros and cons.  With technology being as advanced it is we will even discuss the ability to keep frozen foods year around with only the power of the sun.  But basically you have a few different long term emergency food options; Freeze Dried Food, Dehydrated Foods, MRE's, High Calorie Bars. Grains here we will discuss the differences and the best places to purchase these items.

Freeze Dried Emergency Foods -  Our favorite.

Pros: Taste really good, Easy to fix, Well balanced, Easy to carry

Cons: Requires heat AND clean water (not always available during an emergency situation.),  Slightly more expensive per meal.

According to the premiere Freeze-Drying Food producer, Mountain House Freeze Dried food is better for emergency situations

Frozen foods retain fresh flavor and nutritional value, but require uniform, low temperature storage conditions. Dehydrated and canned foods are shelf-stable, but high-temperature processing can degrade flavor, texture and nutritional content. Freeze-drying combines the best of these processing methods. It preserves freshness, color and aroma similar to frozen food, while providing the shelf-stable convenience of canned or dehydrated food. Freeze-dried foods:

Taste fresh. Freeze-dried foods, like frozen, retain virtually all their fresh-food taste and nutritional content. Freeze-drying removes the water, not the flavor.

Look fresh. Freeze-dried foods maintain their original shape and texture, unlike dehydrated foods, which shrink and shrivel due to high-temperature processing. Freeze-drying removes water under low temperatures (typically a maximum of 100 to 130 degrees F), which keeps intact the moisture channels and food fibers. Just add water, and in minutes every fresh food detail returns.

Weigh less than fresh. Freeze-dried foods have 98% of their water removed. This reduces the food's weight by about 90%. Mountain House products light weight and compact so you can carry several days of food in a small backpack..

Stay fresh. Freeze-dried foods can be stored at room temperature, without deterioration or spoilage. This is because freeze-drying and packaging remove both water and oxygen - the two primary causes of food deterioration. Mountain House, backpacking products are immediately packed in a unique moisture and oxygen-barrier packaging to preserve the food's flavor, texture, color, and nutrients. To "double" ensure freshness and prevent the food from turning rancid, an oxygen scavenger packet is placed in each pouch. The oxygen scavenger consists of iron oxide, which absorbs oxygen within the pouch. This product is not harmful to your health, but is not meant to be eaten.

Use our favorite emergency food store Earth Wave Living to purchase your Freeze Dried Emergecy Food.  Individual #10 cans or you can buy yourself a kit (They have all the different flavors and they also have kits to you ensure that you get proper nutritional menu.

Use Amazon to buy your Mountain House #10 Can Freeze-Dried Food

Mountain House freeze-dried foods are packed in #10 cans with 98% of the oxygen removed. Their canning process uses vacuum oxygen removal and nitrogen flushing, or oxygen absorbers to protect product freshness. The products packed in #10 cans offer a 30+ year shelf life. They have manufactured cans for almost 35 years for consumers and military use. They have also tasted product that is 35 years old and it still tastes great. Each can and lid is coated with a protective enamel inside and out for double protection. The cans contents are protected until you open them. After opening, they recommend using the contents within 2 to 3 weeks for best results and taste; using the convenient resealable plastic lid between uses. Treat any leftover food as you would fresh food.

Dehydrated Emergency Foods

Pros: Cheapest of the survival foods, Healthy, Goes a long way, Can be mixed with other foods.

Cons: Low in taste unless several ingredients stored, Clean water is needed, Heavy, Labor intensive

Dehydrated foods are foods that have had 95% of the moisture remove by either sun, wind or by modern day food dehydration technology.  This method of food preservation has been known for thousands of years. Dehydrated foods consist of all sorts of food items from greenbeans, flour and grains to popcorn, milk and eggs.  By dehydrating food people lessen the risk of of microorganisms growing on their food and destroying their food through decay. (Caused by moisture.)  The best dehydrated foods can be bought locally depending on where you live. You can get things like wheat, sugar, salt and other spices at the local grocery store.  There is no need to pay for shipping for these heavy items.  Just make sure you have the proper storage equipment so your food rations stay fresh for when you need them.   For the items that you are unable to purchase locally you can get through Waltonfeed.com under the name Rainy Day Foods. There are several advantages of having dehydrated foods for emergency situations and cost is onl one of them.  Dehydrated foods tend to be all natural and much more healthy than some of the alternatives like MRE's and Food bars.

Buy your Dehydrated Foods from Walton Feeds.

MREs Emergency Rations

Pros: Everything you need included,  Wide Variety, Tastes good,  Light and easy to transport, Easy to fix

Cons: Most expensive per meal of the emergency rations,

(In emergency situations you can stretch each MRE for an extra meal of two but is not recommended.)

MRE's stand for Meal - Ready-to-Eat and is the standard meal rations used by the U.S. Military for soldiers on the go.  Each MRE is a self contained meal that has everything a soldier of person might need to get a healthy well balanced meal.  Most MRE's consist of a main dish, a side dish a snack, toilet paper and typically something to heat the main dish.  The heating source is typically a chemical pack the you mix the chemicals in their pack and the the chemicals react to create heat and heats up your food without the need for a fire.   MRE's have been around for decades so they have been advanced throughout the years to become very tasty.  There are dozens of options for which type of food you would like in to eat in your MRE.

MRE's are great way to make sure you have a self contained well balanced meal for any emergency situation.  They don't have the same self life as the dehydrated or Freeze Dried foods but they do last for 5-7 years.  They are also kinda pricey per meal but if you only want to store a couple of days or a few weeks worth of food MRE's might be the way to go for you.  They are also good if you want to carry a few with you hiking if you want to spend more time hiking and camping and less time cooking and looking for fuel etc.  You can also stretch MRE's for an extra meal or two if absolutely necessary or you can save some of the stuff in each pack for a snack later. It is a great idea to keep a few MRE's in you car survival stash since you don't need any additional supplies to eat your meal.

Use Amazon to purchase your MRE's WITH Heaters. 12 Meals Per Case.

High Calorie Food Bars

Pros: Super Light, High Calorie, Medium Price

Cons: Not terrible but no where near gourmet

High Calorie food bars are a great way to get quick energy that you might need in an emergency situation.  They aren't the best tasting but they are super light so you could fit dozens and dozens of them in a backpack and be good for a while.  They would also be easy to hide if for some reason you had to hide your food stash.  These calorie bars come in 1200, 2400 and 3600 calorie bars so the larger ones might get you through a day or two depending on how much energy you have to expend.  They can be eaten while on the go.  If you don't mind protein bars then you won't mind these High Calorie food bars either.  These are also great to keep in the car for emergency situations in case you ever get stranded.  They don't taker up very much room, they are light if you need to take to foot and they can stretch them to last longer if need be.

Proper Food Storage

Half the battle is getting enough food to store. Now that you have enough emergency rations for you and your family you have to store your food supply correctly so that when you go to use them you aren't shocked to find out the emergency food is no good.  (Hopefully you got a Berkey water filter if this happens you can always trade water for food.)

There are 6 things that are bad news for your emergency food supply; moisture, air, light, heat, bugs and your neighbors.  As long as you manage to keep all of those away from your food you stockpiled then you should be good to go should you ever need to break into your emergency food stockpile.

Moisture - Moisture can destroy your food stash though decay,rot and mold.  Many long term food stocks have had most of the moisture removed either through natural drying processes or through modern dehydration technology.  You can either by the food with the moisture already removed or you have save some money and dehydrate items yourself. Dehydrating food as a way to preserve it has been around for thousands of years. In a survival situation the knowledge or equipment used to dehydrate  food for later eating might be key to making sure you and your family keep enough food to last until the times when you need it.

Air -  The best way to keep air away from your food store is to keep everything sealed up.  A lot of long term emergency food rations are packed with oxygen absorbers so as long as you keep everything sealed the oxygen absorbers took care of the air that was trapped inside the container when sealed  so as long as you don't break any seals you should be okay.

Light -  Don't expose your food rations to light if possible.  Try and keep them in a basement or in your emergency closet.  If you don't have either put it in the bottom of your closet or under your bed or even in the very back of your pantry.  Light is more of a concern to your water supply since most of your long term rations are in buckets or cans while water can be stored in clear plastic and glass bottles.

Heat - Like most foods the less heat the better.  Almost all foods stay better at lower temperatures.  The cooler you keep your food the longer it will stay good.

Bugs -  The oxygen absorbers will kill any bugs that are sealed into buckets.  Bay leaves can also be used if oxygen absorbers are not available.  For some reason little critters just don't seem to like the things.  (Apparently this works if you put them in your garden too.)

Neighbors- This sucks but if your neighbors know you have prepared and they haven't.  Once it's emergency supply time guess who is going to be banging on your door?  Then you will either be sharing, killing them or being killed by them over your food.  It's just better off to keep the fact that you are preparing and have emergency supplies to yourself until it comes a proper time to share your supplies on your own terms or not at all.

Our 2 Cents on food stock piling and long term food storage

I think it makes sense to try and take the pros of each and apply try and apply them to your situation.  Grab some Mountain House Freeze Dried meals as the foundation for your survival stockpile and then take some grains like rice and pastas and when you prepare either a freeze dried meal enhance the size of the meal and the health level of the meal by putting grains from your storage to the meal.  Think about it, you get something less tasty like rice which gets the added benefit of the spices from the  freeze dried meal and since the freeze dried meals tend to cost a little bit more, this is one way to use the benefits of the health of grains and their cheapness but not have to store all the ingredients and spices required to make a great meal and this way you can store less instant meals b/c you can supplement these emergency rations with the cheaper healthier grains.

We try to store one grain or dehydrated meal for every freeze dried meal.  We also have added the grains we store to our normal every day diet so that if we do every have to use our grains and freeze dried meals we don't experience to much shock to our taste buds, which is always good for moral in emergency situations.   By mixing the grains into your everyday diet you also make sure your food stores stay fresh and they are good for you anyways.

However even though we prefer to use the freeze dried foods and the dehydrated foods for our long term home stash I have a couple of MRE's in the car and I would keep the high calorie food bars in there too but I am not a big fan of the taste.