This is my first post; hope it is helpful. By way of introduction I live in southern Manhattan with my wife and 2 small children in an apartment with no outdoor space. While I would love to believe we can bug-out in the event of another terrorist attack, hurricane, regional power-outage etc, I have decided to - for once - be prepared for events foreseen and otherwise. I am not an outdoorsman and have not camped or done anything similar in around 25 years. I would consider myself and my wife to be "foodies" in that - while it does not have to be expensive or fancy necessarily - my wife and I quite enjoy good meals either cooked my ourselves or enjoyed out. The vessel; I decided to get the Mountain House Oven Kit which has enough bits to prepare 5 pouches of meals. The kit consists of a re-useable and resealable bag, 1 water bottle, 5 salt tablets and 5 heating pads which I believe contain iron. Thru the magic of chemistry you fill the water bottle to the fill line, add the salt tablet, give it a shake and pour the now salt water onto the heating pad which you have placed at the bottom of the oven bag to get the party started. Following the directions the only "issue" - and it wasn't an issue per se - was that the salt tablet took quite a while to dissolve. Using anything but the ice cold water from the tap would have helped this but I figured this is the kit I would have to use during a crisis situation and as such I am not going to have hot water to add to the bottle to make the salt water solution. In any case, after 10 or so mins of shaking the salt pill was 90% or so dissolved and myself, being out of patience, dumped the contents of the provided bottle onto the heating pad. In the future I will probably crush the salt pill before adding it to the water bottle. I assume it would be more expensive but a tiny pack of salt would be slightly more convenient. To my surprise - and glee - also immediately upon dumping my salt water mix onto the heating pad I was greeted with steam and heat. I scrambled to put my package of beef stroganoff with noodles into the oven bag and seal it. As per the directions I had added 2 cups of room temp water to the entree. I waited the 20 mins as specified and tried the food. The steam coming out of the holes in the oven bag had stopped at this point but the whole kit was still quite hot. Per the manufacturer this gives you 2.5 cups of food with 250 cals per cup of which 90 cals are from fat. We can argue all day that the fat and salt content of these things is high by - lets face it - if your in deep you are going to want as much cals, fat, and salt to replace what you have lost as possible. To me it seemed as if this pouch would feed two adults or an adult and 2 or so kids. I'm a big guy but I would estimate I got about 1/2 of it down and that was plenty for me. Taste. I have never had this type of food before so my expectations were quite low; the beef, the noodles, and the sauce all - to me - were all quite good. I'm a quite picky eater but I would honestly say I would be thrilled to eat this during an emergency and would even fire up a pouch if I were feeling lazy one night and the family were not around. Consistency. Neither too hard nor too soft. I followed the directions to a "T" despite my natural inclination to add less water and let it cook longer. The food was pleasantly warm which I think adds to the experience. The beef, noodles, and sauce all seemed - to me at least - to be quite normal in texture. As my 20 mins of cook time were coming up I scrambled to find a strainer thinking I would need to rid the mixture of some of the liquid but this was not necessary. Granted I only ate 1/2 the package but it was about the consistency of what beef stroganoff should be and it was - thankfully - beef soupenoff. Overall quite impressed by the oven kit as well as the entree. I would caution people that - despite some of what I read on the internet - the chemical reaction that creates the heat/steam is quite intense - to the point I need a dish towel to seal up the oven. In the future I will probably add water to the entree, place it - sealed - into the oven bag, add the water and - as quickly as possible - seal up the oven bag. My only change from the protocol will probably be to crush the salt pill before I introduce it to the water in the bottle and to quick seal-up the oven bag after pouring the water over the heating pad. As state above I have virtually no experience with camping type food but - especially considering how picky I am - I would have to say that these products exceeded my expectations in every way. I have no affiliation to Mountain House. Will post other reviews of the entree I received in my "best sellers kit" as I fire them.

wow..that was the longest post i have seen here in years!
my suggestion is to skip the pre-made meals like the stroganoff and buy just the freeze dry meats in #10 cans.
with those and pasta,rice,dry potato's from the boxes meals found at your local grocery store you can make up dinners that have the amount of spices you like.i have found the MRE and freeze dry meals are full of fillers.
there is a "right on the money" cartoon in the latest New Yorker,a couple in their bunker notes they have gone thru 30 years of food in 2 weeks....
breakfast? learn to like oatmeal,lunch crackers and peanut butter.
many gizmos are sold for folks like you who are not up on camp style cooking.they replace the bit of work it takes to make meals from scratch with a meal in a bag and it's heater.
i would also suggest going to a Asian market and getting one of those inexpensive table top stoves and a dozen or so gaz carts for it.easy to use unlike camp stoves.
the last time i had a Knorr stroganoff was when i had to make a meal in my car when it was too late to drive home after a long camping trip.it was all i had was water,no milk or butter to add to the pack so i'm sort of down on that meal----

Fireless cookers of the type you describe certainly have their place (I have one myself) but for versatility and all round utility there are many better options, like any number of canister or alcohol stoves. Combine these with supermarket food, carefully chosen to suit your taste, and you can do much better than prepackaged items like MH.

I actually like Mountain House stuff pretty well. Probably wouldn't want to make a steady diet of it but it keeps well and can be prepared with cold water if necessary. You may want a mix of freeze dries and canned stuff if you're 'bugging in', though, unless you have a way to store a lot of water.

Welcome to ETS!

Agree that the large cans of Mountain House dried foods are an excellent prep.
They are said to keep for 25 years, unlike the smaller packs that IIRC are only 5 years shelf life.

Flameless ration heaters have their merits but are expensive, I would obtain a small camping stove that uses either alcohol or disposable gas cartidges.

I can think of a number of possible disasters for which sheltering in place would be preferable to evacuation, it is most prudent to be prepared.

The most likely incidents in my view are severe storms knocking out public services, or a prolonged blackout. Both have happened and will probably happen again.

Nice first post. I love MH Freeze dried meals but wouldn't use them as a sole food source unless absolutely necessary. You'll wind up bloated and constipated after a few meals. Best to use them in addition to your stored food. Canned stuff, nuts (chia, almonds, walnuts), peanut butter, coconut oil, olive oil, pasta, tuna, etc. I assume your storage space is limited so nutrient dense (and preferrably healthy) food is what you want. Welcome to ETS.

Food will be the easy part of the equation. Water will always be the greater issue for the vast majority of us. Potable water will be like gold.

Thanks for the review but just don't touch the Mountain House scrambled egg, ham and potato.

If bugging in then Mountain House is very expensive especially in the UK. For the Mountain House big packs (around 1000+ Kcal) typically cost around £7-8 ($10-12).

Typically I can put together a 1300 Kcal meal for around £2 or $3 (enough for two filling meals) such as Tuna Mushroom Pasta.

i.e.

2 Pkts of Tesco Value Tomato and Onion Pasta - 2 x £0.20 = £0.40
1 Can of Sliced Mushrooms. - £0.46
1 Can of Tuna Steak in Olive Oil - £1.09

For Pudding 2 Cans of Creamed Rice Pudding will give another 700Kcal for an additional £0.40 i.e. Mountain House equivalent would cost around another £8 and doesn't require water for dehydration.

Heating and cooking the contents is quite trivial with a cheap Camp Stove i.e. Using a Campingaz Bistro single burner cost me £5 or $7.50 a few years ago or its equivalent for use with conventional kitchen pot and pans.

I think I can get to 1500 Kcal for under $5. 1 can of Spam dehydrated (4 oz dehydrated from a 12 oz can), 2 oz of instant refried beans, and 2 oz of minute rice, plus a little Santa Fe seasoning. The Spam alone is almost 1200 Kcal. I bought a can here locally in Anchorage for $2.57, I dehydrated a can of refrieds that cost me 78 cents, and the rice I priced at about 18 cents. The teaspoon of seasoning mix was probably another 15 cents. Boil uup a cup or so of water, and you will have an outright feast. You might get more calories by the ounce just eating the equivalent of peanut butter, but just barely. I can only eat so much peanut butter at one time, though, and usually get some serious indigestion if I eat more than a couple ounces at a time.

You would not want to eat my concoction regularly either, for it would make you far from it in short order.

Huh? I'm a bit confused.

I would have thought that the fat content in Spam would make it a poor candidate for dehydration. Doesn't the fat go rancid relatively quickly?

How long does unrefrigerated dehydrated Spam last at room temperature?

Thanks.
Conway Yee