I'm not lactose intolerant, but I have a friend who is,
so my statement is based reviews I have read by lactose intolerant people (both on the Auguston Farms website and others) and on his results.

Apparently it depends on what a persons exact intolerance is.

However, my friend cannot drink milk, eat cheese or ice cream, without exploding......    
but he drinks the Morning Moos without problems and his wife uses it in recipes calling for milk and it also causes him no problems.

This website states that most of the lactose is removed during the production of whey,
http://www.getprograde.com/whey-protein-and-dairy-intolerance.html



ETA: As with anything else, you should try it before stacking in bulk.

Speaking of storing what you eat.....  

I have always been surprised at the number of people that eat canned foods.
I guess I should not be considering the number of canned goods at the store.

Seriously, I just looked in our cupboard and there are a couple of cans of tuna, a couple of cans of pumpkin (it's that time of year), and a can of Rotel tomatoes.

I like canned peaches (there is one can in the refrigerator),

but generally, my wife knows how to cook and she rarely uses anything out of a can.

What are you prepping for?  This seems to be a fair and reasonable question to ask somebody.

Well...it depends on the person, I guess, right?

Since hurricane Wilma, I've made it a point to keep some spare food for when the power goes out over an extended period of time.  For me, I lost power during hurricane Andrew for 18 hours, so no biggie.  For Wilma, it was 15 hours.  Just long enough for a few snacks, a cup of hot tea, or to see if the local restaurants were open.

However, my GF lost her power during Wilma for ~14 days, my boss for ~21 and my aunt/uncle came down for 5 days, from Boca Raton and stayed with me.  14-21 days can be a bummer without power and you're going to have to resort to making due with what you have.

Prepping for a few days/weeks, store bought canned goods can be fine, with soups, fruit, veggies, chilis, tuna, salmon, chicken, beans/rice and pasta/sauces, so they do have their place IMO.  

I've thought about keeping some of the F.D. foods like M.H. and B.P., but every time I start crunching the numbers, I think to myself...'wow, $6-$8 buys me a lot of soup, tuna and chili--stuff that will last only a couple of years, but it's stuff that I eat and like to eat, although not every day.

I'm in a condo, I have a small generator, but I can't rely on that to power the fridge.  If I don't get a lot of ice for my coolers before the rush comes and the power goes out, I've got a day, or so, until my food spoils, so what's left?

It sucks for me and I get it, but not everybody is preparing for a 30 year siege with a family of 6.  Some of us just need to be able to eat something for a week, or three, until things return to normal.

For the 'Great Collapse' that's apparently coming, it would be nice to have three million calories of beans, rice, canned goods and F.D. food, five acres and a plow, but that's not always practical for people, but keeping a month's worth of food, with ways to heat it up, doesn't have to be too hard.

Chris

No, I think you missed my point.

I agree everyone preps differently, and everyone thinks they have the best solution.
But everyone's situation is different, so what might be right for me, may not be right for someone else.
<insert theme from "Different Strokes">

My post was just a general observation I have made over the years of being in this forum.

A lot of times, people ask a pretty specific question, but eventually you get the "just store what you normally eat" responses.
I know you have seen the posts, "Just pick up extra of the canned goods you buy at the store, and rotate through them."

I was not making a judgement, just an observation.

This the wife and I tried the samples and hated them. Got mountain house and liked them

I really appreciate the input folks.  There is a lot to digest here, so I need to set some time aside to let all this settle.

I only like mountain house and have a couple of weeks worth

In short, yes, you are crazy.

Wise is TVP. Textured Vegetable Protein.  No meat in it.  It tastes like shit and has lots of sodium in it.  Buy Mountain House freeze dried meals instead.

I'm big into the Honeyville freeze dried food now

Food will always have some value. Everyone has to eat. Whether Wise Freeze Dried is the best choice, I think several folks have weighed in on that already......

Personally, I have a mix of many different types of food- nearly a years worth of standard Grocery store items, including, yes, frozen foods. Nobody can tell you what YOUR SHTF will look like....the lights may stay on for a long time (depression scenario)...or go out without notice (grid attack).... Then I have really long term food- corn, wheat, lentils, beans, rice, honey, sugar, salt, macaroni etc.....Then I have "canned" long term foods-#10 cans of dehydrated fruits, vegetables, quick oats, powdered milk. Then I have several cases of MRE's and a large stash of freeze dried foods from Mountain House, Provident Pantry and Augauson Farms.

Each portion of the pantry has a role. Some are cheap. Some are extremely long term. Some are very light weight for use on patrols if necessary. Some are simply convenient and what we eat every day but in larger quantities. All of them have downsides too- some take more time to prepare or require water, some are expensive, some don't store as long as others, some are heavy or bulky and don't "travel" well......

Food storage is not as simple as "buy all the things and forget about it". Good luck to you sir.

A few years ago we began stocking up and found out we don't eat canned goods quickly enough and also failed to rotate properly.

I tossed 10 cans of tuna that expired in 2014 just before Matthew. Which means they were purchased in 2011/2012.  

I feel that wasting food is a sin as well.

Freeze dried is the way to go if you're stocking for Shelf life of more than a couple of years.

 

Remember they will likely all go bad before you ever use them.

Remember beans plus rice is  balanced diet nutritionally, so we opted to make this:  Scotch Broth

We did buy some freeze dried vegetables for variety plus a ton of hard candy (mix).

I just figured we could find meat, frog legs - birds - squirrel - venison - pork - fish as needed but the balanced calories would be much harder to find and store if it was in dried meats.

*With any kind of notice we do intend to essentially wipe-out the canned meats section at the supermarket.  For looming disasters around here folks seem to buy milk, eggs and bread for survival food.  

I have about a 1 year supply of MH for one person, but that is not realistic due to family. Most of my food storage is bulk beans, rice, pasta, corn, wheat, oats etc. they are in mylar bags in buckets with O2 absorbers. Things people forget are salt, sugar, powdered milk and fats. I store 50 lbs of flour in 2 25 lb mylar bags and rotate it out since the shelf life is short. All of this supports my canned food rotation. Shelf Reliance brand shelving has been a big help in ensuring rotation. Don't for get spices! All those beans and rice will suck without them.
Freeze drying is awesome. A few friends and i pitched in and bought a harvest right freeze dryer. it is amazing. the food is delicious.

I love my Harvest Right  freeze dryer.  Waiting on the replacement touch screen and USB port. Mine got wet and they are sending me a new set along with a water dam.

Good point.  Get a sample and see if the stuff is even edible.  

When buying food, better look over what they send.  Some places dump a lot of cereals or drinks which is a total rip off.

Don't like Wise's stuff.  I don't think they use real meat, instead they use textured vegetable protein (TVP).

I wouldn't go that far in on freeze dried stuff unless you really like it -- I'm a proponent of stocking what you eat.

To the point about canned foods sitting less than five years and developing moisture problems, I think most people suggest rotating canned foods far more frequently, which keeps the stock fresh and gives you a chance to detect storage issues.  If you are buying what you eat, this is pretty straightforward -- it's not like you need to eat Mountain House or MREs for 3 months to use them up.

no.   to the original op question.   weather others think its a deal or not.

you will soon have more "survival" food then you did have before.

a deal for me may not be a deal for you.

i dont see anything wrong with getting more food.

good move, kudos to you.

Op, not nuts at all - freeze dried should be part of every prepper's gear.

I spent some cash on mountain house a few years ago and with a 30 year+ shelf life on the #10 cans I feel like it has been a great investment in peace of mind over the years.  I know that for a while, anyway, I can feed my family after an event like Katrina or some other kind of short-to-medium term event like that.  

I like Mountain house in that I was able to go to the store and buy pouch sized servings to taste test before making a larger investment - I personally didnt find the Wise as tasty, but to each their own.

This is an important point - especially when looking at #10 cans.  If you buy a Pro-Pak Mountain house meal, 16 oz is a "serving".  For a regular size, 12 oz is a "serving".  In the #10 can 8oz is a "serving".  Also the salt varies wildly between those 3 options oz for oz.  either way, you have to look at calories so if you want 8 oz which has about 340 calories to be a "meal' you are going to have to add rice or beans or bread or something.

Exactly,
Wise and a lot of other companies that prepackage meals tout "servings",
but people don't eat like that.

Most people do not eat a serving of eggs and move on.
They have a serving of eggs, a serving of meat, a serving of toast, and coffee, juice or both.

How many people actually measure their cereal in the morning?
If you do, I think most people might be surprised to see what Kellogg's thinks a "serving" of Corn Flakes is.  

I don't have much for complete mountain house type meals.

I do have many 5 gal buckets with:

Pasta;
Beans;
Rice;
Stone cut oats;
veggies;
pop corn;
sugar;
salt;
soup/gravy bases.


My meat storage is weak. I just don't have a good answer that works with my family.

Your answer is freeze drying, if you can afford to get a harvestright freeze dryer.

You know that expiration dates are set by lawyers?

You are correct. Those dates are placed on the cans to assure maximum freshness. The cans are good for several years after that and up to ten years if stored properly. However canned foods do lose nutritional value over the years. My canned foods make up about 10% of my my overall food preps. We keep a lot of cans of things we use frequently and not very much of other canned items.

What isn't?

Guaranteed they are the dirt that decides when the world is going to expire as well.

My wife bitched at me for buying a couple of the Mountain House "Just in Case" buckets.

Nice link, just picked up a #10 can of freeze dried shrimp.

What restrictions are you working with?

For the most part, we don't eat canned food. My son and I manage work through a fair amount of tuna fish, but that's the only meat we can rotate.

I've considered canning, but the reduced shelf-life may require more discipline than my wife is going to have.

I will look into freeze drying, as I can take as many deer/hog that I'm willing to process.

It would be nice to have a few hundred pounds set back with a huge shelf life.

I thought maybe you had some dietary restrictions you were working with.

We don't eat a lot of canned foods either.
For freeze dried we have some cans of various fruits.
I did pick up some cans of FD hamburger and chicken just cause I saw it on sale.

We do stock some cans of SPAM (various flavors) and DAK hams, and some canned bacon.

Home canning - my wife has canned some meats and they turned out pretty well.
The real winner for home canning for me is her homemade jams.

The math does not make sense for us to buy our own Freeze Dryer.
My wife and I are approaching retirement age.

Making a batch of freeze dried sausage gravy right now, food that will last like 25-30 years is a great investment, IMO

Only if you need it/use it.

Like many people, I don't eat much canned food either.  But there are some ordinary high calorie foods that keep for a decent amount of time and don't need refrigeration or water to prepare them.  Stuff like peanut butter, nutella, cereal, crackers, pop tarts, etc.  If you want several years worth of food you'll need to go more extreme, but to last a few weeks or months should be doable with thoughtful selection of ordinary food you may like to eat already.

And if you don't have a very solid water solution, stuff like pasta, rice and dried beans become an issue because they all require water that could become very precious in an emergency, particularly if boiling won't make your water safe (poisoned supply, for example) or if water supply is cut off entirely for some reason.

Buy a freeze dried food dehydrater with the money instead, or at least a down payment.

Chris has the best way I could ever describe it. I started getting into FD stuff and was buying a few cans every pay day. I quite that a while ago because it was a ripoff. I reverted to canned goods and bought the stuff I liked to eat already. I started canning my own veggies with my own pressure canner and did my own meats as well. It's much cheaper than FD. I have a few FD things I keep handy, like FD Eggs and cheese powder. That's about it. When I saw low sodium canned veggies on sale, for 3 for $1, I jumped on it and bought flats. I stored as many as I could. Then went back for more on pay day. It's about being smart with your money and looking to store what you already use.