What To Buy / Order

There are a few simple rules to follow when ordering. Since many people don't know where to start, here are a few rules that should help:

a) This first one is simple: Buy what you prefer to eat; just take a look at your existing diet to get some good ideas. We receive this question all of the time and our answer has always been the same. Our food is the same food you can buy in the dry goods' section of the grocery store.

Our packaging is bigger, our food is cheaper and you've eaten it all of your life, it's even sold in resteraunts and is widely consumed by everyone. The difference is our food is airtight and properly dried and packaged for long-term storage, which makes it perfect for a food emergency, job loss or any other need.

When we suggest "buy what you prefer to eat", we really mean it. You are the one eating the food - not us - and you alone know your preferred diet and taste. With our huge selection, there is certainly something here for everyone.

We have a huge selection of food plans and food units already made up of a wide variety of foods from all the different canneries. These are probably the easiest 'fit' for you if you still aren't sure what you would prefer.

b) Decide which size packaging container you prefer. Cans are the easiest to handle and store, whereas buckets will contain the most amount of food. Boxes and bags are the cheapest, yet lack the same shelf life and packaging durability as cans and buckets. All of our foods are listed by type and then by packaging size. Simply pick out the size you like for that particular food and add it into the cart.

c) Everyone works within a budget, the Rainy Day line of dehydrated foods (RD) is the most cost-effective. Read our dehydrated vs. freeze dried page for the differences between these two food types and how they are prepared. Freeze dried offers best taste and texture, but higher price. Freeze dried foods are available from Alpine Aire (AA), Mountain House (MH) and Richmoor (RM).

You will notice some abbreviations while browsing our site.These abbreviations represent the individual cannery the food is made at. Additonally, it can also be used to indicate the type of food produced by that cannery. For example:

• RD = Rainy Day. Primarily dehydrated food with a select few freeze dried fruit and vegetable products.
• MH = Mountain House. Freeze dried food.
• AA = Alpine Aire. Primarily freeze dried food with select dehydrated products.
• RM = Richmoor. Freeze dried food.
• SS = Super Spectrim. Suppliers of vitamins and mineral supplements.
• CL = Country Living. Makers of the finest quality grain mills.

Our site is organized around each cannery. Detail pages on everything we carry are found on the "More Details" link (click on the item number to bring up this page) and will show you ingredients, nutrition and preparation instructions. The More Details page is a popup window; popups must be enabled to view these details. If you still cannot see them, close all your other browser windows and try again. You may also search by the entire product database if you prefer. Additionally, we have a search function in the top left-hand corner of every page where you can type in a specific item you are searching for. With over 1800+ items to choose from, you are certain to find what you are looking for.

d) We also carry a full line of essential vitamins and minerals from Super Spectrim. These are highly recomended with a long shelf life for proper nutrition and should be considered essential for your food storage plans. We recommend and use the Super Spectrim Vitamins ourselves.

e) Our site is also organized around food groups. You can scroll any page down to see the Shopping Cart Links on the bottom of any page. There, you will see all the different food groups we carry. Clicking on any link there will show all canneries that carry this food group. Example: clicking on "Biscuits" will show every product we offer that contains biscuits.

f) The website allows you to order from any cannery, any type of food in any combination. You can add items into the cart, change, delete and increase their quantity with ease. Please see our How To Order page for a bit more detail. You can play around adding and subtracting items into the cart to fit your budget. Our cart automatically calculates any additional costs including shipping, just enter in your zip code to get the cart to show you everything.

g) Also see Suggested Food Storage for ideas on how much food you might need. There is no such thing as too much -- but we see "too little" all the time. The world is facing some very serious food production issues and since food is something you will always need, you simply cannot have too much on hand. With a very long shelf life up to 30 years, whatever food storage you have can always be consumed sometime in the next three decades, making it a great investment at today's prices. Food will always be going up in price and is in fact, a better investment then gold.

h) We also have a Taste Test, Why Buy Bulk Food, Price Comparison, FAQ (frequently asked questions) and many more pages under our Information Section (left hand navigation bar).