I bought what beprepared.com calls a gourmet 14-day food supply. It came packed into two boxes for a total of 22 pounds and looks like this:
Dig down a bit and you find this:
The packets are Mountain House brand freeze-dried entrees. Mountain House is my favorite brand of backpacking food.
The cans are freeze-dried fruits, vegetables, and drink mixes to supplement the entrees.
And it comes with a menu plan to show how you can make meals out of them:
The entree packets say they contain 2 to 2.5 servings per packet but the menu assumes one person will eat the entire packet. I know from experience I can do that.
When Dave and I first started fulltiming we mostly lived on Mountain House foods but we would make one entree and one desert to share for each meal. My favorite of their meals is Beef Stroganoff with Noodles. Dave hates stroganoff. So I always got to eat that whole packet myself. Although, I would sometimes refrigerate some of it to save for another meal. So, I doubt I will be supplementing those packets with fruits and vegetables. I’ll probably eat the fruits for snacks but the vegetables may stay around for their entire 10-year shelf life.
I consider these to be camping food more than emergency food, though, because they require you add boiling water. Which means you have to have access to lots of water and a way to bring it to a boil. When the power is out not many of us living in houses or apartments can cook. Even gas stoves often have an electronic pilot light nowadays. And our apartment is all electric. But when my van is here and ready for camping I have no problem because my solar panels provide the electricity I need to heat the water from my 40 gallon fresh water tank. (It is still winterized right now, though, since we are still having some nights where temps go below freezing so that fresh water tank has only RV antifreeze in it right now.)
I bought these foods to put in my van to have when I’m out in the boonies and don’t want to drive in to a store. Or in case I get sick again and have a hard time keeping myself fed.
But if Dave takes my van to Texas without me, I may just stay home and eat these. They are easy and tasty, after all.
And those three packets of Beef Stroganoff are already calling my name.
TTYL,
Linda
ps. I don’t drink milk so next time you see me you can ask if I’ve given it away yet. If not, you can have it.
Hopefully, none of the cans need a can opener. Not too many people would have that in their emergency packet.
We have a month’s supply of Mountain House with us. We use it occasionally when I need a change and it really isn’t bad at all. So after we use one we replace it.
I’ve seen the Mountain House food items at REI but I’ve never tried them. At least now you’re starting to get a supply of food that you can keep on hand for whenever you feel like eating it. How many jugs of water do you carry with you? You’ll need those jugs of water for sure.
Egads! Your last several posts are giving me the willies about my upcoming drive to Minnesota! 😉
Seems you’re all set for a few ‘guilty pleasures’! I know too well the way certain foods can just shout out your name as if you had nothing better to do in life than heed their Siren call!
Funny about the dehydrated food. I ate it when we were young and backpacking and haven’t touched it since. When we started fulltiming we started eating even less prepared food than we had at home — keeping a more fundamental pantry meant I did more actual COOKING. But that’s the great thing bout life — you don’t have to do it one way — we all get to pick and choose!
The complication of enough water to produce those meals is not just a dehydrated meal issue. I fall back on pasta a lot — but no way to do that without excess water.
You have me wondering now — if I weighed up 14 days worth of survival food how much weight it would total. My problem would be tucking into it every time I was too lazy to hit the grocery. C’est la vie.
P
i think the marine uses that on his hikes in the mountains. not sure. i must ask him now!
curious to see how it tastes. i usually like those kinds of foods. weird maybe but i do!
hope you’re feeling better and better.