Mountain House spring sale

[Jill and Skid R]

Hello from Colorado!  I’ve heard there is a big sale in the spring on Mountain House bulk dehydrated food.  Can anyone provide a link and tell me when that sale usually happens?  Thanks a lot!

Jill

[Gary Dunckel]

Hi Jill. How are you enjoying our CO weather these days? Are you doing your global warming dance yet? There will be more muy frio days ahead, but the ski areas aren’t complaining.

Now, onto Mountain House. They usually have a good sale on the #10 tins of goodies in March or April, but they also have surprise sales throughout the year, like right now. The link below is for the current sale on #10 tins, but I expect that the pouches are on sale too. 25% off is usually the best you can do on any of their sales, but I did pick up a can of the seafood chowder at 50% off a few months ago (I expect it will be a discontinued item).

http://theepicenter.com/food-storage/mountain-house/10-cans.html

You should sign up to receive their e-mails. That way you won’t miss the sales. Also, you can sometimes score some military overstock on items that aren’t usually available to the public. I scored a can of FD jumbo shrimp and also a can of FD uncooked pork chops that way.

I kinda think that this is how it works with TheEpicenter. They are based out of Eugene, OR, just down the road from Albany, OR where Mountain House is located. I figure that they are in cahoots with each other somehow. Like maybe when the Government returns some overstock with 25 of the 30 years remaining on the shelf life, Mountain House likely will have TheEpicenter sell them at a discount. I am just guessing here. At any rate, I’ve found the owners of TheEpicenter to be a joy to deal with. It’s apparently a family owned business, and the husband and wife have both been great at responding to my e-mails, indulging my questions, etc.

My only “complaint” has been that they can’t talk Mountain House into reducing the unnecessarily high salt content of their foods. They say that it there to replenish what you lose during high exertion on the trails. But Mountain House also touts their products for use in an emergency situation at home. I think it’s a poor nutritional choice for great-grandpa with high blood pressure, for example.

What I’ve been doing to reduce the overall salt content of my meals is to combine some MH ingredients such as FD chicken and peas (with the high salt content) with some salt-free items like Barilla Pronto pasta and a lower sodium sauce mix. Heck, I even eat this stuff at home, for an easy-to-prepare bowl of tasty goodies.

Don’t lock onto TheEpicenter exclusively though. Other vendors also offer some interesting ingredients. For example, Packit Gourmet has FD tomato chunks and also FD zucchini, which are my favorite veggies for variety in the wild.

[Jill and Skid R]

Hey Gary!  Thanks so much for all the helpful information….very much appreciated!

Winter in the thriving metropolis of Red Feather lakes is blowing right along!  Only 11 more days until the solstice and then the sun starts coming back!!!  Wahoo!

 

Take care!

[DAN-Y]

Thank you Gary, very interesting link. I had to put it in my favorites ;-)

Their MRE items look very promising.

http://theepicenter.com/mre-meals-ready-to-eat.html

[Jill and Skid R]

My only experience with MRE’s is from our search and rescue work here in Colorado…they seem a lot heavier to me than dehydrated food…but then again…I guess you lose the weight of having a stove, fuel, etc.

Any thoughts from the pros out there?

[Gary Dunckel]

For 10 years I volunteered with the Fed’s elite disaster medical response teams (Denver-based NMRT and DMAT). These teams responded to things like hurricanes (DMAT) and also to incidents of weapons of mass destruction (NMRT). There were maybe 50+ DMAT teams scattered strategically across the U.S., but just 3 of the NMRT teams, one of which was based in Denver. We were all members of both teams, as they were housed in the same warehouse. The Feds trained the hell out of us, primarily to prime us on the NMRT side, where we might have to respond to biological, nuclear, incendiary, chemical, or explosive events (BNICE al-Qaeda!).

So during all training exercises, as well as every deployment, we were fed MRE meals for breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Some of them tasted fairly good, but some were crap. We cheered whenever the Salvation Army food truck showed up!

MREs are not FD or dehydrated, but sort of like canned food. They can be eaten either hot or cold, but they are MUCH better hot. There are heater modules that are used to warm the pouch up. I found that there were items in the package that were useless to me, like jelly, extra salt and pepper sachets,  mini bottles of Tabasco, and candy. Overall, the MREs were OK but not great. And they were rather heavy (not an issue in Iraq where a big transport truck delivers them to the troops, I guess). I don’t recall checking the nutritional labels, like how much salt was in the various meals. It didn’t really matter, as we had to eat what we were given. It helped to be first in line, in order to score the meal you liked.

So for backpacking purposes, I would offer a couple of suggestions. First of all, if you have a regular full MRE meal, open the box and discard all the foo-foo stuff that isn’t needed (including the heating gizmo). They will be heavier than desired due to the ready-to-eat concept, but they require no preparation (other than warming them up if desired). If I was to do it, I would carry a small pot or large cup to warm the food over a canister stove (and burn the packaging if I could have a campfire).

I would try several meals at home and find out which ones you like. Then order a bunch of each from TheEpicenter.com (they have a 5-7-year shelf life if stored in a cool basement). While you’re at it, pick up some of the MRE flour tortillas–2 to a pack, 180 calories, 400 mg. of NaCl. They are a convenient way to take a form of bread into the backcountry, and they also have a 5-7 year shelf life. MREs can be an option, but for me, if I never eat another MRE it will be too soon…

 

 

[Jill and Skid R]

sweet!  Very helpful, thank you!

[DAN-Y]

Gary, great insider info…..thanks.

I’ve always thought that seasonings would make anything taste ok for consumption. Look at the rating this meal gets and seasonings:

http://theepicenter.com/mre-garlic-chicken-breast-entree.html

 

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