Taste Some Of Your Long Term Food Storage To See If It’s Any Good
“Hi Ken. I recently had experience eating some of my preps, canned chicken, and was reminded of the importance and necessity of eating what one preps. Found that I really don’t care for one of the brands I had, and so will swap it out (donate to a local food bank) for brands I do prefer. Perhaps a good reminder to others to practice what one preps.”
What a great bit of advice!
I have found this to be true myself! Especially when starting out prepping, we tend to get excited about taking quick actions towards our food-independence. Some of those actions may not be entirely well thought out at first.
What I mean is… we might end up buying some things that may not be the best choice.
More specifically, we might acquire foods or brands that when tasted, we say “yuck!” “that’s gross!”. Or, we might buy the wrong foods for optimal long term storage.
I remember my first purchases when I became serious about long term food storage back in 2008 (or thereabouts). I had purchased an emergency food kit bundle of various dehydrated and freeze dried foods in #10 cans. It was more or less an impulsive ‘knee jerk’ reaction at the time (to get ‘something’), and then I would build from there.
However (and fortunately), quite a few years later I decided to taste some of that particular food. We opened up a few various #10 cans. We made a few sample meals (basically adding water and heating it up). To put it mildly, it was not what we expected. Most of it seemed to be various ‘fillers’. Gravy. Not much substantive ingredients. And it did not taste good. Yuk. Good thing I ate and sampled some of it. As a result, I got rid of that particular batch. Lesson learned… order a small quantity and taste it first before buying a bulk quantity!
Make A Meal From Some Of Your Old Food Storage
They (long term food storage vendors) always market with ‘pretty pictures’ – delicious looking meals on a plate – looks great, right? Well, that’s not what this stuff looked like! It didn’t taste very good.
That particular food company vendor mentioned above is long gone. They only lasted a few years before disappearing like so many others back then. There were lots of startups hoping to capitalize on the prepper movement at the time.
Anyway, we learned quite a few lessons the hard way:
- Do better research first.
- Check ratings and reviews of long term emergency food vendors and their products.
- How long has the company been in business?
- Which vendors have the best reputation?
- Where are their ingredients sourced from? Email the company and ask.
- Find out the expected shelf life of the various products. They do differ!
A particularly important thing that I learned with regards to long term shelf life foods of this type (#10 cans, dehydrated, freeze dried) –
Buy a small quantity first. Sample it. Open it up and actually use it, consume it. Taste it.
How did it work out? Were you happy with it? Did it taste okay or good? Okay, then you can buy more.
It also sometimes comes down to this: You get what you pay for.
Not always, but often the better ‘stuff’ costs more. Same goes with many of these long term storage foods and kits (#10 cans of freeze dried meals, etc..).
I Like Augason Farms The Best
(With that said, there are many good vendors!)
Awhile ago I polled Modern Survival Blog readers for their favorite emergency food vendor brands. Augason Farms came out on top. And I agree. Interestingly, Jacqeline Augason contacted me back during the early days of this blog and advertised with us for awhile. Phil and Jacqueline Augason created Blue Chip Group/Augason Farms, a prosperous dry food manufacturing business in Utah. Unfortunately Phil Augason passed away during 2006, and Jacqueline passed during 2015. The company remains a family business and has exploded in popularity, and you even see their foods in large chain big box stores these days. Anyway, they don’t advertise directly with us anymore because their presence is quite well known. But I do recommend them fully…
Augason Farms Storefront on amzn
Sample / Consume / Eat some of your long term storage foods.
This goes for any and everything. Not just what I’ve suggested above (#10 cans emergency foods). But everything that you have in your diversified food storage. Look for old stuff. You might find that packaging has failed and some things have spoiled. Maybe a mouse got into some of it. Bugs? Who knows… but you should re-asses every so often.
We taste test different items from time to time, and also check store canned foods for bulge or looseness of the can. We found 3 canned hams that were very loose feeling packing and threw them out.
When buying canned foods be sure and check for dents. We found that pull top stuff does not keep a seal as long as a regular can.
Not too long ago we had some of our MRE meals. They were good, filling, and more than adequate, especially in tough times.
We home can things and much prefer home canned chicken to store bought canned chicken. We find that store bought chicken simply has little to no taste.
A comment on Modern Survival Blog
Store what you Eat and Eat what you Store.
[ Read:
Food Storage Mistakes To Avoid