Best Survival Food Kits: Be Prepared For Anything

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Last Updated on May 5, 2023 by Lisa Vargas

It’s National Emergency Preparedness Month and doing some emergency food reviews is a perfect way to kick off the month! Emergency food comes in a variety of different forms and flavors. 

The question is, what are some of the best survival food kits that you can use for prepping? Today we are going to review some of the emergency food supplies and look at what other customers have been saying, talk about shelf-life, flavors, and much more.

When the grid goes down, you are going to be without power.  You won’t have a refrigerator or a freezer.  So keep that in mind as we go through this list. All of your survival food needs to be able to be kept without power.  

You certainly won’t be able to rely on a grocery store because all supply chains will be cut off, and the food will no doubt already be gone off of the shelves. Therefore, ultimately you will looking for freeze-dried foods, meals ready to eat (MREs), and foods that last forever.

But before we dive into the best emergency food survival kits, let’s look a little bit deeper into the details of emergency food.  So if you’re just starting to learn about food storage, emergency food, shelf-life, the different types of emergency food, etc., you will hopefully find this post very useful as a starting place for your food prepping.

So let’s dive right in!

What Types Of Emergency Food Is There?

When you first start your research on emergency food, you will probably be a little overwhelmed at the variety of different types of food available to you.  You will notice there are dehydrated foods, MREs, freeze-dried foods, emergency survival kits, canning options, and don’t forget about growing your own food.

Each type of food is designed to sustain you and your family for a long period of time, and it’s important that you understand the shelf-life of many of these survival foods for them to be effective.  but in the end, they are all designed to keep you alive during emergency situations and periods where you can’t get any food from anywhere else.

You will see below in this guide that I have not only broken out the different types of survival kits for you by the length of time they will last you and your family, but also reviewed some of the other emergency food options that are in this category that are on the market today.  This will hopefully keep you from getting so overwhelmed with the different kits and which best suits you and your family.

How Long Can Emergency Food Last?

The best emergency survival kits are designed to have shelf lives of up to 25 years and sometimes longer.  If you haven’t had a chance to read the article we wrote on foods that last forever, make sure you do that, as it will provide you with some great ideas on foods to store that last indefinitely in some cases.

But when it comes to emergency kits in regards to food, you always want to make sure you do your research on optimal storage conditions for each food source you stockpile because each one will be a little differently, but to ensure maximum shelf life, its always good to store emergency foods in a cool, dark place away from sunlight.  

As a matter of fact, any temperatures above 70 degrees Fahrenheit will make your emergency food kits deteriorate quicker.

How Much Emergency Food Should You Store?

You will notice that preppers tend to each believe in different situations and disasters that can take place.  For example, one family may be preparing for the next big hurricane, another family is preparing for a nuclear fall-out, another family on the East Coast is preparing for the next terrorist attack, and someone in California is preparing for a huge earthquake.

Whatever you believe in your heart is what will help you decide how much food you should stockpile.  There are other obvious factors that come into emergency food storage such as how many family members you have (do you have a family of 3 or a family of 8?), how much storage space you have (do you live on a farm with some acreage or do you live in the city?), and whether or not you have a bug out location where you can store additional food supplies, etc. 

Best Freeze-Dried Emergency Food

Emergency food kits are a great place to start because they are a fantastic way to store food as they come in nice, convenience, food-grade containers that you can stack on top of each other in your garage or pantry and they essentially can be stored for a very long time. 

There is a slight difference between dehydrated food as opposed to freeze-dried foods, but you don’t have to pay to much attention to that as they are very close in nature and won’t make much difference.  

Below is a review of some of the most popular emergency survival kits on the market.  I’ve also included a few other types of food items that you will notice as you go through your research.

 Make sure when you are storing these emergency survival kits that you keep them in a cool, dark place between 55 degrees and 65 degrees Fahrenheit or else they won’t last the 25 years that is stated in the descriptions.  

Anything stored over 60-65 degrees Fahrenheit will only last about 10-15 years. 

25-year Emergency Food Supply

All of the freeze-dried foot kits below will show approximately a 25-year shelf-life.  They are packed full of nutrients and designed to provide enough energy for you and your family. Take a look at the different sizes of meals you can buy below. 

Single Serving Meals

The first type of survival meals we will discuss are the single-serving meals.  These dehydrated meals can be bought in individual serving sizes.  You have seen them before because they are very popular among backpackers.  This is essentially the only type of meals you can take with you when you are trying to pack light.

One of the most famous is the Mountain House brand.

You will be surprised at how well they taste.  I’ve had just about every flavor you can imagine as most of my life has been spent in the mountains either camping, backpacking, fishing, or on pack trips with the horses and mules.

What’s nice is that Mountain House has a 30-year taste guarantee on all of their products, so you won’t have to worry about the flavor going bad.  All you need to do is add water and you’ll be good to go!

ReadyWise Outdoor Camping-Favorites Variety Pack, Cook-in-Pouch Freeze-Dried-Food Kit, Freeze-Dried Camping and Backpacking Meals, Pack of 9

Here’s a great classic by the Wise Company and they do a great job with the flavor and texture of their food products. There is an endless amount of possibilities for single-serving meals, but I just wanted to give you a few examples here at what’s available.  I would recommend that you order a few different brands as samples to decide which flavors you like best, and then decide to buy more from there.  This ReadyWise sample pack is just what you need if you are trying to decide what flavors you like best. 

72 Hour Emergency Food Kits

The first length of emergency food supply kits that we have are the 72 hours kits.  These kits are good for people who just want a little extra something to be prepared for short-term power outages or maybe like the useful storage container it comes in.  This 72 hour meal kit is good for only one person, so if there’s more than one in your group, you would want to plan accordingly.

Augason Farms 72-Hour 1-Person Emergency Food Supply Kit

  • 42 Servings
  • 2,560 Calories Per Day & 7,680 Total Calories
  • 5 Meal Varieties
  • Easy to prepare. Just add water!
  • Up to a 25 Year Shelf Life!

Premium Family Emergency Survival Bag/Kit (72 hour)

I wanted to make sure to include this premium family emergency bag because not only does it come with 24 Mountain House food servings, it has a variety of other necessities such as first aid kit, a water filter, a few flashlights, and much more.  This emergency food and survival kit is good for four people.

  • 1 Large premium backpack
  • 24 Mountain House food servings
  • 4 Aqua Liter waters
  • 1 Sawyer Squeeze
  • 8 Cyalume SnapLights
  • 2 LED lanterns
  • 2 flashlights
  • 1 First Aid Kit
  • 4 emergency blankets
  • 2 bath wipes
  • 1 portable stove
  • 4 bowls and utensils
  • 4 whistles
  • 1 MoraKniv knife
  • 1 Ferrocerium rod
  •  4 InstaFire tinder

Legacy 32 Serving Family 72 Hour Emergency Food Supply Kit

Legacy Premium Foods puts together a nice emergency food kit here that comes with four servings of each of the following flavors:  pasta alfredo, pasta primavera, enchilada, beans & rice, stroganoff, cheese & broccoli bake, chili mac, cheese and broccoli soup, and classic chili.

  • 32 emergency meals included
  • Lowest cost per 2000 calories
  • Largest serving size available in the industry
  • Eight different lunch/dinner entrees to choose from
  • GMO free
  • 25 year shelf life
  • Made in the USA

Mountain House Classic Bucket (3.5 days)

Mountain House has a 3.5-day food kit designed for one person that contains 12 total pouches, two each Beef Stroganoff with Noodles, Chicken Teriyaki with Rice, Beef Stew, Lasagna with Meat Sauce, Noodles & Chicken, and Granola with Milk & Blueberries.

  • 12 total meals (2-3 servings/pouch)
  • 29 total servings
  • 30 year taste guarantee
  • 21 cups of water needed for entire bucket
  •  Very high in positive reviews in terms of taste over other brands.

1 Week Emergency Food Kits

The one week emergency foot kits are another short term supply kit that can be used as a grab-and-go during power outages,  or if you need to get away from the house for some reason to escape an unsafe situation.  Below are some of the highest-quality, most popular one week emergency food kits on the market.

Augason Farms 1-Week 1-Person Emergency Food Supply Kit

With this one week food supply kit you will get Maple Brown Sugar Oatmeal, Cheesy Broccoli Rice, Creamy Chicken Rice, Spanish Rice, Creamy Potato Soup, Hearty Vegetable Chicken Soup, Banana Chips, and Morning Moo’s Lowfat Milk Alternative. 

You can never go wrong with Augason farms, although you might notice this product got a few 3-star reviews on Amazon because of the unique serving sizes per bag (about 10 servings) and the fact you have to do your own measuring when you are ready to use. Not a big deal, but just a little inconvenient in terms of packaging. 

  • 78 Servings
  • 1, 811 Calories Per Day & 12, 680 Total Calories
  • Approximately 8-10 servings per pouch
  • Shelf Life: Ranges from 10 to 25 years
  • You may want to use your own mylar pouches to create individual serving sizes if needed. 

Patriot Pantry ZF_Ammo_1 1-Week Food Supply Ammo Can

Patriot pantry has a really cool emergency food kit that comes in its own, unique ammo can.  In this ammo can you will get Black bean & rice soup (4 servings) Maple Grove oatmeal (8 servings) traveler’s stew (4 servings) long grain white rice (10 servings) mac & cheese (8 servings) Creamy flavored chicken (4 servings) and home-style potato soup (4 servings).  

Keep in mind that the serving sizes per bag are not single servings, that’s why the serving sizes are listed beside each flavor.  You will need to measure out what you want to eat at the time of preparing the meal.

  • Lasts up to 25 years
  • Just add water
  • 42 servings
  •  Designed for 1500 calories/day

2 Week Emergency Food Kits

Wise Company Emergency Food Supply, Entree Variety, 25-Year Shelf Life, 60 Servings

This Wise Company will tell you that you can use this 60 serving emergency food supply for one person for 30 days.  They are basing this off of one person eating 2 servings per day, which I think isn’t very realistic since you would be only eating about 500 calories per day (each serving is about 250 calories).  

If you were to eat about 1500 calories per day like normal, this food supply bucket would only one person 10 days, and that’s why I put this in the 2 week  emergency food kit category.  And if you are a family of four, it will only last you about a week.  So please make sure to assess your food needs properly when making selections. 

  • Each pouch contains 4 servings
  • 15 pouches total
  •  Each serving is about 250 calories
  •  Bags are not resealable so you have to cook all 4 servings at one time
  • Flavors include: cheesy lasagna, creamy pasta, pasta alfredo, chili mac, chicken noodle soup, savory stroganoff, hearty tortilla soup, potato pot pie, teriyaki and rice, tomato basil, southwest beans and rice, baked potato casserole

Augason Farms 2-Week 1-Person Emergency Food Supply Kit

  • 140 Servings
  • 1,828 Calories Per Day & 25,600 Total Calories
  • 9 Meal Varieties
  • 25 year shelf life
  •  Weight: 14 pounds

This bucket contains the following flavors: Maple Brown Sugar Oatmeal (2), Fettuccine Alfredo, Cheesy Broccoli Rice (3), Creamy Chicken Rice (2), Spanish Rice (2), Creamy Potato Soup (2), Hearty Vegetable Chicken Soup (2), Banana Chips, and Morning Moo’s Lowfat Milk Alternative.

30 Day Emergency Food Kits

We are now officially getting into the longer term emergency food kits.  Having emergency food rations for you and your family for 30 days is a great place to start.  It’s long enough to sustain you through the chaos the first several days , then enough to get you by until things get back to normal.

Chef's Banquet 30 Day Emergency Food Supply

You will find Chef’s Banquet 30 day emergency food supply to be quite tasty.  It comes with eight different flavors including oatmeal, hearty potato soup, chicken flavored vegetable stew, instant potatoes, mixed vegetables, macaroni & cheese, beef flavored vegetable stew, and cheddar broccoli rice.

  • 330 Servings
  • 2,100 calories/day/person
  • Net Weight: 32.7 pounds
  • 8 different food flavors
  • 20 year shelf life
  • Meant for 1 person for 30 days
  • No high-fructose corn syrup or MSG
  • Meals are individually packed in 30 serving pouches

Augason Farms 5-20091 Deluxe Emergency 30-Day Food Supply (1 Person)

One of the great things about Augason Farms is that they break their emergency food buckets down by how long they last as opposed to servings per bucket.  This makes it a lot easier for you to break it down in your head as to how much you will need.  

You will also like the fact that they are basing this 30 day food supply on approximately 1,200 calories per day, which is much more realistic than some of the other brands on the market. 

  • 200 servings
  • 36,600 calories total (about 1,220/day for 30 days)
  •  24 pouches total with 11 different varieties
  •  Meal planner included to help you plan out meals
  •  25 year shelf life
  •  140.5 cups of water needed to cook food

This 30 day bucket includes some pretty delicious flavors including the following: Cheesy Broccoli Rice, Creamy Chicken Flavored Rice (3), Creamy Potato Soup (3), Hearty Vegetable Chicken Flavored Soup (2), Fettuccine Alfredo, Spanish Rice (3), Strawberry Creamy Wheat, Buttermilk Pancakes (3), Maple Brown Sugar Oatmeal (3)

6-Month Emergency Food Kits

Now as we move up into the longer emergency food stockpiles, it boils down to how many buckets are you going to purchase.  At this point, you probably want to start doing calculations based on the number of family members you have and the number of calories you think will satisfy your hunger.  

Therefore, you can safely say that if you use a 1,200-1,500 calorie diet, you should be able to calculate the number of buckets you need.  Now be careful here, because even though these freeze-dried foods are convenient to store, they can wreak havoc on your digestive system over time, so make sure you have some other alternative food sources such as growing your own food and canned food.

Wise Company Long Term Emergency Freeze-Dried Food Supply, Breakfast and Entree Variety

At this stage, the Wise Company allows you to place orders by the bucket, depending on how long you think you want to be prepared for, as well as how many people are in your family. You can order two buckets, three buckets, six buckets, nine buckets, twelve buckets, eighteen buckets , and thirty-six buckets.  

Since it depends on your situation I’ll send you over to Amazon to check out the latest information on Wise’s long term emergency food supply options.  

1- Year Emergency Food Kits

Legacy Premium Food Storage Freeze Dried Survival Food Storage: 1080 Large Servings (1 person)

This Legacy 1-year supply of freeze-dried foods is great for one person, but you will need to continue to add more if you have a family .  Again, it will all depend on what your needs are, and the amount of storage space you have available. 

  • 1080 servings
  • Good for 1 person
  • Weight : 277 pounds (9 total buckets)
  • 424,680 Total Calories
  • 19 different flavors
  • 370 calories per serving
  • 100% Non-GMO
  • 4 Breakfasts, 15 Entrees Included

Augason Farms 1-Year 4-Person Emergency Food Supply

When it comes to Augason Farms and their long term emergency food supplies, they don’t deliver it in buckets but rather in cans on a pallet.  It still stores nicely in a cool, dark place and this particular product will sustain a four person family for one year. 

  • 360 cans
  • 21,282 total servings
  • Average of 1,324 calories per day per person
  • 53 different flavors
  • Includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, and drink mix
  • Weight: 150.1 pounds
  • Size: 48″W x40″L x 78″H

Meals Ready To Eat (MREs)

MREs are completely different than the above food kits because they are designed to eat on the go, without adding any water or altering them in any way.   MREs are the perfect survival food and have been used by the military for years.  I thought I would share a video of what to expect of an MRE.  This is a video of a Menu 23 Pizza Slice Pepperoni. 

There are a few things you want to keep in mind when looking at MREs:

  • Make sure a pack date is listed on every box.
  • Not all MREs are entire meals.  Some come with just entrees and crackers.  Others come with drink mix, candy, entrees, etc.  
  • MREs do not have a “shelf-life” Instead, they have a pack date and an inspection date.
  • The inspection date is three years after the pack date.
  • Make sure to inspect the Time Temperature Indicator (TTI) at the top of every box.
  • MREs should be eaten within 3-5 years in order to stay fresh.  After that, they just won’t taste as good.
  • MREs are not designed to be a long term food source.  Use them as a supplement to other fresh foods.

Western Frontier 2021 MRE and up Inspection Date

  • 2018 pack date
  • Genuine US War Fighter Rations Inspected and Verified 
  • Bright Red TTI Indicator
  • Approximately 1250 calories per MRE

MREs (Meals Ready-to-Eat) Genuine U.S. Military Surplus Assorted Flavor (6-Pack)

  • 2012 pack date or newer
  • Genuine US War Fighter rations
  • 1250 calories per meal
  • Assorted flavors – you won’t know until you open the box
  • 4.6 stars out of 5 on Amazon

Sopakco MRE Meals Ready To Eat Case Pack of 14 For Survival And Emergency Green Box

  • Not full meals; only entrees and crackers
  •  Comes with flameless heater pack
  •  6 Varieties of flavors
  •  Manufactured on 8/2016
  •  Best By Date of 8/2021
  • 1,100 calories per meal
  • No coffee or drink mix included

Emergency Ration Food Bars

Emergency ration food bars are different than MREs in that you don’t have to heat anything up, you simply eat these like you would eat a granola bar.  Now, even though each bar has a massive calorie count such as 2400-3600 calories, depending on the manufacturer, you can break off pieces of the bar and eat it throughout the day.  

These aren’t meant to be eaten all at the same time. These emergency ration food bars are good for sustaining you until some real food can be found, and normalcy be restored.  Emergency ration bars are wonderful variety to your survival food preps.

UST Emergency Food Ration Bars (PDQ 4-ct)

  • 2,400 calorie bars
  • 5 year shelf life
  • Cholesterol free
  • Good for survival kits and bug out bags
  • Each bar weighs 18 oz.
  • Apple-cinnamon flavor
  • Made in the USA

SOS Food Labs Rations Emergency 3600 Calorie Food Bar

  • Case comes with 20 food packs, with 9 bars in each pack (each package is 3600 calories)
  • Coconut flavor (flavor is nice, but gets old quick if you had to survive on these for any length of time
  • 5 year shelf life
  • Great for bug out bags
  • U.S. Coastguard Approved

Grizzly Gear Emergency Food Rations - 3600 Calorie Bar - 3 Day Supply

  • 9 bars (each bar is 400 calories) – bars can be broken up but are not individually wrapped.
  • US Coast Guard approved for 5 years
  • Lemon flavor
  • Kosher
  • No cholesterol or tropical oils
  • Flavor rating = 4.2 stars out of 5

Conclusion

I hope this post has helped shed some light on the subject of emergency food storage supplies.  It can get a bit overwhelming trying to decide which brand is right for you, so my suggestion would be for you to sample as many different varieties and determine which one you like best.  I have outlined and reviewed some of the top quality meal kits on the market, now the choice is up to you.