Food Insurance?

[soulsyfn]

Alright, so I was listening to talk radio this morning and a commercial came on for Food Insurance (http://www.foodinsurance.com/). At first I thought to myself...WTF!?!? Then I thought this is exactly what we need to make it through a big chunk of time.

Imagine finding their warehouse and using it as a staging area to ride out the zombie outbreak - this company is relatively unknown right now, but there have to be other providers of this type of solution.The most cost effective option is $199 for a 2 week supply of food but there is a 1 year option for a family of 5 for $10k.

I wonder how long the freeze dried food would be good for?

[Publius]

They say the individual servings (in pouches) last for about 7 years, and the bulk packages (in cans) last for 25.

Gimmicky name, though. Insurance is an arrangement whereby a third party agrees to assume the risk of some kind of event happening, and pay you compensation in that event. If I have more money in the bank than is necessary to meet my immediate needs, that's not "money insurance," that's just having a lot of money.

[Epidemic79]

This is intriguing. A concept so in tune with our kind of crowd. Altho its probably a good thing that I dont have the extra income to invest in this....

[soulsyfn]

Yeah same here, I was thinking about getting a few backpacks just to have around... but then the bills came in and that idea was pushed aside :(

[Sammich]

There are many companies right now selling long term storage foods, as people are getting very concerned with the way the economy is going down the tubes. I buy mostly from Emergency Essentials and Safe Castle. Efoods direct and freeze dry guy have pretty good reputations also.

On youtube there are many vids up about this issue. Do a search on "bug out bag" or "preparedness" and go on from there.

You have to realize that the current inventory model is based on kanban (a concept created in Japan meaning "just in time") where stores only have enough stock on hand based upon customer demands. Gone are the big store rooms in the back which have been replaced by trucks arriving daily. If this fragile shipping system is affected by say financial collapse or gas prices soaring to the point that truck frieght companies go bankrupt then it isn't hard to see how fast food, water, etc will disappear from shelves.

Those in the preparedness circles say that you should have a minimum of 6 months of food storage on hand, others say 1 year. I don't even have this much yet. One thing is for certain it would be wise at this point to try to at least a few weeks or a month worth of supplies. It doesn't have to be the freeze dried stuff, but just buy a few extra cans and put them aside when you do your regular shopping at costco or sams club.

A word of warning if you do decide to start making preperations: DO NOT tell anyone who is not himself preparing or would ridicule you as to what you are doing. If and when something catastrophic happens guess who is going to show up at your front door demanding that you hand over some of your supplies?

An episode of Twilight Zone called The Shelter demonstrates this very well.
The Shelter part 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ei7Gr-0uNU)
The Shelter part 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTdDfegVBC0)
The Shelter part 3 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLNMZjUf0wk)

[Epidemic79]

Good post. Great reference with TZ;The Shelter ep. That one is a definate favorite.

On the buying & stocking of food / supplies,I know different sources say different amounts for different lengths of time. I say a month's worth is a given for anyone living in any place,but anything over the 1 year mark ya gotta seriously plan. Even Canned Goods can & do eventually go bad,so you'd have to catagorize them all by Expiration Dates. For other dried & sealed goods go by "freshness" date I guess.

Hell,I've got cans from like 3 or 4+ years back that I know I should pack up and haul on down to a food drive. Time to start re stocking the cupboard.

M.R.E.s are not a bad option at all,altho they do not come as cheap as they did a decade ago...

[Yojimbo]

Good thread!

As a Japanese American, my culture consumes a lot of rice, mostly processed white rice, but occasionally brown rice which is more nutritious. My grandfather grew up during the depression and my grandmother having lived in Tokyo during WWII was always hyper aware about what can happen to civility of the common man when society as a whole is starving for food. In this regard, I grew up in a household where we always had several large bulk bags of rice, dried beans and cases of canned meats and vegetables in the basement just in case everything goes south.

It occurs to me that bulk bags of beans and rice, if stored properly, can last a very long time and are not all that costly. Might be an awfully bland diet, to be sure, but it will taste really good if you are starving and can be divided into smaller portions should you need to use this to trade for other supplies after the dead start walking, or the electricity goes out for good. Since these are items we consumed regularly the basement stockpile was rotated out and replaced on a frequent basis.

They also had a fairly good stock of cheap booze in the basement- my grandma always said the booze was for trading and to be used medicinally if everything went to shit, but I guess they could have been closet alcoholics.

My point about this is, sure there are a lot of companies that are set up to separate you from your money by playing on your fears, but with a little thinking and planning I think that a good half-year to a years stockpile worth of food for your average american family can be had for a lot less money than 10k.

EDIT: Quick web search says that they have dug up rice at archological digs that after being unearthed were still edible after a very very long time. Not all rice will last as long, so this is something to take into consideration if you intend to store your rice for more than a year or so. Apparently dried beans won't last that long unless refrigerated, which is strange since we never refrigerated our stock - likely we were rotating our stock of beans more frequently than I realized.

http://www.chow.com/stories/10436

[AcesandEights]

Cool thread.

One thing I notice, for the purpose of storing, is the necessity quite often of a cool, dry place. This sort of begs the question how to assure this criteria for your storage area. I mean, if you want to store bulk goods most of us would do so in a basement, attached garage or separate outbuilding (barn for example). Now, I don't know about you guys, but my basement, where I'd want to store this stuff, gets damp from time to time. No flooding issues, but damp, as many cellars and basements do.

So I'm wondering if there are any good rules of thumb on cabinets, containers or methods that thoroughly seal out and perhaps even aid in fighting spoilage from the water in the food itself.

I just did a search just now and got a ton of reading material, so I'll chime in if I find any 'I never would have thought of that' results. But anyone got any good info on this, anecdotal or otherwise?

[Sammich]

M.R.E.s are not a bad option at all,altho they do not come as cheap as they did a decade ago...

If you search the grocery store, you will find that commercial companies are now going to retort packaging of prepared meats like fish and chicken and these have been showing up in the actual military mres. The shelf life listed in the store bought stuff is less than what is stated on mres, but I think those dates are very conservative due to too many ambulance chasing lawyers.

---------- Post added at 10:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:43 PM ----------


Cool thread.

One thing I notice, for the purpose of storing, is the necessity quite often of a cool, dry place. This sort of begs the question how to assure this criteria for your storage area. I mean, if you want to store bulk goods most of us would do so in a basement, attached garage or separate outbuilding (barn for example). Now, I don't know about you guys, but my basement, where I'd want to store this stuff, gets damp from time to time. No flooding issues, but damp, as many cellars and basements do.

So I'm wondering if there are any good rules of thumb on cabinets, containers or methods that thoroughly seal out and perhaps even aid in fighting spoilage from the water in the food itself.

I just did a search just now and got a ton of reading material, so I'll chime in if I find any 'I never would have thought of that' results. But anyone got any good info on this, anecdotal or otherwise?

The most important thing in food storage is avoiding high temperatures. Moisture would be a concern if you have alot of canned items. For bulk storage of things like rice, grain, etc. pour into a plastic 5 gallon bucket lined with a food grade mylar bag, add oxygen absorbers, then heat seal the bag. It will be good in even the most damp areas.

I keep alot of my non-bucket stuff in an non working freezer. Keeps out the bugs and moisture.

Another concern is drinking water. If you don't have one already, you should have a water filter, like something from Katadyn, MSR, Berky, etc is what is needed as it will remove the biological nasties like giardia and cryptosporidium. The brita kitchen type filters are just activated charcoal and are meant just to remove chemicals that create bad tasting water and will let critters though.

A good site on preparedness is survivalblog.com run by James Wesley Rawles, author or Patriots: Surviving the Comimng Collapse and How to Survive The End of the World as We Know it (commonly referred to as TEOTWAWKI).