LTS: Meat Products

LTS: Meat Products

Most Canned Meat Products will be good for 2-5 years. So don’t buy 100 cans of deviled ham (tuna/clams/salmon/roast beef/ et all) – unless you are going to be eating and rotating it.

Canned meat products are typically cooked for a long time and at a high temperature in order to can them safely. This can reduce the nutritional value of canned meat. However, it’s better than NO meat for those of us with no space to raise chickens or rabbits! Canned and Dried meats are also very high in sodium, required for preserving them. Eating them with beans (from dried) and rice can help balance the sodium for the meal as long as you don’t add additional salts while cooking your starches.

Summer Sausage
Many Dried Cured Salamis, such as LandJaeger, Sopresatta Salami; check out Molinari & Sons – dry cure products
Tillamook Country Smoker has a line of pepperoni/sausage vacuum packed with oxygen absorbers that last quite some time.
Jerkies – Beef, Game,
Canned Salmon & Tuna
Spam
Canned Chicken
Canned Clams
Canned Sardines / Anchovies
Canned Crab
Underwood Meat Spreads (Deviled Ham, roast beef spread, corned beef spread, chicken spread)
Vienna Sausages
Armor: Potted Meat, Dried Beef
Dak Canned Ham
Keystone Heat & Serve Meats (Pork, Turkey, Beef). I tried the pork. Add a bit of BBQ sauce and it makes an acceptable pulled pork sandwich.
Tyson Chunk While Chicken Pouches
Hormel Smoked Canned Ham
Roast Beef & Gravy
Shelf Stable Bacon – Costco has large pouches of bacon bits that are good at least 2 years, and are much better than “bacos”; these actually feel and taste like bacon.
Depending on your grocery, you might find “Sandwich Makers” – meats in 1-2 portion sizes (in plastic trays) with pulled pork, meatballs in sauce, or sloppy joes. Ranchers brand has canned stroganoff, meatballs or beef tips in gravy.

Aside from what you can get in your neighborhood grocery, there are meat options specifically designed for long storage, emergency preparedness, off the grid/camp cooking. Companies such as Yoder, Emergency Essentials, Mountain House, Wise Foods, Thrive, etc. offer canned meats (typically freeze dried), but prepare to pay through the nose. A #10 can of ground beef (equal to about 7 lb. cooked fresh hamburger) will set you back 60-70$ Sodium content is typically better on freeze dried products over canned.

Let me say – In my college days, I spent about 8 months working for Oregon Freeze Dried Foods (Mountain House is their own brand name; they also do government freeze drying and for private companies. They used to do nutria-system foods for instance). And I tried quite a few different types of their freeze dried foods. They really are quite tasty.

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