Following this post I will write one specifically about military rations (MREs). But to start, let me first turn to other foods generally used in preparation for natural disasters, financial catastrophes, military armageddon, and zombie apocalypses. I bought these on Amazon, so you can too. Oh, and also these are used for hiking, backpacking, biking trips, hunting and fishing, glamping, or RVing.
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How is a Prepper Defined
I think there are three types of people that fall into the prepper category, and they have very different perspectives and food needs.
- Emergency Preparers: Need less than 1 year of food in their pantry or their garage, tornado bunker, or other some such place.
- Pantry Prepping: Need anywhere from 1-5 years of food in their pantry.
- Survivalist Preppers: Need foods in their underground, concrete-reinforced pantry to last 20-30+ years.
Emergency Preppers
After decades of FEMA pushing emergency awareness at our University, I am now a full member of this category. These people are the emergency preparers who tend to plan responses to the most likely environmental emergencies that will eventually happen.
They feel an obligation to help their family and neighborhood during an emergency, including storing a month (to a year) of food. These people buy the food they need to store, some will do their own preservation of food from their gardens, and their pantries are in basements, garages, or sites away from the house, but easy to get to.
As an example, for where I live, these are the most likely to least likely environmental emergencies I prep for:
- Globally and nationwide, we have continuing supply chain issues, the pandemic is ongoing, Putin’s War is affecting food supplies — so not a bad idea to store up on necessities.
- California earthquakes are an everyday occurrence, major fires are now commonplace, and electricity power outages happen each year. So these are the most obvious emergencies for which I need to prep.
- My town, El Cerrito, has many landslide areas as most of the town is on hills that lead to flat areas and bay and then the ocean. With climate change, we are experiencing long term droughts, followed by atmospheric-rivers, which combined lead to landslides.
- My specific house is within 5 miles, and up 159’, from the San Francisco Bay, so last on my list is a tsunami and raising ocean concerns. Not probable at this point, but it could happen.
Pantry Prepping
Panty prepping is mainly a person or family or even community, who is responding to directions given from their religious leader’s interpretation of their holy texts. So often, they follow directives that describe some or all of what they need to store.
- NPR: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has long mandated that all members maintain months of food and supplies — in part to help less-prepared neighbors.
However, this category also includes homesteaders, and self-resilient people who live partially on or off-grid, as they try to live on what they hunt, grow, forage, preserve, and swap. They need to reserve foods to last them through the winter and poor harvests.
These people have 1-7 years of food in their pantries.
Survivalist Preppers
Right up front, we have to acknowledge that there has always been a very strong American Survivalist Tradition that tips some people into the survivalist prepper’s category. I understand this to mean that these folks are more driven to, what I will call, the extremes of doomsday and conspiracies. They tend to hoard guns + ammo, long-lasting food (into 20-30 years), build backyard bunkers or doomsday underground housing, etc.
All Three Are Similar
Regardless of the type, I agree with Time that a prepper is a person who takes measures in advance to ensure the economic, physical and emotional well-being of their family during times of struggle.
I also agree with the observation of a Ms. Bounds quoted in the NYT:
- The stereotype of preppers is that they’re paranoid and think that the government is coming for them,” she said. “Whereas people in the city, preppers of color, prepare because they think that government isn’t coming for them.”
Preppers By the Numbers
Shtfblog has a quote that signifies the most dominant stereotype there is on who preppers are: Prepper food is right there in the top 3 critical areas to stock: beans, bullets, and bandages. Though many believe that this is an old stereotype based on biases and elitism, it is also true. Here are studies and numbers to tell us who these people are.
Numbers on Preppers
2015: Emergent BioSolutions conducted a multi-phase research project on prepper behavior through a random 1,022 sample + survey of persons aged 18-65. They found mainly caucasian, married, home-owner, men, who make less than $100k, and do not have a college degree. Research suggests that anywhere from 4-9 million Americans were engaged in a broad prepping behavior and the activity has increased since 2013.
2018: FEMA/Cornell conducted a survey on the resilient citizen. They found at least 7M out of 120M USA households are prepared. They define a resilient citizen, as someone who could survive for 31+ days at home without utilities or outside help.
2020: RollingStone mentions a January 2020 survey that determined that about 55 percent of American adults spend money on survival supplies.
2021: The current estimate is 10-20M USA preppers, but by this term the intention is to mean people who take self-reliance seriously and go beyond the common basics like a smoke detector according to ThePrepared.
Preppers, in research by Cambridge, are mainly conservative politically, CSIS describes the relationship between survivalist preppers, conservative militias, and doomsday groups prepping for the ”end of times.”
But there is a growing trend of more liberal people joining homesteading movements, and emergency preppers.
Generational Viewpoints
With the Covid pandemic, sales in prepping activities increased. There are lots of numbers out there in the wild, but I am only looking at the post-Covid numbers from mid-2020 forward, as I think global and national tensions are rising exponentially with the pandemic, Putin’s war, global climate change, and the rise of facism.
The generations are broken down by their reasoning for spending money on prepping. But before I get into that, here is how the generations are described per Wikipedia.
- The Silent generation (75-95 years) is, by a large margin, always a little prepped in their pantries and spent most of their prepping money on food and water, insurance, and protection.
- My group, the Baby Boomers, seemed not as concerned, with a third indicating they were always pantry prepped, and another third not doing anything. However, they spent the most on home renovations, bunkers, and escape routes.
- GenX preps due to political events and Covid, and all the fears those have brought up. So they spent the most on prepping medical supplies.
- Whereas, Millennials say they prep specifically for natural disasters and spend the most on survival courses, survival kits, and TP.
What Foods Are Most Stable
From a preppers point of view, canned food are easy to obtain, fairly cheap, store well, and can be very nutritious and tasty. Their disadvantages are they are heavy, if they get dented they have to be eaten quickly, and they need other tools to access.
- Canned Food: USDA reports canned foods high in acid (tomato-based foods) and kept in a cool, dry space, and free from dents, swelling, or rust, will stay in good for up to 18 months.
- Low acid foods (meat + vegetables) will stay in great condition for 2-5 years.
Pantry staples are a great stable food set, and include: Beans, lentils, rice, sugar, salt + pepper, hard wheat, honey, oatmeal, potato flakes, evaporated or condensed milk, and chia seeds. In my pantry I also have many variations of noodles, dried bonito + mushrooms, and dried vegetables and powders.
Then comes the MREs + Freeze Dried foods. As already noted, Meals-ready-to-eat (MREs) were created by the military as a means of giving a soldier the ability to have a hot, calorie-rich, nutritious meal in serious circumstances, or put more bluntly, would preserve well in a harsh fighting environment. Which means you cannot be picky about what you get, so long as it feeds the body. I have a post about these next week.
Freeze dried foods are used most often in backpacking, camping, bike touring, etc. These food packets can last 25+ years, and most all anyone has to do is to add water and mix.
So the foods that have a long shelf life, which I will explore, include :
- Pantry staples (rice, pasta, flour, beans, spices)
- Canned foods (soups, stews, meat, sauces)
- Dried and freeze-dried food (instant Ramen soups, veggies, mushrooms, meal packets)
- MREs
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Pouched Shelf-Stable Food
4Patriots 72-Hour Survival Food Kit
4Patriots hails from Nashville (Tennesee) and boasts about being American owned and made, with a money-back guarantee, and a shelf life of 25+ years. What I bought contained three pouches, to cover 3 people for one day of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This is the food to compare with the MREs entrees only — keep in mind MREs contain variety, so that this comparison is limited.
- Grammy’s Sweet Oatmeal (add 8C water)
- America’s Finest Mac & Cheese (add 3-2/3C water)
- Creamy Rice & Vegetable Dinner (add 2-1/2C water)
This bag cost $27 USD from Amazon. That means for 3 people this will provide emergency rations (not complete meals) for one day at $3 dollars per person. Or, could provide emergency rations for 1 person over 3 days if they can save and reheat the food.
To cook the food in these mylar pouches, you open the pouch and remove the oxygen absorber. Boil the number of recommended cups of water and pour the contents into the pan. Stir frequently for the next 20 minutes and then remove from heat and add a lid. Let the lidded pan stand a bit. Then serve.
America’s Finest Mac & Cheese
Grade: A- (ovo-lacto vegetarian)
I made the whole pouch and as I poured the contents into the water it smelled like an open Kraft Mac-n-Cheese box, except the powdered cheese was not in a separate packet, but intermixed with the dried noodles.
- Frankly, the mac-n-cheese box tastes better and is creamier, but their shelf life is estimated at only ~2 years due primarily to the better quality of their dried cheese and milk products.
As expected, this pack tasted good and provided comfy food cuddles. If you want a cheesier dish add some, but I did not. However, as mac-n-cheese is also one of the bases for a dump meal, where you add all the stuff in your fridge that is about to go bad, you could add freeze dried veggies or foraged plants to this and up the nutrition.
For the grade it delivered a mac-n-cheese experience as I expected it to taste and chew, but was not as good as the flavorful boxed food.
Grammy’s Sweet Oatmeal
Grade: A (ovo-lacto vegetarian)
This is an easy to make quick oat meal that contains some milk and soy for a porridge-like mixture. It tasted fine and there was ~8C of porridge, which is a lot.
To cook I boiled 8C water, poured the mix in, and stirred for 2-3 minutes. Then turned the heat off and let it stand lidded for a minute or two, then served. Now I did add some brown sugar and blueberries in my bowl, could not help myself. But easily, preppers could add sugars or maple syrup and dried blueberries, and to up protein, perhaps also add chopped nutes.
My grade is based on how similar it is to quick oats (which I do not usually eat) that are made into a porridge. This food was perfect, and had 5g fiber per serving.
Freeze Dried Food
This Peok ReFuel company is based in American Fork (Utah)
- Three Bean Chili Mac (300c 59k per serving)
- Butternut Dal Bhat (430c 52k per serving)
- Beef Stroganoff (400c 25k per serving)
These are fully cooked, lightweight, non-GMO, and freeze dried food that comes in 2-servings per pack. This is definitely aimed at backpackers and campers. After some searching I found that their unopened packs have a 5 year shelf life.
To cook: tear open the packet, add the recommended amount of boiling water, mix ingredients, zip shut for 10 minutes, and then open and eat. No need for much clean up except spoons or forks if you eat out of the bag.
Three Bean Chili Mac
Grade: B- (ovo-lacto vegetarian, does contain wheat)
I cooked this for lunch and found that it tasted just okay, it needed more spice (more salt, ground cumin instead of the seeds, more chili powder, and more heat), but had a nice chewy texture. Interestingly, the MRE dish of the same food tasted better, but this had a better texture, and at least some veggies. The food came with freeze dried kidney, navy and pinto beans, and corn plus green bell pepper.
The bag itself got very hot once the water was added, which would be great if camping out in the cold; it would keep your hands nice and toasty. I ate from the bag, but had to spend a minute or so mixing all the food up, as the heavier objects sank, and I wanted to make sure all the spices were mixed into the sauce.
For the grade, I dinged it just because of the lack of flavor that salt and spices could have brought. But, I could have just added them from my kitchen and it would have tasted much better.
Beef stroganoff
Grade: A- (meat, does contain milk + wheat)
I have not had this dish in years, so was anticipating a good meal. In addition to pasta and beef, there were also mushrooms, onions, garlic and some dried vegetable powder. The meat was chewy, the pasta el dente, and overall not bad.
For the grade it looked right, felt creamy and saucy, and smelled right. For me it tasted a bit too salty, even though it had only 470mg of salt per serving.
This meal came from Mountain House, an Albany (Oregon) company that stated they trace our roots to meals we made for the United States Special Forces. And claim, Mountain House is the best freeze dried camping, backpacking, hiking and emergency preparedness food money can buy! For preppers, the good news is a 30 year shelf life (except their ice cream which has 3 years).
Conclusion
My suggestion is to start your pantry with cans, whole foods in glass jars, and your own canning. Buy and try the packets of other foods to see if you like them. I have taken these food packets, into my RV for they are lightweight and easy to cook when we want a hot meal. Likewise these packs have gone with me hiking and backpacking when I was younger. In emergencies, you want the calories and easy to cook food, the only remaining issue is if there is clean water available and if you can heat it up.
I do not have judgement on disaster prepping, as it was part of my work life and, realistically, I have personally seen and survived enough natural disasters to know what we need to prep and why. California has droughts, electricity outages, wild fires, heat waves, and earthquakes. When I lived in Washington state we had floods, mud slides, and volcanos (yes I was there when Mt. St. Helen’s blew). In Japan I experienced a typhoon and earthquakes. These days we know for a fact, that no matter where you go, there are reasons to prep for those bad days or months that are bound to happen, and that prepping is best done in advance.
In fact, I support and urge everyone to have first aid and breakdown kits in their vehicles. I also urge folks to have medical, food, and supply pantries with what they and their pets need for several weeks. This preparedness will lesson the stress when actual issues arise. Minimally, doing this means never having to worry about running out of ingredients or food.
—Patty
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