If she bought a dehydrator that’s not freezing-drying, that’s just drying. IF properly done, then sealed in airtight packs yeah, that’s good for 1-2 years if stored in cool, dry, dark conditions. Those devices don’t usually cost “thousands”. Low end ones start about $50, a nice one for the home (which will do a better job) are in the low hundreds.
I mean, as hobbies go, that isn’t the worst possible thing she could be doing. Arguably better than drinks, drugs, or gambling although it can still seem to be a money and time sink.
Maybe try to steer her to a mindset that part of being prepped is actually using some of your stock as you rotate/add to it so you are accustomed to dehydrating/cooking/eating it so she actually gets some use out of all that work, maybe encourage her to give some away (to… um… encourage other people to likewise prepare, yeah, that’s the ticket…) so it doesn’t just go to waste. If you can’t stop her then try to steer her towards a less wasteful outlet for her preoccupation.
Wanted to reply, but literally everything I wanted to say was well-covered in @Broomstick’s post, and probably better than I would have.
Personally I have a 5 day supply in my emergency evac kit, plus more in terms of shelf stable food in my house for the once every 10-20 year weeklong snow-in. So 1-2 weeks sounds about right for personal use. And I’d ditch the homemade stuff if you don’t known exactly how it was prepared.
But the reason I posted was to emphasize Broomstick’s second point - a lot of people in the aftermath of the Texas snowmageddon didn’t have emergency food that could be prepared without power, even if they had pantry food that would otherwise have been workable. MRE or commercial freeze-dried stuff can be a lifesaver in the event of truly unexpected circumstances.
I know that many regions that expect periodic interruption to supplies/power (whether major snowstorms, hurricanes, or whatever) tend to have a default level of prep, but it can’t be taken for granted even there, and I know nothing about the OP’s location.
So keep what you need, but please reach out to friends and family who may have never given it a moments thought.
OP said mom’s homemade stuff was freeze-dried, but the MRE’s are not. Keeping MRE’s in the freezer is arguably the best way to preserver them well past their expiration date, but the packaging isn’t designed to handle multiple freeze/thaw cycles. Even just cool temperatures, like 60F, helps a great deal with their longevity.
Not all MRE’s come with a cooking apparatus (usually a flameless ration heater). Any store-bought canned food can be eaten without cooking, but I don’t know if that applies to MRE’s as well, or at least not to all the components/varieties out there. Keeping some Sterno on-hand would seem to be prudent if your electricity/gas is unreliable.
Yeah, but a lot of people look at something like a Mountain House brand meal and call them “MRE’s” even though it is true they are not. On the other hand, that is a good brand of genuine freeze-dried food and they really do have a multi-decade shelf life. If it’s something like that, and commercially sealed, you really could re-sell them, or trade them, if you so desired.
Several people have mentioned issues w home prepared preservation. There’re really three sub-issues, and (as far as I read/skimmed) one has been glossed over.
Doing home food preservation safely for the long-ish term needs a good machine, good knowledge of how to use it, and good actual practices. Having knowledge and machinery is useless if each freshly dried fully sanitary item is contaminated as dirty hands and tools slide it into the envelope the cat licked before it gets hermetically sealed. It’s not enough to know better, you need to have the discipline to actually do better.
Only the OP knows how fastidious his mother’s kitchen technique is. But given the other examples of her … disordered … thinking he’s related to us, I find it unlikely she’s been following every bit of sanitary procedure to the letter every time. I’d sooner expect a lot of “I know best” shortcuts have been applied to the food prep.
There are home (prosumer) freeze drying machines that do cost thousands, but they are not common and IIRC are the size of a dishwasher. I am guessing that isn’t whey she has.
So can dry cereal, fruit, peanut butter, crackers, …
I never worry about emergency cooking facilities. I’ll be less happy eating nothing cooked, but I’m not going to starve.
Re the shelf life of freezer dried food… I bought a lot of freeze dried fruit at the start of the pandemic, thinking that if supply chains got really bad, it would be something i could eat. (i also bought a lot of rice and beans.) We are still eating our way through those supplies. And the fruit is presumably still safe to eat (certainly, no one’s gotten sick) but the quality is a lot lower than it was when i first bought it. It just has less flavor.
Mine came in giant bags, so it’s not hermetically sealed. But every time I remove a quart, i seal the bag pretty thoroughly. And it’s still nice and dry. It just tastes pale.
So I’d be unexcited about mom’s home dried food, even if you are comfortable it is safe to eat.
I would not waste time trying to sell it, it would cost you more than you would get. Donate the purchased items to a shelter or food pantry. The rest I’d throw out or give to someone raising pigs or such.
If they are commercially produced MREs that are not expired it would be foolish to throw them out. They go for over $100 a case. There is profit to be made. There is a decent market for them. Not just crazy preppers. Hunters and campers buy them.
I am a professional cheesemaker. I buy Star-san by the gallon. I know very well how easy it is to thoughtlessly put a sanitized tool on an unsanitized surface. Proper sanitization takes a LOT of focus which can be hard to maintain when working with large batches of food. (It is one of the reasons I only work with five gallon batches at a time.)
The homemade stuff might be OK but I would give it to a friend with chickens. The commercially prepared stuff might get used or given away depending on what is there. As preppers, we know the value of long term food storage but we also know that it is important to have food that we want to eat. IMHO, it is a waste of space to store food you don’t like.
On recent episode of Good Mythical Morning, Rhett and Link taste tested some emergency rations. Needless to say, the results were not good. The only way I could see myself eating anything like this would be if there was a true emergency. Apocalypse Food Taste Test - YouTube