Don't worry about cancer from smoking.
Be sure to lay in a supply of dehydrated water.
More complex food items always taste best when freeze-dried. We prefer Mountain House, and Amazon always has buckets of this at great prices during its Black Friday sale weeks.
I had my Ronco dehydrator give up the ghost after 18 years of service this year.
I checked out an Ebay supplier to see if it would just be better to order the stuff.
It’s not.
Buy a dehydrator and use it. You WILL appreciate it !
Are you asking about dehydrated or freeze dried? There’s a big difference.
L
Mountain House. Decent quality.
Ask Ronpaul.
He’s down to hawking a prepper freeze-dry kit on radio ads these days.
“...even ice cream”
I’ve been happy with augasonfarms.com and honeyville (https://shop.honeyville.com). Augason has some nice - repetetive - daily deals, you can stock up on white rice, hard white wheat, butter powder, biscuit/pancake mixes, creamy wheat and granola cereals, carrots, potato flakes, peas, beans and more all in #10 cans for long-term storage.
If you’re looking for a basic, nuts and bolts guide of sorts on survival, food planning, I put something together a few years ago you might find useful. Here:
https://www.scribd.com/document/77847015/Zombie-Attack-Plan
Skip to the end for food basics. Good luck.
There is no real need to get too exotic. If you live where you can store stuff at reasonable temperatures then realize that canned goods last indefinitely stored at 75 degrees.
It might be worth considering Soylet. It is nothing fancy, but it is cheap and you can live on it indefinitely.
Lay in a supply of Boost Plus with 360 calories/8 oz bottle. About $9 for 2160 calories. Has the advantage of providing most of your liquid needs as well.
Might make a good start for a prepper thread.
I am a happy customer of buyemergencyfoods.com.
Layered. A lot of back up nonperishable foods you eat every day, then canned goods and rice, then long term storage and maybe MREs. Don’t forget lots of water and a a way to purify water.
I recommend Dollar General for cans of cashews and Beenie Weenies. Great price per calorie/nutrition.
Walmart for 6 packs of Maruchan noodles.
Seriously. You might as well save money.
Beans and Rice store a decent amount of time, especially if you seal them in mylar bags with O2 absorbers. As mentioned, canned goods are pretty much indefinite including canned meats. Try to stay away from pull top cans. Pasta lasts a long time.
Store what you eat
Eat what you store
Rotate
MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) Military food, new version of C rations are good.
Freeze dried lasts forever but is costly. Mountain House is supposed to be tops.
Dehydrated; depends on what it is as far as how long it lasts.
Dehydrated and freeze dried need water, canned goods already have water in them. In a shtf scenario, you don’t pour out excess liquid from canned goods. It gets served with the solid or used in some way. That’s where a lot of the nutrients end up anyway.
How are you going to get water if the grid goes down for a lengthy amount of time? At some point, driving to get water or anything else won’t be an option.
I have bought a fair amount from these guys. A wide variety of brands and sizes. Small cans also, in case you want to try before buying any large quantities. Pretty good sales and group buy prices.
Disclaimer; I haven’t shopped there in several years.
But, they are an outfit from Utah and always had good prices, good selection and very cheap flat rate shipping. Utah people tend to know their stuff about prepping as the LDS Church recommends all it’s members have a year’s worth of supplies.
In fact, the LDS has provident/providence pantry, it’s own line of prep food stores. Some locations are LDS members only and some will sell to anyone. The above link to Emergency Essentials is not affiliated with the LDS.
Don't worry about cancer from smoking.
For bulk 30-year shelf-life supplies, I’m a big fan of the Mormon food storage options. Their prices are amazing, including pasta for less than I pay in the grocery store ($0.92 a pound).
https://providentliving.lds.org/self-reliance/food-storage/home-storage-center-order-form?lang=eng
They ship if you order online, or you can go in person. You don’t have to be a church member, at least not where I live. For short-term emergencies, I like cans that you would eat anyways. Buy stuff with an 18 month shelf life, and replace it every six months, eating what used to be for emergencies. That way you’re used to the food you’ll be eating while you’re snowed in, and you don’t need water to cook it.
I also like a mix of dehydrated and freeze dried. I recommend eating it when half its shelf life is gone so you always know it’s fresh and so you always know you like it. I just don’t like to depend on it because of water.