I am eating a 30+ year old Mountain House FD meal

The Heretic · Dec 31, 2014

As I type this I am eating freeze dried beef vegetable stew from a Mountain House meal pouch I bought 30+ years ago for backpacking. It was a bit bland, so I mixed it with some chicken gumbo soup from a can, some ginger, some garlic and curry, and sliced up some potatoes and put it in a crock pot. This will be my lunch and dinner for the next couple of days.

A couple of years ago I ate a beef stroganoff meal of about the same age. It was okay by itself, not the best I have had, but okay.

Over on the SB forum people often ask how long the meal pouches will last. I can't speak for the other brands, but Mountain House will last a long time.

MH did some tests recently on their pouch meals, of pouches they have kept for over 10 years (I think they had some that were 25 years old), for taste and nutrition and so on, and they upped the best used by date from 7 years to ten years.

Knowing how conservative they are about this, and given my experience, I would say you could safely store the meal pouches for a lot longer than 10 years.

TapRackNGo · Dec 31, 2014

I had one Mountain House, chicken teriyaki that I took on a camp out. Tasted awful. Next night had the same thing, different pouch and it was great. I didn't look at the dates, but couldn't have been more than a couple years old. That's the only bad tasting one I have had out of many. One word: Tabasco.

It will fix just about anything!

The Heretic · Dec 31, 2014

Tabasco is just ground up chilis and salt.

You know how that came about - the McIlhenny family owned a salt mine, so instead of making lemonade from lemons, they made tabasco from salt, vinegar and chili powder.

I do have some tabasco in the kitchen, but rarely use it.

CoastRange57 · Dec 31, 2014

TapRackNGo said:
One word: Tabasco. It will fix just about anything!

Marine Corps ??

My boys developed the Tabasco thing in the Corps, eating MRE's. They continue to us a lot of it, one of them has some acid reflux problems now, he ate MRE's for 4 months when they first were forward deployed in Afghanistan. He has a huge bottle of it on his kitchen counter to this day.

I would not have a problem with the Mountain House. I have always had good luck with them. I cracked open a 1994 MRE a guy had at a garage sale and it was almost completely bad all of it.

Just Jim · Dec 31, 2014

Better than McDonald's today

Osmosis · Dec 31, 2014

Still sounds like a pretty rough new years feast

MrNatural · Dec 31, 2014

The age of FD meals is only half the story. How they were stored during their life, especially temperature, has a significant multiplier or divisor effect on their life and quality. MRE's, dehydrated and canned goods as well.

The takeaway is that it is VERY worthwhile to ensure your prep rations are stored in a cool place, and subject to as little heat, and moderate humidity, as possible. It really isn't difficult, especially in the PNW. Just takes a bit of thought and planning.

The Heretic · Dec 31, 2014

I gave no special care to these old meals, they were stored in a box with some other odds and ends for camping.

Freeze dried food stores very well if the container is not compromised.

It has no moisture and no oxygen to cause the food to go bad.

The newer style mylar packages for the meals seem a lot more robust than the old style which were more like a heavy duty potato chip sack.

gunfreak · Dec 31, 2014

Gonna make one hell of a 2015 turd...

deadeye · Dec 31, 2014

Next time I see my neighbor I'll let him know He's the president of Freeze dry the company that makes Mountain House.

Stomper · Dec 31, 2014

gunfreak said:
Gonna make one hell of a 2015 turd...

if you eat 30+ year old food, then how old does that make your poop?!

MrNatural · Dec 31, 2014

deadeye said:
Next time I see my neighbor I'll let him know He's the president of Freeze dry the company that makes Mountain House.

Perhaps you could suggest to him to consider establishing a small factory retail outlet store at the Albany OFD facility. Be a great place to get rid all sorts of odd n' ends of the type production facilities are wont to find stacked in a corner - dented cans, contract overruns, leftover batches of small runs, new products for trial, etc. Would be warmly welcomed by (us!) homies in the neighborhood.

Couldn't hurt to ask.

The Heretic · Jan 1, 2015

MrNatural said:
Perhaps you could suggest to him to consider establishing a small factory retail outlet store at the Albany OFD facility. Be a great place to get rid all sorts of odd n' ends of the type production facilities are wont to find stacked in a corner - dented cans, contract overruns, leftover batches of small runs, new products for trial, etc. Would be warmly welcomed by (us!) homies in the neighborhood.

Couldn't hurt to ask.

I don't think they will.

IIRC, this subject has come up before - especially the issue of selling direct to the public.

They feel they don't want to undercut their distributors. Plus the fact that there would probably be some people who would buy in bulk and then turn around and resell, without setting up a distributorship.

Occasionally you will see a deal on Amazon or in Costco, and that is where I buy my pouches now - usually in the boxes of 9 to 12, and for less than $5 per meal. I recently bought a box on Amazon, 9 meals for $30 - one of those "lightning deals" they have with a limited time and amount, where you can buy only one.

I have at least ten boxes of the pouches and I also have some cartons of 6 #10 cans - that cost me about $1K. This is all long term storage food for SHTF.

I gave my kids one of the 10 meal boxes each for their vehicles and put one in my car trunk. If they get stuck somewhere at least they will have food and water (if they did as I suggested and put it in their vehicles). FD food will store a lot better in a car trunk than MREs.