Food Post #2 - Mountain House Brand Pro-Pak(tm) Freeze Dried Beef Stew
Hello again, Fair Readers, and to begin, let me apologize for the long delay since my first Food Post. No, I didn't poison myself. Rather, tonight is the first night my lovely wife Lisa has been back to work after a 10-day vacation. And not only does she LIKE to cook, she's GOOD at it, and so...
I've generally been too full to do food testing. Not to mention Everything Lisa makes is delicious and healthy, unlike an unfortunately large percentage of my attempts.
Anyway - I should be getting these posts out with a much greater Frequency now. Whether that's good or bad, I'm sure my gastrointestinal system will let me know.
On to tonight's dinner: Some dedicated long-term storage, lightweight Food: Mountain House Brand Pro-Pak(tm) Freeze Dried Beef Stew.
http://www.mtnhse.com/miva/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=M&Product_Code=53114
Fast Facts:
Shelf Life - LONG. I bought this at Academy Sporting Goods Monday night, and the "Best By" date is 1 July 2011. These things won't be going bad any time soon. (Ed note: I’ve eaten Mountain House food WELL past it’s shelf-life and it’s still good if the packet is never opened)
Weight - LIGHT. This really is made for backpackers, where every ounce counts. While it says it makes 16 oz of food (1 serving), Net wt of the package is 4.06 oz. Including the packaging, I'd guess it's maybe 5oz tops. Meaning, 3 squares a day weighs less than a pound in your pack per day – not bad. Of course, that doesn't include the 1.5 cups of water needed for preparation, but this is still a LIGHTWEIGHT package for an entire meal.
Size - Pretty small. It's vacuum packed, and about 6" wide, 7.5" tall, And 2.5" deep. It's also formed at the bottom so it will stand up by itself. Note: the vacuum packing means it won't expand in your pack at high elevation, if that is something that matters to you.
Cost - Mountain House's website lists these at $5.29 each, which is a Bit spendy if you're looking to stock up. Nitro-pak.com http://www.nitro-pak.com/index.php?cPath=147_61_239 lists them for $4.97, which is about what I paid at Academy. In my opinion, this is too expensive to build food stocks with for long-term emergencies. However, given the shelf life, having a few would never hurt, and considering the size and weight, these are perfect for grab-n-go bags, or the emergency kit in your vehicle, or just for camping. Assuming, of course, it tastes ok, which I'll be checking on shortly.
Nutrition info:
1 bag is 1 serving, all values are per serving.
Note: IMPORTANT!!!! The first link does not include the % Daily Value numbers - but note that the Sodium is 100% of the %DV. I have high blood pressure, so I couldn't live on these things without risking a stroke. As it is, I'm probably going to double up my BP meds tonight after eating this. However, if you're foot-mobile, even in a hot, dry environment, a steady diet of these meals would make sure you don't go into a sodium deficiency.
Other nutrition info not in the linked table: Vitamin A: 220% Vitamin C: 60% Calcium: 6% Iron: 25%
Preparation: Pretty easy. Tear the top off the pouch, remove the Oxygen absorber from the pouch. (Note: Oxygen absorber contains powdered iron oxide. Any use for this that anybody knows?) Pour in 1.5 cups of boiling water. Stir, close the ziplock on the pouch, let it sit 8-9 minutes, stir again and eat. The pouch says you can eat directly from the pouch - I'll try that here shortly.
Assuming you can boil water, you should be able to prepare this properly. We'll see how I do :)
Ok, that's about it for the facts and observations about those facts. The rest of this will be my experiences in preparing and eating it.
Observations:
1) Upon adding boiling water to the pouch, it IMMEDIATELY smelled delicious. I'm optimistic about how this will turn out.
2) 1.5 cups of water seemed to make more of a goulash, or mush, than stew. I imagine that's going to get worse as more water is absorbed by the freeze-dried ingredients. More water might be better, but we'll see.
3) I was able to stir it thoroughly in the pouch, but only with great difficulty. Boiling water in a plastic/foil pouch is not fun to try to hang onto with a bare hand. I'd recommend either using a glove, or a small pot with a lid (it's supposed to be sealed for 8-9 minutes).
4) When they say stir thoroughly, they mean it - I thought I was about done, when my spoon hit a pocket of dried-out spices or some other ingredient. I'm sure that would have been nasty had I found it while eating. Be SURE you mix everything up well.
5) No matter how good it smells, don't lick your spoon clean after mixing everything up. The dehydrated ingredients haven't reconstituted yet, and they're still chewy and/or crunchy. Unpleasant.
**8-9 minute pause while food reconstitutes, and Aaron washes that #5 nastiness out of his mouth**
Hey, anybody that knows me won't be surprised that I managed to screw up a meal that only requires boiling water, stirring, and waiting. Take this as an assurance that if I can make something edible out of a given set of ingredients, ANYBODY can. Consider me the culinary "lowest common denominator".
Ok, time's up - the pouch is still too hot to handle easily. I'll try to eat from it, for the sake of testing MH's claim, but I think it would be preferable to use a bowl, or the pot the water was boiled in.
This DEFINITELY qualifies as a "hot meal".
**Aaron eats**
Ok. Wow. This may say something about my cooking skills, but (excluding bacon & eggs), that was one of the best meals I've made for myself in a while. (ed. Note: no, it says something about Mountain House’s cooking and packaging skills).
I could visually identify small-cubed carrots and potatoes, and some Variety of green peas (sweet peas, maybe? I'm not sure). Also some kind of thickening agent, and of course there's a blend of spices that made it smell good as soon as water was introduced.
The veggies reconstituted to a good texture and flavor. The beef reconstituted almost perfectly - tough enough that I knew I was chewing on beef, but not so tough that I had to work at it. And it tasted like beef!
The blend of spices was almost perfect as far as I'm concerned. Just a tad salty, but then, given what I mentioned earlier about the sodium, I'm surprised the salt taste wasn't overwhelming. I didn't NEED to add any spices whatsoever.
Overall, this meal was GOOD. At least as good as beef stew from a can.
Also, I only ate about half of it before I got satisfied. This should be taken with a few caveats, however:
1) I have a fairly sedentary job.
2) I had a REALLY big lunch, at about 1:30 this afternoon (right now, it's 10:45pm).
3) I REALLY don't need that much sodium, so I quit eating when I was satisfied, rather than going until I was full.
If I'd been physically active all afternoon/evening, big lunch or no, I'd have finished this off. And enjoyed it greatly.
Final Observations:
-This is a very convenient, nutritious, lightweight, compact, meal.
-It's plenty of food for one active person for one meal, possibly enough for two people if the activity level isn't very high. (Ed. Note: it’s also available in a two-ten ounce serving size and a four-ten ounce serving size).
-It's too expensive to really stock up on for a long-term emergency, but fills a definite niche for long-term-storable, portable food. (Ed. Note: Consider the S.H.T.F. scenario, and you will note that the first few days will be rather hectic. This is not the time to be spending hours on preparing rations. This sort of food fits the initial scenario perfectly, and should be considered for that role.)
-It's delicious - most certainly a meal one could look forward to, thus fulfilling the morale aspect of food. This is surprising to me. I've tried a few different freeze-dried meals before; my reactions to them ranged from "I'm going to throw this away because I can't choke down another bite" to "This ain't too bad... I guess I could live on this if I needed to". This was the first freeze-dried meal I've ever had, the taste of which I actually ENJOYED.
Getting enough nutrition to live isn't hard - one of the things I'm Looking for here is the morale boost that can be gained from an enjoyable meal, especially in the kind of situation where foods like this will be needed. Everybody involved will be stressed; maintaining morale will be critical to maintaining peak performance.
NOTE: About 15 minutes after I finished eating, I had to visit the Reading Room. Not sure if the two items are related, but you might want to check for yourself prior to stocking up.
I'll be sending Rivrdog an update to this post - I'll get Lisa's opinion on the taste of the Beef Stew, and I'll try some of the leftovers with a bit of Cholula hot sauce - while I found the spice mix tasty, I also enjoy things with a bit of a kick.
And since Lisa's back to work now, these posts should be coming much More frequently - stay tuned! And if you have any requests or suggestions, feel free to put them in comments here, or email me at aaron.neal - at -charter.net
Update:
Lisa agrees, this is as good as any canned beef stew we've ever had. She didn't think it a bit too salty, like I did. About 5x the price of Canned beef stew, but about 1/3 (or less) the weight, and probably similar shelf lives.
I've now made two complete meals out of the one package, but again, Pretty sedentary days at work. And the addition of a bit of Cholula hot sauce did "wake it up" a bit. Not necessary by any means, but a little bit tastier.
This is definitely one that will find a home in our grab-n-go bags.
-Aaron
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