I'm loving.... being prepared!

Do you all remember just a few short months ago when a freak storm system put some form of snow on the ground in almost all states in the US?  I do- we here in Texas got 4 days off of school... in a row... for snow! It was a big deal. I thought it was awesome.

What wasn't so awesome was that some people had to get out in the snow and ice because they didn't have their essentials. 

Even for a few weeks after the storm it seemed that some of the shelves in the stores were bare or had minimum surplus. And that was just because of some snow and ice- I can't imagine what it would be like if we were in Japan!

What to do you might be asking yourself?  Food storage or a some stash of emergency essentials.  Now my church has been advising this for as long as I can remember and it's always seemed like such a daunting task I just kind of put it on the backburner.  I mean, where do you start?  How much food do we need?  And what the heck do I buy?  Let's be honest I'm not the grinding-wheat-making-my-own-bread kinda gal so what am I going to do with 50 pounds of wheat?  Or rice?  And let's not even talk about evaporated/condensed/whatever kind of milk- GRODY.

Recently I found out about a company {whom I swear I'm not endorsing but THIS LADY is!} called Shelf Reliance that helps you with this particular issue.  Now to be honest I have known about some other companies that are similar but again looking at a catalog or a website really just kind of overwhelms you.  I was able to attend a SR party and get to taste some of the products and see how easy it is to start/grow/maintain your emergency stash and I really think it's awesome!  Let me tell you- these aren't your mom's food storage staples!

My kids are really picky eaters and so am I so we have to pay attention to what we're getting or it's just going to go to waste. I chose a few products that I know we will use.  And the best thing is they have a pretty long shelf life so even when they've been opened to be used they're still cheaper than buying at the grocery store and chances are I'll use it all before it goes bad unlike when I buy the fresh stuff and end up throwing it out on trash days.  AND I'll start having extra on hand to help grow my own emergency stash so heaven forbid if anything ever did happen, we'd be prepared!

I'll make sure to tell you all what I think when I get it but I tried several things last night and this is what I liked:
~Freeze dried chicken... pretty much tasted the same to me!
~Freeze dried pineapple... it was so real it even burned my mouth the way pineapple does!
~Freeze dried cheese... say what?! CHEESE?! Yep and it looked, smelled, and TASTED the same when we put it on our pizzas.
~Brownie mix... just add water.  That simple and yes it was delicious! If there's a disaster believe me I want to have brownies on hand.  Hello, don't you stress eat?
~Last but definitely not least, my personal favorite, freeze dried sweet corn.  It was delicious.  I ate it plain {not reconstituted} and I loved it so much I ordered a whole #10 can. I really think that I'd eat it just like that as a snack.  In fact I really wanted more but I didn't want to take a whole bunch of April's supply, I'll just wait until I get my own.

Have you tried Shelf Reliance or any of the other emergency supply companies?  What do you think?


By the way, today I'm linking up with TidyMom... she is so awesome, ya'll should check out her blog!