Freeze Dried Food: All You Need to Know - Part 1

So you have a few basics in your stock pile and now it is time to branch out. You are examining your options and looking to see where to get the most bang for your buck. Obviously, the point of prepping is self-reliance in some time of crisis, but what is the best way? How can I best preserve my position? While most preppers know a lot about canning, pickling, smoking, and all the other older methods, few know about the new options technology brings us today. We here are Essential Prepping want to help you learn there are other ways to be ready when that time of need comes.

One popular item you find in many preppers' pantries is freeze-dried food. There are literally dozens of sources for everything from MREs to freeze dried ingredients like eggs, milk, and cheese. You can find many advertised on this site alone. We set out to create a review and comparison of the various options. In this first installment, we will tell you about our initial experiences. In following installments, we will go through a more detailed, in depth review of each of the methods we were able to review.

As an affiliate of several freeze dried food companies as well as Harvest Right, makers of the first freeze dryer for home use, we set out to see who was confident enough about their products to allow us a sample for comparison. The staff sent correspondence to Wise Food Storage (which offered a sample when accepting me into the program), Thrive Life Food (of which I have considered becoming an consultant for), PrepareWise, EfoodsDirect, and Nitro-Pak. Wise Food Storage supplied us with a 7 day kit (pictured below), while EfoodsDirect and Thrive created a ticket, contacted us to state the ticket had been forwarded, then no further word. Nitro-Pak failed to even respond. 

Armed with the kit from Wise Food Storage, we are planning to discuss what we can on the other options. The following will talk about cost, convenience, quality of packing, ease of preparation, and quality of the food itself. While we understand everyone's tastes are different, the Essential Prepping crew is planning to recruit several mouths to offer a variety of opinions. At the end of each review, we shall give our recommendations. Please note: There will be a longer discussion of the Harvest Right Freeze Dryer due to the fact this is the only product that allows you to customize the freeze drying, and thus starting you with a product we know you already enjoy.