Those kinds of kits can have a purpose but for most people they should just get extra canned goods and dry goods. Just normal foods that are shelf stable. Maybe get them in bulk and learn how to store them properly.

The kits marketed as emergency food are generally going to be over priced freeze dried stuff.

Forbes is just buzzfeed for rich people.

Forbes is horrible

No mountain house?

Fake review.

TL;DR? Or are we supposed to take the clickbait?

When it comes to selecting emergency food kits that can last for years, it's important to consider the nutritional content, taste preferences, shelf life, and ease of preparation.

Here are some widely recognized options that are often recommended for long-term emergency food storage:

Mountain House – Known for their freeze-dried meals that are popular among campers and hikers, Mountain House offers a variety of meal options with a taste that is often praised. They have a long shelf life of up to 30 years for some of their products.

Augason Farms – This brand offers a wide range of emergency food options, from freeze-dried fruits and vegetables to complete meal kits. They have a variety of sizes and kits that can last up to 25 years when stored properly.

Wise Company – Offering a variety of emergency meal kits that can last up to 25 years, Wise Company's products are designed for long-term storage. They feature grab-and-go buckets and a variety of entrees and breakfast options.

Legacy Food Storage – Legacy offers non-GMO, gluten-free options with a long shelf life of up to 25 years. Their meals are also high in calories, which is important in emergency situations.

Emergency Essentials – Known for their comprehensive emergency kits, they offer a range of products including freeze-dried meals, water storage solutions, and supplies.

Their food kits have a shelf life of up to 25 years.

Thrive Life – Thrive Life specializes in freeze-dried foods that have a shelf life of up to 25 years. They offer a variety of fruits, vegetables, meats, and grains that can be purchased individually or in kits.

When choosing an emergency food kit, consider the following:

Dietary Restrictions: If you or your parents have any dietary restrictions or allergies, look for kits that cater to those needs.Taste and Variety: Opt for kits that offer a variety of meals to avoid "menu fatigue" during extended use.

Preparation Ease: In an emergency, you may not have access to extensive cooking facilities. Look for foods that require minimal preparation, such as just adding hot water.

Nutritional Content: Make sure the meals provide a balanced intake of nutrients, including protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, and minerals.Caloric Density: In stressful situations, the body may require more calories, so look for food options that have a higher caloric density to ensure you and your parents have enough energy.

Packaging: Durable, waterproof, and rodent-proof packaging is important to prevent any damage to the food over time.Cost: Emergency food kits can be an investment, so consider the cost per serving and overall value when making your selection.

Water Requirements: Some meals require water to rehydrate, so if you're also storing water, take into account the amount you'll need for both hydration and meal preparation.Space: Consider the storage space you have available. Some kits are more compact than others, which can be important if space is limited.

Shelf Life: Look for a clear indication of the shelf life and storage conditions required to ensure the food maintains its quality and safety over time.

In addition to the pre-made emergency food kits, it's wise to supplement with additional items such as:Grains: Rice, quinoa, and oats can provide a base for meals.

Legumes: Dried beans, lentils, and chickpeas offer protein and fiber.

Canned Goods: Vegetables, fruits, meats, and fish can add variety and nutrition.

Comfort Foods: Chocolate, coffee, tea, and other comfort items can help maintain morale.

Seeds and Nuts: These are great for snacking and are calorie-dense.Powdered Milk or Alternatives: Useful for cooking and as a source of calcium.

Remember to rotate your emergency food supply periodically to ensure that it remains fresh and to use items before they expire. Also, practice preparing and eating these foods occasionally so that you and your parents are accustomed to them in case of an emergency.

It's a good idea to keep a manual can opener and some basic cooking utensils readily accessible, along with your emergency food supply, to ensure you can easily prepare the food when needed.

Hope this helps.

I second Mountain House. It tastes best of any freeze dried I have tried
Also, I have been in their factory and I was impressed by the set up and attention to detail.

If you aren't worried about carry weight, I'd just go with canned foods you already eat. Most things in cans will last a long time.

Spam, corn beef, corn beef hash, corn, green beans, carrots, black beans, soups (e.g. in the US, I go with Chunky & Progresso soups).

I have rice in #10 cans, lots of pasta also. I know many people prep with flour but I think rice and pasta are easier.

And alcohol. Beer won't last as long as wine, whiskey, bourbon, vodka etc.

A deep pantry. Even a single person can have at least several weeks of food in the pantry that never expires with proper rotation.

On top of that, rice, beans, dehydrated protein, and seasonings will last a REALLY long time with proper storage. Just ensure you have a plan to cook said dry food.

Water is easy: get jugs and rotate every six months or so. The only limit is the number of jugs you have!

Emergency food kits kinda suck once you look into them. They're fine in a pinch, for a while, but never for long term survival. For example, if you look at Mountain House meals, you'll find that most pouches are under 500 calories, and over half your recommended daily salt intake. You don't want to be living on 200% sodium intake for any extended period of time. That's not to say I don't have a small hoard of MH stuff (it's hard to beat the convenience and longevity), but it isn't my sole food prep.

Personally, I have three tiers of food prep, each sufficient for multiple weeks, that work differently depending on the situation:

• Pantry - best nutrition and variety, ready to eat options like canned foods, but heavy, may require cooking, and somewhat perishable - best for bugging in

• Mountain House - longevity, lightweight, decently tasty, but less nutritious, considerable packaging bulk, and requires water - good for a car bugout since I can bring water jugs

• NRG-5 ration bricks - simplest ready-to-eat solution and lasts decades, but bland and dry - best for a panic bugout with limited prep/transport

Tastes the best and has a shelf life guarantee of 30 years. They have a lot of different meal choices and come in convenient bags and #10 cans.

Winco occasionally has bricks of rice. I think they’re 20lb. Same price as the non-brick rice. I don’t remember the brand, it’s a yellow pkg.

Here in Holland, I can get rice in bricks of 11 pounds, vacuum sealed. That lasts for 15 years.

Honey lasts for ever.

Sugar

Salt

Flour vacuum sealed

Im in europe. you wont be able to get it in the us, but it is ; www.korodrogerie.de Organic basmati rice.

I keep 14 days of MREs in the stoeage space in my trailer and a 30 day supply of freeE dried stored at my property. Shelf life for MREs is 2-3 uears and the freeze dried is 5 years. I also keep my fresh water taank full while on city water, but have to dump it if there is a hard frreeze.

IMO, if we're talking bang for buck, you can't go wrong with 10/20/50 pound bags of rice, a bunch of high-quality protein powder and something that's a good source of fat. You can live for a while on just ensure or protein powder alone if need be.

25 lb bag of steel cut oatmeal

We have cans of soup, cans of ham, turkey and chicken, veggies and fruits and skim milk powder.

I got one of those "2 week food supply if shit hits the fan" kits. Got something wild like a 25 year shelf life? I dunno, it comes in two buckets and lives in the pass through storage.

Tasty? No idea. But it's there if shit hits the fan.

I keep rice, beans, oatmeal and pasta on hand at all times. But we also eat those all the time, so it's not going bad either. Plus keeping an extra propane tank & filling fresh water if bad weather is predicted (we move a lot, so keeping a fresh tank full 24/7 isn't the best use of water)

Rice, beans, lentils, chickpea, pasta, canned tuna, canned meat, canned vegetables, olive oil, salt, sugar, spices, oatmeal, powdered mil, honey, peanut butter, instant coffee, tea bags.

Cheaper and healthier.

Generally speaking when it comes to "(X amount of time) food supply kits" stay away from ALL of them. There are many assumptions that go into those packages that may not be a good fit for your family.

Your best bet is to buy samples of every food you are interested in then try them. Most especially if you have children. Some of those things can be OK, some are mediocre, some are awful. Most are very carb heavy. Their protein ingredients often comprised of lots of TVP or similar ingredients, and their total calorie counts are sometimes rather low and based on the assumption you eat EVERYTHING.

One certain piece of advice I can give is to put nothing into your food storage that you and yours have not eaten at least once (more is better) to know that you can stomach it and know how to prepare it. A working food storage program requires a degree of hands-on experience so that you can develop confidence in what you are doing.

I just bought a bunch of mountain house freeze dried food

Build your own. Your calories per dollar will be far higher.

Long term Mountain House,Augason farms and Emergency Essentials. Good tasting stuff. Pricey these days but such a secure feeling - buy and forget. I bought over half my stuff before the pandemic so that helped with price. Check for sales every week and you might find deals.

But also just get used to stocking normal foods you eat and carefully rotating it.

Beans ,chili, rice, canned veg, water

I’d get cheap sardines. Plenty of protein and good fats will satiate you, keep you going longer, and you won’t crash from eating simple carbs.

It's hard to go wrong with dried pasta and lots of canned goods. We have a half dozen cans of Cincinnati chili, just in case things go way south.

I use Augason Farms for cheap dehydrated and Mountain House for items where canned and dehydrated don't work.

I like Mountain House. People I know, like 4Patriots (for the value) and hate Wise/Ready Wise (for taste). Not sure of My Patriot Supply.

Mountain House and Augauson Farms is my long term freeze dried.

Have had good luck with Mountain House and Augason.

If it has the word Patriot or Ready in the name I basically run from it.

Mountain House seems to be the only one that has any substantial amount of animal protein

Mountain House. 100%. It’s what so many preppers recommend, and for a reason. Relatively well-priced freeze-dried food, tastes good, and can be stored for 30+ (likely 40+++) years. Can’t go wrong, only need to add hot water to a bag of it and you’ve got a meal. Recommend getting boxes of #10 cans full of it.

I just finished researching these. Here are my general findings below.

1. The ‘30 day supply’ type kits are EXPENSIVE compared to buying the identical brand in bulk #10 cans or plastic pails. Like 2 or 3 times more expensive.

2. Many of the kits say ‘just add water’ in bold print, but the fine print instructions are more like: soak the beans in water overnight, discard the water, simmer the beans on the stove for 2 hrs… etc.

3. The serving sizes are all over the place. One brand advertises ‘90 servings’ and another advertised ‘150 servings’ for the exact same food/amount.

4. Calories is not equal to fullness. They all like to advertise the provided calories. One company advertised 2000 calories/day, but when I calculated the servings, it’s was 3x 1/2 cup servings per day. Half cup of food for lunch, half cup for dinner, half cup for breakfast. It works in a ‘just stay alive’ situation- but so do calories bars. Most people are spending the money to keep their families reasonably happy in an emergency.

5. Some brands are designed for eating in your kitchen/well-stocked camp site. You need a pot, a fuel source, boiling time, etc. Some brands are designed to be eaten in the bag… no heat required. Just add water to the bag, wait a few minutes and enjoy.

6. The shelf life within the 30 day supply pails are all over the map. Eg. Some portions expire after 10 yrs, some are good for 20 yrs. So you’ll need to be dismantling those pails at some point.

7. You’re paying A LOT of money for staples like white rice, sugar and salt. IMO, it’s easier to just store those in Mylar bags yourself and rotate more frequently. To give an example: I bought 8kg of rice for like $6. The same 8kg in a pail is $120. I would much rather put just rice (oats, sugar, salt, etc) into mylar and rotate every 5-10 years. Ditto for freeze dried food with pasta. You’re paying a lot of money to have bulky pasta in a can. You could store spaghetti and macaroni in mylar for an absolute fraction of the price and just rotate.

Here’s my advice (for whatever it’s worth):

Determine the type of food you need. It was cheaper for me to buy a camp stove and store extra butane versus buying exclusively ‘just add water to bag’ meals.

Create a 14 day meal plan. I made one that includes a hearty breakfast, lunch and dinner. Lunch and dinner both have protein, a side of vegetables, and a choice of pasta or rice. I also included a serving of fruit, servings of milk and servings or orange juice. I chose things that we would eat and tried to have different meals each day for variety (with the exception of breakfast … lots of oatmeal and eggs on my meal plan lol)

Create a pantry. Flour, sugar, salt, coffee, butter, eggs… anything your family tends to need.

Over the course of making this meal plan, I also looked up and printed simple recipes using dehydrated goods. It’s much cheaper to buy the bulk ingredients to make vegetable soup, versus buying it in a pre-made tin… even from the exact same company. Ditto things like ‘mashed potatoes’ and just buying powdered cheese sauce versus a complete macaroni and cheese in a can.

Once this was completed, I multiplied it out by as many months as I needed, and started price shopping.

This method saved thousands and thousands of dollars. My pantry is also interesting and full of variety. And the serving sizes went from a 1/2 cup of food to full plates at every meal. It also reduced the storage space significantly. #10 bill cans of food are much smaller to store than individual servings of Mylar bags.

The entire project took me about 8 hours tbh. But I think it was worth the time investment.

I'm doing my own planning rather than buying a kit. I'm just getting a healthy mix of legumes and grains packed in mylar with O2 absorbers. I'll probably buy something for vegetables and a bunch of canned meats. My goal is to have survival food for a year. I don't envision a total collapse or apocalyptic situation, but rather Weimar-style hyperinflation, so I'm just planning to weather hard times rather than camp in a bomb shelter for multiple years. I'm up to like 5 months of rice, quinoa, oats, beans, and lentils, but I don't think I've spent $300 including the mylar bags, O2 absorbers, and 5-gallon buckets.

Samsclub run of the essentials (peanutbutter, rice, #10 cans, Pancake mix, beans, etc). Then do the mylar bags - O2 absorbers - 5 gallon food containers for rice, etc.

We also have the commercial longterm food storage containers, but theyre expensive. So every two years we do a samsclub run (about $350 - like the one I listed above). And right before the food expires (usually around 2 years), we donate it to a local food bank. We've been doing this cycle for 6 ab years. You can get several months (1 or 2 people) food for under $500 via samsclub.

However much you feel you need to have on hand to feed family & friends for as long as you want.

The Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) have guidance to keep a year’s worth of food in the house. That seems like a lot to me, and not all of them do it. But if it works for them, good.

Try creating a spreadsheet of all the dependencies. You will want hot water to reconstitute it, so you need a way to make that from any water you have stored or filtered. If you’re using a gas stove to heat the water you will need fuel and matches. Perhaps repair parts for it. You will need bowls & utensils and a way to clean them. Or paper disposables. And so on. It can end up being quite a lot of stuff to store.

Thank you! I was so confused when I started researching those emergency pails of food. I hope my research helps someone else!

That depends on your plan . What do you think is most likely to happen. Make a plan and then fill it in. Start with a week or two of food you do eat and rotate it through your kitchen and pantry . Have a safe place for it if you have to bug out. Your limit is your decision.

Going to the supermarket and buying up a bunch of shelf stable food and some good containers for it.

The "emergency" freeze dried food like Mountain House, while good for things like hiking, isn't really good for an emergency food source. It requires plenty of water and fuel for cooking in order to make edible. This is also true for some other shelf stable foods, but there are a number of them that don't require water or cooking. For example, canned goods. Edible cold straight out of the can and no water required to prepare.

Also, the freeze dried option is expensive. A quick Google shows a 3 day supply of Mountain House for a single person is $85. You might get it a little cheaper, but I can probably cut that down to $10 buying up stuff at the Grocery store.

What you want is a deep pantry, not Gucci food.

Its a little pricey but walmart and aldi carry freeze dried strawberries if you want some shelf stable fruit that's not in a can.

I like Packfreshusa and wallaby for mylar bags and 02 absorbers.

Augason Farms has some cheap #10 cans of stuff that fills the gaps in my canned food and pasta preps (muffins, pancake mix, freeze dried berries).

I like the 5/7 mil Mylar bags on the PackFreshUSA website.

CalRose rice. Get this fancy rice from an Asian or ethnic grocer. If you ever have to eat straight rice, you will be glad for the flavor. Also grown in California so more likely to be available if imports are an issue

Buy something that tastes good, lasts for many years, is economical.

In freeze dried, I like Mountain House so I keep a couple of dozen extra around.

You could do some of this with canned food cheaper. Especially if you rotate through the cans every couple of years. Since COVID happened and we saw some supply shortages I like to keep extra cans of soup, veggies, chicken and salmon around. Plus always have a big pack or two of paper products in the garage.

Depends entirely on intended use case.

https://augasonfarms.com

I add dehydrated meat to the mix.

Why?

For at home food storage I have been told a few things, by Mormons. 1) think about 3s. 3 days, 3 weeks, then 3 months it helps to spread the cost out and keeps you from buying a whole lot of something that you wouldn’t really want in a food emergency. Buy what you use If I never see another can of fruit cocktail in my life I’ll be ok with that. On the other hand I love some tuna. Plan it out and get what you like. No sense in making a good emergency worse than it needs to be. And finally rotate your stock. Use what you buy and replace it when you do. The more you do it the more creative you’ll become with it and the more ideas you’ll have if you want to just grab and go for a weekend on the trail.