BTW the Best By Date does not mean rot.

Food is 'living' matter, even when cooked. nutrients like Vitamins 'leech out' and transform over time. This is why Vitamin pills are only good for about a year.

Best By on a food can usually means that by that date the food is still 'nutritionally' sound - after than date it starts loosing its nutritional value, nearly 1/4 of its nutrition is lost in the first year after the 'use by' date, half is gone 2 years out and then it starts dropping by halfs, half of the half the third year, half of the half of the half the fourth year... and so on.

It happens to all food, be it grain, ground grained, 'dried', freeze dried, frozen, irradiated, canned, blah.

Do stock up, but run your larder/pantry like a store. Use the older stuff first and put new stuff behind. Plan on eating what you have today by 2 years time (that's really more than you would need)

MRE's and other long stored foods are 'fortified' with vitamins thus they can last longer (be nutritionally sound).