emergency essentials freeze dried meals

[scuba0_1]

has any one ever used this to provision your food supplies or supplement it. wondering how it worked on the boat.


Traditional 2000 One-Year Food Supply

[BandB]

We were once curious and tried some of that type food. It would be only a desperation type food based on our experience. Plus would consume much faster than they generally say. However, what we do carry for both small meals or snacks and as emergency backup is Hormel Compleat Meals. They are freeze dried and have long shelf life, require no refrigeration or freezing. Most are around 300-400 calories and are quite tasty. Now they don't fit in as little space as what you've posted, but they also don't require water or anything else. So our choice would be freeze dried meals like Hormel and canned foods and soups. Soups are good because of the water content.

[MarkJ]

If there is an emergency that bad you will probably have very limited fresh water so dehydrated food may be inedible.

For emergency provisions I carry spare cans of meats and vegetables, beans etc. on one occasion there was a special on tins of corned beef hash so I bought a box. No wonder it was on special! You'd need to be a deaths door to eat it!

Best and cheapest are the cans of things you would eat during a long passage where fresh food would have expired. So when provisioning instead of buying 10 cans of tomatoes, buy 15.
My emergency food supply is about three months longer than what I passage should be.

For dehydrated emergency rations a few packs of rice, pasta and beens will be vastly cheaper than any prepared food.

Btw, one last thought, BandB says the calorie content needs to be assessed. A meal of 400 calories is just a snack. A male needs 2,500 calories, and in an emergency keeping the biat afloat may need much more. So high calorie cans of meat with as little additives as possible and quality cans of vegetables are the go.

[JPA Cate]

We used to carry some freeze dried meals (one weeks worth, and a similar amoung of retort packaged (vacuumed). They are expensive. However, when the boat is moving about so much that real cooking is not an option, or one is too fatigued to cook, then they are a good thing. Depending on the length of the longest voyage you plan to take, carry *some*, just for when it will be bad and you are really tired. Food is good. Good food is better, but dead simple can be a real winner.

Ann

Edit: I just glanced at Mark's post. Adivce: Chop a fresh onion, or porton thereof, to add to the canned whatever, it makes a huge favorable (flavourable?) difference to the taste. Of course, also carry dried herbs of which you like the flavour to doctor the tinned meals.

Still, we did find the freeze dried backpackers meals to be both tasty and welcome in some conditions.

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

If there is an emergency that bad you will probably have very limited fresh water so dehydrated food may be inedible.

For emergency provisions I carry spare cans of meats and vegetables, beans etc. ................
For dehydrated emergency rations a few packs of rice, pasta and beens will be vastly cheaper than any prepared food.
..............

All of Mark's post is informative but the above is especially important - IMO.

[mbianka]

I read about a fellow who canoed across the Atlantic several times. Decided on his second trip that a can of beer per day was a good thing to have. It provided some hydration and also was a good source of carbohydrates. Of course one would need to limit consumption in an emergency situation. But, if not used would never go to waste either. Unlike freeze dried supplies stored in a locker.

[Snore]

While there is credibility in Mark's statements about needing water to make a dehydrated meal, if you can't spare 6-7oz to make a Natural High dehydrated meal, you have bigger problems than calorie intake. Keep in mind that since you boil the water before adding it to the dehydrated meal, the water could come from a fouled tank.

I would NOT buy any canned meats, they tend to be highly processed. From experience, when pushing the body and sleep depriving it, the more processed the food is, the higher the odds of hallucinations. A good meal that is fully self contained and does not need water, I would look at military surplus MRE's. Some also include a heater, nothing like a hot meal to get you head straight. No they don't taste great, but they do deliver calories.

[scuba0_1]

I know it say emergency but I was thinking more as eating on a long trip. seems easy to store.

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[Hud3]

The skipper pulled out a bag of Lurp rations on my first offshore passage. He had been a Long Range Patrol (LRP) guy in the Vietnam war and had developed a taste for them. It consisted of small bits of dried veggies and chicken. He poured boiling water into the bag, let it sit for a few minutes, and then we all dug in. Yech! Awful stuff!

When I outfitted my own boat for offshore, I laid in a supply of canned meats and veggies from Brinkman Farms. It's very high quality stuff, "all natural", and it actually tastes good. I'd forget the freeze dried rations if I were you.

[mbianka]

I bought a can of freeze dried Blueberries last year. They were tasty re hydrated in pancakes and also tasted good right out of the can as a crunchy snack. I'm buying more this year. Though they can be addicting.

[Mike OReilly]

I dehydrate our own food. I've never been impressed with commercial dried foods (either freeze dried or air). Quality always seems questionable, and the cost is often a lot higher than buying fresh. Our food is nearly as good as fresh once rehydrated.

I have a couple of months of food dried now. If you do it in-season it can be very cheap -- much like canning.


Why go fast, when you can go slow

[socaldmax]

Each of the suggestions so far have their merits and drawbacks.

The bulk emergency food rations like you show in the first post may not taste very good, but the price per meal is quite low. That type of food ranges greatly in quality, taste and price. If you can find an independent review source you might find a brand that is decent price, quality and taste. I once took a 9 day backpacking trip and we took Mountain House dehydrated meals with us and they were extremely tasty - lasagna, stir fry, spicy shrimp, etc. They also had ice cream bars that tasted a lot like the real thing, even though they weighed almost nothing and were dry as a bone.

MREs are much higher calories (designed for troops who are marching and fighting) and don't need water added and I've been told will plug you up at first, you need to stay very hydrated and maybe use a laxative to help out. I wouldn't eat those exclusively, mix a few of them up with other types of food.

Buying bulk beans, rice, flour, sugar, etc and cooking/baking from scratch is a great idea as well. Canned soups, especially "Cream of Chicken" or "Cream of Celery" can be used to make a tasty casserole with uncooked rice, canned or frozen chicken and some freeze dried veggies. Plenty of other tasty, easy recipes that include rice, beans, veggies, chili, etc.

Dehydrating food yourself is an excellent idea, if you have the time and power to do it.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by scuba0_1

I know it say emergency but I was thinking more as eating on a long trip. seems easy to store.

Actually on a long trip I have plenty of time to make a great meal as theres nothing else to do!
Mind you an easy meal sometimes is terrific.

Looking at Wikipedia at the MRE theres a funny bit:

Some of the early MRE main courses were not very palatable, earning them the nicknames "Mr. E" (mystery),[21] "Meals Rejected by Everyone",[22] "Meals, Rarely Edible",[23] "Meals Rejected by the Enemy", "Morsels, Regurgitated, Eviscerated", "Mentally Retarded Edibles", "Meal Ready to Expel", "Meal, Ready to Excrete", "Materials Resembling Edibles", "Morale Reducing Elements", and even "Meals Rejected by Ethiopians" (in reference to the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia).[24] Some meals got their own nicknames. For example, the frankfurters, which came sealed in pouches of four, were referred to as "the four fingers of death".[22] Although quality has improved over the years, many of the nicknames have stuck. MREs were sometimes called "Three Lies for the Price of One": it's not a Meal, it's not Ready, and you can't Eat it.[25]

I went looking for the ingredients on the OPs linked site and couldnt find any.
But i could on this site, but not for a meat dish!
Look at these ingredients carefully.

Spice Poundcake

INGREDIENTS: SUGAR, ENRICHED BLEACHED FLOUR (BLEACHED FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMINE MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), EGGS, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN AND COTTONSEED OILS WITH MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, EGG WHITES, WATER, GYCEROL, MALTODEXTRIN, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF THE FOLLOWING: SPICES, SALT, XANTHAM GUM, MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, GUAR GUM, SOYBEAN OIL, LEAVENING (SODIUM ACID PYROPHOSPHATE, SODIUM BICARBONATE, MONOCALCIUM PHOSPHATES), ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, POTASSIUM SORBATE (TO PRESERVE FRESHNESS), HYDRATED MONOGLYCERIDES, POLYSORBATE 60.




Peanut Butter


INGREDIENTS: ROASTED PEANUTS, SUGAR, HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OIL (RAPESEED, COTTONSEED, AND/OR SOYBEAN OILS), SALT, VITAMIN C, VITAMIN A, VITAMIN B6, VITAMIN B1

WorldGrocer.com - MRE Ingredients & Nutrition

They are not good foods!
A month shoving that amount of Hydrogenated crap and the rest of it, may may you a screaming, bloated, hospital case.

My peanut butter only has one ingredient: peanuts.

So, when on passage quick meals may be fine some times, but generally you are going to eat better making a meal from individual canned ingredients combined in a pot.

As Hud says, start with Brinkman Farms.






Instant noodles on passage??? NEVER! Unless its a dog watch and no one is looking

[Bash]

I define "emergency" as the point in a passage when everyone other than me is seasick, I'm standing extra watches, and I'm hungry.

At that point, I don't want anything where I'm going to have to read directions under red lights, or mix ingredients. There's a point in every passage where Dinty Moore Beef Stew is the best thing going.

[BandB]

Originally Posted by Bash

I define "emergency" as the point in a passage when everyone other than me is seasick, I'm standing extra watches, and I'm hungry.

At that point, I don't want anything where I'm going to have to read directions under red lights, or mix ingredients. There's a point in every passage where Dinty Moore Beef Stew is the best thing going.

Hormel owns Dinty Moore Beef Stew so it is available as part of Hormel Compleats. 1 minute or so in microwave, in the container it comes in. Eat it out of that container.

We also keep meal bars, protein bars. They come in very handy when you need something but just don't have the time or want to take the time to prepare anything. Both snacks and meals.