Most of us want to take action to mitigate risk of trouble in life for us and our families. That is why most of us have home and car insurance, buy smoke detectors and gas alarms, and have periodic safety maintenance of our homes and cars.

Yet when it comes to disaster prepardeness only 7% are prepared. Why?

For most the perceived risk level is much lower than a house fire or other events that happen more frequently than a disaster so there is less desire and interest in taking action.

Another factor however is the perceived significant, huge, dedicated, effort involved to be "food prepared". Where does this perception come from?

Do a Google search on survival food or food preparedness and you will find a lot of information from survivalists. Many of these survival sites provide good expert advice on survival and food preparedness.

However much of that survivalist advice is for those who are committed and dedicated to spending a huge amount of time and effort to be prepared.

Advice you often see at these survival websites is to buy in bulk at big box stores. That is buy the grains, flour, and other food products in large 50 lb bags. Then you need to spend a lot of time dividing it into food storage containers, labeling those containers by date, use dry ice to increase storage life, the effort goes on and on.

What you need to do next is spend a lot of time to cook and consume that bulk food every day on a regular basis and periodically "stock-up" to keep your "not so fresh" inventory from going bad. You need to monitor your labeled, bulk food "home warehouse" and maintain a FIFO (first in, first out) inventory system to make sure the food you use today is the oldest in your home warehouse. Does this sound appealing? Will your current lifestyle easily accommodate this continuous effort to be prepared?

What if there is a shortage when you need to re-stock on bulk grain? Timing is everything in this system and you could be spending a lot of effort to be prepared but end up unprepared because of bad timing.

Do you think you are prepared to do all of the above to be "prepared"? Even if you are motivated now at this time and ambitiously say "yes", what is the chance you will give up this "preparedness is my life" dedication and send most of the 200 lbs of bulk rice you just bought to the garbage dump?

While I can admire the dedication that these people follow to be prepared, I know that most of us are not inclined to go to these extremes to be food prepared. Not everyone wants to nor obviously will they, make a such a drastic lifestyle change to support food preparedness.

Is the above survivalist system the only way to be food prepared for months or even a year?

Is there an easier way that is not extremely expensive?

How can a much greater number of Americans than 7%, really become food prepared and thus decrease the burden relief agencies need to support in a disaster?

The simple answer is freeze dried food. Buy it once, Mountain House #10 cans can last up to 25 years. Store it in a cool dry place, forget about it till you need it. You can mark 'Expires in 2033′ on the boxes in case you never use it in the next 25 years.

Then you won't be clearing out pallets of rice at the big box every 6 months like the survivalist's recommend you do. You won't be caught off guard when there is a shortage at the time you need to re-stock your 200 lbs of bulk grain.