Questions About Freeze Dried Food.

As of late my wife is starting to worry about where things are going or headed. So she is looking into these freeze dried food packages and I'm wanting to know is has anyone here eaten any of these foods and did not care for the taste or what ever and may help us and any everyone else avoid buying.

Do give your input on such food you thought was really good, I think others would like to know this too.

What I did was buy the single serve pkgs and if I liked it buy the #10 cans. Some things I liked and others I hated so it was a good and relativly a cheap way to go. Have you thought about making up your own meals and pack in canning jars?

The major drawbacks of freeze dried foods is cost, sodium content, and MSG content..

The benefits are ease of preparation (often just "add boiling water"), lack of weight (really great for BOB's) and very long (up to 25-30 years under good conditions) shelf life. Mountain House still has by far the best reputation for quality, flavor and shelf life. If I were going to invest the considerable $$$ into freeze dried (we never had that sort of money, so went with more basic staples) I'd buy Mountain House.

I would strongly suggest that you buy some packets (sold for camping- WalMart often carries them) and TRY some before buying a lot of any particular brand or flavor of food.

Summerthyme

Deemy said:

What I did was buy the single serve pkgs and if I liked it buy the #10 cans. Some things I liked and others I hated so it was a good and relativly a cheap way to go. Have you thought about making up your own meals and pack in canning jars?

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She has ordered some and it showed up and its 12 of the No#10 cans of a few things. I suggested we buy stuff that would be hard to come by in really hard times as we can grow and canning allot of veggies of our own.

summerthyme said:

The major drawbacks of freeze dried foods is cost, sodium content, and MSG content..

The benefits are ease of preparation (often just "add boiling water"), lack of weight (really great for BOB's) and very long (up to 25-30 years under good conditions) shelf life. Mountain House still has by far the best reputation for quality, flavor and shelf life. If I were going to invest the considerable $$$ into freeze dried (we never had that sort of money, so went with more basic staples) I'd buy Mountain House.

I would strongly suggest that you buy some packets (sold for camping- WalMart often carries them) and TRY some before buying a lot of any particular brand or flavor of food.

Summerthyme

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Never noticed Wal-Mart carried the product I will have to look and try some of it out.

...Several years ago we bought the pouches from J.C. Refuge and loved everything except the breakfast food. Then we ordered the #10 cans.. Most of what we tried was really good.

Conrad Nimikos said:

...Several years ago we bought the pouches from J.C. Refuge and loved everything except the breakfast food. Then we ordered the #10 cans.. Most of what we tried was really good.

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Have not looked to see everything they stock and breakfast foods is not something I would even think they have with the exception of pancake mix.

I didn't stock up on the freeze dried meals, they just seemed to expensive. I assumed that food wouldn't be impossible to get, but that it might be very expensive or that I might have to do with what I could grow or barter for. So I tried to stock up on baking and cooking foods, such as mashed potatoes, freeze dried eggs, milk, refried beans, pancake mix, soup mixes, and mixed fruits and vegetables.

I figured that the price of 4 cans of mashed potatoes was about the same price as one can of the higher end freeze dried meal, in the same size can. I know that I like mashed potatoes, and can eat it 3 meals a day if need be. I can also use it to make potato pancakes, as a additive to soups, in some bread mixes, and in a hundred other things.

I would hate to have nothing to eat except a bunch of food that I couldn't stand. Or worse, run out of food too fast because I went the expensive route. Don't get me wrong, if I won the lottery then I would buy a years supply of the expensive stuff. But I would also buy more of those freeze dried apples, because they are just as good as potato chips when freshly opened.

...I think the one we tried was eggs and ham.

I got the pouches to try and then bought the cans of what I liked. The main advantages of freeze dried are ease of use an long shelf life. Drawback is cost. My personal favs are beef stroganoff, chili mac and turkey tetrazzini. Breakfast stuff, not so much but I probably would eat if I had to,

The mountain house in the #10 cans is fantastic. I've bought them from JC and sampled some of them. They've opened cans up that are 30 years old and they taste almost as good as fresh so they have a long shelf life. I bought some freeze dried food from Wise foods and the stuff stunk pretty bad. Didn't taste or look good to me at least. Was cheaper than mountain house but so was the quality and I read a few snippets that their O2 content is quite a bit higher than it should be so probably won't last as long as MH foods.


edit...

Just found a review between the two that might be helpful;

http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=201507

Ok; I'm gleaning allot here and Hfcomms that link was helpful! No Wise Foods.

Problem with freeze dried foods is they are all carbohydrates! no nutritional benefits, so you need vitamins also. We have them. Because they are fast if you have to leave the home from a tsunami fast, 30 days in a bucket. But buy dried peas or beans in the grocery and some SPAM....boil peas, chop Spam and you got a healthier meal. Buy your own pasta, get some Campbels soups or canned spaghetti sauce. There are also the vacumn packed foil packages of bumble bee tuna and Salmon that will store for years.....the boxed Tofu is also good for 2 years at least. Rice and dried beans....don't forget to get your chili, gravy mcCormick packages for a different tastes....and of course go make a trip to Sam's Club or Costco for bulk dried and can foods. Good luck.....are you storing water? Hope you are or have a source. gal a day.

I don't really agree that there is no nutrition in freeze dried food. and Alpine Aire is a healthier alternative to Mountain House.
the Alpine aire has less salt and no msg. Also, there is Backpackers Pantry one of the original suppliers of food for climbers. I have all of them in my storage and I am partial to the spicy dinners. Just my preference. I second the motion that Wise Food is crap. Also I think the blueberry granola with milk and honey tastes good from Alpine Aire. I like the Red Beans and Rice and Chicken jambylaya from Backpacker Pantry and I think just about everything tastes good from Mountain House. All of the above are worth the price for emergency food storage because the shelf life is so long on them.

I prefer freeze dried ingredients rather than whole meals in pouches or cans. While we do havea small number of Mountain house and Alpine Aire complete meals, they're just for convenience or emergency use. Our main LTS backup consists of ingredients that we can make our own meals with.

Buying the #10 cans of freeze dried fruits, vegetables, meats, and dairy/egg products makes much more sense to us than buying even the great tasting MH meals. Much mroe economical, and we can make the meals we prefer with lower salt and none of the added ingredients. For grains, we went with pails instead of cans for economy.

Don't forget about dehydrating your own garden products. Dehydrating in the Excaliber dehydrator, then storing in canning jars is a much more economical way to prepare similar food.

~Sportsman