Dehydrated Meals - What have you found?
 

Years ago dehydrated meals were basically army rations and not all that tasty and nutrition wise, probably slightly better than cardboard! With the advent of modern technology, I wondered what your thoughts and experiences were regarding nutrition, taste, price, quality and brands you prefer, as they're easy and quick to prepare, pack and they last for ages. The last time I looked in the local camping store I noticed they were quite expensive couldn't find anything under $8 AU and some were double the price per meal.

This is not exactly dehydrate meals but chinese stirfry uses dry noodles,with a few sauces and peppers and veggies,we also use canned meat which makes for great camping food. fairly cheap.

I've tried a couple of the dehydrated meals from Anaconda camp store.
Brand is "Back Country" from memory.
Not too bad at all, both in main meal & sweets :thumbup1: BUT ! & there always is one....they're expensive, yet they fill a hole well !

I'm also with yokesman. Tin of meat & noodles do real well too.

What have I found?

I found it best to avoid them.

Overpriced, too small and pretty tasteless. Why bother when I can buy a can of Chunky soup from Aldi for under $2.

Mountain House
 

Heh,

It's obviously all subjective, but I've found several of the Mountain House flavours very acceptable. Yes it's 7.50 GBP or thereabouts for a Big Pack meal for two, but that's pretty big and masses of Kilojoules for the weight. When either off road desert biking or trekking in the middle of nowhere, every gram saved counts. Add some dehydrated parmesan and all you need now is acceptable dehydrated red wine.

Personally we like Spag Bol, Chicken Korma & Chicken Tikka the best.

In Oz we tried the backcountry brand, but won't be changing over by choice

James

Hi Dave, hope all O.k. in your world.

Dehydrated meals may taste dull, but beware of them, they are packed with sodium, (salt), which isn`t very good healthwise, and also causes increased de hydration, which for a biker is something we should avoid, esp for the kidneys. They may be better than the old army rations tastewise, and useful as a back up if all else fails, but for regular consumption to be avoided IMHO. Dried packet soups are my standby, still got lots of salt in them but lots of fluid if you make a full packet.

G'day Pongo,

All well here thanks, good to hear from you mate, hope you're doing well also.

Packet soup is generally what I carry also and you're right about keeping the sodium level down and keeping an eye on additives ect. Noodles lack content and require extras, cans of stew, fish ect. are good but bulky and heavy too. I hoped there was something I was missing out on.

If your going into a place where you may not get water, say a desert, then there is little point in dehydration as you'll have to carry the water anyway.

The main market for 'dehydrated meals' are bushwalkers.. they do a fair amount of work and sweat - so they need lots of kg + salt... thus the meals have it for them. A bicycle tourer may need 6,000 calories per day! That is a lot, about 1kg perday dehydrated! If your sweating on your journey you too may need some extra salt and food... In Oz the cheapest place for them might be Dried Food for Hiking, Dried Fruits for Bushwalks, Multi Day Bushwalking Food

You can get some interesting stuff in the supermarket! The 'cup of soup' stuff + noodles do wonders for some. Weight saving can be had by not choosing something in a tin can.. Aldi Remano Couscous ( I like the 'Hot & Spicy') - just add hot water stir and wait a few minutes, you might want to add a sachet of fish/chicken. Sun Rice microwave meals 'only' need heating - they are precooked, no can. Coles - Indian section - Tasty Bite Bombay potatoes, Passage to India Dhal Manhani. And there are dehydrated fruits - they tend to have lots of sugar! Mango, banana, apple.

If you want you can DIY dehydrate .. then vacum pack. This works well as you can refrain from the added sugar and salt. And reduce the costs.

A word of caution .. all these things loose their nutritional value from the moment they are processed, at the expiry date there would be a fair loss! So buy and eat fairly close together, don't store. Not something you could use for an extended trip .. you might be able to plan a month, after that your buying what is available, or have a support person at home sending you out stuff.

Pro: light (in spite of what has been said) they last forever

Con: expensive, bland, not much food, high sodium, did I say expensive, require water

I sometimes carry one freeze dried meal as a survival meal. Someone usually gives me one they don't want.

You can eat lighter out of the grocery store. Do a search on calories per ounce. Appalachian Trail thru-hikers are very serious about this, trying to get max calories per ounce. Their goal is 100 calories/oz.

food
 

I use them in many of my trek due to their light weight and ease of use and even so they are not as good as regular food they are now pretty good. During my motorcycle adventures I always carry 2 or 3 packs and found that sometime I enjoyed the convenience of having them while in the middle of no where . I also use them for other people in some country and I could do a nice little meal in few minutes and share it . $8 to $12 per pack for 2 people and can stay good for month even in humid climate

Anywhere, weight or bulk is important, you can't avoid freeze fried meals. They are expensive but still a small percentage of the total costs of a trip/expedition.
If you are flying out, two cans of soup, as overweight, will cost you an extra 45$.
I always bring some emergency pouches of freezedried. You only need a spoon and hot water and you have a meal. And no washing up ;-)

When cycling and its late, you don't have to continue pedalling in the dark, to get to the next town. Just set up your tent and enjoy, right there.

On a kayak expedition in Greenland, I had 5 weeks of food in my kayak, I only needed water, which is abundant as floating ice.

Cycling in the desert in Morocco and on the Stuart Highway, freezedried is necessary.

I wait for sales and stock up. I have 70 double portions in the house just now. It keeps for ever and nutritional value doesn't deteriorate, maybe the taste does but I haven't experienced that. I repack them into single portions and save around 40% that way.

In Greenland I brought some small pieces of dried salami, in every second days rations and I really looked forward to those days.

Also bring some carry and other spices

I found Back Country meals to be very good, when I was in Australia.

The source for my information that the nutritional values deteriorating was an Australian TV program ABC TV Landline .. from the producers of OZ military freeze dried food packed in 'combat ration' packs from Scotsdale, Tasmania. http://www.abc.net.au/landline/conte...4/s4134168.htm Broadcast 23 November 2014
Quote "FIONA BREEN: A new collaboration between the University of Tasmania, CSIRO and the Defence Force is bringing the best minds together to make ration packs better. One of the challenges is the need to ensure the rations can survive in extreme conditions and have a long shelf life.

Scientists have found these meals lose some of their goodness over time. Researchers are now looking at a way of fortifying or strengthening the vitamins so they don't break down.

ROGER STANLEY, CENTRE FOR FOOD INNOVATION: The fortifying is entirely new because they want it to be able to potentially last for up to two years. So we're looking at better ways of complexing those vitamins to hold them so that the meal retains its full nutrient quality for two years. "

Do you have some evidence that it does not reduce?

I've an old post on http://www.bicycles.net.au/forums/vi...p?f=77&t=80403 on this subject. I've more data to enter on it .. but that board does not allow tables for formatting..

I had a case of LRRPs from the Vietnam era. I ate a couple out of curiousity. They tasted a little stale but didn't kill me. Can't say how nutritious they were. Made a turd.

Starving people eat pretty much anything - grass for instance. Keeps the stomach fullish .. and makes a turd. But they still starve. Rather go with the science.

The micro-nutrients might be lacking but the carb, fat and protein are still there. I'll just take a multi-vitamin. I ate many WWII C-rations in the 60s and live to tell the tale.