Whats the deal with 25 year shelf life food?

I was listening to Rush Limbaughs show the other day just to hear how he is holding up in the face of the GOP meltdown and I hear a commercial for 25 year shelf life food that are gourmet meals that you just add water to. They said "your family can be eating this gourmet food instead of fighting for scraps in the food riots". Is his audience that insane now?

It's the preppers.

I'm not sure I want to survive if I need rations for 25 years. But it might be a good idea to have a week's worth of emergency, non-perishable food in the house, just in case there's some disaster (human-caused or otherwise) that shuts down services and commerce for a few days.

I never knew MREs were gourmet food.

Miles O'Brien disagrees!

Talk about eatin' pussy.

I keep a stockpile of 27 years worth of food and 2 years worth of ammunition. I figure those short sighted 25-year folks will die out after two years, as long as I can hold them off. My only worry is that the power might get cut to my walk in freezer and I'll lose 30,000 frozen hand-tossed meat-lovers pizzas - with breadsticks.

All the radio stations are doing those commercials now during the "conservative" shows. AFAIK only Beck has personally done ads for these companies.

The point of the 25 years is not that you will be eating it 25 years from now but that you don't have to worry about it spoiling. Some survival food is only good for 5-7 years (usually food for at sea or rations). Of course if you buy MRE's you are taking a risk unless it's directly from the manufacturer.

It's like buying camping food. Except you are buying for a few days to months or even a year or two. If you need more then two years of emergency food you're better off starting a farm. Assuming you're still alive.

http://www.preparewise.com/food-storage/emergency-food.html

http://www.wisefoodstorage.com/

http://www.quakekare.com/emergency-food-rations-c-15_16.html (the food here last 5 years but it's emergency food bars like the type you would find on a lifeboat)

http://www.mountainhouse.com/

You can even buy survival food at Costco and Sams Club from the websites.

It makes sense to have a least a few days worth of food. And the advantage of this type of food is that it's compact, easy to carry, and doesn't spoil like regular grocery food will. So when you have a big quake/hurricane/tornado/snow storm you've got something to eat until rescue. (self rescue or otherwise)

Of course some people buy it for EMP, Solar Flare, nuclear war and general end of the world craziness. Some people even think things in America will get bad and the dollar will implode like in Zimbabwe and Venezuela and the store shelves will be all but empty.

Gourmet? That's just marketing. Better then starving though.

Right now they've got Ron Paul doing commercials for Harvest Right. I thought it would be interesting to get one of these freeze driers to make snacks and stuff but then I saw the price. https://harvestright.com/store/ Yeah, I can't afford that level of survival.

The best survival tip is to not wait until people are starving before you start eating them. The Donner party did that and by the time they started eating people there just wasn't much meat left on them.

That and the meat might get freezer burnt especially in the mountains in the winter. You'd think they would teach this kind of thing in school.

You'd think! The time to resort to cannibalism isn't when you're three months into the snowpocalypse, it's when you flip on the weather channel and the guy says "This could be a coming snowpocalypse!" Just go out, kill all your neighbors and stack their bodies in the yard before the snow hits, even before you rush to the store for milk and bread. And don't forget buns! Lots and lots of buns!

MREs are so obsolete. Now we have Bonus Buckets!

Yes. In fact, that we would call a situation with no shopping for a week a "disaster" in the first place says something uncomfortable about our resilience.

ftfy - - they've always been that insane.

There's video of a gourmet chef preparing the bucket meals Jim Bakker hawks. His verdict? You're better off starving.

And if the WATER that you must add to prepare that survival meal is contaminated or radiated?

Oh, you think that shit's bad? Check out the crap Alex Jones sells on his InfoWars site... DNAForce??! Anthroplex? Survival Shield Nascent Iodine?

http://store.infowars.com/

A few drops of chlorine bleach for the former. Not sure about the latter.

This is what happens when the crazies have bid up the price of gold too far. Now these folks need other scams that are more affordable to their marks.

You're from Germany. The only natural disasters you know are self-inflicted World Wars.

America is a big place. Tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, blizzards, even volcanoes.

Right now there is massive flooding in Louisiana. Some people might be trapped in their area with no ability to shop and having some back up food is not a bad idea.

I think you don't understand the word resilience. A person who can take care of themselves without the need to shop or need government for the first few days or even better weeks is far more resilient then the average person whose standing there screaming that the government isn't moving fast enough to change their diapers.

Then you die.

Meanwhile the rest of us will decontaminate the water. Like MAOHS said a little bleach. You can also boil the water. Of course there are various filter tools out there that you can buy to make the process easier.

Even if you have no bleach, no real ability to boil water, or a tool to filter the water you can still filter water using various survival techniques.

Of course the big thing is having a brain and having water on hand with the food so you have both. Water is cheap. Containers are cheap if you want to store water other then using gallon jugs. And the good thing about water is that you can cycle it in and out far easier then food. I have water on hand but my family uses it so I always make sure to have a certain amount so if something happens I have fresh water on hand.

Radiated water?

Why are you in an area with radiated water? If the water is radiated that pretty much means the area you're in is also radiated.

If you know the water is radiated why would you even think of drinking it? GO SOMEWHERE ELSE.

Radiated water can be decontaminated but it's far more difficult and time consuming and probably not worth it for the average person to attempt.

But that's not how these things are being targeted or why most are buying them. It's sold to the nutters who believe that complete civil breakdown and total anarchy is right around the corner.

Yes. That's Milwaukee.

Well yes and no.

I hear these commercials all the time. They talk about all scenarios. From natural disasters to the nutter stuff.

So what? Because you think they are selling to nutters you won't buy some backup food because you're afraid to be called a nutter?

And lastly these commercials running during the shows are put there by the local stations. Not the shows. Only Glen Beck and Sean Hannity actually pitch survival food on their shows.

Where I live, I'm unconcerned. If I lived in tornado country or the like, sure.

I have some survival rations in my bug-out kit. About enough for two weeks, I think. But that is extreme emergency last-ditch type stuff, not something I'd live on for years during the Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse.

I also have some LifeStraws (filters water from questionable sources), a hand-cranked radio, emergency candles, blankets, useful tools, and like that. All fits in one of those sterilite plastic bins so if TEOTWAWKI comes along I can chuck the whole thing in the back of the mighty Jeep and beat feet.

We have some saltines.

I think. Lemme check.

Whoops, down to one sleeve of them. Hold off on the zombie invasion until I can get to the store, okay?

Tired of waiting for you humans to get ready......

On the 24th year, it chemically recombobulates, and turns you gay if you eat it.

Saltines go stale. Instead, make some hard tack which is the traditional long-term storable food for warships and armies.

Mix plain flour with just enough water to make a very stiff doughy batter. You can optionally add a bit of salt.
Roll the dough out a half-inch thick and cut into cracker sized squares.
Use a toothpick or pen to poke holes in them to make them look like crackers. The holes keep the cracker from rising or bubbling up.
Bake at 250F for about four hours.

Place in Ziploc bags or other containers and they should keep for 50 years.