great minds think alike! I've thought of that myself. The conclusion I came to is multi-faceted. First, dog food does go stale, I stocked up and now I've got a few bags that are stale. You might think it's no big deal and I'd use them if we were in dire straights, but I don't think the rancid oils, meat and grains are healthy, so I'm going to get rid of them. Even though the kibbles are laced with preservatives, they fail after a while.

Second, I've never seen a 50 lb bag of human kibble, but it would be prone to above problem. The closest we come is maybe freeze dried foods, which are usually packaged in smaller amounts due to the fact that once you open the package, all the contents are exposed to oxygen and humidity which could hasten their spoilage. So the idea is to open a smaller package and use it within a reasonable time.

Another consideration is food fatigue. You might not think it a big deal and certainly one would never imagine it to be an issue in a starvation circumstance. But I watched a video on the hardships in Cuba when people had dire food shortages. One father explained that they had to repeatedly eat a bean soup and that even though his children were dangerously undernourished, they came to the point of begging not to have to eat the soup again. I know I've turned myself off toward certain of my favourite recipes by cooking them too often and eating too much of them. Like I say, under starvation conditions you'd have to presume you'd force yourself to eat regardless, but who knows.

Lastly, if I'm starving and with other starving people, we just might have to resort to eating the dog food... and the dog. Let me be perfectly clear, I'd rather starve to death than eat my dog, but the starving people around me aren't likely to be so sympathetic. And if it came to a choice between a child's life and my starving dog... well... that would be an awful predicament. There's a Serbian guy who writes about what happened during their war - pretty much all the pets got ate. Even zoo animals got ate. I realize I've strayed from your original question, but one thought leads into the next...

Good points Martha...so if the bags of food came in 5 to 10Lb bags and were vacuumed sealed, that have different flavours,not needing water to cook it, handy to carry in your pocket....any ideas? Do we have anything like that on the market maybe trail mix but it doesn't have all the micronutrients you would need. I'm thinking it would be good for the first year and after that, depending on what SHTF there is going on, how you would of adjusted your life.

If you want something in the same price range for bulk food, try going to you local farm co op and ask for a sack of animal grade wheat. A sack will cost you 20 bucks. That will fill 3 buckets. Feed grade corn, about the same. You will also need a grain grinder for these to turn them to flour but you really should have one anyhow. The grain is a little low on gluten so expect less fluffy bread. There is no preservatives in this grain but expect some extra husks or a few alfalfa pellets. I have several buckets of this in mylar.

Im not above eating dog but my dogs are a big part of my home security so they get fed even if its just grains mixed with cooked pumpkin. I noticed very few dogs or cats in Cuba. The "Special Period" or man made peak oil, period after Russia collapsed and stopped sending oil made the average weight loss over 20 lbs per person. On the plus side, diabetes almost disappeared in Cuba. They used to boast, more cattle than people after the revolution. After the loss of mass oil agriculture, eating beef became a crime. Permaculture solutions brought in by Australian vollenteers saved them from mass starvation. Jamaica, on the other hand is filled with farel dogs. They are noisy and depressing to an animal lover. Their economic collapse didn't go as deep as Cuba because they weren't being blockaded. Jamaica could really use a wild dog cull or spay and release program.

Neat question.

I can't think of an all-in-one, ready-to-eat human "kibble" either.

Ready to eat and several years of storage can be had in the emergency food ration bars. Some are worse than others in nutrition - mostly sugar and fat calories and bleached wheat flour. Mayday had the best nutrient contents when I looked at them. I keep a variety in my bags and some in regular storage both for the calorie boost and the "crunch" that is lacking in a lot of my stored foods, plus the fats. While fats are bad now because we typically eat too many, they're severely lacking in a lot of storage items. The bars can be pretty expensive and I don't buy into 1200 cal/day, but they're an emergency food that can survive in the truck from single-digit winters to 115 degrees F+ in the truck, for the full five years, without any change in flavor or texture.

Natives had a winter food in pemmican, but it was traditionally mostly meat and fat, with few grains and berries for flavor - not the way it's commonly depicted with more balance. It doesn't have a long storage option, though. One winter pushes it to some degree.

I did see a five-year recipe for emergency bread, http://foodstorageandsurvival.com/make-your-own-homemade-survival-bars/ . It's got the shelf life, but has some of the same drawbacks - either vitamins and minerals, proteins, or fats. Maybe a combination of bars? But that's still not an all-in-one.

Otherwise, yeah, big bag of rice, big bag of mixed lentils and greens, and a big bag of dehydrated carrots are about the best way - cost wise and shelf life wise - to get the nutrients, and you still have to add some kind of fat to it, either cooking oils or powdered butter, and it would be better if there were dehydrated peppers to fill in some gaps. Better yet with oats or wheat and dehydrated apples and bananas and milk for breakfast.
Too bad the LDS outlets don't still carry all of them in the bulk bags. Luckily, they're still relatively inexpensive. They just require water and time, and some extra seasonings if you want me to dance around the way the animals do for their kibble.

Sadly, we're pretty complex beasts.

Ensure meal replacement drinks... Only taste good if cold...Not kibble, I know.

This isn't exactly the perfect answer either but I heard about the Ontario Gleaners. They collect unused produce - non -perfect specimens - straight from the farmers fields and use volunteers to clean and process the food. It's then dried in a commercial sized dehydrator - the size of a truck. A pretty cool idea. Here's a link. http://ontariogleaners.org/365 The recipe they make is a mixed a dehydrated veggies and lentils etc that is made to feed people in third world countries. I am thinking of using the idea to make several pails. Here's the "recipe".

Gleaners Dried Soup Recipe
OntarioGleaners.org Using Surplus Produce to Feed a Hungry World
• Dried ingredients may be available at local bulk food stores
3 c Potatoes (diced)
1 c Potato Flakes
1c Peppers
1c Onions (granular)
1c Onion Flakes
1c Broccoli
1c Cauliflower
1c Carrots
1c Sweet Potatoes (Yams)
1c Veggie Mix (may include beets, asparagus, celery parsnips)
1c Lentils
1c Barley
1c Split Peas
2 Tbsp Salt (more for North American pallets)
½ c Tomato (granular) Spices to suit your taste.
Meat and broth if available.

Directions: Empty 1 package into 25 litres of warm water and soak for 8 to 10 hours. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes. (Makes approximately 100 servings of soup)

It's not as simple as kibble but you would have everything in one pail or package.

100 servings of soup. Yikes. Good for a shelter or a soup kitchen (literally!) but awkward for prepping 😉

That is a great idea though. That would be a great co-op system for preppers, 100 servings in a 3lbs bags; storing a dozen or so bags would go a long way!

Easy to scale down.
3 parts potatoes
1 part everything else
1/2 part tomato

What I did for my mom for her soups was dry all of the ingredients first. Part of that was due to her only being able to have creamed soups, part cause I was cheap and bought the ingredients when they were on sale. I would dry very very thin so I could powder the ingredients. When making her soup I would then add a few other things that I had powdered for added vitamins. I stayed away from stronger flavors so the taste would remain the same but I did manage to add things like bananas, pears, peas, and brown rice. There are things that I could have added but didn't for fear of how her body would react - beans 🙂

I have slowly been trying to build a based of powdered ingredients with the plans of "designing" a soup using a nutrient/vitamin list. One of the things that I have discovered is that 1/4 cup of dried sweet potato with 1 cup of hot water makes "real" sweet potato. (means you can eat it on a plate)

So far I am too chicken to do the dried meal worms to add to the mix. lol

The end result of my food "design" could also be used as an additive to a bar/square with honey, oats and nuts.

Heya oldschool,

My wife and I spent the summer dehydrating, chicken, beef, and veggies for soups. We put them in mason jars. There is a lot of soup to be made from one mason jar. We also dehydrated spaghetti sauces into "roll-up" style sheets. Add water and let it soak a bit. We have used this at several of our bug out weekends. Again, there is a lot of sauce in a very small storage space. As for dried meal worms? I'll eat real meat until the time comes when i'm forced to eat worms again.

Preppersaurus

Heya oldschool,

My wife and I spent the summer dehydrating, chicken, beef, and veggies for soups. We put them in mason jars. There is a lot of soup to be made from one mason jar. We also dehydrated spaghetti sauces into "roll-up" style sheets. Add water and let it soak a bit. We have used this at several of our bug out weekends. Again, there is a lot of sauce in a very small storage space. As for dried meal worms? I'll eat real meat until the time comes when i'm forced to eat worms again.

Preppersaurus

I dried most of that stuff too but I kept everything in separate jars. That way I could mix stuff up as I wanted. For example the basic recipes: tomato soup - dried tomato, onion, carrot, celery then throw in a pot with canned chicken stock; carrot soup - dried carrot, celery, onion, pear then throw in a pot with canned chicken stock; sweet potato soup - dried sweet potato, celery, onion, carrot then throw in a pot with canned chicken stock. If she didn't want soup it was just a matter of adding less water to one of the ingredients such as the sweet potato for her to have mashed sweet potato. I guess I should write down how I figured it out.

I am wondering about your statement "I'll eat real meat until the time comes when i'm forced to eat worms again."

Dear ol Dad was somewhat of a prepper. Always trying, in my view at the time "weird s$&t". Being a kid I'd eat anything. So he would play on that. " Here try this". " Yuck what was that" "Grasshopper". Never wanted to eat anything other than normal food. But I did still have that "let's try it" attitude. And never really found out what normal was. I've eaten a lot of weird sht but I always hated WORMS. Bad enough my wife makes me try stuff like squid ink pasta. So until I have to forage I'll eat normal food.

Preppersaurus

I am thinking dried and grind up mealworms to add to things that would remove some of the 'ick' factor .

I feed my fish mealworms, they poop, the poop is pumped into my aquaponics, the plants eat the poop, I eat the plants. You can have the mealworms, I'll eat the plants and fish first.