I have absolutely nothing to gain by telling you about this, except the satisfaction of knowing that I have passed along some good information. Thanks to the Dear Karen online newsletter put out by www.y2kwomen.com, I learned about a good, INEXPENSIVE storage food. It is a rice/soy casserole developed to feed starving children in foreign countries, and is now available for those preparing for Y2K. It is fortified with vitamins and soy protein, is packaged for long-term storage, and is tasty and easy to cook. I tried a package, and it makes at least six generous portions. (Some of those expensive storage companies consider half a cup of something to be a serving. Ha! Thats about two bites!) The smallest amount you can buy is a box of 36 packages (approximately 216 meals) for $125. Thats only 58 cents per meal. You can get four boxes for $464, eight boxes for $880, sixteen boxes for $1728 (or $1799 if you mention Gary Northsee previous post), or thirty-three boxes for $3500. They come in either chicken or beef flavor. For more information contact Future Foods, 5401 Boone Ave. N., Minneapolis, MN 55428. Their phone number is (612) 504-2930, and the fax is (612) 504-2943.

-- Pearlie Sweetcake (storestuff@home.now), December 28, 1998

Answers

Better taste it before ordering it. Nothing i+s any worse than being stuck with surivaval food and wishing you were dead instead of having to eat it.

-- JMHO (JMHO@barf.com), December 29, 1998.

Remember the thread "A Millenium Christmas Carol" by Larry Shook? This product is the stuff Richard Proudfit developed to feed starving kids. Glad to see it picked up on.

-- Maria (encelia@mailexcite.com), December 29, 1998.

So, Pearlie...how DOES it taste?

++Mercy++

-- Mercy (prepare@now.com), December 29, 1998.

Maria, thank you for reminding the people that this information is from the Proudfit organization to feed the world's starving children.

Also, remember that the profits for the sale of this food does NOT go to the pockets of Mr. Proudfit. The money goes back to buying more supplies to feed the children.

I haven't tasted it yet. Pearlie, how about it, how does it taste? Serve it to guests for a New Year's Eve party (advertise Y2K)!

-- Joseph (jbabinsky@theriver.com), December 29, 1998.

It tastes just fine, and seems no different than any bowl of rice you might prepare yourself. We tried the beef flavor, but it didn't taste much of beef. It has small colorful flecks in it, probably dried veggies of some sort, and seems to have spices. It needs salt, but surely you will have some on hand. They recommend that you add four tablespoons of cooking oil to the six cups of boiling water, which I did. Other than that, we ate it plain first, then added pieces of meat for later meals. We gave away about a third of it to relatives who are preparing, and we are still trying to finish off that one package. I certainly wouldn't want to be caught with nothing else to eat for weeks, but it appears to be a wonderful, inexpensive supplement to whatever else you are storing. I only recently sent in my order (what we tried was a sample), so I can't tell you how long it takes to arrive.

-- Pearlie Sweetcake (storestuff@home.now), December 29, 1998.

Thanks for the info, my friends. Could come in handy with 6 children to feed :)

-- Mercy (prepare@now.com), December 30, 1998.