Mountain House Freeze Dried Meal 9pk Price: $79.99 Shipping Options:: $5 Standard Shipping Estimates: Ships in 1-2 business days (Monday, Dec 01 to Tuesday, Dec 02) + transit Condition: New
Ate about 100 packets of these 3 years ago on the AT and about 70ish this year on the PCT…for the $$, not bad. Lightweight and much, much better then Ramen and such. Somewhat easy to prepare and Tabasco & spice packets help a whole lot. I also found that you can trade these for other items pretty easily with other thru-hikers. Somewhat bulky and packing out the empty foil packs is a slight pain, but easily prepared with a hiker spork and I was actually able to “re-purpose” the empty packets (handy built-in zip closures) sometimes. A bit spendy for a budget hiker, but very easy to pack for trail resupply and always 100% consistent. I’ll have some on hand for a 2016 PNT hike. Oh, and watch Costco, sometimes you can do much better then this price.
** Edit: ignore the serving size, eating a full packet of any of these isn’t very hard at all **
[QUOTE=Sarzanini, post:6, topic:436136]
Ate about 100 packets of these 3 years ago on the AT and about 70ish this year on the PCT…for the $$, not bad. Lightweight and much, much better then Ramen and such. Somewhat easy to prepare and Tabasco & spice packets help a whole lot. I also found that you can trade these for other items pretty easily with other thru-hikers. Somewhat bulky and packing out the empty foil packs is a slight pain, but easily prepared with a hiker spork and I was actually able to “re-purpose” the empty packets (handy built-in zip closures) sometimes. A bit spendy for a budget hiker, but very easy to pack for trail resupply and always 100% consistent. I’ll have some on hand for a 2016 PNT hike. Oh, and watch Costco, sometimes you can do much better then this price.
** Edit: ignore the serving size, eating a full packet of any of these isn’t very hard at all **
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Important note: these are the 4 person size pouches, not the usual 2 person pouches. (The description says 5 servings, but Mtn House usually lists these as 4 servings - unless they’ve intiated a whole new size bag.)
I compared this deal to the Mountain House Essential Bucket.
This deal includes:
732g of Beef Stew
816g of Beef Stroganoff w Noodles
816g of Lasagna w Meat Sause
Total of 2364 grams, for a total cost with shipping of $0.036/g (3.6 cents per gram of food)
The Mountain House Essential Bucket has 12 normal pouches rather than 9 family size pouches. That works out to:
544g of Rice and chicken
724g of Chili Mac
512g of Spaghetti
Total of 1780 grams of food. Mountain House website charges $79.99, but Amazon has the bucket for $52.49. The Amazon price comes to 2.9 cents per gram. EIGHTEEN PERCENT CHEAPER than the woot deal. Granted the food options are different and I only compared by weight, not calories.
In conclusion I don’t think this is a very good deal.
Additional note - Mountain House’s own website has an extended black friday sale going on, it appears everything on their website is 25% off through 12/2 with a coupon code. However, even with the reduced price, these same 9 family pouches on their website would be $90.61 plus shipping.
I have not eaten these in years, but when I used to, the most popular where the chicken dishes. The most popular was the chicken and dumplings. But I did an Amazon and Mount House search and cannot even find it anymore. I was thinking of buying some for an emergency supply. Wonder what happened to them?
Edit: I figured it out, different company (I still have some, they are over 20 years old). These are the best!
[QUOTE=nalien, post:10, topic:436136]
Total of 1780 grams of food. Mountain House website charges $79.99, but Amazon has the bucket for $52.49. The Amazon price comes to 2.9 cents per gram. EIGHTEEN PERCENT CHEAPER than the woot deal. Granted the food options are different and I only compared by weight, not calories.
In conclusion I don’t think this is a very good deal.
[/quote]
Thank you. I like your deal more because I would rather have the smaller packs and I like the food choices better. And I saved a little money. So you gave me a win, win, win!
That said it does look like the Woot offerings are a more expensive item (price per ounce for the Stew or Stroganoff versus the Chicken and Rice or Spaghetti). I did a quick check on Amazon.
Been backpacking for years. Mountain House was my go to meal (If we got skunked on the trout fishing). Started dehydrating my own because of the sodium amount in these. But if you don’t have a dehydrator MH is the way to go.
These meals are excellent choices for dinners or lunches in the backcountry. For at home - not as much. They do have a high sodium content, which is not necessarily a bad thing when exerting a lot of energy. For a few days backpacking it shouldn’t hurt anyone who is not on a low-sodium diet. Some friends have told me that several days with prepackaged freeze-dried meals have made them constipated, but I haven’t found that so much.
The Beef Stroganoff is one of MH’s most popular meals. I quite like the lasagna, although give yourself plenty of time to remove the clingy cheese bits from your spark, fork, or spoon afterwards!
[QUOTE=charisboof, post:7, topic:436136]
Important note: these are the 4 person size pouches, not the usual 2 person pouches. (The description says 5 servings, but Mtn House usually lists these as 4 servings - unless they’ve intiated a whole new size bag.)
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** Important note addition, MH’s “serving size” is 1 cup. While thru-hiking, 4500-5000 calories a day is needed for most hikers…**
![[Preview 1]](http://d3gqasl9vmjfd8.cloudfront.net/5672e064-ff57-4e85-9581-ee395c9ef9e9.jpg){kind=link}
![[Preview 2]](http://d3gqasl9vmjfd8.cloudfront.net/b6d953d0-2586-4d00-ab8c-fae77c83fe1a.jpg){kind=link}
![[Preview 3]](http://d3gqasl9vmjfd8.cloudfront.net/8b688d8b-ba51-4cf9-b3f0-4f546aabe3b0.jpg){kind=link}
