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Why We Do NOT Recommend "Survival Food Buckets" and "totes"
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Emergency food buckets, also called "survival food buckets" or "totes" that contain pre-packaged "meals", are the current rage these days with food storage companies and resellers. Learn why we do not recommend these offerings as a replacement for any real food storage program. This is a companion article to "Why We Do NOT Recommend MRE's".

These are not the same things as our SP food buckets, which contain a single food product of real storable food and can be used to make up any kind of a meal.

The storable food industry is plagued with new resellers and manufacturers who have sought to cash in on the food storage craze. In the past few years, the "Survival Food Bucket" and "Emergency Food Bucket" and plastic "Totes" method of pre-prepared food storage supplies has become quite popular with numerous companies. We thought that these were good too - until we discovered otherwise, then we dropped them as being undesirable and not recommended for a real food storage program.

What we have learned is the following facts:

1) Bad Taste. Storable food should be a direct replacement for what you already eat. Nobody wants to discover that their "food storage" supply is filled with strange, unhealthy and/or bad tasting food. Quite a lot of the survival buckets and totes being sold today are pretty terrible when it comes to something you'd be willing to eat every day. Cheap dehydrated products and sometimes some bits of freeze dried food are mixed together with heavy seasoning, sugar and salt to create simple "meals" which are usually comprised of just a single-serving. The taste can be "ok" to "pretty bad" depending on the manufacturer and menu. The flavors are extremely repetitive in our experience and we would NOT want to try to eat these foods every day. We checked, and did not find anyone who actually does either. This poses significant problem as a "solution" for what we consider real emergency food storage.

2) Cheap Food. Manufacturers cut corners here on purpose by taking the following steps: Single-serving "meals" are created from the cheapest foods with the highest markups as possible to cut production costs and make enormous profits. Examine any of the menu offerings and you will see what we mean. The ingredients are largely carbohydrates and cheap filler products. This also accounts for their low nutrition, high levels of sugar and high sodium levels which is done to try and improve the taste.

3) Repetitive meals are also very common (no meal variety) which you will QUICKLY tire of. Several manufacturers ONLY sell survival food buckets or totes with pre-prepared single-serving "meals", they don't  offer any real individual food choices to allow you any variety. We do not consider any of these to be real food storage companies, because you're stuck with eating the same meals over and over again (up to hundreds of times in a "plan"). The ingredients cannot be seperate out to prepare something else from them - you're literally "stuck" with the same meal, same flavor, same taste, same texture, same seasoning, same sodium and same sugar and same everything they've provided over and over again. This cookie-cutter approach isn't real food storage - and nobody eats like this. If you actually tried to survive on their meal plans it will reveal just how impractical and unsatifying and low in nutrition they really are.

We've tried this method ourselves (eating the same highly processed pre-made meals every day, over and over again). We store quite a lot of food storage ourselves (10 year supply). It's miserable being stuck with the same meals again and again. If you've not tried this, we suggest you do so to avoid a huge, costly mistake. Meal time becomes dreadful, something you're not looking forward to. It's tiring and discouraging and you find yourself trying to avoid the same thing, but with their built-in inherent limitations, nothing can be changed. These are serious disadvantages when you can't change your diet to something different. Pre-packed meals aren't flexible (at all), you can't seperate out the ingredients, can't change the taste or texture, or change the seasoning, or make the meals into something else like you can with real storable food. People that actually eat food storage on a regular basis are not using this type of food storage.

For the record - this is exactly the complaints the US military has had with military rations issued to combat soldiers and field operations. Soldier immediately try to discard all the portions they don't like and swap them around, trying to come up with something palatable and different tasting. They also get pretty sick at times (we've documented this too, "Why Not MRE's").

The reality is obvious - real storable food offers different taste, texture, variety, nutrition, calories and flavor - pre-packed "survival" meals are a "one-size fits all" idea that doesn't work in the real world for extended periods of time. However, it's marketing dream and highly profitable for companies that engage in this type of promotion because they're using the same ingredients with limited menus. But it's not a real solution to food storage or eating real storable food every day that's been specifically packaged for a long shelf life.

4) Small Servings sizes are used to inflate the "total servings" count for the can, bucket, tote, kit or food plan. This tactic is extremely common and is meaningless. Supposedly, one serving is supposed to be sufficient for a "meal" or even a "serving" - which it isn't, not even close because it's actually quite low in total calories, but it's most often called a "meal" or serving anyway. 2 or 3 of these servings daily are supposed to sufficient for your daily calorie intake, which we have found to be only 1/4 to 1/2 of the required nutritional calories needed for sedentary activity, with some daily calories as low as only 400. Low calorie intake will result in slow starvation (it's not a joke, it actually happens). If you are active - then these small servings sizes do not even meet 1/6th of your required nutrition levels when you need to eat far more food to stay healthy.

We're still see serving sizes (in 2023) of just a few tablespoons to inflate "total servings" any many different food products. This is a HUGE problem for nutrition, longevity and health. Misleading people with tiny servings means you will eat this much faster and run out much sooner as you try to stay alive.

5) Low Calories. Actual calories per meal are extremely low (insufficient) for proper health and nutrition and can result in slow starvation. Combined with cheap filler products, excessive salt and sugar and you've got a perfect recipe for poor health and low energy levels. A few meals like this certainly won't kill you, but the survival bucket kits and totes are being advertised to last a month, or for six months or even a year or more most often don't have the actual nutrition needed. They will not last anywhere near this long because as your body starves for proper calories and nutrition - you will wind up eating it MUCH faster then advertised, and still suffer from poor nutrition because of the limited food choices your stuck with.

Poor Nutrition

6) Survival food buckets are a very poor replacement for real storable food that you will actually eat. These buckets are often being sold as "complete food kits", but they're not. They contain very few real food items in limited quantities and small serving sizes with low calories. Cheap fillers, salt and sugar with heavy seasoning is added to disguise what you're really eating. Due to their low nutrition and limited variety, eating this food every day will be woefully inadequate in terms of good nutrition, fiber and calories. Much of this food is literally "powdered" with a heavy reliance upon soups. 4 grams of sugar is equal to 1 teaspoon of sugar. Only 6 teaspons for women and 9 teaspoons of sugar for men are recommended. We found ENORMOUS quantities of sugar in many alleged "meals" used to increase calories and taste, but this sugar  is extremely bad for you. Many sellers brag about how "healthy" their food is - read the ingredients for the truth.

7) Ultra Processed Food Is Extremely Unhealthy. Numerous studies have been conducted that reveal how highly processed foods are extremely bad for your health. A whopping 71% - 86% of food sold to Americans is classified as "ultra-processed". This is EXACTLY what you find in "survival food buckets" and "totes" and pre-prepared "meals", it's all highly processed. Highly processed foods “are industrial formulations made entirely or mostly from substances extracted from foods (oils, fats, sugar, starch and proteins).” By including these foods in your diet, you're increasing your risks of health related disease, poor nutrition and obesity. This is why we do not consider these offering "real food" because they're not. They're simply gimmicks to get people to take short-cuts on diet and emergency food preparations. We could easily carry them - but don't, because we know that they are not a suitable replacement for real storable food and you will quickly tire of trying to eat it. Survival food preparations need to include REAL storable food, not powdered and/or unhealthy substitutes.

8) Advertised Time Versus Reality. Most of these kits will not last 1/4 of the time specified. You will need far, far more of these survival buckets or totes to meet their advertised survival time. You will be forced to eat them far faster then they have advertised due to their low calories and what your body will be craving for nutrition. We've seen this problem virtually EVERYWHERE we looked. Survival buckets and totes are actually a poor idea designed to liberate you from your money - a "shortcut" food storage idea that will not work as planned. Nothing replaces real storable food in sufficient quantities and nutrition. There are no short-cuts to nutrition, health and staying energetic through a proper diet.

9) Extremely Expensive. Because they are only 1/4 to 1/2 of the actual food storage required for the advertised time lengths - you'll need to purchase 2, 3 or even 4 times as many of these survival food buckets to meet the required time lengths we've seen advertised for obtain sufficient food amounts. This makes these survival buckets and totes incredibly expensive (multiply their cost by 2, 3 or 4 times for the real costs involved). See our "Tired Of Storable Food Scams" page. An enormous amount of money is now being wasted on truly poor food storage planning with almost all of this wasted money being spent on survival food buckets and totes and pre-packaged "meals".

10) Poor Packaging - Survival food buckets and totes are bulky due to the sheer amount of packaging involved and utilize a poor packaging concept and materials. The square buckets and containers are not air-tight and the food is divided up into "meal" pouches inside. The pouches can leak oxygen (via osmosis) if not of sufficient quality and materials, and the food will become stale in a matter of months. Several manufacturers do not even use oxygen absorbers here either in their packaging. This excessive packaging utilized is "stackable" but it also wastes a lot of space in each bucket. The amount of floor space required for a real 1 year food unit of real food is up to 5 times larger than the #10 hard sided cans. We also have severe doubts about their actual longevity claims and some of these companies have been sued for exactly this issue.

11) None of the reputable food storage manufactures produce survival food buckets or totes that are intended for long term eating. This is very noteworthy, because they have extensive multi-decades of experience in the food storage industry (so do we, 26+ years). The food storage industry leaders like Mountain House and Rainy Day Foods know what we know - for long term food storage, and long term food survival, you need real storable food in your diet, in sufficient varieties, quantities (servings sizes), nutrition, calories and amounts to endure real food emergencies. These companies have many DECADES of experience in food storage and know what works and what doesn't.

Mountain House produces freeze-dried foods in #10 cans and they do offer short-term buckets that are intended for just a few days of emergency food. Their #10 cans will last 30+ years. Mountain House is the #1 company in the world of freeze-dried food. We love their entrees and use them as intended (entree meals), but it's not the only food storage we have. We supplement our food storage with huge amounts of Rainy Day food (real food).

Rainy Day offers the biggest selection of real storable food in #10 cans and SP (super pail) 5 gallon buckets with nearly 1,000 options. Both companies also use oxygen absorbers and the type of proper container packaging to actually last decades. These are single-ingredient foods that give you greater flexibility, larger portions and meal versatility. This is what we have consistently relied upon for our own real food storage for nearly 30 years, we store far more of these products then anything else.

12) Real Storable Food will weigh a LOT more then what you find in survival buckets or totes because your getting a lot more. Even when dehydrated, real food supplies weigh a lot more then survival buckets or totes. The actual volume of real storable food is also significantly higher, and so are the nutrition, calories, serving sizes and the number of servings per container. This is why nobody offers free shipping with real storable food either (unless they've severely jacked up the prices), the actual food weights are substantially higher then a survival bucket or tote, because there is a LOT more actual food. There really is no comparison between real storable food supplies and all the heavily advertised hype. There are NO SHORTCUTS when it comes to real survival food supplies and proper food storage and nutrition. If you want to stay healthy, eat right and have a sufficient real food supply that you can eat every day, do it right the first time and stop wasting money on phony "quick fix" scams.

13) A Few Comments About Canned Food - IMPORTANT READINGcanned food items

Don't believe the Hollywood versions of 'survivors' of the "Apocalypse" eating food (canned or packaged food, also known as wet-pack food) scrounged from abandoned stores or hoarded away decades later. This narrative is completely false and while it might make for an entertaining movie, it would also kill the remaining population that dared eat it.

Supermarket food of all types will have long spoiled, or rotted away, even inside the cans due to bacteria or acidity or fats turning rancid. Even the cans themselves are not intended for long-term storage. Packaged store-bought food in boxes or plastic containers or wrapping will be utterly ruined and unfit to eat. Oxygen, mold and bacteria will have long ago ruined any possibility of eating such food. Eating any of these foods will probably kill you. Starvation will then finish the job.

The reality is any survival shelters stocked with supermarket food must be constantly rotated and replenished (monthly) to ensure nothing is ruined or spoiled. But this is a very short-term "preparedness plan" in reality, which is why we have never recommended this. Canned wet-pack food will last a few years at best (2 - 5 years, please review Still Tasty for the actual facts on wet-pack food shelf life), but beyond that it would be extremely risky to dare eat it.

The facts are there is no such thing as canned wet-pack food lasting decades. We see a lot of people making this mistake, stockpiling canned food for hard times years or even decades ahead. They are wasting their money (unless they can eat it fast enough). The only way you can acheive this type of food security is by storing foods specifically processed for long shelf life and stored in airtight containers in a cool location. Only dry food, dehydrated or freeze dried food offers this longevity.

Airtight containers (with oxygen absorbers) will prevent oxygen, bacteria, mold and mildew from reaching the food. See our Food Storage Basics article. Containers must be oxygen-impermeable (no oxygen transmission through osmosis), which is why we always recommend Mylar bag liners in our buckets of food, or the mylar food pouches we carry or hard-sided cans, and everything with an oxygen absorber sealed inside.

Real food security means doing the job right, the first time and not wasting time, effort and money on something that doesn't work. Hollywood versions of 'reality' are often serious misrepresentations of just what it means to deal with critical food shortages. Don't fall for the hype and misleading representations - supermarket food WON'T be around long or even be edible decades later. This is why institutions that actually do prepare for major emergencies don't stockpile this type of canned food - it will spoil far too soon.

14) Food Security Is National Security. The United States does NOT have a national security food stockpile for the civilian population. We were approached to help draft this document in 2022 (and the only company to do so). We're also the only company even recommended within this document by the authors. The United States isn't prepared for any type of long-term food shortage. Every American is actually on their own when it comes to being properly food-prepared. Yet the vast majority of Americans are still at-risk and increasingly so as the lack of preparations and food storage becomes more and more necessary.

REAL food storage, done right, does not have any of these problems. This is our 25+ year in business and we've seen all kinds of fads and ideas come and go. None have replaced real food storage in sufficient quantities and never will. In a food shortage emergency - you need real food. Don't fall for Hollywood hype or a poor substitute. We've spent decades educating people on what actually works - and what really doesn't.

We highly recommend to buy what you already eat. Are you eating out of a survival bucket now? On a daily basis? Of course not. Nobody is. Don't drastically limit yourself to what you aren't familiar with or will quickly tire of. Eat regular real food from your food storage supplies. We do - every day. The foods we carry can be eaten and enjoyed every single day for years on end. They are familiar, common and will last with the airtight packaging employed. It's real food - for every day use or for any type of emergency, with a nearly endless variety of choices. These products are used by Hospitals, Restaurants, Schools, U.S. Military, Pentagon, FEMA, Red Cross and Disaster Relief Organizations worldwide. They know what we know - real food storage is real food, not some other poor substitute.