My First Thrive Foods & Emergency Essentials Orders!

I received my first #10 cans this last week.  I ordered from two different places.  First I ordered from Emergency Essentials.  I started with just some things that they had in stock and things that I knew I would want to use.  (this is apparently essential when buying food storage)  I received Chicken TVP, Mixed Vegetables, & Triple Berry Blend.  The berries were very pricey, but I thought they would be great to have.  Both the mixed veggies and berries I will be putting away.  The TVP I opened the other night for us to try out.  I used it in stir fry and we were surprisingly pleased with it.  The next night I made some tvp meatballs.  They were ok but I want to find a better recipe that will make a more moist meatball.  I will be ordering more TVP in the other types next week.  All will be great for our oldest daughter who claims that she wants to eat vegetarian.

A week after receiving my goodies from Emergency Essentials I received my order from Thrive Foods.  From here I ordered some chopped onions, green & red bell peppers and their mac & cheese blend.  I also got some small pouches of the chopped onions to use right away.  I will be opening all of these to use in rotation. I'm really excited about these three things.  The chopped onions will save me so much time when making stews and sauces.  The mac & cheese blend is said to be the same stuff that comes in certain big brand blue box mac & cheese.  I'm really excited about this because now I can make exactly how much we want and with whole wheat noodles for much much cheaper!  The bell peppers I will be ordering more of on my next order.  Have you seen prices on fresh peppers lately.  Last week the non-green ones were $2.99 each!  I about fell over in the store.  We eat those like candy around here.  The dehydrated ones will go into any mixes that I make, soups, sauces, etc.  I will only buy the fresh ones to use on salads and snacking.  Hopefully that will save me money and time.

To review both companies... I have good and neutral things to say about both.
Emergency Essentials:  The good:  They have great prices and almost anything that you could want or need.  They carry two sizes including the superpails. Shipping is super cheap and your items got to me really fast.  The Neutral: They are ALWAYS out of stock of most things.  You can order them, but they can take up to 2 months to get to you from what I've read.

Thrive Foods:  The good:  Their packaging is really pretty. (this is a totally girly thing!)  They have some different foods than some other places and shipping was very affordable.  The Neutral:  Their prices seem to be a bit higher on most things.  (compared to emergency essentials)  Shipping took a bit longer, but was still very reasonable considering they are being bombarded with orders lately due to situations throughout the world.

Overall, I will be ordering monthly from both companies.  I'm excited to build up my supply.  I'm also looking into buying in bulk locally to use in my immediate food rotation.