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.