Prepackaged vs Homemade

The big benefit I find is TASTE !! I find the commercial dehydrated/freeze-dried foods just aren’t as tasty as the dishes I can whip up at home on my stove. I also can’t ‘buy’ the variety that I can make. :-)

Taste? Really? Ok, well yes I guess seasoning the food to your taste is a benefit, but is that all?
I must say I have tried alot of different FD food and nothing tops Mountain House for Taste… (as far as Prepackaged FD foods are concerned)
I for one was quite suprised at how good Mounain House products are…

Oh, I did hear an arguement for Cost, but that doesn’t really pan out either.
Figuring cost of the Dehydrator, Food stuff, packaging material and your time (minimum wage) you won’t break even until???
Please, I do understand the fun of doing everything yourself, I enjoy my dehydrated fruit, but prepackaged FD main meals are cheaper in the long run.:)

Ken

gotta agree Mountain House does put out great meals. I even have a hiker buddy that swears that he would eat them for dinner at home.

Hey Ken… I’ve been triing to get a hold of you…
E-mail me

I haven’t really compared the cost of FD foods to the foods I make at home. As far as the cost of a dehydrator, I bought mine for about $10 15 years ago and it’s still working fine. (Look for liquidator specials around Christmas time.) I also buy my food in season when it’s at a good price. This seems to help keep the cost down. If you can’t find a cheap dehydrator, you can always dehydrate food in an oven. (Although the cost of running an oven is alot higher than the cost of running a dehydrator.)

Can some one post an Entree “home made” Seasoned Chicken and Rice Recipe… “That they Dehydrate and actually use.” Complete with approximate dehydration time, portion size, weight and packaging(boil bag?). :)
I will make this myself using the directions provided and post a clear comparison cost annalysis for all to see…:)
Please understand that I just want to see for myself… The fact is that I maybe wrong, but I won’t know until I try.:)
Ken

I make an extra serving of a normal one pot saturday night dinner. After dinner I dehydrate the extra portion and store it in a vacuum sealed bag. By the time I’m ready to hit the trail I have a great selection of good tasting, very easy to prepare meals. No extra cost to speak of except the initial cost of the dehydrator and the pennies for the bag.

I got into dehydrating trail foods after reading Linda Yaffe’s Backpack Gourmet book. Very simple.

After almost a month of originally posting this… and having recieved no recipes. :)
I had the pleasure of triing “Freezer Bag Cooking” and it is very very good.
It does allow for one to flavor to taste and build your own meal according to likes and dislikes. The meals that I enjoyed were mostly Rice and Chicken meals that required me to carry a can of prepackaged cooked chicken. The down side(And ONLY down side) was weight of the can of chicken… 3oz of chicken was usually 5oz+ carried plus 3-4oz of the rest of meal.
So, for overall taste… Freezer Bag Meals were the best(Only because I could Tweak Them)
Mountain House still is the Lightest, especially in there new packaging! And Taste the best out of all Prepackaged meals…

Simple overnight will indeed include Freezer Bag meals… But as for the upcoming TRT thru hike… Mountain House:)

Ken
BpManiacs
Join us on one of our Trips…
http://bpmaniacs.com/phpbb2/

You can purchase freeze dried chicken (mountain house brand) try http://www.preparedness.com/freezdrieddi3.html

Chad

Thats 1lb 1oz of freeze dried chicken for $55.25… Holy Cow!!!LOL and
$7.95 shipping
When I first looked at this I imagined 1lb of Chicken(Big Breast or two)LOL, but thats alot of Freeze dried Chicken:)
It is seperated into 40 servings…thats cool!
It would seem we are getting closer to perfection…

Ken
BpManiac
http://bpmaniacs.com/phpbb2/

See http://www.sportsmansguide.com/cb/cb.asp?p=WX2&i=90770&bt=N

As far as prepackaged foods, I have had great success with Mary Jane’s Farm Backcountry Dinners. Their Organic and vegetarian/vegan dehydrated foods and quite tasty. Packaged in Wax coated paper that also serves as your eating bowl and can be burned or used for kindling afterwards. Check it out at:
http://www.maryjanesfarm.org
or
http://www.backcountryfood.org

We go on many weekend trips with our scouts. Of course we are on a budget, so often prepackaged is frowned upon because of the cost.
Many meals for the first day are prepared at home and portioned into freezer bags. Meals like beef stew or chicken and rice with veggie. These frozen meals, when packed right will last through to Saturday dinner and only need to be placed in a pot of boiling water, the water then used for hot chocolate or tea. Clean up is a piece of cake. (Teenage boys do not like to do cleanup… go figure)
Dehydrating things like canned pears, pineapple, apples, peaches and bananas have proven great snack food along the trail and are much cheaper than the prepackaged versions.
We also include Mountain House prepackaged food because they do taste better than others we have tried, and the local store gives the scouts a discount.
In the long run, we like the homemade on the first day or two and the variety offered in prepackaged for the remainder of the trip is a nice change the boys like.

Guess it’s time for me to contribute something, considering how much great info I’ve picked up on this forum.
First: I do all my own food, mostly because I get off doing it. Gives me a sense of impowerment, I suppose. The only equipment I use is an electric coffee grinder, a cookie sheet and my oven. (When I can borrow a commercial dryer, I use it. Saves electricity.) The coffee grinder is for pulverizing EVERYTHING. When you’re ready to eat, just add hot water, stir and let set. For the no-fuss hiking I prefer, works just fine.
The “Recipes”: Go to a good food coop (e.g.) and buy some of the following in the bulk section—Dehydrated:corn chowder;split pea soup mix; dried red bean mix; black beans;lentils;veg.soup mix—anything that says,”just add hot water” and looks like you would want to eat it on the trail. Also, dehydrated potatoes (Barbara’s is by far the best);cous cous;instant oatmeal;fat-free powdered milk,e.g. Mix and match to find combinations you like.
Then go buy whatever veggies you like (lots of different ones). Cut’em up, dry’em, mix them together, run’em through the grinder till they’re powdered. Add one big, heaping spoonful to each pre-packaged mix, add lots of whatever spices you like and store in the freezer till you’re ready. I take about six different mixes with me, just add hot water and eat up. It’s filling enough that I can never eat more than a large cup full. I also buy turkey breasts,slice’em thin, dry’em, shred and use for snack food.
How many calories in all this? Don’t know. Do know I’m never hungry, so suppose that must mean something. Light, compact, and (important) tasty.

I have been playing around with boil in a bag meals that can be made easily at home. I agree with pulverizing the food. What I find works well is to cook some lean meat then send it through a meat grinder, this makes the meat into small fine shredded portions that dehydrate quickly and re-hydrate quickly. I will add this meat to instant staples like rice or potatoes and add an instant soup base or instant soup packets for flavor. This is quick effective and tasty. Give it a try.

Just wanted to thank you Dane for adding to my freezer-bag backpacking menu! I learned a lot about how to add veggies from you!

I used to love MaryJanes until I realized that for the $5 for 1 meal I could make 10 similar meals in ziplocks. Couscous or tiny noodles & parmisan cheese go a long way! One of my favorites is instant rice with dulce seaweed & red chile pequin.

But now I know how to add other vegetables other than just seaweed!

Thanks!

I’ve done quite a few dehydrated meals for all my backpacking adventures at home and enjoy doing so, although it can be somewhat time consuming. The big benefit is that it’s generally less expensive, you can come up with with a good variety of on trail meals (limited by only your imagination) and it’s fun.

Due to my travel schedule and time limitations, I have been purchasing pre-packaged meals from Enertia Trail Foods http://www.trailfoods.com/. Not only are they fairly inexpensive, in my opinon it’s the best pre-packaged food for the trail out there and I’ve tried them all. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Oh, and they pay for shipping… not a bad deal.

For each trip I repackage each meal in a cut down paper lunch bag with cooking directions written on the outside of the bag. After I’m done cooking, I burn the paper bag which cuts down on the amount of trash I have to carry out.

I saw this thread and another thread here when I was tracking my website..so I figured I would say hi to everyone-some here will know me from other forums.
My website is: http://www.freezerbagcooking.com/
It is a free website that I have been running for a bit over a year. I am a lightweight backpacker who HATES freeze dried meals (yes, even in my 3 day disaster kit I have the fixings to make freezer bag meals..lol!)
I figured I should post the link since there was mention of the concept :-)
Sarbar

here is a link to another Thread in these Forums which specifically mentions your website. just thought you might like to read the Post about it. The Thread is primarily about a new book (a very good one, i might add) which you also might be interested in. Welcome to the Forums. I’m sure that you will have some valuable contributions. JUST CLICK ANYWHERE ON THIS BLUE TEXT TO BE LINKED TO THAT THREAD.

Oh…it’s the post by David White which specifically mentions your website.

Welcome Sarbar!!!

My sons and I have been using your website for probably almost as long as its been up. Its got a wonderful collection of recipes and ideas and I’d encourage everyone here to check it out.

I hope you continue to hang out in these forums. There’s a lot of great people here with good thoughts and ideas. Your thoughtful contributions would certainly add a lot to the mix.

Here’s another idea we use with our Scout troop on the first night of a backpacking trip: Cook and freeze whatever meat you want to use and bring a purchased stew or soup starter (like Beef Stew Starter). Then all you need to do is dump the meat and stew/soup starter into a pot with the required water and cook for 15 minutes until the stew starter rehydrates (ignore the cooking times on the instructions that call for hours of cooking–it ain’t necessary). If you wrap the frozen meat with newspaper it will stay frozen for a day even in warm weather. For subsequent nights, try making dehydrated ground beef by cooking the beef with whatever spice you like (I happen to like garlic and rosemary), then drain off all liquid, spread the cooked beef on a cookie sheet and bake at the lowest oven setting with the door open a crack till its dry (about 4-6 hrs). When done put the cooked beef on paper towels to cool an dabsorb any residual fat. Then store the dried beef in the freezer till your ready to go and it’ll keep on the trail as long as you need. Then just add it to stew/soup starter. (Note: if you want, after you cook the beef and drain off the liquid, you can seperate the fat from the drained off liquid by throwing it in the freezer for a few minutes and skimming off the fat and then returning the liquid to the beef before drying. It adds to the flavor, but it also slowes the drying process).

wow–just went to this site. Amazing! This will be making the rounds at our Troop this afternoon! Thanks very much for this lead!!!!!!!!!

Thanks William :-) If for one thing about my site, has that a lot of Scout Troops have used it-I have found out even Troops in England using the recipes-which is pretty dang cool in my book! The boys love it because it isn’t hard.

In my own experience, I’ve found freezer bag cooking to have all the benefits of commercial freeze dried meals…primarily convenience and lightweight.

But the BIG benefit for me is taste and food preference. None of my backpacking freezer bag dinners are purpose made…instead they are dehydrated portions of dinner meals I cook at home — and I like my cooking! :) The dehydrated meals taste better, have larger portions, and are far cheaper than, e.g., Mountain House. I doubt any of my trail dinner entrees cost more than a dollar.

I recommend Sarbar’s site and the Backpacker.com Backcountry Cooking forum where she is active. Sarbar is my High Priestess of FB cooking. :)