Anyone have the Mountain House 7-day food kits? Vitacost.com has them for $99.80 and I'm thinking of ordering one to start with, then more as $ allows.

I do have a few questions, though. How good are the meals, how much water will you use preparing them, and what are the dimensions of the box (they only list 9 pounds as the weight)?

I don't have the "kits" but I have MH food. I hae a couple #10 cans and a bunch of pouches. We use them for back packing, their food is good!

Redflare would be the guy to ask. He is advertising them on the marketplace page.
http://forums.equipped.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=178142


When I have used mountain house foods they have been easy to prepare and tasted good.
I am more of a basic staples type of cook instead of a pre-made meals type of cook. so I tend to store things like beans, rice and flour then mix what I want.

Just like Todd I do not have the "kit" but I do have over 200 cans and maybe 3-4 dozen bags. Please remember the bags have a shorter "best if used by date" than the cans (7.5 years for the bags compared to 25-30 for the cans). The cans are great for storage and they are more "cost effective" than the bags. I however will recommend going and buying a bag of a few flavors and trying them out first to get a feel for them and the taste. FYI 90% of the flavors have ALOT of salt. The exceptions being fruit and veggie sides, blueberry graonla and milk, porkchops- uncooked. I know there are a few others but I can not think of them off the top of my head.

I like to keep a dozen bags in the cars. I have decent GHB that I made (using alot of Dougs lists info) and these meals are great for this purpose. If I happen to work over 18 hours a day and I do not feel like ordering out, I have gone out to the car and grabbed a meal to eat. Also did it once in a traffic jam when I seen lifeflight landing (knew it was going to be a LONG WAIT) a few guys around me were surprised at this concept. Sold 2 bags that evening (even heated their water showing off the stove) but immediately replaced them when I got home.

About the trying deal... just try a little, dont plan on making it thru the meal. and make sure everyone in the family gets to try so you know they are "okay" as can be IF the NEED arises to use them. My daughter loves the mac and cheese when I add some diced up hotdogs or vienna sausages and "hot stuff" IE cholula hot sauce.

Other flavors that have gone over well are chili mac, spaghetti, lasagna, stroganoff, blueberries granola and milk (my favorite more so it is the ONLY flavor that is designed to eat cold), uncooked pork chops and the cooked ground beef and chicken dices. These are great for making almost anything from dutch oven dishes, to casserols, to enchiladas, the sky is the limit.

I luckily live in Utah (prep capital of the states) and we have MANY retailers that sell them local and usually at better prices that can be found online, more so when they do bulk sales... IE buy 6 and save deals. A few guys at work go in on these and but 20-50 and split them up. I do not recommend these of any "extended" periods unless you are hurting (disaster, economy collapse, etc) due to salt and other items. But when needed I am glad to have plenty of food around to included MREs, MH, bulk staples, and well stocked pantries. I keep items at 3 locations (mine and fathers place and the family cabin). Here is what in my place (the med prep point). When you get setup you REALLY need an inventory idea and a "how to cook this stuff easy recipe book".

Oooh I spy butter and cheese That stuff is good too! I have a couple cases of that in my basement! MmmHmmm Good!

I also spy some milk!

LDS
Mountain House
HoneyVille Grain (http://store.honeyvillegrain.com/)

GOOOD stuff We use the LDS stuff daily.

This should be stressed as a potential problem for some. I take Lisinopril to control my blood pressure. A lot of the MH cans taste so salty that I am careful to keep as many days of Lisinopril on hand as I do MH, hoping that the Lisinopril can counteract most of the salt.

On the other hand the taste is fine for last-ditch disaster food. Just remember that preparation takes a LOT of water.

Also the aim at high sodium is for electrolyte replacement in high activity or high exertion labor that comes after a disaster or military related movements... just like the MREs have high sodium content. But such as some who are allergic to milk or eggs, sodium can do some in.... While reading "One second after" a noticed something that was mentioned in the book a half dozen times.... the increased number of deaths caused by some poeple actually being exposed "TO" physical labor. The book comments on a a dozen people who dies just walking down the freeway after the EMP strike. Everyday I go to work (Engineering firm) the more I keep seeing this passage from his book flash across my eyes. There are a few dozen guys and girls who were issued handicap plates just because they COULD NOT walk the increased distance from the standard parking lot. I think this is ass backwards. One lady in particular totes one of those carry on wheeled duffle thing (like you see in the overhead compartments in a aircraft) full of food to snack on for the day. Ive seen her open it to get diet coke and chee-tos and about fell over.

Correct, good stuff. Dont forget the canned bacon by Yoders.... I did a long write up on ARFcom about the bacon. Ate a few pieces cold, a piece warmed, and made a scramble from poswered eggs, onions, peppers, and bacon for breakfast. Lunch was BLTs. Dinner was butterflied and deboned chicken with bacon and pearle onions. Had a similar scramble the next morning with a few piece straight up, BLTs again, and chicken bacon and pineapple terriaki burgers for dinner. Still had a several pieces left over. But its protein and fat so its good when needed.

The cheese and butter are also great, I agree. For non immediate family members this last christmas I made "survival sack" which were the reuable bags from grocery stores... you know the think green ones, loaded with 3 cans of butter, 1 cheese, 4 MREs from differnt manufacture (Military, Star, Emergency essentials, and the 4th being anything else leftover), 3 MH bags 2 meals and 1 blueberries granola and milk, a 3 or 6 block foil of mainstay rations, 2 sheets of water purification tablets, and a CD of collected data including survival, medical, food procurement, shelter design, navigation, camp craft you know the basics. This present went over WELL, I was more than surprised the number of phone calls I got asking... Will you come over and see what we can do to prep. Or, we just bought some of this, how do we store it, etc. It all about opening the eyes to the "non-informed blind leading the blind folk" (previously censored rewritten comment). I feel good knowing I have opened a few dozen sets.

EDIT, sorry about the censor, did not know sheep was a censored word.

I already have a few MREs (entrees only) and 1 pack of the 3600 Mainstay bars in my SHTF bag. I also try to keep the cabinets stocked with ramen noodles, rice, canned Chunky soups, some canned vegetables.

I'm a long way from my midrange plan of having a months worth of food, but I'm getting there. My shortrange plan is a week worth, midrange plan is a month worth, and longrange plan is a year worth. Not just of food, but pretty much everything, ammo, water, batteries, etc...

I'm very good at improvising and have faced hard times in the past as well as military experience, so I may be able to get by with a lot less than a lot of the people who don't have those advantages.

I don't have any bacon yet! I`ll give that a try.

I like Mt. House pouches for the occasional camping meal, very tasty (beef stroganoff is delicious). As someone else mentioned though, a lot of the meals are are very salty and tend to have lots of fat. Nothing wrong with that but after a few days you may become constipated and have a serious case of heartburn. At least I would. Which led me to seriously sort through the pantry and only store foods that I can eat (comfortably) for more than a few days. That made me buy more canned vegetables, pre-cooked wild rice, whole oats, raw nuts, and semi-sweet peanut butter, etc. Basically food that hasn't been processed so much and is relatively healthy. Its also a good idea to some ground flax or other source of fiber.

Newbie questions:

If my long term storage area gets up in the high 80s during the summer, would that diminish the number of years Mountain House #10 cans would stay fresh? For instance, at that temperature (or a temperature even in the low 90s), would a #10 can of Mt. House only stay fresh say 10 years, rather than 25 years?

Also, rust is a big problem in my area because of the amount of salt & humidity in the air near the ocean. Would a #10 can of Mt. House food begin to rust after a few years of storage, like everything else that's metal in this area?

Newbie suggestion:

I don't see many pictures or lists of survival rations that include an adequate supply of Tobasco. We buy Tobasco in the gallon size around here, and frankly, I don't see how one could carry forward without it, and in vast quantities. If you partake, here's a link to a source for the gallon size (buy 5 or more gallons and get $10 off): http://countrystore.tabasco.com/prodinfo.asp?number=00052

I don't know about the MH 7-day kits, but Emergency Essentials shows an MH 3-day kit (for one person) of 12 #10 cans, two cartons, that weighs less than three pounds total. It's $45.95 plus shipping. Six #10 cans fit in a carton that's about 7 1/2"hx12 1/2"wx18 1/2" long.
I've eaten the MH pouch foods as well as the canned foods, there's no difference. It's good food. I've also had other brands of freeze-dried and dehydrated foods, and MH is one of the better makers, and certainly has the most extensive menu to choose from. The pouch uses about 1-2 cups hot or boiling water (depending on what it is) to reconstitute, for a meal for two people.
Hope that helps.

Grady, high temps will cause shorter shelf life, and large swings in temps seem to cause more damage than long periods of steady temps, high or low.
Obviously, rust is a major problem with cans, if they rust through the food is easily contaminated and shelf life is greatly shortened. Try to store it where temp and humidity are more controlled, cooler and drier. Use space under the bed, in the back of closets (stack boxes on edge, heavier ones at bottom), under living room tables, behind couches, chairs, etc. to make space inside temp. controlled area. Most food storage cans are coated to prevent rust, but that only goes so far.
As for Tabasco, you have my permission to eat all of my share. I'll just stick with El Pato sauce, thank you.
How are things on the Gulf Coast? I have family in the Houston area.

Due to the possibility of an emergency only being short-term, I'm planning on starting out with the pouches, like what comes in the 7-day "Just In Case" kit. Then working my way up to 10# cans. I'd hate to open a 10# can to only eat one day worth of food out of it.

Plus a good bit of the stuff in the 10# cans looks like it has to be actually cooked, versus the pouches where you just add boiling water and wait 15 minutes.

My plan is to start small, buy 1 of the 7-day kits right now, then add to that as $ provides. Maybe buy another one every paycheck or so until I have 1 month worth of food and water saved up for 2 people. Then get into the larger bulk-size cans of food.

Some #10 cans hold almost 13 cups and some can hold as few as 9 cups. Here is a thread on the size and capacity of a #10 can:

http://www.onlineconversion.com/forum/forum_1045294157.htm

According to the following website, #10 cans are 6 & 3/16ths inches across by 7" tall.

http://www.ochef.com/1032.htm

To prevent the #10 cans from rusting through within a year or so, I was thinking about keeping the #10 cans in a dust free area and placing one of the less toxic oils, for instance, Victorinox tool oil (as long as the oil meets NSF H1 specifications as to cans) or its equivalent, around the lids and bottoms of the #10 cans to prevent rust-out. Any suggestions?

The stuff in the can is the EXACT same thing in the bags. Just bulk style. There are certain flavors that do come "uncooked", gulf shrimp and pork chops... the pork chops ARE dam GOOD! I use cold water and reconstitute them for about 2 hours in the fridge (or a cold part of the house or in a deep hole in the shade if you are in the SHTF, then cook them anyway you would fresh pork. I do not like seafood so I have not tried the shrimp.

The cans do have alot of food, but you if have 4 family members they each hold ABOUT 2 servings... Ie alot more feasible. Its like the single guys trying to save money buying fresh produce at costco... 90% of the time, them alone can not finish it before it spoils... it is then best to buy in smaller quantities. Also remember children suffer form apatite fatigue WAY FASTER than adults. The exception to this rule is cereal, chicken nuggets, pizza rolls, fries and mac n cheese. Anything else they will get bored with and stop eating. Keep this stuff in mind when prepping.. It is also best to experiment to see what they "can" really go thru.



http://beprepared.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E...cy%20Meal%20Kit FYI these are NOT #10 cans. They are pouches.... and for me this "kit" is a deal breaker since 2 of the 9 main meals are "scrambled eggs and...." These are the WORST MH meals I have tried.... instructions state something to the effect of "add XXX cups of boiling water. Stir and let sit for 10 minutes. Stir again. Please note that there will be some liquid left int he bottom of the bag, you can pour it out to discard before eating..." This smell (smells JUST like raw eggs), you have to pour it out before you eat otherwise I could not make it thru the meal. Then if your in camp you invite anything hungry to your location.... I am glad I bought almost every flavor in bags first.... I would not recommend this or any other pre cooked scrambled egg meal to anyone.... including the egg omelet in the MREs.... same thing. Buy powered eggs, and make your own scramble. MUCH better... I like honeyville.

Re: Cans rusting... Some of the remedies I've seen are to dip the cans in melted parafin. Or spray the cans with polyurethane (food safe when fully cured, according to several sources.)

Remove the label. Treat. Reattach the label. Or remove the label, use a permanent marking pen to label before treating the can.

Lee

I heard you can prevent the cans from rusting by moving someplace with low humidity *evil grin*

Todd W,

Thanks for the suggestion. We will ask our rescue Dobermans [quantity of seven (7) - all Katrina victims] how they would feel about moving to a low humidity area. Got a spare bedroom?

Grady & Bee


ps - We must forewarn you that our Doberman Pinchers much prefer indoor climate controlled restroom facilities, and are quite demanding in this regard every time it rains

My problem is that, for the short term, I'm looking for something that doesn't require a lot of prep or actual cooking. Reconstituting with water is cool (like dehydrated foods), or heating (like MRE's). But I want something that doesn't require getting out a frying pan, spatula, doing dishes, etc... Simple and quick.

I can cook just about anything during normal times, but in a short term emergency situation I feel that having to actually cook would be one thing I'd rather not have to spend time/energy/resources on. Anything longer than a week, the canned stuff that needs cooking would be fine.

I am thinking of buying a couple of cases of MRE's to start with, I know they require pretty much zero prep. Then maybe some freeze-dried pouches, possibly picking and choosing which ones are best to add to the collection rather than buying a kit. Then I could get into buying cans for longer term storage.

99cent potatoes MmmhmMm

it's not a survival issue,but i can tell you that after a week or so of "meals in a bag" what you crave is a good heap of grease.



bannock fried up in the grease that came off three slices of fried summer sausage---

Summer Sausage? I think you are feeding us a bunch of baloney

The higher the storage temperature, the shorter the life span of the food.

There is a table printed on the side of a new box of MRE's that I just bought. I'll try to copy that and get it up on this thread. I found it interesting, to say the least!

!!! Can't post that when I`m hungry

That's exactly what I think I'm going to do, pick and choose my own menu from their stuff and just pay a little more for it. A lot of people have posted reviews of their entrees online.

For instance, all their entrees with eggs are supposedly VERY salty and end up runny. Plus there are some things they list in the kit that I doubt I'd eat under most circumstances.

Here's what comes standard in the kit:

Breakfasts: (1 per day)

4 - 8 oz. pouches of Granola with Milk & Blueberries
3 - 8 oz. pouches of Scrambled eggs with Bacon, Precooked

Lunches (1 per day)

1 - 16 oz. pouch of Rice and chicken
2 - 16 oz. pouches of Spaghetti with Meat & Sauce
1 - 16 oz. pouch of Beef Stew
1 - 16 oz pouch of Chili Mac
1 - 16 oz. pouch of Pasta Primavera
1 - 16 oz. pouch of Beef Stroganoff with Noodles

Dinners (1 per day)

1 - 20 oz. pouch of Noodles & Chicken
1 - 20 oz. pouch of Chicken Stew
1 - 20 oz. pouch of Mexican Style Rice and Chicken
1 - 20 oz. pouch of Lasagna with Meat Sauce
1 - 20 oz. pouch of Mac & Cheese
1 - 20 oz. pouch of Sweet & Sour Pork with Rice
1 - 20 oz. pouch of Turkey Tetrazzini

Vegetables (1 per day)

3 - 8 oz. pouches of Garden Green peas
4 - 8 oz. pouches of Whole Kernel Corn