Average Joe MREs

[terri9630]

@tc556guy thank you for your input i appreciate it. I sadly don't have a vacuum sealer and know i cant afford to get one any time soon. We had to think ease of assembly when we started this part of our preps. I plan on adding sugar free candy as well as a moral booster that won't give us a sugar crash/craving, my stepson will have enough of an issue in that regard and so will i thanks to my soda addiction (its my one guilty pleasure). The heater packs are a very good idea and ill add it to the list of things to put in the new ones, we're waiting till we can afford to buy all the items at once without killin our grocery budget (this pay period I've got about $150 to play with for two weeks).

There are handheld vacuum pumps and bags to go with them. Our local walmart/kmart keep them by the large vacuum sealers. They run about $20 for the electric pump and $5 for the manual one. I have both. Use one in the house and one is in my camping gear.

http://www.kmart.com/ziploc-vacuum-starter-kit-quart-1-kit/p-029W686269110001P

https://www.walmart.com/ip/FoodSave...82006&tmode=0000&veh=cse&sdc_id=1080426569647

 

[Mini Horses]

With care, some of those bags are reusable to seal, right? I have looked at them. Plus you can revac them after removing some of the contents, especially nice for dried foods.

 

[Britesea]

They are resealable- you just have to cut them down past the last seal.

 

[terri9630]

With care, some of those bags are reusable to seal, right? I have looked at them. Plus you can revac them after removing some of the contents, especially nice for dried foods.

The ones I was thinking of/talking about are like regular Ziploc bags that have an airlock on the front below the zipper and can be used over and over with washing.

 

[lcertuche]

Speaking of beans and rice, 50/50 or Britesea idea of lentils/quinoa. Quinoa cooks up faster and has more protein than rice. You can grind the beans/lentil, rice, seasonings then it would cook much quicker and be calorie and nutritionally dense. 1 cup of bean/rice and 2 cups of water would probably be very filling. Straws filled with seasonings are a great idea and lightweight. It could be Mexican, Indian, Italian, etc. As far as the ramen goes, anything filling and with calories is good. I would think the dehydrated veggies would be good. Cooked, dried beans will still have protein. Peanut butter stirred into it will give it an Asian twist.

 

[MoonShadows]

If you are talking about long term storage, plastic bags are not the way to go. Plastic bags are thin (even the freezer thickness is relatively thin). They break easy, they are not air tight, and they are clear, which lets light in. Air, light, moisture and extreme temperatures are the things that do the most damage to you food storage. This is assuming of course that you do not have pests in your food storage.

You also should not store food in vacuum packed bags for long term storage. The problem with the vacuum bags is that they will eventually loose their seal over time.

Long term storage requires Mylar Bags. Mylar is a clear polyester resin attached to aluminum foil. So it's kind of like a flexible tin can. Mylar is the trade name for these foil bags. You seal them with a Mylar sealer or you can use a household iron to seal them. It is very difficult to use them with vacuum machines because they are so smooth, the machine does not get good suction. The easiest way to store food for long term storage in a Mylar Bag is to put an oxygen absorber in the bag, squeeze out as much air as possible and then seal. The oxygen absorber will take care of the rest of the air, and within a short time the Mylar bag will have that shrunken vacuumed look. I also use a Silica Gel Desiccant (those little moisture absorber packets you see in your pill bottles) for any moisture that might be in the bag. The size of the moisture absorber and desiccant depend on the size of the Mylar Bag.

If you shop around, you can find Mylar Bags, moisture absorbers and desiccants at reasonable prices....get ones made in the USA to assure quality. Is this a more expensive method than plastic bags or vacuum bags? Yes. If you are storing for a few weeks or a few months, go ahead and use plastic bags or the vacuum method. But, if you are storing long term, especially as a supply of disaster food, the extra cost of what I have described will assure your food is safe and stable when you need it most.

 

[lcertuche]

Linda's Pantry on YouTube has some good videos on making meals in a jar/bag and good tips on dehydrating food in general. I'm in the process of dehydrating some pumpkins I picked up for $1/pumpkin. I have also dehydrated a lot of #10 cans of veggies. Whenever I want a few peas in a casserole for example I just throw in a handful.

 

[wyoDreamer]

@MoonShadows spoke my thoughts. We have wheat berries stored in the mylar bags and they are rated for 30+ years of shelf life. I have a grinder to make flour for homemade bread, so that is why we have wheat stored.

We started slow in stocking up on the freeze dried food in the #10 cans. It is a little expensive to order it on-line and have it shipped. We found a place in Colorado that sells the food storage stuff, I believe it is a Morman store. A little at a time and it all eventually adds up. I think we will eat better if the SHTF than we do now.

We actually use it to make meal mixes for camping. so it gets rotated out a little bit.

Sometimes SAMs CLUB has freeze dried hashbrowns in the store, but you used to be able to order freeze dried foodstuffs and pick up in the store.

 

[lcertuche]

I've saw regular frozen, shredded hash browns dehydrated. I think it's probably Linda's Pantry (again not me, another Linda). It could be cheaper to do it yourself.

 

[Britesea]

Just found and ordered these. What a time-saver!
http://mylarbagsdirect.com/mybaforvase.html

Don't forget you can also sprout your dried bean, wheat, lentils, etc to increase your vitamin intake if you are on a subsistence level.

Blanching the potato shreds is a PITA (ask me how I know...)but necessary if you are using your homegrown potatoes. If you aren't, then go for the frozen hashbrowns, they are already blanched, and dehydrate them.