Howdy y'all!

I'm completing meal prep for this upcoming season & my easy decision of 'just rebuy what was eaten last year' has morphed into a decision as to whether I should go with Mountain House meals again or if I should go another route. For reference, last year I repackaged MH #6 cans into individual two serving vacuum sealed bags for my dinner entrees & this was just about the right amount of food for my meal, never any leftovers & I was fairly satisfied though I could have probably eaten more if there was a bit more in the bag (I bridged the gap with snacks or dehydrated pork if I was 'going to bed hungry'). The meals were palatable &, while not gourmet, they were good enough for this part-time forest dwelling vagabond. Prices for these meals are now ~$6.33-7.50 per meal of two serving sizes.

I recently was made aware by one of the great folks here that Camp Chow is running a 25% off sale on their products through the 15th & that led me to pause & consider switching to them. When reading up on Camp Chow on the forums, I came across Hawk Vittles & they have caught my eye as well. Any input on which route you'd recommend or other offerings I should consider?

One of the major pros for me with MH meals is that they are freeze dried, so meal prep involves pouring boiling water into the vacuum bag & waiting 10 minutes. From what I've gleened, the Camp Chow is mostly dehydrated ingredients & that simmering may be required. If so, this would likely remove them from my short-list regardless of potential cost savings/quality improvement. Is my assumption/conclusion correct, do the Camp Chow meals require dirtying a pot? (I only boil water in my pots to keep them clean of food residue & reduce post-meal clean-up.) I'm also concerned that their 'one serving' may not be a true satisfying meal for an adult male in the wilderness. If it takes two servings, then I'm looking at $13 per meal, $9.75 after the discount, so no savings only increased cost & potentially more prep/cleanup work, albiet for likely better quality food.

On the other hand, Hawk Vittles appears to be freeze-dried, which checks that box for meal prep procedure. For single servings, most of their entrees are $7.50-8.50 per serving, with some options at $9. This is about 20% more than the MH meals, though I'm willing to pay for 'premium' to fill up my tank if it is worth the extra cost & to support a smaller business. Looking at the calories per serving, it looks to be that these single servings have more calories than two servings of the MH meals & that Hawk's claim of "When we say double serving, we mean it satisfies two people with big appetites." may be legitimate, to my pleasant surprise. Am I caught up in wishfull thinking or have those of you who've tried Hawk Vittles found that the single serving portions are adequate?

Another pro, imho, of Hawk Vittles is it appears their products are properly sealed (not vacuum packed, though that is reasonable considering risks of sharp food items piercing the bag under vacuum...that MH beef stroganoff & lasagne is sharp haha). This means no repackaging of ~170 meals, which is awesome even if they may pack a bit less efficiently, & it saves me $ on LEM vacuum bags. The Camp Chow appears (from viewing products on BW Catalog) to be packaged in a 'zip-top' pouch, which does not meet my standards for scent proofing/storage & would require repackaging.

As I type this, I feel like the Hawk Vittles is a no-brainer move though I'm always hesitant to jump at things which seem too good to be true. If Hawk Vittles is as good as it looks to be, are there any 'top choices' that I should consider adding to my menu or any to shy away from?

Thank you for reading & I greatly appreciate any feedback you may have. Cheers!

PS I love the name Hawk Vittles (Camp Chow is good too). Vittles is not an oft used word these days & I'm a sucker for old timey lingo. My commander also used to call me Hawkeye, so I feel a connection to them through the force haha.

There are several fans of Hawk Vittles on here. I'm a fan of Mountain House and Pack-It Gourmet myself. As you pointed out freeze dried is brought back to life using boiling water (or sometimes room temperature or even cold water), dehydrated often takes some simmering (but not always). I find that FD uses much less fuel overall and is easier to get back to it's original form. There are plenty of options to purchase the packaging and ingredients to put together your own FD meals.

I love Camp Chow. All of the ones that I’ve had have been just pouring boiling water into the bag and letting it sit. I haven’t had any that needed to be simmered. I love the convenience of eating it right out of the bag and not having any clean up. I have found that I don’t need to add the amount of water listed on the bag. For example I use 1/2 the water for their chili and 3/4 of the water for the couscous.

I’m going to place a bigger order than normal with the 25% off right now.

Northwoodsman: "There are several fans of Hawk Vittles on here. I'm a fan of Mountain House and Pack-It Gourmet myself. As you pointed out freeze dried is brought back to life using boiling water (or sometimes room temperature or even cold water), dehydrated often takes some simmering (but not always). I find that FD uses much less fuel overall and is easier to get back to it's original form. There are plenty of options to purchase the packaging and ingredients to put together your own FD meals."

I'll need to check out Pack-It Gourmet, thank you for the lead!

"There are plenty of options to purchase the packaging and ingredients to put together your own FD meals."

Have you (or anyone reading this that cares to chime in) pursued this route or compared prices for 'self-assembled' vs 'pre-assembled'? If this route is more cost effective, I may have to consider pursuing it.

ducks: "I love Camp Chow. All of the ones that I’ve had have been just pouring boiling water into the bag and letting it sit. I haven’t had any that needed to be simmered. I love the convenience of eating it right out of the bag and not having any clean up. I have found that I don’t need to add the amount of water listed on the bag. For example I use 1/2 the water for their chili and 3/4 of the water for the couscous.

I’m going to place a bigger order than normal with the 25% off right now. "

That deal is very enticing indeed - I have a week to scat or get off the thunderbox. It is good to hear that their meals can be 'pouch prepped' with just boiling water. In your experience, have you found that a single serving is sufficient for an adult's dinner meal? From my cursory comparison, it seemed many of the entrees had similar calorie content as two MH servings, though some were less, closer to one MH serving.

Thank you for providing your input!

I haven't tried any dehydrated meals. I usually eat the FD. My preferred brand these days is Peak Refuel, as their meals seem to have more protein per serving than Mountain House, and they offer more global cuisines. With that said, MH lasagna with meat sauce will come on every trip.

John,
We've noticed that food prices in general are up considerably, not just camp food. Some observations:

Food needs and preferences are pretty individual. You may need more food than I do. There are meals from each company that I like and ones I'm not eating again. You may not like the ones I do and vice versa.

Both the freeze-dried and dehydrated meals can be rehydrated in the bag and eaten with only the spoon to clean (just keep lickin'). I never dirty anything else but the coffee mug (a quick rinse)

I have not tried Camp Chow but many like them. I have not eaten any Mountain House meals in years. One of the companies I liked recently closed the business last year.

I've been using a few meals (Cashew Curry and Bacon Baked Beans are favorites) from Hawk Vittles for years now and generally find them satisfactory in the single serving size and tasty, but calorie counts vary among the meals. YMMV

Another one I've used is Outdoor Herbivore . I find their single serving size is generally on the larger size for such companies. They also sell quite a few bulk items that you could use to construct your own meals. Among others I like Lickety Split Lentils (very filling), Blackened Quinoa, and Lemongrass Thai Curry.

You can always take items to bulk up meals. Think caloric density . . .


Best advice is to try a few of each and then make decisions.

I have done a complete 180 on canoe trip meals, moving from fresh meats and eggs etc prepared over the fire for years and years to a preference toward boiling water on a stove to add to freeze dried pouches the last 8-10 trips. Mountain House is our #1 brand of choice, although every year we will introduce one meal from another brand just to make sure we're not missing something. Camp Chow flavors were fine (just add boiling water, yes, but often had longer steeping times) but the water amounts suggested were often way off, resulting in soupy mixes. Not easy to fix that one.

I generally look the other way when seeing the higher costs for these prepared meal pouches. It's not like I'm out there all year or anything.

Gotta add: nothing beats MH Breakfast Skillet.

JohnGalt: "

ducks: "I love Camp Chow. All of the ones that I’ve had have been just pouring boiling water into the bag and letting it sit. I haven’t had any that needed to be simmered. I love the convenience of eating it right out of the bag and not having any clean up. I have found that I don’t need to add the amount of water listed on the bag. For example I use 1/2 the water for their chili and 3/4 of the water for the couscous.


I’m going to place a bigger order than normal with the 25% off right now. "

That deal is very enticing indeed - I have a week to scat or get off the thunderbox. It is good to hear that their meals can be 'pouch prepped' with just boiling water. In your experience, have you found that a single serving is sufficient for an adult's dinner meal? From my cursory comparison, it seemed many of the entrees had similar calorie content as two MH servings, though some were less, closer to one MH serving.

Thank you for providing your input!"

I have never been hungry after eating a single serving Camp Chow. In fact, I’ve forced down the last bit to avoid having food garbage left over. That being said, I’m not a big eater and I usually share a meal at restaurants with my wife so I don’t over eat.

You definitely want to start with less water than suggested and add some after you try it if needed. My favorites are all of the different chili options, Especially on the early May trips and October trips I’ve done when it’s cold weather and the different alfredo couscous options. The one I didn’t like from camp chow was one of the spaghetti flavored ones.

Haven't priced them yet this year but I suppose they have gone up along with everything else. We typically bring MH freeze dried meals and have found them to be quite sufficient. Some are better than others but they are always pretty tasty and filling. We bought a Camp Chow entree last year but I can't remember if we got around to making it - if we did it wasn't very memorable. Hope we still have it for this years trip, they have some interesting sounding meals.

I have tried Backpackers Pantry too and some of their meals are pretty good. Very similar to MH, at least gives you a different variety to choose from.

I enjoy cooking and would love to be more creative up there but don't have a dehydrator and don't bring a cooler. Maybe one of these days that will happen. But to this point MH, BP and even Peak have been sufficient for us. Quick, easy eating, easy cleanup, on to the next thing.

Agree with Schweady that MH Breakfast skillet is one of the best. We usually bring 2 or 3 of them, spoon them into tortillas for a delightful breakfast.

Next Mile Meals for me on the dehydrated side. I usually have a mix of "fresh", DIY dry meals and Next Mile.

Camp Chow is very good. I took advantage of the sale. On their website it clearly states if the meal is "cook in the bag" of a pot. There are quite a few you eat from the bag.
FYI: The discount basically makes the shipping free.

Before I started dehydrating my own meals, I used MH and I was always happy with them. I bought the cans to save money and also individualize my serving size, since I'm a big guy who eats more than most people. I never tried one that I really disliked.

All that said, I'm tempted to try a couple of those Camp Chow meals while they're on sale just for the heck of it.

Like a couple other people said, I personally don't get too caught up in the cost of camping meals. Even if you're buying MH or other pricey options, the cost of the food for a couple camping trips is still less than most people would spend on eating out a few times over the course of the same amount of time you'll be camping. Unless you're eating McGarbage, you're gonna spend more than $8-10 a meal when you eat out.

Freeze dried tastes best. It's the most convenient. But it isn't calorie dense. There's way too much packaging to pack it efficiently. You can repack from a #10 can, but I don't know how long things like freeze dried eggs keep repackaged.

Dehydrated is more calorie dense, and the commercial dehydrated meals tend to come with less packaging. Its a better option for longer trips.

Some people will do things like make spaghetti in meat sauce and dehydrate it in a home dehydrator. The issue there is food safety in regards to the meat and dairy. I don't do this for that reason, but you could try it. I mostly dehydrate fruits and veggies, and mix them with dry pasta and rice and commercially packaged meats/dairy.

The most space efficient, is to bulk pack dried and dehydrated foods, and mix them on the trail. Its a bit more work, but it is the closest you can get to eating "real food".

I would try a combination of all three. Get a few MH breakfast skillets, and leave them in the original packaging. Get some commercial dehydrated meals. Go to the grocery store and get some foil pack chicken and salmon, a box of minute rice (minute rice premium if you can find it), some quick cook couscous, some bisquick, some dried fruits and nuts, spices, and practice making some DIY meals at home.

I have been using Packit gourmet for the last few years and like their meals. I have been trying other brands lately to see what’s out there. If you are looking for more calories take a look at Peak Refuel meals. I’ve tried a few and they taste pretty good.They are supposed to be 2 servings per pkg but I consider 1000 calories (500 per serving) to be a satisfying amount for a BW meal.

1) As others mentioned, Camp Chow is fine as just add boiling water.
2) In terms of portion size, I recommend going based on the calories you need. All companies tend to vary in terms of each meal's caloric value. I aim for for 300-400 calories for dinner, but that is very light compared to what the average young guy is going to need (not a lot of advantages to being a middle aged female, but not needing to carry much food on a trip is definitely one!). Camp Chow does tend toward fewer calories in a pouch than many others, but I would check out the individual meals.

3) To save $$$, I highly recommend making whatever you can, yourself. You can dry foods in an oven on low temp or pickup a food dehydrator.

I’ve always had luck with bringing fresh eggs cracked into a Nalgene, flour tortillas, summer sausage, etc etc etc for my fresh options. I keep those in the bottom of the blue barrel on top of a small, wrapped brick of dry ice. Most every other meal, snack, jerky, etc I start making at home and dehydrating right around tax day, April 15. It takes me about a week to do a bunch of meals and dehydrate them all but at least I’m eating my own cooking the whole summer so I know what’s in them. A decent round Nesco dehydrator is around $80 and it’s fun coming up with all sorts of recipes. I recommend the dehydrating book by Kevin Ride on cooking backcountry meals. Anything I don’t use by mid-September I eat at home. Slam dunk.

JohnGalt: "

Northwoodsman: "There are several fans of Hawk Vittles on here. I'm a fan of Mountain House and Pack-It Gourmet myself. As you pointed out freeze dried is brought back to life using boiling water (or sometimes room temperature or even cold water), dehydrated often takes some simmering (but not always). I find that FD uses much less fuel overall and is easier to get back to it's original form. There are plenty of options to purchase the packaging and ingredients to put together your own FD meals."

I'll need to check out Pack-It Gourmet, thank you for the lead!


"There are plenty of options to purchase the packaging and ingredients to put together your own FD meals."


Have you (or anyone reading this that cares to chime in) pursued this route or compared prices for 'self-assembled' vs 'pre-assembled'? If this route is more cost effective, I may have to consider pursuing it."

I do this almost exclusively for our trips each summer. I like North Bay Trading. I buy large bags of freeze dried peas, peppers, corn, broccoli, kale and fruit. I buy large boxes of minute rice and dehydrated mashed potatoes. Lighthouse brand freeze dried spices in Walmart - you can find garlic, red onion, basil, ginger, all sorts of good stuff. Then there are spice packs for things like tacos, lime-ginger chicken, etc that can be used as well. I dehydrate refried beans, cooked noodles, pre-made spaghetti, etc. Then I spend a few weeks packaging meals into mylar bags with O2 packets and seal them up with a curling iron. WAY WAY cheaper. Cost comes down to a couple bucks per meal as opposed to $7-10, and when feeding 8-9 people each trip for six days each trip...that cost adds up!

What is your budget? If money is no object experiment until you get the right combinations. If your like me*, the less I spend on food means more trips I get to take. I dehydrate my own dinners, including soups and stews and vacuum seal, then freeze till needed (to extend the shelf life).
Two quick hacks: Dehydrate and store the cooked pasta (spaghetti for instance) separately from the sauce , they rehydrate at different rates. Put sharp items like pasta in a bread type bag, cut the bag at the level of the food and then in a vacuum bag, keeps the sharps from breaking through the vacuum sealed bag.

* I prefer the term "financially challenged) rather than "cheap"

When do we get a trip report?

I may the only one here who thinks this, but I am not a fan of Camp Chow other than their breakfasts, and they no longer off the breakfast options they had a few years back.

I pretty much go with whatever is offered for the best price @ Sierra Trading Post; I have found some decent deals there over the years-but not so great in the past 3 years.

merlyn:
* I prefer the term "financially challenged) rather than "cheap"

I prefer the term frugal.

There are a few folks I need to reply to yet, lots of quality advice provided, though as a numbers/data guy I just finished compiling data on all of the vendors mentioned in this thread which offer prepared meals & I wanted to share it with you all. Note that the Camp Chow pricing data is taking into account the 25% off discount which is valid through the 15th, divide prices by 0.75 for post-deal cost. There is a 15% off first time customer discount for Peak Refuel, so I included this discount as an additional row in the 'Overview'. I considered including the mass per serving though decided against it as I don't care as much about mass being a canoeist, calories per gram can be left to the gram counters to compile haha. All of the vendors offer free shipping on all or on orders over $75-200, depending on the vendor. I used Costco to price the MH meals (bought in 6x#10 cans or box of 24ct pouches for the asian meals). If data was only available for single servings, I doubled the values, & vice-versa for double serving only offerings. MH asian meals, Peak Refuel, & several Backpacker's Pantry meals are sold only in two serving pouches.

Note that Next Mile Meals are keto, so higher protein & less carbs, which is inherently more expensive. Imho, these meals could be combined with a carb & split between two individuals if keto doesn't matter. Many Camp Chow meals are vegetarian/vegan, even if they include e.g. 'pork' in the product name. Outdoor Herbivore, as the name implies, offers only non-meat products. Also, it should be noted that some of these companies are small businesses &, imho, higher prices should be expected due to reduced economies of scale &, likely, better quality ingredients.

Love the spreadsheet.

Mountain house generally includes freeze dried meat in its entrees, which might explain both the low calories and high cost.

Almonds are a tenth the price per calorie as any of the above options. Pack smaller, and are higher in protein. Raisins are also a tenth the price, pack smaller, and are a great source of potassium. Oatmeal, minute rice, golden couscous are all boil water only and in a similar price/calorie/packing density category, and they can be just as tasty and convenient as commercial options with a bit of creativity. (and you can buy most of these at the gas station in Tofte or Ely, plus peanut M&Ms and beef jerky). Things like MH breakfast skillet or one of their chicken entrees are a nice complement, to break the monotony and provide other protein sources.

My favorite two MH meals are the Spaghetti with Meat Sauce and the Italian Pepper Steak. For breakfast you can't beat Ova Easy Eggs. Add water and mix them up and you have raw scrambled eggs. You can scramble them, make an omelet, etc. I like rehydrating peppers, onions, potatoes and ground sausage and making scrambles or breakfast tacos. Pack-It Gourmet also offers many different condiments in portion packets. The Pack-It Gourmet cold rehydrate items are really good for appetizers and lunches.

I was going to post just to mention Peak Refuel, head and shoulders my favorite. Didn't realize there was a 15% discount. Can usually get them pretty cheap at a Sierra if you have any locations of those around you. You could give your SO a feast of the chicken pesto and she'd never know it came from a dehydrated bag. Its fantastic. Peak refuels are on the spendy side, but you get way more food in there than what I've seen from the MH bags I've eaten.

I appreciate your breakdown. Last year I began to go down the "minimalist" road which has got me eating primarily ramen and Peak Refuels. No complaints here. I'd ditch the big fish dinners nightly if it were just me, but the other guys in my group sure enjoy it. I'm trying to figure out a better plan for breakfast this year, something better than bags of bars and what not. Was thinking about individually bagging granola, dried fruit, and dried milk. Seems like it'd be a good breakfast but concerned about the amount of fiber. Can't say I look forward to a latrine visit any more than what is required!

We don't use any of those for our meals. We use Aldi Jambalaya, Dirty Rice and Red Beans and Rice mainly. We soak it for a couple hours to speed up the cooking process. We add our fish to it at the end for our portion. We also usually take seasoned mashed potatoes and Mac and cheese.

We have, on occasion, takes some freeze dried veggies for a couple of meals.

In my experience, freeze dried is better for flavor, rehydration fuel cost, and weight. Dehydrated is better for cost, durability, availability, and for eating without rehydrating.

The biggest issue I get stuck on is minimum order costs. This goes for both FD and dehydrated, but it becomes a real pain when I have to plan meals around the ingredients. I.E. If I would only use half a bag of corn in one meal, I'm likely to skip it or plan a different meal to cut down on the number of ingredients I need to order. Something as simple as mixed veggies in fried rice quickly becomes very expensive and unreasonable unless you already have the ingredients left over from other meals. I never order over the minimum amount to get free shipping either...

I used to cook really big breakfasts and dinners, and muffins and brownies in a reflector oven around the fire at night, all fresh foods and meat. The guys loved it, but it took 2-3 hours on each meal for preparation, cooking and cleanup. Because of the big breakfasts we never got on the water for fishing or exploring until 10. We had to come back by 3-4 to get dinner done and eat it before dark (we go in September).

Finally the group made the decision that we go to BWCA for the fishing and exploring, not to eat better then we do at home. So now everyone is on their own for breakfasts (usually oatmeal or granola), and we have a group dinner. We use only food like Camp Chow which can be cooked quickly and has only one packet to store as trash, going in the Bearvaults as they empty out.

We are now on the water shortly after daylight, and don't come back until right at dark or later (we cook under a group tarp with Luci Lights).

Quite honestly, the reason we didn't get many fish was we were never out until 10 and were back by 3-4. The fish had to work really hard for our group to catch them!

I use Harmoney House backpacking kit. Individual packages that I can mx up on my own and create my own recipes.

Harmony House backpacking kit.

JohnGalt: "There are a few folks I need to reply to yet, lots of quality advice provided, though as a numbers/data guy I just finished compiling data on all of the vendors mentioned in this thread which offer prepared meals & I wanted to share it with you all. Note that the Camp Chow pricing data is taking into account the 25% off discount which is valid through the 15th, divide prices by 0.75 for post-deal cost. There is a 15% off first time customer discount for Peak Refuel, so I included this discount as an additional row in the 'Overview'. I considered including the mass per serving though decided against it as I don't care as much about mass being a canoeist, calories per gram can be left to the gram counters to compile haha. All of the vendors offer free shipping on all or on orders over $75-200, depending on the vendor. I used Costco to price the MH meals (bought in 6x#10 cans or box of 24ct pouches for the asian meals). If data was only available for single servings, I doubled the values, & vice-versa for double serving only offerings. MH asian meals, Peak Refuel, & several Backpacker's Pantry meals are sold only in two serving pouches.


Note that Next Mile Meals are keto, so higher protein & less carbs, which is inherently more expensive. Imho, these meals could be combined with a carb & split between two individuals if keto doesn't matter. Many Camp Chow meals are vegetarian/vegan, even if they include e.g. 'pork' in the product name. Outdoor Herbivore, as the name implies, offers only non-meat products. Also, it should be noted that some of these companies are small businesses &, imho, higher prices should be expected due to reduced economies of scale &, likely, better quality ingredients.




"

Awesome..thank you for this.

I gave up on the high-volume brands (MH, BP, AlpineAire) years ago. I would guess they are not all bad, but I tried enough that were not good & finally pulled the plug.

Our current suppliers:
Trailtopia
Packitgourmet
Pinnacle Foods
Bushka's Kitchen
Good To-Go
*The Cumin Club (have tried at home - plan to take afield in 2023)

Most have been excellent; can only think of one or two specific meals that we did not like.

No experience yet, but will try soon:
RightOnTrek
Stowaway Gourmet
Enertia Trail Foods
Gastro Gnome

I still have some replies to get to yet, though a comment above mentioned a trip report, so I've been working on my 2022 report & have been a bit distracted from this thread.

An update relevant to this thread: I decided to go with Hawk Vittles. I sent them an email last evening & had a reply + follow-up phone call within minutes, great response time. I spoke with the new owner, Hawk's son & heir, & learned a bit about their company. At the moment, they are a two person operation & they prepare their meals to order (I'm guessing they may have some inventory when partial batches are sold, they cook eight servings per batch, though bulk storage of ingredients/finished goods isn't their business model & they may eat the excess portions themselves rather than storing them, I did not inquire about this). I'm excited to try out their products & I plan to create video reviews of each meal to share with the community.

Next year, I may explore creating my own meals, though for this year I'm glad to know that Hawk has me covered & I can focus on other things (like my outfitter just confirming that I can store a shotgun with them - John Galt will be doing some grouse & duck hunting this fall!).

That last comment, MH breakfast skillet, I gassed out an entire trailhead with that one couple years ago. Even crop dusted a few guys just coming in, hope it was someone from this forum so they can recount

I've been eating Hawk Vittles for the past 4 - 5 year on my solos. To me, their entrees are delicious. (Of course, it's canoeing food, not 5 Star restaurant fare.) I'm usually pretty hungry by dinner time as I don't eat a lot during the day. I generally snack on a couple of small gouda cheese thingys with some wine before dinner, but the solo dinner always leaves me satisfied. I bring along hot pepper flakes and salt to add some zing. I eat out of the bag, and clean up is so easy!

Happy eating!

Dave

It’s worth noting that Camp Chow isn’t cooked by the fine folks at TrailCenter, rather it’s just “assembled” by the staff and packaged for sale. I used to think they cooked and freeze-dried it there but I was mistaken.

I watch the trip videos of people like Jim Baird, Lost Lakes, and Xander Budnick. They do tripping full time and make their living from you tube among other things.

I was tipped off that store bought pot pies (I like Marie Calendar brand best) dehydrate very easily and rehydrate to taste the same.

Also Chili. Who doesn't love a good chili? Jon and Xander rehydrate homeade chili and put on a tortilla with chopped fresh green peppers and shredded cheese. Wrap it up for a chili burrito.

Jim Bairds wife Tory made a real thanksgiving dinner and deydrated the turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing. Add water and heat up for a delicious "stew". He also had cranberries but I forget if they were store bought freeze dried or they dehydrated their own.

Anyway, you can do a lot of meals in bulk this way and it's cheaper than paying over $10 a meal for store bought freeze dried. Also - precooked bacon is great to bring along. Just warm it up in the skillet first.

Interesting thread. Obviously people give this topic lots of thought. Last year we went to freeze dried for the first time--got ours at Sierra for cheaper than other spots as tbro16 mentioned. Peak Refuel is good in my book.

I went through the same ponderings, and what I settled on is that it's pretty much going to be FD/Dehydrated and a combo of some other stuff like rice and powdered potato dishes. I am buying a food dehydrator this summer and plan to make my own meals for next year. Not sure its gonna save much cost over the packaged meals like Mountain House or Backpackers Pantry, but it might. I'm budgeting basically $20-25/day for my trips this year. $140-150 for a week of food is only a small amount more than what I spend on groceries for a week at home as a single dude anyway, so it just sounds like a lot, but its not.

Breakfasts and dinners I go dehydrated, but I figure one day for breakfast I do pancakes so that saves a bit of money there since pancake mix is cheap and I always have syrup. And I try to plan for one dinner to be something other than dehydrated, but I never bank on catching fish for dinner because I've learned the hard way that you can get skunked for a whole trip and I dont want to starve.

My biggest dilemma is dog food! A week of his food is 6-7lbs. I'm looking to go freeze dried for it this year but they dont make his brand like that, so it's risky to switch him for the trip and its also absurdly expensive. Still working that out!

Sticker shock? How about a 2x increase in the price of a staple of my trips?

Refried beans purchased in August 2020 for $25.88

Todays price? $49.99

rdgbwca: "Sticker shock? How about a 2x increase in the price of a staple of my trips?


Refried beans purchased in August 2020 for $25.88


Todays price? $49.99"

Buy canned and dehydrate. Baked beans and refried beans dehydrate wonderfully easy and rehydrate easily. Just keep track of portions.

I'm not going to be doing any canoe trips this year but I hope to do some camping this spring still and again next fall. I was intrigued by the Peak Refuel products and the reviews. REI sells them cheaper than buying them direct from Peak (only by a few cents) but with their recent 20% sale they were an exceptional good value. I purchased the Summit 2.0 kit which has 24 servings (12 pouches) for $112 or $4.67 per serving. The kit was perfect because it was the same meals that I picked out ala carte and I received 20% off on all 12 pouches (because they were considered a single item). Most of the time I consume a 2 serving pouch by myself but the reviews I read say that these packets are definitely for 2 people. Even if I'm car camping I hate doing prep and cleanup. I just want to boil some water then sit back and relax and enjoy the meal. I'm looking forward to trying these.

I have low standards for camping food. All of the name brands are fine.

Lately I’ve just gone to “that aisle” at the grocery store. The just add water and boil options and the foil pack meat options have expanded so much in the regular grocery store that you can beat the mountain house type prices.

I am also thinking about taking these types of meals this year. The trip will be more remote than my past ones, so I am trying to keep meals simple.

My question - How accurate are the serving sizes? Is one serving enough for one person? Are two servings too much for one person? I don't want to take weight we don't need but also want to make sure we are satisfied with the meals. I know if can vary depending on the person. I have a group of two; me (51yo) and my nephew (30yo).

We have used Mountain House and Camp Chow. We found that one person servings were not enough with Mountain House so we went to two servings for one person

On the other hand, Camp Chow 2 servings were plenty for two people. Same with one serving options.

We no longer use Mountain House as it is way more expensive by the time you by two serving packages for one person vs Camp Chow.

There's too much variance for anyone to give you a good answer. I find it more accurate to go by calories, but you may need some time to figure that out. The number of calories in a serving varies from one meal to another from one company and even more from one company to another. For me personally, I like about 550+/- calories for a meal. Lunch/snacks is about 700-800. A little less or more is OK, but not much. I don't want to have leftovers, but am OK with burning a little body fat ;). I'm sure some people eat less and some twice as much. Breakfast is generally just cold cereal, dinner is a dehydrated/freeze-dried meal, lunch/snacks is a bar (ProBar Meal size) and nuts. Comes to about 16+/- ounces per day. YMMV.

We generally carry some bulk, dried split pea soup. Then if someone is particularly hungry after a dinner they can have soup. Yeah, it isn't the usual order for things but it works.

Taking an excessive amount of trail mix can also cover a multitude of inaccurate serving sizes.

Leftovers (besides dried soup and trail mix) is definitely a no-no.