I've tried several brands of freeze dried but alway came back to Mountain House brand. I can't seem to find any good deals on Mountain House anymore. What's your favorite and where do we find it?

My Walmart has it on clearance from time to time. In January I bought all of the pasta primavera (27) for $2/pop.

Can't go wrong with the Chili Mac.  My favorite is the Potatoes and Cheese with Broccli.

I can't remember any off the top of my head, but alot of places are running MH sales right now.
Emergency essentials maybe?

Try here

TAG

Not the better deal, but better taste IMHO.  



http://www.alpineaire.com/



I wouldn't say Mountain House tastes bad, but I just have enjoyed this company's products more.

I like these guys.  They seem to stay very competitive in pricing.

Karst

I like wise foods. I just received the free sample from them. I would put them on par with MH as far as price. Taste good. Very good customer service. Im planning to supplement my dried foods with a bit more MH and possibly mix in some Wise foods as well.

Order it straight from Mountain house.  They are about the cheapest around.  Plus right now they are discontinuing their "Marine Cuisine" brand and are offering it on clearance.  It is the same stuff just different picture on the package.  The Marine Cuisine I got still was labeled good until 2017.

- AG

The Epicenter has a good deal on #10 cans of Mountain House right now.
All cans are 15% until Friday, April 16th. The code APRIL will get you another 10%. Free shipping as well.
So if you order before Friday its a total of 25% off and free shipping!

www.theepicenter.com

I just placed an order for 2 cases of Spaghetti, a case of Lasagna, and a case of Chicken & Noodles. $500 shipped.
I have tried all three before and they tasted great.

I can't seem to find any good deals on ANY kind of freeze dried long term storage foods. The $$$ paid for the amount of food you get when it comes to that stuff makes it pretty difficult to store any meaningful amount of it. Same with MREs. For the $70 I'd have to shell out for a 12 meal case of MREs, I could put away up to 8 five gallon buckets of other types of food stuff!

I have decided that for stuff other than bulk grains, or stuff such as powdered eggs, cheese, butter, milk, etc which seems best handled by buying packed in #10 cans), getting a dehydrator and dehydrating your own veggies is the most economical route to go. I grow a great deal of my own veggies anyway, so the bang for the buck is very good here. Outside the initial cost of the dehydrator, there's just not a lot of expense here. One can also mix and match their dehydrated veggies to make soup mixes or whatnot too.

As for meat, I'm looking at all the options. But I'd like to keep the mega expensive items as few as possible. I wish I could afford to buy large amounts of freeze dried stuff, as I really like Mountain House stuff. But for the $28 I'd need to spend to get a #10 can of freeze dried spaghetti with meat sauce that makes a mere 10 one cup servings (that sounds like about 2 meals per can for everyone but finicky eaters), I think I could find a better way to spend that $28.

Gonna be going the 5 gallon bucket route right know I'm looking for a place to buy bulk beans, grains and such. Any other suggestions for the 5 gallon buckets? With the freeze dried food I was just looking for some variety.

If I've been out all day hiking/working, a two cup serving would fill me up without any other sides.
Mountain House is supposed to be a "main course", not a full meal.
I paid $17 shipped for the #10 cans of Mountain House spaghetti at TheEpicenter.

I'm trying to stock:
60% of what I regularly eat, in bulk.
30% in #10 cans.
10% in MREs / M.H. pouches.

I've been getting mine from LMISupply. Usually they have some sale or somethinggoing on that puts it between 10-25% offf MSRP and they let you mix cases.

I have gotten numerous emails from Emergency Essentials at:  beprepared.com/default.asp. Check them out for Mountain House. Good Luck

Not quite about low cost dry foods but obtaining food grade buckets with lids, our local Wal-Mart is more than willing to given they away.  I have obtained a boat-load of them for storage and other uses.  I go to the bakery area (mostly Hispanic ladies), act respectful and ask nicely; never a problem.

Not sure if you're looking at buying locally or online, but if you have any issues with finding the stuff you need in your area, I would suggest this for your bulk bean and grain purchases:

Honeyville

They have outstanding shipping rates. Your whole order will ship for $4.49, no matter how much you order. Take a look at their products. They offer most of their stuff in #10 cans. But they also have the option of buying in bulk 50 lb bags on many of their items. Go there and look around. They have very competitive prices on most of their stuff.

I also use the online LDS store for certain things. For example, they have really good prices on beans and certain items. And they ship free. But they have an extremely limited menu option. But for the few things they do carry, you can't beat their prices. If there is any negative with LDS orders, it is the fact your cans come packed in boxes labeled with the contents in big letters. So it isn't too discrete, though I don't worry much about that living far off the beaten path.

As for buckets? Well, certainly you can buy them online. Honeyville has some good ones. But they are a bit pricey. I am a big fan of free myself. Hehe. I happen to have a relative who owns a local restaurant and I get him to hold back all of the 5 gallon plastic buckets he uses and pick them up about once per week. They go through quite a few pickles that come packed in these buckets. Though you have to clean them yourself, you end up saving a lot of money, especially when you start talking bigger quantities. Doughnut shops are also another good place to look for buckets. If you talk to the owners, most will be glad to save their buckets for you. Most will just give them to you, though some may charge you a small fee, like $1 per bucket, still a bargain over other options.

BTW, I am also experimenting with the use of the 1 gallon (unused of course) paint cans available at hardware stores for storing foods that aren't ideally suited to large 5 gallon buckets. The plan involves heat sealing the contents in a 1.5 gallon mylar bag (I am choosing to use 1.5 gallon bags so as to be able to get at least one full gallon in each can and have enough empty space left to provide for a good seal on the bag), adding an 02 absorber, applying the seal, then fold down the excess and tuck it into the can, then tapping the lid down with a rubber mallet. Not only do you end up with a double layer of protection, but you also end up with something mice and rats can't chew through. Plastic buckets are 100% rodent proof. Of course my main reason for looking at the paint cans in addition to 5 gallon buckets is more about putting certain items that you don't use at a high rate in a smaller container, so that I reduce risk of the contents spoiling before I can use it up. It will take a long time to use up certain food items packed in 5 gallon amounts. I'd hate to have to break open a 5 gallon bucket full of butter, cheese powder or powdered milk. I am also thinking of using these cans and mylars for storage of the vegetables I plan to start dehydrating this summer when the garden is ready. Perhaps I should take some good notes and pics of the process while doing it, then post it here for others to reference. Or maybe I'll video the whole operation and break into the youtube scene for the first time. Hehe.

Oh, one last thing....though their prices aren't as good as Honeyville on most items, this place does have some bulk food items you can't get from Honeyville:

Bulk Foods

They also offer $5 shipping on all orders totaling $75 or more.

Good luck in your hunt to acquire the most bang for the least buck.

costco has a year's worth of food for $799 right now...

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11487214&search=dehydrated%20food&Mo=1&cm_re=1_en-_-Top_Left_Nav-_-Top_search&lang=en-US&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&Sp=S&N=5000043&whse=BC&Dx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntk=Text_Search&Dr=P_CatalogName:BC&Ne=4000000&D=dehydrated%20food&Ntt=dehydrated%20food&No=1&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Nty=1&topnav=&s=1

We recently talked about this one, wasn't there like 1200 daily calories allotted to make this a "year" supply?
 

Tag

Emergency Essentials is having an April sale on lots of items; most MH foods are marked down significantly. Unfortunately I blew all my cash this month already at Honeyville Famrs when they had their sale... But EE seems to have some good deals right now, especially on MH foods.

Still seems like a pretty good price for something with a shelf life of 15-30 years. If you could survive off 2000 calories a day, that's still enough food to last you 219 days. Comes out to about $3.65 a meal.

What are the diffeences with the DEHYDRATED foods and those that are FREEZE DRIED?  Other than the way they are processed, are there any differences with the shelf life or how they are prepared to consume?

You know that the MH chili mac has beans, right?  

Thumbs up to the beef stew as well.  I just broke into a 72 hour kit as it was reaching its expiration date.  The breakfast entrees are fairly decent if you strain out the water after cooking; watery eggs do not make a good meal!  

Tag for latter