Mountain House Freeze Dried Food – Great in a Pinch!

Originally posted 2017-05-20 01:23:59.

Rummaging around in the pantry this evening, I happened upon one of my remaining pouches of Mountain House freeze dried food – and I thought they’d be good for the subject of a quick article.  I really dig these freeze dried pouches for a couple of reasons.

First off, they don’t taste horrible.   Mountain House freeze dried food comes in a wide variety of meals, among which my favorites are:

• Beef Stew
• Beef Stroganoff with Noodles
• Chicken Dumplings
• Chicken Fajita Bowl
• Chicken & Mashed Potatoes
• Chicken Teriyaki
• Chili Mac with Beef

There’s a bunch more flavors available, these are just the ones I’ve actually eaten.  They aren’t a gourmet, five star meal, but when you’re stranded in the wilderness one of these would certainly feel like one!   The meals come available in three sizes, the largest being a #10 can (like you get coffee in)  Then there’s a 4.3 oz  pouch and a smaller “Pro-Pak” pouch for single serving meals.  I stocked up on these when the sports mega chain stores Sports Authority began liquidating as the company shuttered its doors. 

So, what else do you do with a hidden stash of Mountain House freeze dried food, aside from eat it?  My favorite meals of the selections I got were the Beef Stroganoff with noodles and the Teriyaki Chicken – both were rather hardy and contained a good amount of protein for their small package size.

Another part of what makes Mountain House freeze dried food awesome is the fact that these packages are light as a feather – they will barely add any noticeable amount of weight into your hiking or bug out bag – which means you can have any easy meal without lugging too much heavy stuff around.  A second bonus to these is the fact that the pouch they are contained in can also be the vessel used to cook them in, which means even in a situation where you might be without cooking utensils, all you need to do is cook the meal in the pouch itself using approximately two cups of boiling water. (The caveat here, I suppose, is that you’ll need a way to boil some water in order to heat the meals up.. you guys can figure that out though, you’re adults…)

The larger pouches contain 2.5 servings, or really one good meal  – for example the beef stew pouch in front of me is 2.5 servings, with each serving being 190 calories.  So if you’ve been hustling in the woods all day, you’ll easily scarf up the 475 calories contained in the entire pouch.  There’s also a good amount of protein in these meals, so they are good overall nutritional profile for raw energy.

Mountain House freeze dried food can get a little pricey if you buy the pouches individually in a store, so I recommend buying them in bulk if you decide they would be a good addition to your survival stash.  Overall, they are an awesome item that can bring you some peace of mind knowing that you can make a quick, hot, & nutritious meal virtually anywhere.