[texgal]

There may not be time to do this now, but for future reference. I have been dehydrating and dry-canning meals in mylar bags and quart sized mason jars for the last couple of years now for relatively little expense. Most of it is made from items we might have otherwise thrown away in terms of produce. Left over celery, onions, carrots, garlic - almost any kind of fruits and vegetables can be dehydrated and you don't need special equipment to do it. Rice, beans, pasta, flour, sugar, cornmeal oatmeal, etc. can also be stored this way. You can pre-cook beans and rice, then dehydrate them to make prep time shorter to save on fuel.

My closets are full of meals like spaghetti and meat sauce, Rice and beans, beef stew, chicken and stuffing, mac and cheese, chicken noodle soup, potato cheese soup, cream of chicken, mushroom and broccoli soup base for soup or for casseroles, cookie, cake, cornbread, biscuit and pancake mixes and fruit cobbler mixes. I also dehydrate herbs from my herb garden so the food will not be bland. I make my own tomato powder, onion powder and garlic powder.

The only thing I purchase is freeze dried meats. The dehyrdtated doesn't have a long shelf life and it seems safer to leave the meat to the experts. The only special equuipment I have is a FoodSaver and I use oxygen absorbers. There is a lot of information out there on the internet on how to do this.

[BobL]

I was going to say not practical for long-term survival, due to the relatively large costs of the jars and then the storage space required, but you’re really looking at it for non-refrigerated short-term storage of excess food. That does make sense.