I've seen the following info on a few different webpages. As the author of this particular one notes, this is pretty old info and may no longer be valid.
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"Look for a number stamped on the package that looks like 7045A B06A. Ignore the lot number (B06A), and look at the first digit of the number 7045. The "7" stands for the last digit of the year, 1997.
Next look for the three following numbers. In this example, 045 represents the 45th day of the year, or February 15th. The full breakdown of the date code is therefor, February 15th, 1997."
from http://www.myfossils.com/html/mreage.html
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A decently comprehensive MRE page:
http://www.millennium-ark.net/News_Files/Food/MREs.html
Burton, I note that one of your links is to Botach Tactical. Before you (or anyone else) does business with them, do a search for their name in the Good, Bad, & Ugly forum. While my few dealings with them were mostly okay (only had a bit of unexpected waiting on ship dates), others have Botach customer service horror stories to curl your hair. While the prices at Botach Tactical are often comparatively quite low, IMHO deal with them ONLY as a last resort. There are other vendors on the web who do have good customer service & prices nearly comparable to Botach's.
Hawkins, As handy as MRE's can be for ease of storage & fixing, there are commercial grocery alternatives you can implement. Many websites deal with this issue. A web search should get you lots of hits. This type of site will get you storage methods and shelf life for storables like dry (powdered) milk, grains, canned goods, etc. FWIW from what I've read, honey has a shelf life of pretty much infinity and is useful as both a food product & burn ointment with semi-antiseptic properties. Check out
Cheaper Than Dirt (another site some folks like, others don't) and
Ford's MTM among others.
My stock-up method I call "Need One, Grab Two" shopping. If I'm in the grocery store and need one non-perishable food item (canned, bottled, or dry good) to fix the meal I have in mind, I'll grab two off the shelf - one for the meal, the other to stash in my pantry. Then it's a simple matter of rotating stock in the pantry to use the oldest can or box of that item.
In this way, you spread out the cost of "stocking up" over time, instead of doing it all at once. If you do it all at once you often won't do it, due to finding the cost too expensive. Let's say you decide you need $500 in emergency supplies to achieve your preparedness comfort level. You may well balk at reaching in your bank account & paying out that much all at once. But if you do preparedness stocking up all along, it may cost you $30 one week and $55 another week and so on. These smaller amounts of money are easier to work into your budget than pulling out the $500 all at once.
Here's a few miscellaneous emergency preparedness links:
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http://www.emprep.com/index.html
a vendor local to me in Seattle where I occasionally get liferaft food bars, water barrels, and other individual items. Like most sites, I don't bother with their survival kits, preferring to make up my own.
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http://www.survival-center.com/
Capt Dave's Survival Center website has survival gear & info. Check out his Food Storage FAQ.
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http://dir.yahoo.com/business_and_e...ss/emergency_services/supplies_and_equipment/
Yahoo's page of emergency supply vendor links
