I would imagine the prices on those aren't cheap. I'd be afraid of the cheaper ones, especially if they come from China. Yikes.

Doesn't sams club sell buckets of these?

http://www.rei.com/

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http://www.rei.com/search?query=MRE

Cheap and good. I can personally vouche for them.

Ok mate I am a former Marine and I will tell ya plainly you do NOT want to buy MRE's. They are PACKED full of preservatives. I am highly active with a high metabolism and even with that I gained freaking 25 lbs on MRE's in less than 6 months in Iraq. Once real food started to come in I evened out but still it was unbelievable. Learn how to can or buy non perishables like rice. I hate rice!!! but its dehydrated and can be cooked really easy. You can survive on a cup of rice per day... It won't be pretty but you can survive. Other things are beans, nuts and seeds. All of these have great shelf lives and can be hidden fairly easily. Remember that there are hoarding laws on the books (I actually just leaned this)

There are plenty of other ways to survive besides dropping a ton of loot on mre's

Yeah, Casper is right. I keep 100 lbs of rice, 20 cans of beans, granola bars, canned nuts, and similar non to slow perishables. MREs are good too because after you've been eating rice for a week, an MRE might start to sound pretty tasty, even with all the preservatives. MREs are much more expensive than rice/beans. My favorite strategy is just buying up nuts, rice, and beans, whenever they are buy one get one free or something.

This is all of course preperation for worst case scenarios. In that scenario, you wont be very picky.

MREs have chemicals in them to make you constipated. I'm not just talking about "can't go today" but colon-clogging, soul-crushing, hard-as-rock, massive poo. MREs are not a good idea unless you are going to starve otherwise.

The other issue is stockpiling food. I've done this, had a year supply in storage. I still have rice and beans as an emergency backup. These present their own types of problems. If it isn't stuff you're going to eat anyway, it's sort of wasted (except, of course, for your two-week emergency supply which should be transportable). Canned goods would be an exception and I keep about a two-month supply.

Honestly, the best thing is to develop a different lifestyle. First, start cooking everything from scratch. It's cheaper, it's healthier, and you'll be developing valuable skills. Start by making your own bread as it has the most chemicals in it. Homemade bread will survive about three days outside of the refrigerator -- store bought will last ten days. Guess why? You can pick up a bread machine at a thrift store for under $20 and you'll save about $40 a month making your own. You should also learn to make basic bread by hand (very easy, let me know if you want instructions). A used book store will have tons of bread cookbooks. You can live off of rice, beans and bread. There is nothing as wonderful as the smell of a hot loaf of bread coming out of the oven.

A good vacuum sealer is essential. This allows you to extend your storage of up to three times as long, especially for frozen items. I even seal flour and sugar, then freeze it for 24 hours to prevent bug infestations. It keeps pests out of your home.

Also, start canning. This requires some equipment, but it allows you to buy items in bulk. This week, I got free-stone peaches at the store for $1 a pound and I will can as much as I can handle. You simply put the peach halves, light syrup and a shot of brandy in each jar and water bath it for 20 minutes. After about four months, they are amazing. It makes for a nice dessert, brandied peach halves with a shot of brandy syrup with cream in it. I can meat when it's on sale (this goes into long term storage), apples, peaches, jellies, lemon juice. Canned food will last about seven years. It's still edible after that, but the nutritional value starts to wane a bit. But having canned chicken or pork you can add to your rice and beans will make you feel like you're a king.

My "epiphany" on all this was the idea that it is infinitely easier to grow your own food and have a steady supply. I don't grow all of it, but enough that with my stores, I could survive until I could expand my garden. You would be amazed at how difficult it is to grow produce, so it is a good idea to experience your failures when your live doesn't depend on it. You can start by growing your own herbs.

I think it's about having a stockpile that you are constantly rotating as opposed to trying to store "survival food." There's an article some place on the web about people starving to death despite having enough food because of their limited diet. No one is going to survive long on the same bowl of rice and beans. You really need to have a way to introduce new flavors and textures.

Get some MREs. But if you keep a supply of food for use in your home, do what Optisoft and Bonehead suggest: keep nutritious dry foods and home-canned foods.

I have, in my stash of emergency supplies, store-bought canned goods. Why? Just because of the convenience and cost. I personally don't want to eat canned goods because I don't want to ingest preservatives and BPAs (which are present in all commercially canned foods). But if I have to clear my shelves, throw what I can into a bag, and leave - and then eat out of cans - I really don't think I'll care about the preservatives. It will just be important for me to eat and feed my family. (We won't be asking if the canned tuna is dolphin-safe or not, either.)

So, I guess you could say: minor in the commercial goods. They're convenient. MREs are among the most convenient, because you can actually get an entire meal AND it's packed full of calories. That is GREAT if you need to eat quickly (i.e. if you're on the run) or if you're burning off a lot of calories each day, or if you are rationing your meals to one a day. You get a lot of bang for your buck.

But...back to the subject of healthy foods: major in things like Optisoft mentioned such as rice, beans, wheat, etc. in buckets. Buy it in bulk, pack it up, and store it for when you need it. If you're able to stay in your home during the aftermath of a disaster, but the grocery stores are looted or otherwise empty (like we experienced here in New Orleans just 5 years ago) then a huge supply of rice and beans will keep you alive. And you'll probably end up healthier when all is said and done.

But you need other nutrients as well. To get those, pickle foods. It's proven that fermented and pickled foods are good for you, and in some cases the vitamin/nutrient content of particular foods actually increases with fermentation (I believe sauerkraut has a lot of vitamin C for instance, although I might be mistaken on that one).

In my stash, I have home-canned pickled okra. All grown in my backyard. At the store, I would easily pay $5 a can for the same quality BTW. But this is all home-made, and the only real cost was my labor, the cans, and the spices. But it's way cheaper in the long run than just buying it at the store.

I made my own pickles with cucumbers from our garden. Our plants yielded prodigiously this year, so I really had no choice but to give cucumbers to all my friends and my family members and to pickle them. We might not be able to put them on hamburgers (if we open these cans during a major catastrophe) but they'll be good nonetheless.

I probably need to do an entire post on this on my blog, and I might, but a LOT of good info is out there. It's simple to can at home; the only hard part is getting your recipes correct to season things perfectly. If you want to see it all done, YouTube is great - there are quite a few instructional videos on home canning.

You can pretty much can anything: vegetable, fruits (jellies and jams), and even stuff like eggs. And all the supplies are available at Hell-Mart (Wal-Mart) if you need 'em.

Oh yeah - and Bonehead is correct: you rotate your stockpile. You could keep most canned goods for 2-5 years, and home canned goods are really no different. Just periodically can, and consume the older of your supplies, and keep rotating them.

As long as you have an AK or a shotgun, you can very likely survive a major food shortage in comfort...

Thanks everybody! I wil take all of this into account when I make my purchases.
Some ideas I hadn't even thought of..
@BayouBilly,
wow ! you really know your stuff! I would love to learn to can.. I will try the youtube vids and see what I can find. I hadn't thought of youtube.. i guess they have bout every vid you can think of? =)

@bonehead,
I have a vacc sealer.. I haven't used it since I bought it. ?? Never read the directions and put it up on a shelf to learn another day and just never got around to it.. guess I will get to it now. great idea to store. .. (I should of thought of that) lol

Opt and Casper,
Thanks guys! Maybe a back up few won't be so bad, maybe for the last resort kinda deal?

Aba,
Actually, I went today.. they did have some.. so thank you for the reference!