An unlikely Long Term Food Storage resource

[Jamie Jackson]

Just a head's up for folks that are unaware.

 

Walmart.com, of all places, carries [url=http://www.walmart.com/search/search-ng.do?search_query=augason&ic=16_0&Find=Find&search_constraint=976759] Augason Farms LTS foods[/url], and the shipping is free with orders over $50.00. You can combine any "home free" listed items to meet the $50.00 requirement.

 

For me this has worked out cheaper than ordering directly from [url=http://www.augasonfarms.com/?_oskwdid=11441582&_engineadid=30203047535&gclid=CKKA5vCa0bQCFQixnQodqVkA_g]Augason Farms.[/url]

 

 

I know money is tight for everyone these days, so I hope this will help some of you folks out.

 

 

 

 

[Will H]

I don't really like giving money to Wallyworld, but like you said things are tight, so yeah.  Thanks for the link. 

[Moped]

Thanks for the link prag!

[Jamie Jackson]

You're welcome folks.

 

I understand the sentiment about Walmart. Many folks share it....But it's an affordable food storage option.

 

I have no qualm about purchasing reasonably priced ammo from them as well.  There's some decent folks working at my local Walmart. :up:

[RED333]

Thanks!!!

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Thanks Prag. It is good to see walmart still selling some things made in USA at least. Or I assume augason farms is still made in USA?

 

It seems like a good brand. I've got one of those augason buckets along with a wise foods bucket and a couple of lindon farms buckets, but haven't cooked any to see how it tastes. If one gets hungry enough presumably it will taste delicious. :)

 

I wonder sometimes reading the menu choices on these things. The very cheapest kits feed you with daily oatmeal rice and beans, and sometimes one might figger he can buy bulk oatmeal rice and beans a lot cheaper if one could assure that it would last a long time on the shelf.

 

On the other hand-- I'm not picking on augason farms because "seemingly odd" choices seem to crop up in most of these survival food kits-- The augason 1 month "deluxe" Emergency Food Pack-- http://www.walmart.com/ip/Augason-Farms-1-Month-Emergency-Food-Pack/20532426

 

Some items that might be favorites for some customers, but I say, "whaaa???"-- 2 quart cans of orange delight drink mix? 2 quart cans of chocolate morning moo milk alternative powder? 4 quart cans of honey coated banana slices? Really? 4 whole quarts of honey coated banana slices? Man I think beans and cornbread would be more palatable than choking down honey coated banana slices till all four cans are gone. :)

 

Just from my tastes and habits, the 6 cans of cream of wheat and the 3 cans of buttermilk pancake mix, well cornmeal and grits and rolled oats would go down my gullet easier...

 

Augason sells individual cans of all the stuff, one of these days I intend to add up the price of the individual cans and see if it is about the same price as the kits. Thataway you wouldn't have to buy orange koolade, fake chocolate milk and sugared banana slices along with the nutritious stuff. Am guessing that buying individual cans would be more spensive, but never can tell without tallying up the prices.

Edited January 6, 2013 by Lester Weevils

[Jamie Jackson]

Lester. You're welcome Sir.

 

As far as I know, Augason Frams is still located in Salt Lake City, or thereabouts.

 

I prefer to pick my individuals storage items as well. You know the old adage: "Store what you eat and eat what you store".

 

I recently ordered a bucket of their rolled oats and some of the banana slices you mentioned. I eat oatmeal with dried fruit almost every day..it's a fast and easy breakfast as I work 12 hour shifts...

 

Augason Farms, I believe, started with their milk alternative, Morning Moos. We store Nido Powdered milk ourselves and use it frequently. Primarily in cooking and or baking. Good stuff!

 

While the majority of our Long Term Storage(LTS) foods are thing we pack ourselves with Mylar/o2 absorbers and place into buckets...there is a certain advantage and ease to picking up some prepackaged buckets like the Augason Farms rice or rolled oats. It's already done for ya. :pleased:

 

 

We also purchase the LDS Starter Kits in #10 cans for LTS. It's affordable quality and the shipping has been free thus far.

 

I can't see prices on anything coming down...what with the incompetency in Washington, Quantitative Easing "forever" , and the rest of the Bravo Sierra occurring...

 

It's good to have options my Friend.

Edited January 6, 2013 by prag

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Thanks for the good ideas Prag. When I was working most waking hours I didn't cook much and if it wouldn't go in a microwave I didn't eat it. Wife was working overtime as well, and she thrives on different food than me. She stays skinny with full-on carbohydrate diet but I get fat just looking at bread, macaroni or taters. So anyway i've been slowing down and on the brink of either retirement or part-time, and wife just recently retired, so we've had more time to cook, which tastes better if you have time to do it. And done right it can be cheaper, and more healthy.

 

We have a walk-in closet upstairs with a few months of store-bought food. It is more humidity-controlled and more bug-immune up there for stuff like beans, rice, macaroni in the grocery packaging. I mark the date with sharpie marksalot on everything that goes in the closet and about once a year bring the "going out of date" stuff up to the front so it gets eaten first. Various canned veggies, beans, rice, macaroni, canned meat like spam which tastes ok cooked into beans or rice. 

 

In the basement we have a few months of long-term storage food in the plastic buckets and a few MRE's. Its cooler in the basement and fairly dry, and we don't tolerate bugs though its difficult to guarantee there will never be a bug in a basement. All bugs have to do is walk in the back door. :) The sealed plastic buckets seem a better bet down there and supposedly the food lasts longest in cool temps. Every 6 months or year, for the last couple of years, would buy one of those "one month buckets". I have gripes about the menu from all the different companies, so maybe the best variety would be to stock from several of the different companies? Rather than eating out of Bucket A til it is empty then cracking open Bucket B, maybe eating out of two different brands would be more variety. If nothing in Bucket A looks appetizing one day, just pick something out of Bucket B? Perhaps it is "spoiled" to worry about food variety or taste if things get thin enough to break into the emergency food, but OTOH a little variety would probably be better.

 

Probably ought to spend some more time on food storage, but at least we won't be the first to starve. :)

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Prag, since Augason Farms is in Salt Lake City, did they used to be called Perma Pak long ago in the 1960's and 1970's? The Perma Pak company sold very similar products back then, and they were a Salt Lake City outfit as well, and the Perma Pak brand name seems no longer extant.

Edited January 6, 2013 by Lester Weevils

[Jamie Jackson]

Lester;

 

It sounds like to have a very good setup. :up:

 

Rotation, along with continual additions is what we do as well. Our setup is very similar to yours.

We have an upstairs pantry with multiple shelves. and have several buckets with the gamma seal lids that hold various rice, legumes, flour, sugar, etc. along it's floor/wall under the shelves.

 

Our basement pantry has multiple shelving units for our intermediate-storage items...home canned foods, store bought canned goods, toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning products etc. and a couple ( :ugh: ) of 5 gallon buckets of Mylar/o2 absorber LTS foods. And of course a few cases of LDS "starter kits".

 

I pressure canned 7 quarts and 8 pints of boneless turkey from one of our freezers yesterday (3 turkeys we bought on sale back over Thanksgiving)...that's why I'm so long in replying.

 

We always try an consider variety for our storage and our diets. That's one of the main reason we purchase freeze dried fruits. They aren't my first choice in fruits, but they'll help with the monotony of each the same thing daily...food fatigue can be a serious issue, as you brought up.

 

We also store various freeze dried goods and some MRE's...they all have their place in the overall scheme of things. And it's not for just an "End of the world" scenario. Over the past few years, related to a protracted family illness, we've had to "shop" in our pantry for a couple of months because money got really tight. I feel/felt very Blessed that we had the storage in place.

 

 

I hadn't heard of Perma Pak before...so you piqued my interest.

 

Is [url=http://www.perma-pak.com/Home.html] [b]this it?[/b][/url]

 

Apparently a company called [url=http://www.thefoodguys.com/customerfaq.htm] [b]the food guys[/b][/url] are a distributor for Perma Pak.

 

 

Being a "gun guy" I too have focused on that aspect of my preps over the past few months. I can't do much about the firearm product insanity at the moment...so I'm trying to refocus my energies towards other aspects of my preps...like my food storage....and you know what? It won't be too long from now and I'll be starting seeds for the garden. There's always something to do... :pleased:

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I hadn't heard of Perma Pak before...so you piqued my interest.

 

Is this it?

 

Apparently a company called the food guys are a distributor for Perma Pak.

 

 

Being a "gun guy" I too have focused on that aspect of my preps over the past few months. I can't do much about the firearm product insanity at the moment...so I'm trying to refocus my energies towards other aspects of my preps...like my food storage....and you know what? It won't be too long from now and I'll be starting seeds for the garden. There's always something to do... :pleased:

 

Hi Prag. That is the company. On this page are products that look identical to what I used to store back in the 1970's  http://www.thefoodguys.com/quarter.htm

 

Back then the estimated shelf life of most items was only 5 years, and it was more expensive and less tasty than grocery food. So one either had to eat "quasi-yucky" food after 5 years to keep it from going to waste, or just give it to the food bank before the use-by date and lose the money if you couldn't stand to eat it all up. Actually I didn't mind the taste that bad, but was always a workaholic and didn't have time to cook so much, and the young sons of the first marriage would about go on a hunger strike rather than eat it. :)

 

I could fool them into eating the canned TVP meat substitute in spaghetti sauce or mexican dishes. It was "almost like meat" in those dishes, but didn't make much of a hamburger or a convincing cassarole dish. Nowadays it seems that TVP costs as much or more than meat, and people eat it for health or vegetarian reasons, but back then TVP was noticeably cheaper than meat. I think they know how to make it taste better nowadays as well. I could also fool em into eating burger patties made half and half TVP and hamburger meat. Permapak also sold freeze-dried nitrogen-packed real meat, but that was crazy expensive.

 

Buying food one might not eat- Probably wasn't any more waste of money than paying car insurance then not having any wrecks, but nevertheless non-optimal. At least the advertised shelf-life of modern products is longer.

 

From the web links you found, it looks like one would have to go to more trouble to buy Perma Pak nowadays compared to Augason or Wise Foods. Maybe they do a brisk business but sell mainly "weight" to LDS customers and sell all they can make thataway. Dunno. Maybe the same LDS customers who bought it in 1963 are buying the same stuff from the same place in 2013?

 

Back then you had to go to some trouble to buy it. Mail em a check with a paper order form then a couple or three months later go down to some trucking company and pick it up off the dock. Truck freight was the only delivery method.

 

They sold an LDS-oriented book explaining how to eat the stuff and stay healthy without malnutrition or vitamin deficiency. The main part of it I never got into, seemed way too much hassle I'd never ever do-- The bulk of the diet was based on all the things you could do with hard wheat, assuming there was a wife or somebody else in the house that didn't have anything else to do all day except prepare meals out of hard wheat. Labor intensive. Grind the wheat coarse for various breakfast cereal recipes. Grind the wheat fine for bread and flapjacks and such. Make wheat gluten meat substitute with a zillion gallons of water and burlap cloth. Their nitrogen packed wheat was live and plantable. The diet avoided B and C vitamin deficiencies by sprouting the wheat in a wet towel daily and eating the sprouts. The book explained that ground wheat doesn't have many B and C vitamins, but the sprouts have "enough" to keep you from getting deficiencies. It was a well worked out plan but real labor-intensive.

Edited January 7, 2013 by Lester Weevils

[Jamie Jackson]

LOL. I hear ya Lester. Some of the LTS foods are much better than others.

 

I appreciate companies, like Wise foods, that offered samples initially when they first came out. And also companies that produce the smaller cans, so a person can actually afford to try out the food they are storing.

 

An example: [url=http://beprepared.com/category.asp_Q_c_E_1178_A_name_E_MyChoice%E2%84%A2%20Cans] "My Choice" by Emergency Essentials[/url].

 

Gotta get to work...