Have you actually tried the food you bought for your storage? If not, you might want to soon. :19 - cryodesiccation! We noticed the mistake right after posting. We know the difference between it and defiling something. It was just a slip and RU-vid disabled annotations so we can't lay the correction over the video.
I have. I have Auguson Farms, Wise and 4Patriots Brands. Out of the three I purchased, Auguson was actually excellent. Wise was good and 4Patriots was good in a pinch. I think of the three, Auguson is something that I could eat every day for a month. All in all, nothing beats homemade but if it ever hits the fan, do you want to be prepared. Honestly if you don’t have a supply on hand right now, you are going to pay double or triple what I paid for my supplies when I got them. You have to buy the stuff when you don’t need it. Mountain house is very good but in my humble opinion over priced.
My own personal review to add a little more in depth analysis of other flavors: I bought quite a few Mountain House meals to see which ones I liked with the plan of ordering more of the ones I like for an emergency food supply. Liked and ordered more of the following: Beef Stroganoff- Great! Spaghetti with meat sauce- Great! Lasagna- very tasty. Not like real lasagna but tastes great. Pasta Primavera- fantastic! Chicken Teriyaki- great! Chili Mac with Beef- very good, noodles a little stiff. Granola- good/not great. Maybe too sweet but need something sweet for change of pace. Did NOT order more of the following: Mac&Cheese- Ok Spicy Southwest Style Skillet- good/not great/ spicy Chicken Fried Rice- didn't order more but it's good if you give it extra time to soak up the water in the pieces of chicken Breakfast Skillet-eggs sucked, too tough Scramble Eggs- eggs sucked, too tough Chicken&Dumplings- tasted great but chicken was like old wood that crumbled when I chewed it All were edible and I would not turn my nose up at any of them in a pinch. Ones I didn't like would probably be better with a little more time soaking in the water. Costco has their bucket of these meals on sale at a ridiculous price right now so I actually did get more Scrambled Eggs and Chicken&Dumplings because they were basically free. The others in the bucket would cost more individually than the entire bucket.
I drive a tractor trailer and always have mountain house food in my truck. Not all truck stops have food 24 hours or I get stuck someplace without food. I have a single burner MSR and water. Always have a decent meal.
I will have to look into that. I work out of a van and sometimes my job has me on a site all day and I bought a couple of cases of MREs for simplicity but I am Finding out that the heaters aren't up to the task and leave an odor long after the heater is evpended.
@@nickm9102 you have to watch using those heaters in an enclosed space. Sometimes I’ll go into the truck stop and fill a thermos with hot water for the freeze dried meals.
Same here if you ever been shut down on the side of a rd a good hot meal makes dealing with it better i use a jet boil myself but I also have a gas grill on the truck
My kids and I love Mountain House. We take it camping anf I have a small amount set back with my prepping supplies. It's by far the best my family and I have tried , I love to help promote it too, dont know on what level but if I believe in a product Ive always been know to let others know how great it is. Wishful thinking anyways 🙂
I bought a bucket of the Wise foods to test. Mountain House beats that stuff hands down! The #10 cans are better for long term storage, as you don't have to worry much about perforating packaging. I've lost quite a bit of both Wise and Alpine Aire foods to thin mylar packaging failures. I've heard from other preppers that the Wise food made them sick, and I also got sick after eating one of the test packs. The only downside is that Mountain House has shrunk their lineup, and things like vegetables and fruits have been dropped. Would like to see drinks (milks/juices), baby foods, and pet foods. Babies and pets are parts of the family that need to be prepped for as well! I keep a 30 day supply of pouches, and a year's supply in #10 cans. I also keep a box full in my vehicle for camping while gold mining. I used part of my 30 day supply to help a coworker get through motel living after a house fire. He was glad for the help, and was surprised at the quality of the meals.
Mountain house i would love for you to sponsor me . I pimp your products to everybody i care about anyway on a daily basis. Oh and you guys should try a chicken and sausage gumbo possibly cajun style beans and rice with sausage or jambalaya. A Chunky Texas style chili would be awesome too.
I lived off my Mountain House stash during the grid collapse here in Texas last week. I also used my stash to feed my guys at my EMS station due to all our local restaurants being closed. Not a complaint was heard.
Wow! Thanks for sharing the real world experience, Mike! Please shoot an email to story(at)equip2endure.com, I'd like to get in touch with you. Stay strong out there, amigo. -Rusty
We used a lot of Mountain House during the freeze, too, and it was good! It was my first time trying it. We all enjoyed it. I bought many more since then to keep to the side.
If you were in a long term calorie deficit, where foraging from the forest was your only food source, even ready wise would taste good. That said, I prefer MH too.
Used to work security in remote locations, always kept 2 or 3 mountain house meals in my pack in case I was stuck doing double shifts. I worked out of a truck and I eventually found I could just add water to the bag, seal it up, and leave on the dash with the heater blowing to warm it up. Worked better during winter when the heater was going anyway. I used to leave it 30 minutes on one side, flip it and leave it another 30. Was always nice and hot.
@@Equip2Endure We used to leave MRE's foil packs on the engine of our ITV's in West Germany, or the Jeep in Ft. Lewis (not moving). Worked well. Just don't leave it there for too long and yer fine.
True words. I happened to have opened up a #10 can of dehydrated celery (I do random taste tests on some things i have in storage. Tasted terrible - and found they used even the bitter hearts of celery)
Mountain House came in almost all of the arctic MRE's (cold weather - white ones) I had in Afghanistan and they were AMAZING, so good sometimes I bypassed regular chow to eat those MRE's since we had tons where I was at way up in the mountains. Needless to say, I have been a Mountain House devotee ever since.
That's good to hear. When I deployed to Norway in the 90s, I don't believe the RCW main courses were Mountain House, just a generic freeze dried meal in a clear plastic container with a white cardboard bottom so it would stand up. But the whole ration was good, packed with nuts, chocolate, little energy bars, soup and drink mixes, and a massive bag of oatmeal that was good with the freeze dried strawberries mix.
Look at the amount of actual meat in Mountain House vs others. That explains the price difference. It’s a big investment, but it’s food. It will be eaten eventually! It also makes it way easier to get my wife out in the backcountry knowing we have a yummy meal on hand.
Auguson Farms sells hamburger and sausage crumbles, as well as chunk chicken and beef, that is pretty good when reconstituted. The sausage crumbles are a bit hard to rehydrate, but still pretty good. One could always put together their own meals with that and rice or their Potato Shreds. I wouldn't recommend their sliced potatoes though, unless you are baking them in some liquid (like scalloped potatoes) for an hour or two.
I used to sell readywise. When talking to the rep from the company, they told us that there regular line was focused on pure survival first and flavor second. The directions have you put extra water in them solely to up your water intake during times of emergency. The Readywise camping line is better then the bulk emergency line as far as flavor goes, most people don't realize they are different from the bulk meals. I would however agree that Mountain House is better on flavor. Mountain House and Readywise started by targeting two different markets. One focused on campers and hikers, while the other was more prepper and emergency focused.
Oregon Freeze Dry (mountain house) was formed in 1963 in Oregon's Willamette Valley to produce dried sliced strawberries for a General Foods breakfast cereal called Post Toasties corn flakes. General Foods executive Ellis Byer was the enterprise's first general manager and later its president and chairman as well. Oregon Freeze Dry was soon working to produce an alternative to canned rations for the military. It also supplied food for NASA's Apollo space program and developed meals for nuclear submarine crews and "Long Range Patrol Subsistence" in Vietnam. By the late 1960s, Oregon Freeze Dry was a publicly traded company with annual sales of about $5 million. The work in military rations led to the introduction of Mountain House brand freeze dried food for backpackers in 1970. Mountain House representatives claimed its products tasted better than those of competitors since the ingredients were cooked together before freeze drying. Within a few years Mountain House was marketing more than 100 different products. Oregon Freeze Dry also owned the Tea Kettle brand of backpacker food. Old AT&T long lines bunkers from the cold war ear can still be found with stocks of mountain house in them to this day, from a time when the phone company was expected to keep the phones working for up to a month without external resupply after a nuclear war.
If they think you should drink extra water, they could just write on the instructions "HEY BY THE WAY take an extra swig of water while you wait, idiot" and accomplish the same thing without ruining their meals. That makes little to no sense.
I’m new to buying freeze dried foods so this was helpful to actually have you prepare and taste it. I’ve seen both brands and now I know which ones I will purchase. Thanks
Me too! My local walmart was out of the buckets but I'll be finding some on payday. Do you know if there is a sample package? That would be great to try. That way I'd know what to store for my family.
Have you seen the price from both brands? Have you tasted both of them? I totally agree that readywise isn't that great but mountain house runs about 5 times the price. They also didn't make the readywise correctly, it looks like they portioned it out and used the full amount of water for multiple portions.
Two things I've learned from trying a few different brands: Don't use as much water as the instructions say (or you end up with soup, like the ReadyWise did here), and let it rehydrate a while longer before opening up to eat. Usually use about 75 - 90% of the water, and add about 25 -35% more time to rehydrate. The less water to avoid soup, the longer hydrate time to make sure the water has a chance to rehydrate everything (or you end up with crunchy food that's not supposed to be crunchy).
Also when you add things like fatty meats and salt pepper butter etc it makes it much better, mountain house is too expensive for most people but if you have food stores you can you readywise etc as food bases.
I asked Ready Wise about this review - here is the response I received: They didn’t compare apples to apples. They used Mountain House camping meals, but did not use our camping meals. We have camping backpacking meals that are prepared in the pouch just like Mountain house does. It would be nice if they compared apples to apples and such. Our long term food storage (which they used) does need to be prepared in a pan like they showed. There is no doubt Mountain House put out the most expensive product to the marketplace, and they do have a good product. I am not going to dispute that. Our food holds its own in both the Emergency Food market, and the Outdoor/Camping food as well.
I absolutely agree with this comment. I wondered why they did not compare the same same, I had to double-check the date of this video. I have Mountain House and Wise and Readywise and to be honest, price is the biggest difference.
I wondered this too. I'm a backpacker and I've used ready-wise backpacking meals and they're nothing like what they showed in this video. Although, I don't know why ready wise would put out that as an option either way. In an emergency situation cooking with a pot and pan isn't always practical.
Two of the dishes were the same thing though, so I am not giving Ready Wise a pass. These guys didn’t like the taste of the Ready Wise, so it doesn’t matter what type of products these are, they didn’t look appetizing, and these guys didn’t like the taste.
Lol it doesn't change the fact that ready wise came out as crappy tasting soup. They literally followed the directions and It still came out like garbage.
I have a solid mix , but the majority of my stuff is Mountain House and Augason Farms...hell we use Augason Farms stuff regularly in the pantry as it is...
Thanks for watching, Thomas Richardson! That's critical - working your storage food into regular rotation so it's not so disruptive when you HAVE to use it. -Rusty
Augason Farms freeze dried fruit is really great. I used to use it to add to my cereal in the morning (Honey Bunches of Oats Strawberries ftw). I tried a couple different brands but Augason ended up still being cheaper (#10 cans) and tasted way better.
Emergency Essential is some of the best, they also sell Mountain House in #10 cans. The thing I've noticed the most is to let them set a little longer to have it done. Great company!
I was not too keen on their peas, but everything else was good. The meatballs goes really good with Mountain House spaghetti. Their ground beef soaks up taco spices real well, and the sausage crumbles go good with the MH biscuits n gravy.
@@johnaverick7468 Meant to say on Mountain House, It looks like the other in this video needs much much less water. I've never used them. BTW PadThai from Mountain House is out of this world. Give the bag another good shake at the half way mark just to make sure there's no dry sports.
Mountain House is high quality but good grief, look at the prices and the servings/calories...what they call 2 servings is really 1 and you're going to spend $35-$40/day/person. Imagine what that would cost for a 180 day food supply for a family of 4. At best it's $25,200 and at worse its $28,800 and don't forget the sales tax. Compare this with using ordinary canned foods and dry goods that you rotate through as part of your regular diet, stocking up on sales and in most states it's sales tax free. Rather than facing a $25k+ bill, you not only save money with sales but your emergency food stores don't cost a single penny "extra" as it's food you're eating anyway and on less than what folks on food stamps receive. Take the spaghetti entree as an example. As an alternative you could open a couple of 28oz cans of Red Gold crushed tomatoes that were 89cents/can, a 28oz can of Keystone Meats ground beef ($6.29), add some garlic powder, dried minced onions, freshly ground black pepper, dried oregano/parsley/basil, a little olive oil and add a pound of pasta (49 cents) and a little extra water and in short order you've got a really nice batch of spaghetti that's enough to feed 5-6 hungry people for about $9 or $1.50/serving. Coincidentally this is also a really nice and easy dinner on a busy night after a long day, especially if you don't have anything defrosted and are wondering what to make for dinner. You could go with cans of Spaghetti O's for 89 cents each which you can even eat cold right out of the can, but it's so easy to do far better. By stocking the basics like oatmeal in addition to being hearty breakfast fare you've got a good bit of the makings for crumbles and buckles, cookies and bars and even home made granola. Honey, which never goes "bad", canned fruits, veggies, seafood, evaporated milk, etc. and with just granulated sugar and molasses you're ready to make powdered sugar and both light and dark brown sugars. I just ordered 4 cases of Motts unsweetened apple sauce as it's on sale for $2.79/46oz bottle. It's got just 3 ingredients: apples, water and citric acid. Not only is it great by itself but heat it up, add some cinnamon and crumble a few graham crackers over it and you've got an easy dessert. It's nice to add to oatmeal and in your baking recipes too as it can replace a good portion of sugar and oil. Freeze dried foods are nice and convenient but come at a great cost and don't forget you need water to reconstitute them unlike canned foods which will provide you with hydration. Never forget that our military saved the entire world TWICE on canned goods (C-rations) alone and roughly 25lbs of food for a weeks worth of food per person isn't an insurmountable amount of weight to bear. It's also hard to believe that life is really worth living if you can't end the day with a can of sliced pears in light syrup (no HFCS) when things have gone wrong or maybe even if you've just run out of fresh fruit. ;)
I get what you are saying, but the scenario was something to grab and go. For bug in you are 100% right it would cost way too much, but for a week supply to toss in the truck before as you run out the door it's a good option.
@@jeremymiller1088 It's easy to keep a couple of 5 gallon buckets stocked with grab and go meals for a week or so. In just 20 minutes I can have a weeks worth of food, clothes, toiletries, 28 gallons of water, 12 gallons of gasoline, all of our important papers and personal valuables and most importantly a 30 day supply of toilet paper loaded up and on our way. I'm out of breath and happy to be sitting down behind the wheel but I can do it. We never let our fuel tanks get below a half a tank so with that and the 12 gallons we can go at least 500 miles...I only use 100% gasoline so that also boosts our MPG slightly. If we've got more time I can grab more, if we've got less time we can skip the clothes and toiletries and be gone in 10 minutes but realistically if you need to be gone in under an hour, you're not going to make it either way as you won't have the time to outrun anything.
@@mac11380 I agree that Mountain House is the EASIEST prepping option but the extreme costs make it an unrealistic one, even with the sales. I'm also very familiar with Emergency Essentials and I've been receiving their sales emails for years. With my strategy, it's not even "emergency" supplies as they're incorporated into our normal diet which is the very best way to handle food storage. In addition to oatmeal which I can use in part to make granola, I can also dress up the oatmeal with strawberry jam, vanilla extract, apple sauce, maple syrup, cinnamon, sugar, brown sugar, molasses, a variety of canned fruits and probably a few more items that I'm forgetting. I've also got instant pancake mix and enough A.P. flour to make all sorts of breakfast goodies. I can also be up and running with laying hens in just a few weeks. I haven't to this point because we like to go on several vacations each year and prefer the autonomy. We also keep almost a month's worth of eggs on hand. Additionally, millions of people get by on breakfast cereal every morning and I'll take good old fashioned oatmeal every day of the week over that. If I look back at just the past few days it's almost hard to notice all of the food storage items we've used. The other day our last 2 bananas became over ripe so my wife and I split a can of pineapple chunks at breakfast, we've split cans of Campbell's Chunky Soup (99 cents) at lunchtime along with a half of a sandwich. Don't worry about those 2 over-ripe bananas, tonight I made a banana snack cake with buttercream frosting out of them, for little more than $1. Let's see, the stick of butter came from our freezer as we stocked up when it was $1.99/lb, the A.P. flour we keep on hand and was also bought on sale, the sugar is the same story, as is the vanilla extract, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, etc. It's all items we keep on hand and buy on sale. I also made fish for dinner tonight from our freezer along with tartar sauce made with mayo, a diced Milwaukee Kosher Dill Pickle, freshly ground black pepper and finely minced onion which were fresh but I could have easily re-hydrated some dried minced onions instead. In a few more days, considering the leftover tartar sauce, I'll break open a can of salmon and make salmon cakes. Again, everything we keep on hand, all bought on sale...we just picked up the cases of Mott's unsweetened apple sauce that I ordered a few days ago. We'll rotate through our food many times over but again, it's just our everyday food and not an additional cost as the MH would be and it saves money to boot. Likely tomorrow I'll make a Sicilian pizza from scratch using our bread flour, instant yeast (which I recently opened and is 7 years out of date but is still alive and kicking), a 28oz can of Red Gold crushed tomatoes that I'll strain for a few minutes to make the sauce and I'll chill the drained juice to drink the next morning for breakfast. The Italian sausage and pepperoni are stashed in our deep freeze, I can use either fresh mushrooms or the canned ones we bought on sale and we keep 6 one pound blocks of mozzarella cheese on hand in the fridge. For next week's food storage dinner I'm thinking turkey ala king or chicken pot pie, but who knows, I may just make stew. We also enjoy our "little store" that we have downstairs, my wife loves to "go shopping". In the next few months I'm looking for good sales to restock our pickles, yellow and brown mustards, ketchup and maybe a few jars of mayo too. Next it'll be brats in May for grilling season, as regular as clockwork.
@@tomj528 I get it for cheaper than that but i get you, I do a mix of it all, my wife is a deal seeking freak and we have 2 freezers stuffed with the best deals and we also have canned, MH etc. I do have a very good income so sometimes I forget what it was like. The one thing we can't get off our butts and do is canning, even bought a nice steam canner etc, but just can't bring ourselves to do it for some reason. Well, either way, sounds like you have a good head on your shoulders so you will do fine. Another thing to get is a camp stove and stash some tanks of propane if you can. They can be used to heat a portion the house if there is a power outage while you cook at the same time. I am a propane fan when it comes to generators also, propane never goes bad and gas can gum up after a while and if it a large area power outage, gas pumps don't work but every store sells propane anymore, but you would have to be quick about getting it in an emergency. Good luck my friend.
I understand this is a taste test but, your'e a week out on a backpacking outing, you just went 10+ high altitude miles, you will eat the hell out of anything and not care about the taste. Mega calories. Been there...
I've been backpacking for 55 years, usually preferred Mountain House to the alternatives. Used to love the Turkey Tetrazinie, especially since it came in a very light aluminum bowl that I could reuse for those other meals that didn't cook in the bag. Always expensive, but worth it for the light weight if backpacking. For emergency use though, where that is not so important, I have a box of MRE's. Newer ones even self-heat, and contain other useful items; seasoning, cookie, drink mix, coffee & creamer, sugar, toilet paper, matches, etc.
@@SWPG Its quite a long process to make large amounts, And I'm in the learning process, but if your serious, I can send you a preliminary batch of ice cream sandwich bites, if you want. It will be in a mylar bag with oxygen absorber. I plan on selling batches locally, I'm in Washington state...of course It would cost the price of the product plus shipping.
Why did they change the recipes for the biscuits & gravy and eggs w/ hashbrowns peppers & onions? They taste totally different now and not nearly as good unfortunately. I used to eat them regularly at home, work and on the trail but switched to Minotaur Trading Company for my breakfast options now. Bring them back!!!!! Lol
The directions are spot on. ReadyWise just straight up Sucks Shit. I've tried several different freeze dried foods backpacking and Mountain House is by far the Absolute best. My only issue with Mountain House is the amount of sodium other than that it's the best.
The directions are spot on. ReadyWise just straight up Sucks Shit. I've tried several different freeze dried foods backpacking and Mountain House is by far the Absolute best. My only issue with Mountain House is the amount of sodium other than that it's the best.
Do a taste test on 4Patriots if possible. I'm looking to buy some freeze-dried prep foods. Just undecided about the best one to choose. Based on this vid and comments I'm leaning towards Mountain House. Thanks in advance!
Thanks for watching, Bro. Allen M! We'll take that shot if we have it (trying 4Patriots). In the mean time, you will probably want to try them both out yourself anyway to see which you like better. If you read through the comments though you will see that most people with real situational experience will choose Mountain House every time.
Dumbest statement ever made you should be ashamed for such a foolish sentence!! When any human being faces the feelings of real hunger that would result in eating each other, believe me they would thoroughly enjoy the taste of this during a time of hardship, God Bless and be informed/prepared and set your hope and faith in Jesus Christ Almighty
@@1GDFELLA While it is true that, "One who is full loathes honey from the comb, but to the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet." Why not choose something that tastes good? It will taste even better when you are starving.
I've always been a taste tester person... I wanna taste and try new things all the time with my kids. When my kids were little I brought home a couple bags of MH so we could try them. We LOVED them except the vanilla ice cream for some reason we all didn't like that one, it wasn't bad just didn't like... My children are now grown and we still take them on hikes and camp trips..
Something I almost never hear added to preppers food is vitamins. If you are only eating processed/freeze dried/mre food for months you REALLY need vitamins.
One reason why we cache Mountain House freeze dried meals over other brands is they contain real MEAT! Some of the other manufacturers have “meat flavored” entrees. Be sure to read the label contents folks before you invest a lot of money into any product but especially emergency food.
I dont know just what "proteins" are in "protein isolate" of this or that, but nearly all of them are extremely inflamitory to my body, as well as headaches, brain fog and digestive issues if I have any larger quantity than half a microwave burrito. Meats dont do that to me. preservatives and the chemical byproducts that sound like and claim to be vitamins both do though. I can only take biological form vitamins, most others just wrench my stomach. I can feel a difference in some of them too. Mtn house doesnt use most of that crap.
I had done a lot of reading and shopping with my eyes, until I finally tried one or two Mountain House items. I was sold, primarily on the biscuits and gravy, of all things. If you can freeze dry THAT and get it right, you can do almost anything.
And I bet they are in the same price range, right? Equal products with equal prices. Ignoring the fact that mountain house is 5 times the price just makes everybody look shady.
@@mayuko7042 It's good stuff. Buy some of the meals, try em and see what you think. You have a much higher likelihood of enjoying My Patriot Supply food as opposed to Ready Wise. I know this because I've tried both, and My Patriot Supply makes up a majority of my long term food storage (as well as Mountain House). Ready Wise sucks.
@@violatorut2003 That sound pretty good! Haven't seen it around. Will keep an eye out for it. Thanks for watching, and great handle, TACOSHOTGUN! -Rusty
I laughed way to hard on your open case of ready wise give away. I have used mountain house for years and have wondered if the alternative might be better. Thanks for the video.
Thanks for watching, Scott. I've definitely eaten worse things. I would be grateful to have ReadyWise in an emergency. More grateful if I had Mountain House. -Rusty
With mountain house, I use the exact amount of water, but double the wait time, stir & again double the wait time. Then I let it sit unsealed for 5 min before digging in. Absolutely perfect every time. My go to adventure meals.
Mountain House meals, generally, have a higher protein content too. This provides a longer term energy that will keep you going longer/further than a bag of, mostly, carbohydrates. I've spent a number years just picking up a few bags (or a can) every time they went on sale at a local store, and currently have a nice little stockpile for a greatly reduced overall price. I live in a tsunami zone of the PNW, so I did my research & tasting quite a few years ago.
I think one of the most important differences isn't just taste, but nutrients - the Mountain House has way more protein since it contains meat, so taste matters, but so does the fact that you're getting more protein in the Mountain House meals.
Well, now I feel really stupid. Why? Because I’m one of those people that purchased several buckets of Wise Food, thinking I was doing my family a good thing, only to regret it now due to the making of this video. What an idiot I am. -Stephen, Ohio
Your mileage may vary. We may have purchased a bad batch. We may have different tastes than you. If you have several buckets it might be worth it to open one up and try it out. If you bought 'em from Costco, you can return them if you don't like them. Thanks for watching and for the support!
Don’t feel bad. You made a bulk purchase in good faith. If this was what you had to eat and nothing else you’d still be happy for poor quality food instead of an empty belly. Try the food. Start to cycle through some of it. Introduce a small amount of it into your monthly diet to burn through as you have money to replenish. 👍 If you use some of these foods at home to burn through it you can always doctor it. Use the end result as a foundation for a hopefully better tasting meal. Fresh spices and veggies. Less water in the bag to be less soupy or continue to heat it to boil some water off (which will concentrate the flavors into the remaining food). For a leftover-centric dish like a casserole or a Shepard’s pie having one portion be less than stellar may be ok. And you can hide the high sodium by using less with the other ingredients.
Not nearly the same!! The emergency food is made and packaged to keep for decades, that stuff you're suggesting will go stale in a couple years or sooner.
I have stuff from almost every freeze dried food company out there, rarely do they ever compare favorably to mountain house in quality and taste. I to wish mountain house was more economical, but i still buy it .
Hell yeah i eat the biscuits and gravy on cold days even on normal days. I kept a box of xmre and a bucket of mountain house on my truck when i was over the road in case i got snowed in or crashed off a mountain . Mountain house is good stuff . I reccomend using less water at first and add boiling water as needed .
Mountain house rocks. Try the pad thai and the yellow curry. Restaurant quality in a bag. Ready wise is not good...Wise is even worse. Like eating chemicals and chalk.
Honestly it seems the too much water issue if you will is more of a security to ensure as much moisture as possible can reach the food rather then the lack of water, making you add more after seems like a convenience thing. From what I gather from other vids on most products like these is to add a bit less to reach a thicker consistency, which honestly I would rather add less and take the risk.
I went on a two month road trip once and I ate a LOT of Mountain House. It's very good (for the most part) but the big downfall is the price. It's WAY expensive.
For European viewers, I recommend Fuel Your Preparation. Mountainhouse had a European branch for a long time, but they closed shop here and another company (FYP) took over their facilities and production, and their dishes are even better than Mountainhouse’s was. I’ve had all the Europeans main dishes by MH and FYP and where MH had a few that were not tasty, all of FYP’s are good, and some are really surprisingly good.
I've done this same taste test with these and several other brands. Ready Wise was the worst tasting and now sits in the basement waiting for the apocalypse. I'll probably still not eat it and just use to bait other humans. Mountain house is the go to brand for quality, taste, and like they pointed out it comes in its own cooking container. Thanks for the video!
I've eaten Mountain House many times. They are good but just WAY too expensive and they have way too much salt, preservatives and additives. I was in Walmart yesterday and they were all over $8.00 per meal. You can make your own light weight backpacking food at a lot less cost and also control the additives and salt. There are a lot of videos on RU-vid that go over this. One example that I do is to use couscous along with packaged tuna, chicken or Spam. Put the couscous and spices in a freezer bag, add the meat to the bag and then add boiling water. It is light, tasty and only costs about $2.00. No utensils other than your spoon. There are a ton of other options. Oatmeal is one. You can get it dirt cheap at Walmart or the $99 cent store and it doesn't have salt or anything added. Add your own sweetener, cinnamon and add boiling water in a freezer bag. Creativity can save you a lot of money.
They’re designed that way. When you backpack you sweat and need sodium replenishment. They’re specifically designed for backpacking. This is not food to eat for a regular meal. You can in a pinch, but per serving they’re expensive and the nutrients are designed for activity. Most emergency food is crap and made to be stored and not eaten. This (Mountain House) is backpacking food and people eat it all the time.
When I was a hardcore climber, Mountain House is the only ready meal we would carry in. There was nothing on the market that even came close to the quality and taste.
@@shannonofarrell1241 Regardless of sponsorship, Wise food is the worst FD food out there, so it would not take a great product to beat it. On the other hand, MH is really really expensive.
@@FernbarkFrist yeah, I mean mountain house is pretty good for backpacking/camp food, but I don't like the way in which this is biased without any transparency.
Thankyou for making this video!! We have Mountain House in our go bags for hunting. I've thought about buying the readywise, but after watching this I won't be. Also I really like the fact that y'all mention whether or not your kids will eat them-i've got picky eaters so that is really helpful!
Ready wise has meals in to go bags like the mountain house one's. You just have the emergency food supply style bags. But I still like the mountain house better.
If I were shopping for convenient freeze dried meals and compared side by side, either in store, or online, just for the “one-pot” heat and eat by Mountain House, that’s the one I’d bye. Thanks so much for the taste test!
I've only had the Mt House and I've always thought they were good. Being prior service and eating plenty of MREs; these actually taste like something you'd cook in your kitchen. Thanks for doing the comparison so I didn't waste money 👍
SMH, you know the mountain house is 5x the cost of the wise right? Have you tried them? You should try them and compare prices and use cases instead of just going along with the crowd. This channel isn't making any sense... nobody is worried about the price of mountain house and yet here you are talking about not wasting money.
@@craigcutler6919 Sorry... I'll pass on Wise ( and yes... I tried them). Mountain House Rocks... and just like everything else in Life... you get what you pay for..... Quality costs... just sayin....
I’ve backpacked for 6 straight days on Isle Royale eating only Mountainhouse meals. It’s pretty good and very easy to prepare. I packed one small pot and stove and a spork. I ate well all week, but I would say the breakfasts are the best. I could probably live on their Breakfast Skillet meal.😎
Good work, thanks. Looking beyond regular jars, cans, cartons and jugs, "Wise" is only about 5% of my prep supply, MH maybe 20%, AF maybe 25%, and MRE's the remainder. My get-home bag reflects that ; the usual breakout is a full MRE, a couple of supplemental Mains, a trio of MH or Alpine Air dehydrateds, a couple of tuna lunch kits, a couple of Spam singles, a couple of oatmeal pouches, several Clif bars, some peanut butter, a ramen packet, jerky pouch and some other snacks - enough to keep me three days on the move in a variety of circumstances and some to spare to help out others.
Thanks for sharing real world experience, Joe! It seems like those who say, "just use the cheap stuff!" haven't actually tried the options, right? -Rusty
That's actually a great idea! I mean, not doing your neighbors wrong, but keeping this on hand to be able to give food to someone that doesn't harm your own supply. Its a lot less suspicious to say, yeah, we don't have much, but here's something for your family, than to say noope - we've got nuthin (while not having new tighter notches in your belt.
MH costs much more per serving. It's great for hiking/camping but not for "survival" storage....unless you have a ton of money you don't know what to do with.
I asked some of the guys on SAR from the Sheriff's office. No question, hands down Mountain House. It is so good, plain and simple. It's what the professionals eat up there in the field! I personally prefer their quality and taste. They have a great variety of meals too.
THAT is valuable input, Thomas! The guys who have to live on these types of products in difficult circumstances should have good insights. Thanks for watching and chiming in! -Rusty
Interesting data points. I might have to try my meals in a few months when i get time. As a positive, if it's soupy, it should be easier to drink down fast ;)
I bought Mountain House kit for emergency supplies around the start of pandemic lock down last year. I also wanted to see if the taste was ok, so prepared one of the pouches, maybe chicken stroganoff(?). I remember that it tasted fairly decent and the pouch preparation was super easy. Like the reviewers, I would generally recommend Mountain House for either emergency meals or even for regular camping trips.
Mountain House is over priced and not really all that good...I have found other things in stores for backpacking and prepard and cook them up just like the freeze dried meals ..Cheaper and healthier....You just gotta try , What works and shop around ?
They are pricey, but if you read through the comments you will see a ton of experienced backpackers and military rave about them. To each their own. This was just intended to compare two popular options. Thanks for watching. -Rusty
My best advice for keeping food like this stored for emergencies is also keep some seasonings in water tight containers and in a ziplock freezer bag so it’s easy to grab. A little salt and pepper some sugar, maybe some garlic powder, Cajun seasoning can make a huge difference. Add a bottle of hot sauce and maybe some bouillon packets too. Instant coffee and some powder creamer if you have the room.
Survival food should never contain garlic, onion, rosemary or dairy of any kind. 80% of the population has digestion trouble to full a-nutritive diarrhea due to those ingredients. Anything containing those _is not food_ and should be avoided. If you gotta have garlic, onion, rosemary or dairy in your food, carry it separate. When hiking more than a day you should also carry a small pack of fine barley flour and some instant oats. Both can be consumed slowly in their dry state.
Hey, Rob! Thanks for watching. MH is some fantastic stuff. Be sure to watch our most recent video where we taste test all 31 meals that MH currently offers (@). The chili mac seems to be a favorite amongst our viewers. -Rusty
