Over the weekend, I took advantage of a sale on Amazon and bought four #10 cans of Augason Farms food for up to 50 percent off. That’s like getting two for one. I compared the price-per-ounce to similar products at my favorite survival food supplier, and the sale made these less expensive. Add in free shipping, and it was a no-brainer.
Specifically, I bought their creamy potato soup mix and the vegetable stew blend. Let’s look at what I liked about each one besides the sale price.
Creamy Potato Soup
On the positive side, the soup mix is a just-add-water product, so you can make a meal by adding the mix and some water to a saucepan and simmering for 10 to 15 minutes. With limited resources post-SHTF, we won’t be cooking elaborate meals, so a one-pot meal is plus. On busy days, when we are harvesting, canning or working on another project, a fast meal will be a bonus.
The can holds almost three pounds, which equates to 25 servings. That’s another positive because it makes me feel like I’m getting something for my money. The whole can is 5,500 calories’ worth of food, which works out to be about a third of a cent per calorie. Not as cheap as the grits I discussed a few days ago, but not terribly expensive either.
While the soup is primarily carbohydrate, which you should expect from something made from potatoes, it has some fat and a little protein. Both will be needed. In fact, with any hope, this will be part of a meal, not the only source of calories.
The downside of this product is the food is highly processed. The ingredients list is full of things like dipotassium phosphate, sodium hexametaphosphate, hydrolyzed corn and soy protein. This would not be on the top of my list for home cooking, but I can make an exception for the end of the world.
Vegetable Stew Blend
The ingredients list on this can is much shorter and includes only potatoes, cabbage flakes, onions, carrots, celery slices, and green and red bell pepper. And while these veggies are dehydrated, they have no chemicals or preservatives added, not even salt. I expect this will be more healthy that the potato soup.
The downside is that one can has only 3,200 calories worth of food, making it just slightly more expensive than the potato soup on a calorie-by-calorie basis.
I look at this mix not as a meal but as the foundation of a meal. Ideally, you could add some meat to the stew, either from an animal we trapped or a can from our storage. Then we could whip up some dumplings and cook them in stew. That would make a pretty good meal. Of course, that’s not as simple as the potato soup.
While this is called a stew mix, there’s no reason you can’t use it for soup or to add some vegetables to a casserole. I expect you could rehydrate a cup full and mix it in to another dish when you don’t have fresh vegetables. This may be one of those items we wish I had bought more.
Other Cans
A few weeks ago, I bought six other #10 cans from Augason Farms that were on sale on Amazon. Before that, I had their Southwest Chili Mix in my cart, but the price jumped up before I went back to check out. Over the past couple of years, I’ve grabbed a number of their items on sale.
I recommend you keep an eye on their sales. Whether it’s 44 or 50 percent off, you can about double the amount of food you bring home for your grocery dollar when there is a sale. For prepping purposes, this stuff has a shelf life measured in decades. Even if we don’t have a terrible TEOTWAWKI disaster and need to eat potato soup and squirrel stew, there’s nothing stopping us from eating this food in 15 years and marveling at how much money we are saving. At the rate food inflation is hitting us, that $35 can could be $135 by 2039.
Are 10 additional cans of dried food going to save my life? No, but they may extend it a few weeks. And if you buy 10 cans every month, it won’t be long before you’ll have a substantial supply of food saved up.
Meanwhile, I am waiting for their freeze-dried cheese go on sale. I don’t have any in stock because it is so darn expensive.
