>>2683714>Am I just better off buying canned food at the store?For what purpose? But yes, probably.
If you're looking for food for an emergency then the ideal solution is to buy more of what you usually and just cycle through it before it goes bad. That way you're not wasting money on food that you'll have to either force yourself to eat or donate to a food bank if S doesn't HTF in the next couple of years.
This only works if you eat a lot of shelf-stable foods. My wife and I go through a lot of rice, beans, flour, oats and protein powder so we can easily store several months worth of that sorta stuff and not worry about it expiring before we eat our way through it. If you eat a lot of canned food in your usual diet then that'd work the same way.
If you mostly eat take-out or frozen meals or whatever, and you don't think you'd be able to eat your way through a pantry of rice/canned food/etc before they expire then MREs might be more worthwhile but rice/canned food/etc will still probably be cheaper even if you need to replace them more often due to the more limited shelf life.
If you're looking for food to take camping or hiking, MREs are fun but they're honestly not that great when it comes to cal/$ or cal/lb. Mountain House meals are generally cheaper if you need something with a long shelf-life but I usually just make up my own meals before a trip, hard cheeses and cured meats last just fine even in summer.
The only use-case for which MREs are arguably the best option is if you just want some food you can leave inside a BOB in your closet and forget about. Lifeboat rations like Datrex or Mainstay bars will have more cal/lb and be less hassle to eat on the move but an MRE or two would be a definite morale booster in comparison.
