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Someday You May be Grateful You Bought a Supply of Freeze Dried Meals

The best way known to preserve food -- especially after it's cooked and ready to go -- is freeze drying.

Freeze dried meals just need hot water added, and then they're delicious and ready for you to scarf up.

This is accomplished by a process that sucks 98% of the water out of the food. Then it's packed in containers that are air tight and flushed with nitrogen.

For long term storage, the containers are #10 steel cans coated with enamel on the inside and the outside, including the lid. For camping and boating, the containers are mylar packages that can be stuffed into backpacks and are lightweight to carry.

The cans have a storage life of from twenty to thirty years if kept in a cool place. Packages are more like five to seven years, and should also be kept in a cool place.

The United States Department of Homeland Security recommends that all Americans keep a 72 hour supply of emergency food on hand.

Think carefully about what you need freeze dried food kits for. You're going to hike along a local trail? Then obviously you'll need enough to get you through it.

You believe civilization is on the verge of collapse? Then you better get at least a year's supply, along with water, a water purifier, gold and silver coins, guns, ammunition, and a lot of other things.

Of course, only buy the meals you and your family will enjoy. No sense in buying meals that your kids will turn their noses up at.

Also be careful about what you're buying. There's no standard as to what a "one year" supply of emergency food kits means. What looks good while you're browsing a web site may run out a lot faster than you think, when you're hungry and that's all you've got to eat.

Look for the number of calories in each meal. You'll want at least 2000 calories per adult per day. Maybe more, since in the event of a long term catastrophe you'll be doing more physical labor than you probably do now.

And make sure you're getting actual ready to go just add water meals. Some disaster kits include flour, dried beans and dry milk. Do you or your spouse know how to cook something from scratch -- without any fresh eggs?

I've never seen any meals designed for a special diet. No Zone meals, Atkins meals, Weight Watchers meals . . .

Of course, in a disaster you can just be grateful you're alive and that you have any food at all to eat.

Myself, I'm on the Zone diet and don't want to go off it, so I also add Balance original bars which have precise 40% carbohydrates 30% protein and 30% fat nutrition.

If worse comes to worse, perhaps I'll be eating on the "original" version of the Zone diet -- eating lean wild meat, nuts, insects and gathered eggs for my protein and fat. And leaves, roots and fruit in season for my carbohydrates. Hey, it's how people ate for hundreds of thousands of years.

Remember that having a good stock of freeze dried meals is simply another form of insurance. Here's hoping that we never need it -- but we have no guarantee.