In recent years, several survival food manufacturers appeared, creating a variety of meals ready to eat that actually taste good. Granted, some of these aren’t totally self-contained and most don’t come with a chemical heating element. In other words, you have to boil water to cook them. But they’re great survival food options for those of us who most likely aren’t going to be dropped by parachute out the back of a C-130 into enemy territory.
If your survival situations are more domestic — power outage or natural disaster — or you need food for surviving in the backcountry or off the grid, there are more options in the MRE category. Though your requirements probably don’t include “delicious” and “variety,” some of today’s survival food actually qualifies. Here are three kits I’ve had in my possession — some for years — that have proven handy, easy to store and prepare, and taste great.
Good Eatin’ In Bad Times
Food is a survival must, so being prepared for the worst can mean the difference between life and death.
The tactics and gear needed from one survival situation to another may vary greatly. After all, a long-term, widespread power outage in suburbia calls for different skills and equipment than being lost in the backcountry for a week. In either case, because you’re a human being trying to survive, you’ll need food and water. Of course, how to eat and drink in survival situations has been the focus of military organizations, survival experts and even tribes of humans for as long we have been around. And, as with most survival gear and tactics, innovation has lent a hand over time in this area.
Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) were long the standard for the survival food kit — food that could exist in a portable sealed bag, stored on a shelf and carried anywhere until needed, and years later actually be edible and filling. This military-grade survival food got a bad rap, though, and the abbreviation evolved to reflect the effect on the consumer: Meals Ready to Exit, Meals Rejected by Enemy … You get the idea.
While having the ability to heat your food is nice, it is not an absolute necessity
with all emergency foods. In a pinch, you can prepare some with just cold water.
Mountain House’s 3-Day Emergency Food Supply contains 20 servings
and comes in a large, 12"x8"x8" box weighing just under 3 lbs. It contains
nine resealable pouches which serve as cooking containers. Photo: Mountain House
Mountain House 3-Day Emergency Food Supply
Mountain House’s 3-Day Emergency Food Supply contains 20 servings — meal provisions for three days for one person. The kit comes in a large, 12″x8″x8″ box and weighs just under 3 lbs. It contains nine resealable pouches which double as cooking containers, eliminating the need for extra pots, pans or dishes. The meals include Eggs & Bacon (two pouches), Biscuits & Gravy (one pouch), Beef Stroganoff (two pouches), Pasta Primavera (two pouches), Rice & Chicken (one pouch) and Chicken Teriyaki (one pouch). These all have a 30-year shelf life.
In its packaging, the Mountain House kit is a more domestically oriented survival solution. But of course, you can discard the box and easily distribute/transport the nine packets in other bags or gear. The best feature, however, is the ability to prepare the food inside of its own packet. Simply add water — depending on the meal, the water can be hot or not — seal the pouch, wait for the food to reconstitute and enjoy. When eating from the bags, regular silverware or plasticware is adequate but a long-handled metal camping spork would be very useful. Other than a utensil, there are no dishes and less waste to deal with.
Without question, the food quality is higher when preparing it with hot water. But considering you might not be able to prepare hot water, you can still make this food. I prepared the Biscuits & Gravy with hot water in the bag according to the instructions: Open pouch, discard oxygen absorber, add boiling water, stir and close. After four minutes, open and stir again, then close and let sit for nine minutes. Stir again and enjoy. You don’t have to eat it right out of the bag, but you can. This meal tasted great — like biscuits and gravy should — with just a bit of sponginess in the biscuits. The meal itself was very filling; more than enough for one person but perfect for two. Eaten along with the full packet of Eggs & Bacon, the Biscuits & Gravy could even be quartered to serve four. This particular Mountain House packet tasted great but did result in a little bit of heaviness inside me. It wasn’t a “gut bomb” and there were no other adverse effects, I just felt very full after eating it.
The My Patriot Supply 72-Hour Kit offers a single person 16 food servings meant to last three days.
It’s small enough to easily fit in a pack or bag. Photo: Patriot Pantry
My Patriot Supply 72-Hour Kit
My Patriot Supply’s 72-Hour Kit offers a single person 16 food servings meant to last three days. Yes, you can share smaller portions among more people but of course it will cut into the kit’s ability to fill you up. The 72-Hour Kit is a single, resealable pouch containing three smaller, resealable pouches. The meals include Granny’s Homestyle Potato Soup (four servings), Maple Grove Oatmeal (eight servings) and Blue Ribbon Creamy Chicken Rice (four servings). Until you open them, the food inside will last for 25 years provided it’s stored in a dry, cool location (between 55 degrees F and 70 degrees F and in the dark, for best results).
The main pouch measures 12″x10″, weighs just over 2 lbs., and would easily fit into a duffle bag or backpack. All the pouches open easily and can be resealed. Cooking instructions basically follow a “boil water, add food” formula, but the oatmeal provides single-serving instructions. If you make the potato soup or the creamy chicken rice, the instructions call for making the entire package at once. However a little math can turn these into single-serve options, too.
I prepared the Maple Grove Oatmeal following the instructions on the pouch: Boil a cup of water, add to a half-cup of oatmeal, cook for a minute and then let stand for a minute. The effort yielded a brown, oatmeal-looking mixture a bit more watery than expected. But a simple adjustment in water-to-oatmeal ratio will fix that. The oatmeal tasted great — even though there’s not a lot of variation in maple-flavored oatmeal out there — in large part due to the 14g of sugar contained in each half-cup serving. The texture was typical for oatmeal, albeit with what seemed to be smaller-sized oats. The serving size was just right. I’m also happy to report no adverse effects on my digestive system.
Mark tried out some Wise Company food and was very impressed
by the options. One in particular was the Savory Strogranoff.
As the Wise foods come in non-resealable packs and require hot water,
they are more ideal for use in a home or under less hostile conditions.
Wise Company Emergency Food Supply Favorites
Wise Company’s Emergency Food Supply Favorites contains 16 servings of four different meals. Four non-resealable Mylar pouches reside in a 9″x7″x4″ cardboard box and weigh a total of 2 lbs. As such, this kit is less portable than the Patriot Supply and the food pouches are meant to be prepared as full, four-portion servings. The food pouches include one pouch of Cheesy Lasagna (4 servings), one pouch of Creamy Pasta (4 total servings), one pouch of Savory Stroganoff (4 servings) and one pouch of Tomato Basil Soup with Pasta (4 servings). These also have a 25-year shelf life.
As a cardboard box with non-resealable pouches, this kit is better deployed in a home under less hostile conditions. Moreover, the cooking instructions not only call for boiled water but to also set the food aside in a covered pan — some for 12 to 15 minutes — so the boiled water can completely reconstitute the food. As such, this will require some kind of timing device or some good judgment to know whether enough time has passed.
I prepared the Savory Stroganoff following the on-pouch instructions: Boil water, add to food, stir and set aside, covered for 12 to 15 minutes. This yielded a good-looking stroganoff — noodles and meat in a creamy sauce with flecks of seasoning. Not a fan of hard noodles, I let this stand for the full 15 minutes. Still, the noodles were a little beyond al dente. The meat texture was fine, if a little spongy at times, but the creamy sauce was excellent. There was just the right amount of savory in the taste, too, although some extra pepper would spice things up a bit for those who want a little more kick. A half-cup serving of the stroganoff was more than filling. Savory Stroganoff not only proved to be filling but also easily digestible with no “gut bomb” or desire to suddenly sprint to the
nearest bathroom.
The Wise Company stroganoff cooked easily for Mark, and he found it to be very filling. Photos: Wise Company
Who Would’ve Thought?
Maple Grove Oatmeal, Savory Stroganoff and Biscuits & Gravy — not a food selection you’d expect (and after preparing and eating each one, the unexpected surprise of great flavor) for survival food . If you have the means to boil water, these kits allow you to easily enjoy hearty, satisfying meals. And, with some, you can prepare them with cold water. If you need to be on the move during your survival situation, the pouches of course are portable. If you need to store them in your home, the boxed versions make it easy to stack. Clear labeling and instructions abound with all these kits and they actually look inviting to prepare and eat. With a shelf life of 25 to 30 years, they’ll be ready to be prepared and eaten, no matter what your survival situation entails.
Best of all, the advances in the production and manufacturing of these kits mean they actually qualify as tasty and even more friendly to your digestive system than previous survival food options. In fact, we may need a new abbreviation. I suggest MREEs — Meals Ready to Eat and Enjoy!
For more info:
Mountain House, Ph: (800) 547-0244
Patriot Supply, Ph: (866) 229-0927
Wise Company, Ph: (800) 820-1329
