MH Traditional 1 year food supply
 

Is this a good deal? $749.99

http://beprepared.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_FS%20Y500

Re: MH Traditional 1 year food supply
 

Seems a bit on the high side to me....

First, it isn't "MH", which I assume you meant Mountain House ( as in freeze dried ).....most of it is dehydrated, only one case of freeze dried in there

Second, it's really a supplement to other foods you would have stored, not a "year supply" of food.....look at the daily calorie count.....that's concentration camp level.

A lot of that you can buy local, or better ( Walton Feed ).

Safe castle has a sale ( thru today ) on true MH freeze dried stuff. NICE thing about a lot of MH is the entrees...you have a prepped meal with a little water and heat ( and they are DANG good too for canned stuff ).

http://store.prepared.pro/packagedeals.aspx


( And no, I have NO IDEA whose tractor is loaded down with those cases..... :biggrin: )

Re: MH Traditional 1 year food supply
 

I'm making my own food storage, and it's a lot cheaper. I'm getting my rice from Sam's Club and a local Indian food market, dry beans from Sam's Club and Walmart, vegetables that I'm dehydrating from local farmers markets and any other accoutrements from various places. I'm making literally dozens of different things using rice and beans as my base, mostly soups (although you can make a really mean soup from just about anything--and load it up with the rice and beans for bulk and protein). I've also got several hundred pounds of oats which I typically have with dehydrated fruit on top for breakfast, and grab a sandwich to take with me to work.

It's a lot cheaper and IMO probably a lot healthier to make your own food storage instead of purchasing a lot of the prepackaged dehydrated or freeze-dried offerings on the market. If I remember correctly, the MH products were chock full of sodium, not something I want a lot of.

Take a look at theis link for some ideas from what I've been putting together in my own food storage:

http://goldismoney.info/forums/showthread.php?t=447107

Re: MH Traditional 1 year food supply
 

Thank You for the input neighbor ;)

Yeah I'm doing the bucket/mylar/mason jar thing too..Just thought as something to throw in a closet I wouldn't really rotate. Like your post on Dehydrating Nick..Great information and pics..I am equipped for it, but hard to do everything all at once. I'll check out Walton Feed TN.

Thanks guys.

Re: MH Traditional 1 year food supply
 

I like the 30 to 40 year shelf life of MH. Buy it and forget it.

If wonder if people in Haiti would be complaining about sodium right now.

Re: MH Traditional 1 year food supply
 

Agreed

But then again..they didn't like the MRE's outa date.

Re: MH Traditional 1 year food supply
 

I think MSG is the issue for some folks.

Re: MH Traditional 1 year food supply
 

That tractor is sexy.:biggrin:

Re: MH Traditional 1 year food supply
 

From an adequate calorie standpoint, I think a year's worth of all mountain house is about 3K/person. But you could supply half the day's calories with staples. For those of us used to the typical Americanized processed food diet, It's hard to beat the prepared MH entree. They taste much like a meal you bought in the freezer section of your local grocery store. My family taste tested just about all entrees, and all but two received a passing grade. In a SHTF they would be manna from heaven. But just like our overly processed diet, they are high in sodium.

Re: MH Traditional 1 year food supply
 

MH foods are purposely formulated with higher levels of sodium "to fit a high-performance lifestyle, replacing some of the sodium lost during heavy exertion."

I know several world-class endurance athletes who eat a lot of MH food out in the field.

Re: MH Traditional 1 year food supply
 

I agree..I tried the pouches as Walmart to taste test a few..If it says two servings pouch, it does two servings. Should you buy MH cans and call it a day..NO

Could it supplement like MRE's...Yes

Re: MH Traditional 1 year food supply
 

I agree with that mentality, 1000%, and am doing the same.

That's not to say if you have plenty of money to spare that a years worth of MH freeze dried entrees wouldn't be nice to have, to provide nice variety of quick to fix foods, lets say as part of a 3 yr total food cache. You would rotate the more perishable stuff, and since the freeze dried keeps so long, you would just keep iit to the side till its time was running short.

If we look at the past, and assume you could survive otherwise and that your food cache would remain unfound/unstolen, a 3 yrs supply would last you through most historical SHTF scenes, or at least kept you in a lot better shape to survive it compared to 99% of the rest of the population. Take Zim, or Argentina, or Yugoslavia, or post WW I Germany or Revolutionary France for example. If you had 3 yrs of hidden preps, plus what could be grown or was handed out to everyone, you'd have done real well compared to most if you could keep the cache a secret.

When the shelves go empty from hyperinflation or currency collapse, it will be a lot longer than 6 months or a year for things to get back to normal, IMO.

Re: MH Traditional 1 year food supply
 

Noticed that familiar tractor Andy. :wavey:

Re: MH Traditional 1 year food supply
 

Buy a little of everything. MH, Survival Enterprises, Lipscomb, Ready Reserve, Honeyville grain (go heavy on them they are the cheapest ), Vitacost, and wait a bit for 25% off on deals on these sites and others, the dumb azz on efoods direct.

JUST DONT JUMP ALL IN , F that.

Go 20% mylar bulk / or #10 cans N flushed grains and seeds.

Buy 300$ in seeds from Lipscomb and his food deal . hes cheapest for Yoders meats.

The Survival Enterprises spice deal is pretty good,

Buying a plan will work , maybe buying from 5 groups is better?

Re: MH Traditional 1 year food supply
 

I got mostly staples like beans and oats and wheat for sprouting greens (we don't plan to grind and bake). But I got some MH cases to fill in that tasty junk food category kind of like fast food, but with a long shelf life. Like Andy says it just needs hot water so it is fast and easy, and we also only bought cases of the entrees we liked after taste testing. So if we don't feel like cooking, or it is a problem to for some reason, or we just want junk food, we think the MH will provide a welcome change of pace.

I like some of it enough that I have been tempted to eat some of it even though we do not now need to, but since it is pretty pricey, I didn't.

But it's kind of like liking instant mashed potatoes or boxed macaroni and cheese... semi food products, IMO.

I would fear for my health if that was all I had to eat.

Of course, I let the dandilions be in the yard. I may want those greens some spring.

Re: MH Traditional 1 year food supply
 

If things are that bad and you're eating prep food, I don't think worrying about MSG is gonna be the big issue in life.....:smile:

Re: MH Traditional 1 year food supply
 

That sounds REAL expensive to me. Of course, I'm pretty frugal... I mean to each his own, and you have oodles of money and don't care if you spend a lot of it on preps, I guess thats ok for you with your money, but not for me. I make every penny scream before I let go of it, lol.

I think i spend maybe $10 or $20 a year on seeds, so $300 for seeds alone sounds like a lot of money to me.

Spices? I have 1 lb plastic containers of all the spices we use, and they cost $3 ea. I see no point ordering special SHTF spices. The ones in the 1 lb plastic containers will last 5 or 10 yrs anyway. I know that because some of the ones I have are 5 or 10 yrs old and just fine. Onion and garlic should be bought granulated, not as powder, BTW, because the powder turns to big rocks after a few years opened.

Canned meats? That's some real expensive stuff. I have dried jerky and bullion, and beyond that will have occasional MRE or MH, and the rest, well, hey, times are tough, eat more rice and beans. I have ham bullion, and maybe 20 or 30 little cans of ham I got for about $2 a lb on sale, BTW, so it will taste pretty darned good.

I think priority should be to get maybe a few weeks worth of MRE or MH type stuff and 1 to 2 years worth of basics, most of which can be bought when its on sale locally for a fraction of the price of the "survival site" stuff, and then add to it to get up to 3 yrs worth by adding fancier stuff like the MH and survival site stuff so that in a long term SHTF scenario, there is still some variety.

Re: MH Traditional 1 year food supply
 

Hey T.Bob , lets say the Op has 3 months of cannd goods in his pantry and he wants to go into longer term storage?

Pantry goods will last 3 years after expiration in a cool dry place , what does OP do?

Dehyd. lasts 7 years , Nitrogen flushed canned wheat lasts 7 to 10.

Re: MH Traditional 1 year food supply
 

Increase canned goods to amount that would normally be used by its too old date, which might be expiration + 6 months or a year, and then rotate stock, replenishing it as its used. Typically things being bought now expire in 2011 to 2013 depending on what it is, so you could get close to 3 yrs there and not spend a lot or have it go to waste.

Same with pantry stuff, only much less of a problem as it lasts a lot longer. 3 years worth of everything bought on sale would keep that long and would save a lot of money if bought wisely. My flour is getting to about 2 yrs old now. I make bread, I make pasta, I make cakes, cookies, muffns, etc. I paid 20 cents a lb for it. As I use a 6 gal bucket, I rebuy when on sale and refill it, and label it and put it at the back.

I buy what I use when its on sale, and use what I buy. I have no fancy 7 or 10 yr cans of expensive stuff, but I have enough food to last our family at least a year of just normal eating without needing to suffer for taste or variety, and spent less than I would have just buying the same things weekly. I'd like to have 3 yrs, but might move this year, so don't want to load up till I decide where we'll be longer term.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying having some stuff like wheat that would last is a bad idea. I'm just saying I think that top priority should be for covering that first year or two of empty store shelves.