On 24 February 2022, Russia, the world’s largest nuclear superpower, invaded the neighboring nation of Ukraine. Billions of dollars and millions of lives later, the war is still ongoing.
Anyone watching the media throughout the invasion was subject to an ongoing fear campaign of nuclear attack from the Red State on its arch-nemesis, the United States. There’s been plenty of stories to keep the American public and the world wrapped up in the ongoing drama unfolding day by day.
One of the most significant issues involving the Ukraine invasion, apart from Putin having his finger on the nuclear button, is the coming food crisis. Ukraine and Russia account for a sizable portion of the global food supply, particularly grains.
American interference in Putin’s operations led to him withdrawing from the Black Sea Grain Deal brokered by neighboring Turkey and President Erdogan. Putin took to bombing ships transporting grain across the Black Sea for distribution to the world.
This alone is a coming shock for the global food system. These decisions have a lagging economic effect and only show up months to years later. Couple this issue with the rising cost of grains and other food commodities like orange juice, and we have a real problem developing in the global food system.
We can expect prices to go through the roof, making food expensive. But it’s the lack of supply that presents the real threat. Can you imagine the social unrest in the event of real food shortages?
On top of all this doom and gloom, the midwest, the breadbasket of America, is in the middle of a drought and experiencing record crop failures. NASA scientists claim a looming threat of a “megadrought” in North America that could last a century or more.
So, it’s essential to understand these threats and their danger to the food supply. With inflation rampaging through the economy and food and medicine shortages commonplace in many cities and states, it’s time to take preparation seriously.
The 5 Best Emergency Food Kits For 2023/2024 By Category
Preparation starts with securing the basics – food and water. There are plenty of solutions to storing water, from accumulating container supplies to ground wells or even devices that pull water out of the air.
Food is another story; you can’t just grow a tomato plant overnight if you want some soup. Fortunately, food storage companies offer weekly, monthly, or annual food kits. These kits come with pre-cooked, dehydrated meals ready-to-eat. All you do is add boiling water.
Every American family should have a food storage supply. In some religions, the congregation must always keep a three-month food supply.
Preppers have long understood the importance of food storage when things go wrong. But it’s not only preppers that need to think about storing emergency food supplies in the house.
Keeping at least a three-month food supply could be vital in the case of a national emergency, like a missile strike on US soil, collapse of the electrical grid, or natural disasters from hurricanes and tornadoes. When all the stores are closed or looted, there is no help around, and no food is available, these storage kits can be a lifesaver.
Don’t be one of those people who look back and wish you had taken action on prepping your home for a disaster. Secure an emergency food supply and ensure you and your family have something to eat when there’s nothing available.
We looked at the leading food storage kits and companies. Our assessment led us to pick five brands based on five different categories.
- Best Reputation & Affordability – My Patriot Supply
- Best Monthly Kit – 4Patriots
- Best Premium Option – Famine Fighter
- Best Value – Roundhouse Provisions Emergency Food Supply
- Best Survivalist Kit – Survival Frog
Best Reputation & Affordability – My Patriot Supply
- $177 (1-Month Kit)
- $2,688 (12-Month Kit)
You can’t watch a YouTube video about prepping or survivalism without the influencer promoting My Patriot Supply food kits. From survivalist to political channels, My Patriot Supply is the most-promoted food kit brand online.
And for good reason. Plenty of meal options and recipes, and the meals taste delicious. My Patriot Supply focuses on including organic ingredients with no GMOs.
This company offers pre-packed buckets of emergency survival food in four-week to 12-month kits. They provide tasty meals with options for protein-rich meals with 2,200 calories per serving. Or standard meals with 2,000 calories per serving.
The dehydrated meals from My Patriot Supply are easy to reconstitute with boiling water and are ready in a few minutes. You get high-quality ingredients and enjoyable meals that you’ll look forward to eating. All kits have a shelf life of 25 years.
Best Monthly Kit – 4Patriots
- $277 (1-Month Kit)
After My Patriot Supply, 4Patriots is possibly the ‘preppers’ brand of choice when selecting an emergency food kit. Unlike the other companies on this list, 4Patriots only offers monthly kits. Every kit has a 25-year shelf life, and the company claims it’s sold over 619,000 units, making it one of the top-selling industry brands.
You get a 100% satisfaction guarantee with your purchase. However, the kits don’t have the same daily calories as My Patriot Supply. Every meal contains 1,302 calories, but you can always double your rations to get the calories in. It’s also a good solution for people who want to split their meals into lunch and dinner.
The 4Patriots website has plenty of helpful information for prepping, including the “victory garden” guide, which walks you through starting your vegetable garden to grow food yourself.
Best Premium Option – Famine Fighter
- $399 (1-Month Kit)
- $2,995 (12 Month Kit)
This option is expensive but the best premium food kit on the market. Famine Fighter offers freeze-dried meals via YourFoodFortress.com. Founded by Teddy Daniels, a former military operator, Famine Fighter offers 1-month and 12-month food kits with plenty of recipes and high-quality ingredients.
Like My Patriot Supply, Famine Fighter delivers its kits in buckets for easy storage. You get decent serving sizes and 20 delectable food options. Gourmet meal options include cheesy broccoli soup, chili mac, and creamy alfredo pasta. To customize your dietary needs, you get breakfast, lunch, and dinner options with varying calorie counts.
Famine Fighter sources all ingredients from local suppliers and farms, ensuring you get an authentic American product with no imported ingredients.
Best Value – Roundhouse Provisions Emergency Food Supply
- $49.95 (1-Week Kit)
- $254.70 (1-Month Kt)
Who wouldn’t do whatever Chuck Norris told them to do? You can trust Roundhouse Provisions to deliver; it’s Chuck’s company, and he wants your business. You get options for food kits in one-week, three-week, and six-week tubs.
Every meal in the kit comes to 2,250 calories, making it the most calorie-dense option in this list, narrowly beating the protein-rich options from My Patriot Supply. The meals are flavorful, easy to prepare, and feature premium ingredients. You get tasty recipes like spicy habanero chili, beef-flavored fried rice, vegetable stew, and more.
These hearty meals are designed to deliver as many calories as possible, with 76 servings in a one-week kit. That’s everything one person needs to satisfy their calorie requirements for seven days.
Best Survivalist Kit – Survival Frog
- $749.97 (240 Servings)
- $7,595.95 (2,880 Servings)
This Colorado-based survivalist brand offers freeze-dried emergency food storage solutions and prepping gear. It’s the most expensive option on the list, but they do good work delivering high-quality meals and generous servings with plenty of calories.
Survival Frog emergency food kits are available in 120, 360, or 720-serving buckets, with options for all three meals: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They have many meals, including breakfast and entrée kits, meat buckets, chili mac and beef, and “the Ultimate Preparedness Pack.”
Buyers Guide – Criteria for Ranking the Best Emergency Food Kits
There are dozens of brands in the emergency food kit industry. Each has a unique offering, but the five we mentioned in this review are the pick of the bunch. So, how can we feel confident recommending these kits to you?
When assessing each brand’s offer, we sought specific criteria to shortlist them for this review.
- Meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
- Range of recipes.
- Quality of ingredients.
- Calories per serving.
- Meal taste and quality.
- 25-year Shelf life.
- Price.
These are the basics of what we’re looking for with each company’s offering. Let’s unpack these criteria in detail.
Nutritional Value & Ingredients Quality
Food provides nutrients, minerals, and vitamins to the body. We examined the quality of the ingredients to ensure the brand uses healthy fats and carbohydrates in their meals. We look for organic food products wherever possible. The food should contain no artificial ingredients, GMOs, or preservatives.
Calories
The calories in meals describe the energy content they offer. The average 180-pound man would need approximately 2,000 to 2,200 calories daily to sustain energy levels in a crisis. Pay attention to the calorie serving in each meal and ensure you get calorie-dense food kits offering plenty of energy.
Some food kits have half the calories of others. For instance, My Patriot Supplies protein-rich meals have almost double the calories per serving compared to 4Patriot meal kits. So, you’ll essentially have to eat twice as many pouches to get the same calories. Take that into account when assessing the cost vs. calorie ratio.
Flavor
It’s no good having all the calorie requirements in a meal if it tastes like garbage. The brand should offer tasty meals that are enjoyable to eat. After all, you’re not a Navy seal relying on MREs to get you through the war. Food kits should have meals with flavors that don’t taste bland or get boring.
Shelf Life
The food kits in our review all have a 25-year shelf life. You’ll have to allocate storage space in your home to accommodate the buckets that most kits arrive in. Remember to store them in a cool, dry location. The freeze-drying process in meal kits has locked in the nutrients and flavor into the food for decades. A 25-year-old kit should have the same taste and flavor as a 1-year-old kit.
Meal Selection
If you’re in a genuine emergency, you’ll be grateful to eat whatever you can get your hands on. Fortunately, with meal kits, you can work through a diverse selection of meals to ensure you change things up and don’t get bored with your meals.
Meal Preparation
Meal kits should be easy to prepare, requiring nothing but adding hot water to rehydrate the food. There should be no complicated instructions. You only need a gas camping stove and water for a tasty meal.
Packaging
If you’re planning on storing your emergency food kits for years, they need to come in robust packaging that reduces environmental exposure to the kits. Every kit comes sealed, but keeping them in buckets prevents them from being crushed, making them easy to stack.
Refund Policy
Emergency meal kits must have a minimum of a one to two-year quality guarantee. If you receive an unsatisfactory meal within a year of purchase, you should have the option for a refund. All the companies on our list offer a money-back guarantee on their product. Famine Fighter is an exception to the rule, offering a 25-year guarantee on its product.
Shipping
Food is bulky and heavy, making shipping expensive. We choose brands offering discounted or free shipping on bulk orders over $100. Beware of brands waiting till the checkout page to load you up with shipping fees.
The Top 5 Survival Guides for 2023/2024
Food storage is an essential part of preparedness. Covering your basic needs is important and reduces stress and anxiety in an emergency that could result in bad decisions. However, food isn’t the only thing you must worry about in a crisis.
You need skills and knowledge to stay safe and healthy through the crisis with your family. We put together this collection of survival guides that give you those skills.
You must understand the threat and skills required to navigate the situation when stuck in an emergency. Hospitals and the doctor’s office are closed, and there’s no one around for medical assistance. Understanding basic medical procedures can save you or a family member’s life when things go wrong.
Read these guides, and you will have the knowledge and skills to navigate any crisis successfully.
- Michael Major – No Grid Survival Projects
- Dr. Nicole Apelian – The Forager’s Guide to Wild Foods
- Dr. Maybell Nieves – Practical Medicine for Every Household
- Dr. John Herzog – The Doctor’s Book of Survival Home Remedies
- Medicinal Seed Kit
Michael Major – No Grid Survival Projects
When a crisis hits, it often takes down local infrastructure. That means no electricity, water, or municipal services are available. In “No Grid Survival Projects,” Michael Major walks you through over 70+ projects to make your home self-sustainable.
As a former military operator, Mike has real-life survival skills and experience. You get step-by-step instructions on how to complete each project, including creating systems, devices, and tools that could save your life or your family in an emergency.
Learn how to generate electricity with solar panel installations. Find water supplies in your local area and build a DIY hot water heater. Learn how to set animal traps and protect your property from intruders.
You don’t need handy skills to finish these projects. These systems are easy to create using basic materials in a few hours. Every project you complete makes you less dependent on the grid and the government, ensuring your independence and self-sustainability.
Dr. Nicole Apelian – The Forager’s Guide to Wild Foods
While you have a food supply, learning about the medical value of plants, herbs, and fungi around your property is good. This guide to natural foods, healing plants, and medicinal herbs provides natural solutions to medical issues.
The Forager’s Guide to Wild Foods shows you how to identify, prepare, and eat natural foods growing across North America. It introduces you to over 400 local plants with medicinal properties that could save you from infection or poisoning.
Dr. Maybell Nieves – Practical Medicine for Every Household
When medical services aren’t available, you’ll need basic knowledge to help you navigate medical emergencies. This book features natural remedies for digestive problems, ear infections, chronic diseases, etc.
Dr. Nieves spent time in Venezuela as a surgeon. She collaborates with Dr. Rodrigo Alterio to give you pragmatic strategies for accessing medical care when the hospitals are full, and there’s no help.
You’ll learn how to treat someone without having any prior medical experience. Learn how to treat illnesses and deal with injuries, with all information written by a surgeon. During the blackouts and social unrest in Venezuela, Dr. Nieves continued her work as a head surgeon.
She managed to treat her patients despite having access to limited resources. She put together this guide to give the average person the information they need to deal with acute and severe health issues in the wake of a crisis.
Dr. John Herzog – The Doctor’s Book of Survival Home Remedies
This book contains over 100 clinically proven herbal remedies for treating various diseases and ailments.
This guide is ideal for preppers with no medical experience, giving you a list of valuable herbs to collect for your natural medicine cabinet. Some of the topics covered in the book include herbal preparations to manage diabetes and plants that offer analgesic and anti-inflammatory properties to benefit wound healing.
Herbs that treat colds and the flu, and ingredients to prevent food poisoning. This book is like your doctor in a pocket during a crisis; you won’t want to be without it.
Medicinal Seed Kit
While growing your food yourself is an important skill to master, learning to grow your medicine is even more critical. In a post-apocalyptic crisis, there are no hospitals, doctors, or medication; you must rely on your knowledge and resources to make it through medical emergencies.
This guide gives you practical step-by-step instructions for growing medicinal herbs from seed. You get a collection of seeds included, ready for planting. You will receive guidance on how to grow plants in your yard that can be used as natural remedies.
You don’t need any gardening experience; the guide walks you through everything you need to know. This Medicinal Seed Kit gives you seeds for plant-based preparations to ease pain, lower inflammation, manage diseases, treat wounds, and more.
Some of the seeds in your kit include oregano, basil, sage, bergamot, echinacea, catnip, and lemon balm. These plants have polyphenol antioxidants that assist with natural healing and are trusted traditional medicinal remedies for ailments.
Wrapping Up The 5 Best Emergency Food Kits For 2023/2024
The issue with a crisis or black swan event is that no one ever sees it coming. Sure, a few people in the know sound the warning bell ahead of time, but their warning usually goes unnoticed.
Take COVID-19 for example. There were warnings of a pandemic as early as December and January that year, but no one took notice until the WHO officially announced the Pandemic in March. That was three months to prepare, but most people didn’t bother. Don’t get complacent; start preparing today.
So, when SHTF, it happens in hours or days. By then, it’s too late to prep, and if you miss out on the opportunity to do so, you’re at a considerable disadvantage. It’s not safe to wander around the streets and put yourself at risk.
You don’t want to leave your family alone while you forage for food. You don’t want to end up starving because you didn’t have the foresight to prepare.
This review’s food kits and survival guides give you resources to survive a crisis. It’s your responsibility to take action and make necessary preparations.
While no one can predict when the next crisis will arrive, we can confidently say it’s in the pipeline. Be prepared or expose yourself and your family to danger. Stay safe and use this information to get an edge over the masses in a crisis.
