Emergency Food Review: Mountain House vs. MRE

While it is good to be prepared to gather food in the wilderness if you had to, it would be better to prepare some food ahead of time.  I had the opportunity to eat an MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) ration when I went to serve with the U.S. Public Health Service after Hurricane Katrina.  They really are ready to eat, requiring no cooking or preparation.  The main entree tastes better if you heat it up using the included heater.  Their biggest disadvantage is their size and weight.  They would be good to have on hand at home for back up meals or to throw into your vehicle.  They would be difficult to throw into a pack to carry because of that weight (about 1.5 lbs.). Each meal provides 1200 calories and comes with an entree, a side dish, bread/crackers, dessert, powdered beverage mix and seasonings as well as utensils, and a flameless heater to warm the entree.  The packages are durable to puncture, heat and cold.  Because there is so much food in each one, an MRE could sustain one person at a survival level for a day if they were resting and not having to shiver for warmth.

Assuming you could get access to water and boil it, you can spare a lot of weight and space by packing freeze-dried meals.  Mountain House makes a collection of freeze dried meals for backpackers that would fit this bill. Tonight I tried their Chili Mac with Beef entree. It weighs 5 oz. but expands to 20 oz when you add 2 cups of boiling water.  The package says that it serves 2 people and contains 580 calories total.  The tatste was surprisingly good.  The texture of the beef improved with a few more minutes soaking up the water, but at first it was a little chewy.  After eating about a third of it straight out of the hot pouch, I put the rest in a bowl and added shredded cheese. 

They have lots of flavors and I plan to slowly try them.  They are expensive for an everyday meal, but I want to see what works in this form and what doesn't.  They make large cans of these meals that I may stock up on as well for emergency home use (i.e. stuck in a blizzard or other natural disaster). Though we tend to have a really well stocked pantry, the shelf life of these products makes them worth considering.  This was tasty enough that I could see buying two cans, slowly making meals from the 1st can over time and when we open the second can, buy a replacement so that there is always a relatively fresh unopened can in reserve.  I'd have to find a dish that at least 2 or 3 of us at home would eat to make that worthwhile.