I've seen Thrive products listed online at Costco but never ordered from them.

90% of my dehydrated and Freeze dried foods are from thrive. I buy all stuff from an alberta company called Briden Solutions. The company owner posts here on occassion.

Great little company. Might be worth your checking out. www.bridensolutions.ca another link to them can be found in my sig and in the sig's of a few others here. Needless to say, they're well loved around here 🙂

Thanks DaScribbler.

At the risk of sounding innappropriate, I wonder if everyone's referral to Briden on this forum has to do with their affiliate program, rather than Bang-for-$. While I'm all in favour of supporting local and like-minded people, I must say that when it comes to prep, I want to get as much as possible out of my money spent. If I can save $20-30 somewhere, than its another few bucks I can spend in buying another prep item. Does Briden's listed price include shipping?

Cheers,

Although I do keep a link to Briden in my sig as part of the affliate program, I don't recommend Briden out of self interest. They've always been great to deal with, the customer service has always been incredible and I enjoy their product hence the reason I also provided a direct link.

You ask about shipping. I know over the last couple years I've spent a small fortune on shipping thanks to Canada Post but Briden just started offering free shipping on large orders (over $200 I think) so depending on what your thinking on buying it might be well worth giving them a look.

Thanks DaScribbler. I'll take a comparative look and given a somewhat comparable cost, I'll put an order through them (through your link for being a good sport...) 😀

Cheers!

The problem with most "packages " is they're incredibly heavy on the cheap stuff that is easy for you to store already. Pasta, beans, rice, wheat you can easily pack and squirrel away in jars, mylar, or soda bottles.
The only long term FD stuff (like Thrive) I have are veggies, fruits, and more veggies. Meat is another problem that you'll have to look elsewhere. They have TVP but I'll leave that alone.....
Bauly Foods is about the only Canadian supplier or real meat I've found.

I would decide on an initial budget you were going to spend on FD.
Spend 90% of that on just FD veggies, a bit of FD fruit and a few other goodies, out of the can entrees, cake mix maybe. Any pasta, rice, beans and the like collect and store yourself. Look for cool stuff like dried mushrooms in stores.
Then practice a bit on cooking up the stuff you have.
Maybe a few spoons of onion, couple of scoops of broccoli, a half scoop of chicken stew mix and you have a meal. Pretty soon you'll get the hang of what goes best with what and you'll be on the road to long term storage.

One basic formula for cooking all sorts of soups and stews is
2 parts onion
1 part celery
1 part carrots
add other flavouring as you have it, meats, mushrooms, fresh herbs, fresh wild edibles and experiment a bit, pour over a bit of starch .....see what you like.

By the time you get to this stage you'll know what you like and don't like and be able to make smart choices.

Thanks for the info Perfesser. I was looking at the 6 months, 1 year pkgs and I was actually wondering about some of the cans' value as well. A #10 can of table salt is a LOT of salt!!!!

All that being said, I have little experience with TVP. Although I'm sure that consistency is probably not that appealing, I would believe that protein is very important nutritional element. Living in a small town, I'm not able to raise animals, not even chicken. It would be hard then to get enough protein (yes I can hunt, but everyone will think the same thing so it won't be long before I get tired of gopher stew) so I thought that the TVP package from Costco for $100 delivered might be a good deal.

Interesting tht you suggest veggies vs fruits. I can grow 100 of lbs of carrots in my backyard really easily, same wi onions, potatoes and all, but fruits are nearly impossible to grow in quantity in our climate and don't store as well as root veggies. I also always have tons of canned peas, corn, mushrooms, etc (Costco flats), so for those reasons, I was leaning more toward the FD fruits.

What Perfesser was trying not to get into was the effect of soy protein on your body over the long haul - in consise terms it will give men "man boobs". It is estrogenic which messes with your hormones. There's lots of information out there and a quick google search will fill you in. We don't store any of it on purpose but unfortunately many packaged foods already have soy - with different names - hidden in them.

Perfesser - thanks for the heads up on Bauly Foods - I've never heard of them.

Thanks DaScribbler.

At the risk of sounding innappropriate, I wonder if everyone's referral to Briden on this forum has to do with their affiliate program, rather than Bang-for-$. While I'm all in favour of supporting local and like-minded people, I must say that when it comes to prep, I want to get as much as possible out of my money spent. If I can save $20-30 somewhere, than its another few bucks I can spend in buying another prep item. Does Briden's listed price include shipping?

Cheers,

No, that's not inaproppriat at all..it's a legitimate question.
I also use a link to Briden and am a member of it's affiliate program.
First of all, this is no big source of income for me, as a matter or fact, I haven't even gathered up enough commission for them to send me a check!
I do however support them for a number of reasons...
First, they have been a supporter of us for quite a while and regularly direct their customer to this forum.
Second, they really do believe in what they are doing...sure, they are making a living at it, but believe me, they are dedicated to the cause of being prepared and getting others to realize the importance.
Third, they offer a lot of great products at competitive prices, offer discounts in the form of coupons, and have now introduced free shipping with orders over $200.00.
Don't get me wrong...there are plenty of other companies out there that offer the same as well as different products, have great customer service, and are generally there to support the mindset. Feel free to shop around, as a matter of fact, I encourage it. You may also want to support someone who may be more local...good on you!

What I was getting at with food storage was "if it goes bad tomorrow, I want a supply of food that will keep me healthy". I stored an appropriate amount of what I eat. Plenty of veggies, some fruit, real meat.
TVP is not real meat - but it's cheap and I don't think we should eat much soy at all, certainly NO commercially produced soy.
Starches are not that great for health. They'll keep your belly full but not much more.
Since going to a more paleo diet I've lost much of my sweet tooth, and I know where the wilds will provide fruits and berries in season. Real staple vegetables (like root vegetables, the cabbage family, kales, really tasty greens, squashes) are harder to find in great quantities.

We plan to move to a place where we can grow much more and preserve much of it, I'm sure my requirements will change with that.

If you look at at what their "packages" provide, you'll have a big bowl of rice or pasta with some sauce and a very small(by my standards) veggie serving. This sounds like prison camp fare to me.

Hope this clears up some things that may have been misunderstood.

Thanks for the clarification Perfesser. All this is encouraging me to do a bit more research on TVP. I understand it's been used for a long time a a meat "extender" (yes, I know, yuck) in commercial, institutional and fast food Having served with the Forces, I must have had my fair share already. Even though it wouldn't be my staple, I thought that having emergency protein could come in handy.

Definitely understand what you mean about the packages and with much consideration, all I'd do would be fruit and veggies "samplers packs". I don't need my rice, salt, pasta, etc in a $15 #10 can when I can pick some up at walmart and rotate through a stash.

Appreciate the insight.

I saw those sampler packs on the Costco website and thought they were a pretty good option.
I would like to point out that each persons situation is different and although a complete package seems like a good idea I've never heard anyone who was satisfied with what they got after having to eat it for a while.

We take eating for granted in this country and for how important it is we should devote enough attention to get it right. There may not be the option to call up the pizza shop someday.
We prep for stuff that may happen, but whatever happens (even nothing) we'll all be eating every day.

I'm still woefully short on real meat preps(the FD stuff is pricey) but I want to get a pressure canner this year and learn to preserve meats, soups and stews, not veggies yet but that will come when I have space to produce more. That will give me a "meal in a jar" option that will work pretty well in our daily lives right now.