Lots of manufacturers out that pedaling survival foods from dehydrated/freeze dried to MRE’s and I would like to ask member opinion on what was the best, the worst and then just plain nasty meals they ever consumed.
Now all opinions are welcome but I would like to hear from recent usage up to one year ago if possible. Also list a link from were you purchased the meals if possible.
My most recent use of a freeze dry meal was from Mountain House and was Lasagna with meat sauce. This was a two meal bag and I used two tea candles in a metal coffee can with the canteen suspended just above the flame to warm some water to mix with the contents in the foil bag.
I have to say that the meal was very tasty and filling but required more water then what was listed on the directions.
Since I stay in a deer stand the entire day a warm mid day meal is always welcome and as the prep of just pouring the water into the bag then closing can’t get much easier then that.
I purchased over 100 bags of Mountain House meals in different favors when Wal-Mart had a clearance sale on them for $3.00 to $4.00 a bag during they product change over to Coleman meals. Most bags were four person meals with the remaining being two person.
Most of the mountain house I’ve tried has been palatable. Watch out for the sodium though. It’s through the roof on most of them.
ETA:Mountain house was beef stroganoff, eggs w/ diced peppers, beef steef, and chili mac and cheese. All were surprisingly good.
Most were used on hiking trips, all had been purchased at EMS, dicks, or gander mountain.
Also had some of the MRE squad meals (tray rations I guess they are called) Had the red beans and rice, spaghetti, and pork spare ribs. Purchased from longlifefood.com Honestly wasn’t a huge fan of any. Don’t get me wrong, they are better than starving, but definitely not something I’d want to survive on long term.
those MRE trays are the worst in the world. just get regular MREs. there are 4 major manufactures and i think you will be fine ordering from any of them. Apacks are what we order. www.thereadystore.com has great customer service for mre’s and mountain house #10 cans. the mountain house ones are great because half of thier menus do not contain milk. wifey is lactose intororant.
The bad for me - MRE’s. I used to ne able to eat them and be fine, but as I get older, not so much, unless I also have 1/2 a bottle of Tums and a pound of dried prunes…
The good for me - Mountain House. It still works well with my digestive system. One of the great things I have started to do with the MH pouches is pour half of it out into a Ziplock freezer bag then add equal amounts of minute rice or noodles and water to each, to stretch it out as far as possible. The Ziplock freezerbag can take the hot water, which makes things easy.
I’ve tried a lot of dehydrated and freeze Dried foods. It ranges from Standard issue MREs, Costco Buckets, Mountain House knock-offs, Home Canned goodies to Actual Mountain House. The choice if you where to stay in place is home canned stuff.
But for bug-out or everyday hiking / camping Mountain House is the bees knees. Weight to proportion to nutrition you can’t beat it. Sodium is a concern of mine too and that is why I bring along some extra Quinoa or 5 minute Rice to put into my Mounatin House Pouches and add extra water to it. This not only allows me to cut down on my sodium intake but to also have enough to share with my buddies too. One of those 2 serving pounches when adding extra grain to it more than fulls up two grown adults. Plus save some room cuz we’ve got smores for desert!
Check out Outdoor Herbivore , it’s all vegetarian, vegan stuff but it’s whole food and really does taste good.
It’s not gonna last as long as some of the other stuff, but it’s also way better for you and does not have the metric butt ton of sodium some of the others have.
Try the Applechia it’s great!
It’s interesting to me that everybody is racing out purchasing FD food.
Origonally we chose a different route to go, based on our time table beliefs. We made our first year purchases of cased #10 cans of regular food stuffs from Restaurant supply stores.
We purchased 130 cases, each case has 6 to 8 #10 cans in it. Fruit Veg’s and staples in equal portions for a balanced meal. We figure each #10 can has at least 10 servings likely closer to 15/20 if you use suggested serving size.
We then purchased and packaged bunch’s of 50 pound bags of rice pinto beans wheat oats etc etc. 2 90 pound bags of powdered milk and a couple 100 pounds of brown sugar and sugar. Several 10/20 lb large bags of salt.
Step two was Costco shopping. 150 cases of regular canned good such as soups tuna chicken roast beef spam corns beans grean beans corn and sauces, and again multiple 50 lb bags of rice beans etc. Lots of pasta aswell I mean a shit load of pasta’s. Canned sauces and 60 pounds of coffee. These cases are 6 to 8 cans per case.
100 pounds of Maza, lots of oats. and wheats
10 36 roll packages of towlet paper.
15 /20 cases of coleman propane bottles
100 pounds of charquel for BBQing.
lots and lots of keresene for the lamps.
Generators with fuel storage. We are also in the process of replacing the stoves and cook top ranges back to natural gas for obvious reasons. Ongoing
Then we started to purchase FD food, which is on-going plus restocks of any cans used in the daily rotation.
We figure we were able to accomplish a rapid food stocking by working this way, the regular food cans will last many years if stored correctly. However with the time table looking more and more like it’s coming sooner rather then later we are comfortable with our system.
Dollars spent was literally 1/2 compared to FD food up front. Now we continue to purchase FD foods on sale by the case. We also purchase cases of #10 cans monthly.
The only problem we have had is storage. I hade to purchase 8, 2000pound comercial grade storage shelfs from Costco to hold this stuff.
My garage looks like the food pantry at the homeless shelter.
One of the shelfs is specifically for ammo, its to the top and the storage shelf is bowing in the middle.
FD foods is a good way to go, but the regular canned stuff has a decent shelf life and if we don’t need it in a couple of years we will donate to the local food bank. That would be prefrable rather then what we think is coming
Just food for thought good luck on your prepping
Dirk
i kind of wish i could tour the place where they prepare and package the freeze dried food out of curiousity - spell check anyone?.
i said the tray are the worst based on taste alone (just plain nasty) like you were looking for. i dont know how they stack up shelflife and nutrition wise, my buddy had some that, after he tried some, were coming home with me or in his garbage can. they ended up in my garbage can instead. :bad: