Freeze drying is a totally different process from a quick freeze that can be accomplished at home.

Freeze drying involves a big industrial system for sucking all the moisture out of a sub-zero chunk of something.
It's awesome for long term storage no matter how you define it. The texture isn't the same as fresh foods - or even frozen foods. I dislike a lot of the flavors and textures of freeze dried foods even after they've been rehydrated in hot water, but there's more that I like FD'd than dehydrated. I'm super-duper particular about which veggies I really want fresh, which ones I will eat dehydrated if they're in soup, and which ones I want canned. And I'm super-duper spoiled, which I will just have to get over at some point, because I do buy FD foods for the 20+ years of safe shelf-stable storage.

Freezing as taking a bunch of packages of food, putting it in the freezer, and pressing the sub-zero button to make it freeze faster than usual can be good, too, but as soon as the freezer stops getting juice, a clock starts ticking on everything inside.
There are some limits to how long something can live in the freezer at home. Depending on which government agency you believe, you could have as little as six months. Depending on whose granny or personal experience you believe, a steak might still be safe in three and a half years. I usually don't have stuff in my freezer more than a year.
How food is wrapped (vacuum bag, plastic and foil) and whether it was cool enough not to form condensation before it was frozen can make some significant difference. Some foods also do better in the freezer after they've been blanched (potatoes, broccoli, cabbage/brussel sprouts) where as some can go straight in (berries, sliced peaches, meats, carrots).

I was thinking of making a super insulated cooler or cooler room made for the purpose of staying cool with a generator running once a week.

My personal opinion is to buy a large pressure canner. Don't need electricity, food will last for years.

My personal opinion is to buy a large pressure canner. Don't need electricity, food will last for years.

Never heard of it. How's it work?

Pressure canner info:
http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/uga/using_press_canners.html
http://www.pickyourown.org/pressurecanners.htm
http://www.foodsafety.wisc.edu/consumer/fact_sheets/pressurecannerandcooker.pdf
http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/water-bath-pressure-canning-zecz11zsmi.aspx

A pressure canner is basically a big, totally sealed pot that increases temperature inside by increasing pressure. Low acid foods can't be safely canned with just a water bath because the temperature doesn't get high enough to work without the pH change. Meats and most veggies and some fruits require pickling, or you can pressure can them to act like a very low-level autoclave. It's basically the same principle used by tinned meats and soups and veggies in the store.

There is a BIG difference between a pressure cooker (cooks much, much faster) and a pressure canner (designed for sealing food safely in canning jars).

You could also look into a dehydrating, although that has some significant limits with meat.

I can't think of any restaurants that manage a walk-in freezer that only has to be run once a week indefinitely. If you opt to go that way and end up successful, keep careful track of the power it's drawing because it's a plan and design that may make you some bank. You'll also have to not only take the insulation space into account, but extra storage and parts for the gennie and fuel. Canned foods contain all their own water and can be popped open and eaten, but tend to be bulky and some have extra liquids in them. Dehydrated foods stored in Mylar or canning jars with O2 absorbers take up much, much less space, but you either need a constant water source or to store water for them.

Freeze drying is a totally different process from a quick freeze that can be accomplished at home....It's awesome (FD) for long term storage no matter how you define it...as soon as the freezer stops getting juice, a clock starts ticking on everything inside (regular freeze method).

Couldn't agree more. Not to get all technical, however, it involves a process called sublimimation in which the liquids within the food are literally vaporized. This is done through controlling/manipulating the temperatures in addition to the atmospheric pressure of the food inside a vacuumed-sealed machine.

The advantage to freeze-dried goods are that they can last for year, they do retain nutrients, they're light-weight and much more practical/portable then other traditional food preservation methods.

The disadvantage is that they can be expensive. There is no cheap freeze-dried machine available to the public (atleast not one that I'm aware of yet) so everything in this category must be purchased. With this we're looking at companies like Mountain House, Thrive and a handful of others. Where we get screwed in Canada is that you can buy large quantities in the US and they'll ship for free so unless it's purchased locally it doesn't make sense because of what you'd be paying for with the associated shipping costs. Go to any camping store and try some out. Always good to diversify your food preservation portfolio.

My personal opinion is to buy a large pressure canner. Don't need electricity, food will last for years.

My personal favorite food preservation method. While heavier and fragile - it's something that doesn't require hot water to eat (in terms of being palatable anyways). Retrieving a canned mason jar of Chili from a geo-stash is something I could eat right away. Requiring hot water where freeze dried food is concerned takes time and has security considerations (people can smell the smoke/food). The only issue in a post SHTF situation where canning is concerned is the lids as they can only (technically) be used once. It's at that point that we should be focusing on primitive skills food preservation methods which include smoking, salting, curing, drying - good skills to learn now....

There are reusable canning lids by Tattler, I haven't tried them yet but there are lots of reviews on the net. http://www.reusablecanninglids.com

There are reusable canning lids by Tattler, I haven't tried them yet but there are lots of reviews on the net. http://www.reusablecanninglids.com

Now that's cool. Thanks for sharing. I might have to just order some...