Emergency food storage is not about fear mongering or scare tactics. It’s about emergency preparedness. You are preparing in advance so chaos and scarcity won’t ensue should a real emergency occur. But, these are the days wherein things that are right are called wrong, things that are wrong are called right, and the political spin doctors are working overtime. No wonder emergency food storage may be seen by some (who hang on every word of the mainstream media) as being “extreme”. When you live in a country that has a deficit of over $14 trillion, has over $75 trillion in unfunded liabilities, whose real unemployment is over 20 percent (Shadowstats.com), and where gold is over $1,200 denominated in the country’s currency, how would anybody with a little horse sense construe having some emergency food storage as being extreme? Unless they just don’t interpret the above figures as extreme!?

Common sense has become a very uncommon commodity. When bills more than a thousand pages long that are not even read have passage through Congress even considered, this is a huge red flag, and should give rise to concern and action on the part of individuals for protection. What more important action could we take to preserve our lives and freedoms than to protect ourselves from gross departure of our sacred constitutional principles by being self reliant and obtaining for ourselves and our families an emergency food storage supply to take car of our survival needs, and to secure our financial situation with constitutional money (gold and silver)? Common sense dictates: if you don’t take care of yourself, why should anyone else? What’s more – the future is uncertain – to beware and to prepare is nothing else if not logical.

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One of the reasons for storing emergency food is that food not only sustains us nutritionally, it is also great “normalizer” and an excellent balancing factor in the face of hardship. In the aftermath of an emergency if you are not cut off from a food source, your mind and spirit can be at least buoyed up and your power to endure enhanced. Think about it– people just tend to be in a better mood and more emotionally balanced when they have food in their bellies. I know a few people who when they get hungry are rather grumpy! Multiply that by a factor of 10 or more if you are hungry and despairing in the aftermath of a disaster. The tears would come a lot more easily. On the other hand, with food, the situation becomes more manageable. There is something about being satiated and our appetites being fed that counts a lot in “cooling our jets.”

Some think since our civilized society is so advanced that we would be able to weather any kind of emergency without disruption. Ask the Hurricane Katrina survivors if that’s true or not. It’s more close to NOT when it comes to hoping that Big Brother (Uncle Sam) is going to meet our every rescuing need. The government is woefully unable to fill such big shoes on such a wide scale. And we shouldn’t wait around expecting them to. Darwin had a few things right with his Theory of Evolution and Survival of the Fittest. In the case of having emergency food, you will be the “fittest” of a great number of people if you have it. There will be no regrets. Even if it only ever brought you peace of mind, emergency food would have done its job in my way of thinking.

You have the whole world at your feet right now at this moment. Yes, times are hard, but you have access to more food right now than you could ever consume in a lifetime. How sad would it be if you didn’t at least begin to obtain emergency food that could sustain you for a few week’s time? I dare say your WalMart is full of food enough for everybody right now, but in event of a major societal disruption (human caused or natural) it wouldn’t matter. Remember, it wasn’t raining when Noah built his ark. He was seen as a kook, but this shouldn’t bother you as much as your will to live should carry you forward to life sustaining emergency food accumulation.

Your emergency food supply can be very, very simple. Start out with a goal of a couple of weeks of emergency food. You can expand as resources allow. What is emergency food exactly? Emergency food may be nothing different from what you already eat on a daily basis. To make things simple it can be canned foods and items that require only easy preparation. You may also want to acquire some dehydrated and freeze dried emergency food selections. These two food choice types usually require only water and a heat source for reconstitution and they take very little time and effort to make ready for consumption. They also have the added benefit of storing for 5-plus years in many cases. A lot of people choose to add freeze dried and dehydrated foods to their emergency food storage pantry because they may not want to maintain/rotate them. They use them as an insurance policy. Whatever emergency food you should decide to gather, the important thing is that you get a start, even if it is slow and steady. Don’t be embarrassed or think you are under-doing it if it is only a can or a package at a time. Slow and steady wins the race!

Food is one of the main expenses of a family budget. If you can accumulate enough emergency food for both the short term and the long term (one year), you can weather many of life’s storms. If you should become financially strapped, such as a layoff, income loss due to physical illness that disables you for a time, etc., wouldn’t it make sense to have prepared in advance with emergency food “insurance”? You pay for health insurance and life insurance, why not look at food in the same light? Emergency food can in many different ways be your saving grace.

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Our civilization is quite advanced, making it even that much more important to prepare for any number of things that could go awry, and calling upon the use of something as simple as food storage. See, when any system gets so far advanced and inclined towards such high levels of technological specialization in so many varied facets, it becomes increasingly more susceptible to a breakdown or interruption, because when just one part of the whole becomes dysfunctional it creates a domino effect throughout. Just as happened with the housing market. And to make an analogy most can appreciate, how helpless do you feel when your car gadgetry malfunctions? When you car windows won’t roll up nor down with just the click of a button, do you sometimes long for the manual window-roller-uppers?

Although not caused by a defect in the normal “man”-aged workings of society, we can see how a “change” in the status quo will cause mass chaos, as witnessed by a series of big hurricanes a few years back. What happens? Many basic essentials are the first to fly off the store shelves, and this surely includes food. Food storage, water storage, 72 hour kits, and other emergency supplies collected far in advance could prevent this mad rush to a grocery store—only to find that crowds of people made it there before you did, leaving very little left of the significant items for you to purchase. Remember, this is not an apocalyptic event, just nature taking its course. Recall also the pictures on television those people who waited until the last minute before evacuating and being stranded on freeways for hours at a time because of overtaxed capacity. If you are going to get out of Dodge, do it before everyone else decides to!

In his book, “Making the Best of Basics,” author James Talmage Stevens speaks of an in-home food storage convenience store. Aside from disastrous situations, how nice would it be to never “run out” of an ingredient needed for a recipe, not having to run to the neighbors for an item to complete the mix? What if you should forget that you have no more diapers in the home and your baby has a bout of diarrhea? Even if the store is close, it’s nice to have a backup supply.

We have learned in recent years that the unexpected can and does happen. “Nobody saw it coming!” was the common refrain in response to the economic crisis. In times of volatility and uncertainty, could there be a trucker’s strike, or exceedingly high gas prices that cause a disruption in the supply chain delivering food to the marketplace? This and many other unforeseen scenarios could happen, thus bringing to the forefront the need for food storage and emergency supplies. With the advanced JIT (Just-In-Time) concept of inventories, it is said that grocery store shelves could be emptied in 3 days or less. But, if you have an in-home food storage convenience store as part of your wise and prudent emergency preparedness efforts, you’re not among those who panic. We’re not talking about Armageddon or the Apocalypse here. We’re just talking about good, old-fashioned common sense.

Food really can go missing from grocery storage shelves as attested to by even recent articles found here and here. Got food storage?

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Okay. As far as similarities, both types of food are great for long-term storage and are almost identical as far as shelf life (about 25 years). Also, both need to be kept in similar temperature, humidity, and oxygen conditions.

However, the similarities between the two types of food end there. From that point on, there are three major differences between freeze-dried food and dehydrated food:

First of all, I want to make it very clear that my species did not climb to the top of the food chain so that we could become vegetarians. I like meat. Maybe you do, too. So for me, I need to have meat that tastes good in my home food storage. Well, the meat, as you will see, is very, very different between the dehydrated and freeze-dried types of food storage.

See, dehydrated food doesn’t have any seasoning or additional ingredients added to it when it is made. In fact, most dehydrated foods are just a single ingredient and that’s it. Whether it is fruit or meat, it is just that one item. This is a huge problem for a meat-eater like me because what this means is that a dehydrated piece of meat is just that. A piece of meat. Nothing added to make it taste good or to make it enjoyable. Therefore, if you want any seasoning or anything like that, you need to add it in later.

On the other hand, freeze-dried food does have seasoning and additional ingredients already added in. So when it comes to meat, seasoning and added ingredients have already been added in! That makes eating meat and other items oh so tasty.

This is the first major difference between the two types of food. Even though dehydrated food can range from everything from rice to pancake mix to Ramen noodles, you need to make sure you have some ingredients to add to them once they are hydrated. Otherwise they are quite insipid and tasteless. Freeze-dried food, on the other hand, contains lots of different ingredients and some fantastic seasonings. So, you just heat it up and eat it and mmmmmmmmmm. Remarkable.

The second big different between the two types of food is that although both freeze-dried food and dehydrated food just need water and heat, the prep time varies greatly. Freeze-dried foods are usually quicker to prepare than dehydrated foods. The times can vary anywhere from as little as 15 minutes to one hour depending on what it is you are cooking, but, as a general rule, the dehydrated food takes longer to prepare than the freeze-dried food. Note: If you have a pressure cooker on hand you can cut the prep time down considerably on both types of food. Pressure cookers will save you a ton of time and energy regardless of which type of home food storage you have.

Finally, the third difference between the two types of food is that freeze-dried food is usually a full meal that contains multiple items. Think “TV Dinner” or even “Meals on Wheels” when you think freeze-dried food. Unlike dehydrated foods, freeze-dried foods are meals that are completely ready to eat once they are heated up and water has been added. Again, dehydrated food is usually just a single ingredient. You will need to mix them with other items or season them or they won’t taste that great.

Now, does this mean freeze-dried food is better than dehydrated food? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Well, actually, yes.

But before you start thinking freeze-dried food is some Bastian of Morality and dehydrated food is one step below plankton pee, it should be noted that dehydrated food takes freeze-dried food behind the woodshed every day of the week when it comes to price. Dehydrated food is way cheaper. Way cheaper. Dehydrated food also usually makes more food than freeze-dried food per serving—again, this adds to the value and price ratio advantage.

So, a quick recap here: Freeze-dried food tastes better, is ready to eat sooner, and has a wider variety of food once prepared. Dehydrated food does not taste as good, takes longer to prepare, and is just that one item when you prepare it. However, dehydrated food is much, much cheaper than freeze-dried food.

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