No its not good at all, it is however, "palatable" by itself. You know its from a can if you try to eat it stand alone, the key is to incorporate it into "meals", the "taco filling, aka ground beef" is decent if you make a chili or spaghetti sauce, I have cut it with 50% beef flavored TVP and have good results.

When compared to freeze dried meats, they are not so bad; here is a cost analysis between the two that I worked out:

Mountain House - #10 can freeze dried ground beef:

Serving Size 2/3 cup (3/4 cup prepared) = 18 servings per #10 can

Price: $40 can. divide by 18 servings   = $2.22 dollars per serving.
                                   

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Hearthstone Taco filling #5 can:

Serving Size 1/3 cup = 23 servings per container divide 2 servings (per meal) = 11.5 servings per container.

Price: $12.99 can. divide by 23 servings (2oz per serv) = $.56 cents per serving, or divide by 11.5 servings (4oz per serv) = $1.12 dollars per serving.

Not saying its better than freeze dried in any form, and it certainly will not keep for nearly as long; I just like to have cheaper options.

I know canned chicken has a funny taste, but if you drain it and rinse it the taste improves. .

OP , you need to also plan for extra mouths to feed.

If you have a group of 7-10 people to feed, it is very reasonable to expect to have to feed at least TWICE that number.
There will be friends and extra family that you are not planning for show-up unprepared and no matter how hard core you think you will be about kicking them down the road it just is not going to happen. You will feed some extra people. Plan on it!  
FYI IMHO , You really need more people in your group.
A group of ONLY 7-10 can not do all the work that is going to need to be done and still allow for a 24 hr a day security force.
Heck , just keeping a fire going and supplied w/ wood is a 24 hr a day job for 2-3 people.
30 days is a very long time to plan for and as you plan for longer it only gets more complicated.  
This is why being involved in the leadership part of a group "sometimes just sucks"

I'm sure it wasn't intentional to use 1/3 of the quantity of rice in the example where you were correcting me than you did in your example illustrating that it was possible. (over the same number of people/same duration)
not only that, the number of cups yielded per 100# of rice you used is GROSSLY inaccurate. a 10# bag of rice will yield approximately 25 cups of rice (precooked)


each cup of rice precooked yields 3 cups of rice cooked and the nutrition information for those 3 cups cooked rice is as follows:
600 calories
132g carbohydrates
12g protein
if you use 2:3 ratio on the TVP added to the meal, you would use 1 cup of TVP (which expands to 2 cup after its hydrated) which would add:
210 calories
960mg sodium
990mg potassium
18g carbohydrates
33g protein

so if each person ate that 2X a day they would ingest over 1620 calories a day.
and at today's cost, that's $2.25 for the TVP and $3.50 for each person per day (2 meals) is $5.75 (or $2.87/meal)
good luck feeding someone in a WROL situation for less than that.

beans might be a better choice from a cost standpoint. but you can buy TVP in Bacon/Beef/Chicken/Turkey flavors and beans will always taste like beans.

in ANY case.. you could always supplement with venison, rabbit, squirrel, dog, etc.  (as you would probably still be able to hunt/trap)

I would echo what the other posters have said about rice.  If feeding a large group in difficult times rice and things like it would be the staple, the canned food would be the flavor so to speak to go with it.  I suppose this kind of discussion is pertinent for Americans but in many parts of the world rice, or something like it is the meal.  Historically the meal might have been bread.  Then whatever could be scrounged up would be added to it.  So imagine a bowl of rice with some sauce or meat etc with it.

EXACTLY!

people act like rice isn't enough..

it may not be enough for an American who is 50lbs-80lbs overweight and used to eating 2 big macs at lunch.

but 75% of the world population eats rice (with some other protein) at every single meal..

IT IS nutritious enough.

My point was simply that you probably needed to triple the amounts you originally suggested.

Your original suggestion was:

to me, a couple of 50lb bags of white rice is 100lbs, so that is where I got 100lbs.

Depending on how you figure how much a cup of dry rice weighs. (Weight vs. Volume)
The USA Rice Federation says 1 cup (vol) is 7oz. (wt) of dry rice, other places use 8oz. dry per cup.
You are using 6.4oz. dry rice per cup. (10lbs. x 16 oz. = 160oz. / 25 cups = 6.4oz. per cup)

I figure 8oz. of rice per cup for planning purposes, to me, it's better to under estimate than overestimate.

But, lets look at an actual 10lb. package of long grain rice.
The label says 10lbs of rice yields 100 servings at 160cal/serving.
100 x 160 = 16,000 cal x 10 (since 100lbs/10lbs = 10) = 160,000 cal + 7,880 (TVP) = 167,880 / 10 people = 16,788 / 30 days = 559.6 cal/day
so, we are doing a little better than my example.

Water adds no calories to the food, it only increases the volume. No matter how much water you add to that TVP, the calories are not going to increase.
The label says each can contains 3,940cals.

All I was pointing out is that you need much more than 100lbs of rice and 2 cans of TVP to feed 10 people for a month.

In your new example, appears to agree.
600+210 = 810cal x 2 times a day = 1,620.
Unfortunately you will run out of food way short of 30 days. (based on 2x50lb bags of rice and 2 #10 cans of TVP)

at 1,620cal/day, 10 people will eat those 2-50lbs bags of rice and 2 #10 cans of TCP in 10 days.
So, triple those amounts (as in my second example and you could feed 10 people for 30 days.

If interested, the math on the TVP:
The info on the TVP says 49 servings per can with a total calorie count of 3,940cal.
3940/49 = 80.41 cal/serving.
so, your 210cal is 2.6 of their servings.
49 servings x 2cans = 98 servings / 5.2 (2.6 servings twice a day)  = 18.84 / 10 people = 1.88 days worth of TVP

then we're good.  I agree that you would need more volume than I used in my example, but i was merely pointing out an extremely inexpensive option that could keep for 15+ years and actually feed people in a survival situation.

i wouldn't think twice about burying a couple caches of these items in vacuum packaging.

(I pulled the nutrition information off of actual labels from the store)

Good info

subbed

Great thread,there are some good meal plans here. For simplicity sake I think I may try the rice/tvp option myself.

I've actually prepared it.
it's good enough to eat on a regular basis. (esp with salt/pepper)

I am posting a link to another website where a woman has posted about feeding her family of 10 and up to 16 at times.  This was posted in 2010 and describes two years +/- previous, so it sounds like her family got hit hard by the 2008 recession.  This lady was well prepped, gardened, canned, raised chickens for eggs and meat, and was able to buy locally raised beef at a good price, so it makes for very interesting reading as she describes some of their weak points and just how hard it was to run the household -- things to consider.  

http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/specialty-forums/survival-emergency-preparedness/vault/362873-feeding-extended-family-year.html

Currently in my house, it is just my husband and I, but there is the possibility we could wind up with another five mouths to feed.  It really is impractical to keep enough wet canned goods stocked up.  I think for our situation it is much more economical to stock up on FD for the long term and stock the wet canned for the medium term.

Also as far as rice is concerned, we all know brown rice is the most nutritious but has the shortest storage time because it is a whole grain.  White rice will keep forever but is lacking in nutrition.  Although I am not wild for it, I do keep some of the Uncle Ben's converted rice ("enriched parboiled long grain rice") on hand.  It does have some of the B vitamins added back so that helps.  I know our local GFS sells it in 50-lb bags.

TVP -- not everyone can tolerate TVP.  Make sure you and your family members can tolerate it and are not allergic to it before you stock up on it.  

I

Thanks for the link.  It is a must read.

An interesting read for sure.

They relied heavily on a bread machine, cell phone alarms and the dishwasher. Very eye opening.

+1

Good stuff.

This is one area where home canning really shines.  The glass jars are completely non-reactive; we regularly eat 3 or 4-year-old home-canned tomato products.  It was a bit of an epiphany for me to realize at one meal that my high-school senior daughter was eating tomatoes she'd picked in the garden as a freshman.  



Another area where home canning really pays off.  Ground beef (and other meat, for that matter) is not difficult to can, and it's much cheaper to do it yourself.  Most recipes - every one I've tried, in fact - that call for ground beef work just as well with home-canned as with fresh, and most of the time the difference in taste is barely noticeable, if at all.  Wait for a really good sale, load up, and stock your shelves.

And have you noticed the price of Yoder's canned bacon these days?  While I confess I haven't canned that myself yet (waiting for just the right sale ), many have... including some here.  Every report I've seen has been positive.

The bacon, while it is exceptional, it is insanely priced....but there is a lot of work involved, I don't know how some people justify the expense!

It doesnt need to take a entire garage to store the PROPER foods. You may have no problem living for extended periods of time under stress on 1,000-1,500 calories a day but I plan to plan for SURVIVAL and slow starvation isn't surviving. It's just dying slowly!!!! Also, this idea that so many PREPPERS have that rice is a main food for the rest of the world so its good enough for me is fataly flawed. The rest of the world does not eat processed WHITE rice as a staple. Brown, long grain and wild varieties yes not white. It simply doesnt have the nutritional value to sustain life.

i can survive on less than 1000 calories a day.. I've done it for extended periods of time.

it's not an idea that preppers have.

it is in practice all over the world.  when the US sends aid into countries we send enriched white rice. (not long grain brown rice).

your believing in my statement has no bearing on whether it's true or not, it is.  it doesn't matter that you dont believe it.

and as an update.  
1,000 calories (1 cup of white rice/1 cup of pinto beans - precooked volume) costs $0.57/serving - yields 1000 calories.

add TVP for flavor or to increase caloric value.

eat that twice a day and you'll be eating better than 75% of the world population.

TVP has flavor?

the flavored TVP does.

You may continue to exist on 1k calories a day.. sitting on your couch but you are auto cannibalizing. You may have done it as a diet to loose weight but you won't do it under stress for any length of time and you WONT have enough energy to carry out actual work much less rebuild muscle tissue damaged from heavy work. 1K calories a day is a starvation diet for the average Male doing any level of exercise or work. That includes long field marches to the bug out retreat, farming, gathering wood or water, patrolling or any other physical tasks that will be required post event. Also,, using the diet of malnourished inhabitants of third world countries as a yard stick by which to measure your survival is reckless. In areas where Rice is the ONLY food people die of malnutrition. In your recent menu you added beans so now we are talking about a combined simple protein a VERY different diet than rice alone.

Even your example of 2k calories a day is a straight path to at the very least sickness and more than likely dangerously low body weight for any adult males who are taking part in heavy physical activity. Not my opinion MEDICAL FACT.  Just to maintain your body weight and health(like keeping your immune system normal,, kinda important)
Adult male 5'10 age 40 185 lbs----------moderate activity 2752 calories-------------very active 3120 calories
look at the number of calories suggested to burn under those categories. Very active is allowing(suggesting) you to burn 343 calories. How many calories do you think you will burn cutting fire wood for two hours or hiking 6 miles with a 35lb patrol pack?? Here's a hint....Without the pack you are burning approx 180-300 calories PER HOUR... Most "preppers" don't store enough food as it is and thats based on the magical 2200-2500 calories a day formula. My advice, plan for and store 3k calories a day. Just my opinion but I don't plan to starve..

guys.
get real here.

Granted, I wasn't eating only rice and beans...But
When I was marathon training and running north of 30 miles a week I wasn't eating 3,000 cals a day.  2100 to 2800 was pretty typical.  I logged everything I consumed..
On top of the running I was also cycling, hiking and working..

I get that you guys can "look something up on the internet".  congratulations on your ability to regurgitate something you read.

I'm telling you that a person can live/survive, and thrive on 2,000 cals a day..
I'm 6' 190#  (just so y'all dont think im a 5'5" 135#'er..)


we're chasing rabbits here, none of this sidebar really applies to the OP.  
what exactly do you recommend for feeding a large group after SHTF??