Wise Company "Survival Food"?

[jlhopwo]

Has anyone tried the Wise Company products? I saw the thread from 2012 here, but was wondering if anyone has more recent experience?

Thanks!

jlhopwo

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[Misteramax]

Worked for a competitor. Wise has good deals and I would rate the taste middle of the road. Some menus are very bland. Not as bland as Alpine.

 

[Sgt Nambu]

I've tried a couple of the Wise entries, I thought them pretty good! I think they're a bit spendy.

 

[ATCclears]

I looked at the Wise products several years ago. Look at the nutritional data and specifically the calories per serving - it was lower than expected...

 

[41mag]

I tried a few Wise about a year ago.
Didn't care for the selections I had. Way too much stuff my special needs diet will not tolerate.

Continue to favor Mtn House Beef Stroganoff though.

As a separate little discussion, is "how long is this stuff really edible"??? About 1980 I ran across a store closing & got tremendous deal on a wheelbarrow full of then-current Mtn House back packer stuff.

Saved it carefully in airtight ammo cans until 2015. Got uneasy about such a stash languishing without any reason to exist. I did have a few things for camping over the decades, yet here was still considerable 'survival stash' going to waste.

I read all I could. Even took samples to the Albany outlet to quiz employees in both the retail as well as the 'packaging' department. They all assumed a pained look, denied anything specific WAS wrong but warned strongly that all of it was "past code date" by several decades. Couldn't even trade it in for credit on a new stash.

Took it home, broke a few open. Sniff test not bad. Careful taste test not too bad. Opened 3 or 4 of the samples but grew cautious & careful. At the last moment, Re-purposed entire (large) sackful left as being 'sanitary land fill' spacer blocks, pre-wrapped for easy handling, and dumped them all.

 

[woody06]

Last year they offered a free sample and my son and I were in the process of setting up our stash so we took them up on the offer. They sent us a sample of chili mac. It was our unanimous opinion that it was edible but not our first choice. Note that we only tried the chili mac so we may like some of their other products better.

Thus far we have found several Mountain House products acceptable and are keeping our eyes open for others. Right now I have three different samples of the brand that Walmart carries (don't remember the name) but we haven't tried them yet. Does anyone have any they can recommend.

 

[Misteramax]

Last year they offered a free sample and my son and I were in the process of setting up our stash so we took them up on the offer. They sent us a sample of chili mac. It was our unanimous opinion that it was edible but not our first choice. Note that we only tried the chili mac so we may like some of their other products better.

Thus far we have found several Mountain House products acceptable and are keeping our eyes open for others. Right now I have three different samples of the brand that Walmart carries (don't remember the name) but we haven't tried them yet. Does anyone have any they can recommend.

You may be thinking of augason farms at Walmart. I haven't tried them. I have several cans.

I used to work for mountain house, essentially. Freeze dried is great for backpacking but with the cost of it, I'm going back to mre meals lately. To me freeze dried food is great for bulk prepping in a kitchen feeding large groups of people. In a pinch, you could use cold water on a freeze dried meal but it will take longer to regain it's moisture and it just doesn't taste good. Mre...Well we all know how a flameless ration heater works.

I have freeze dried for large parties that will require pots. For packs and cars, I just load up an mre or two. Or three. Or ten cases.

I do feel mountain house has the best understanding of what it takes to make a good meal over wise. It's not just ingredients. Often a meal will taste poor because process control wasn't there.

 

[Tony617]

I bought some emergency food rations from Costco a few years ago. Not sure how tasty it is but with a ceramic water filter, and a pot and heat I can prepare rations at least. The ones I bought were packaged in Utah and delivered to my door.

 

[ikemay]

We used Rainy Day Foods (division of Walton Feed) out of Idaho and found them to be pretty good. My wife is a professionally trained chef (40 years) and we got stuff that could be put together to create a meal rather than simply ready made meals. We got plenty of items that required little or no refrigeration after preparation. Since it's just the two of us, then we better be able to eat it sooner rather than later and not let it go to waste due to spoilage. So some things we got in smaller portions even though they cost more. Also, we only bought items that we would for sure and for certain eat and enjoy not just get to survive. In fact we bought samples from several companies to try first before deciding on Rainy Day Foods.

Also, they list every ingredient so if you have food allergies this would be very important particularly if you have to rely on this to survive.

We have a bunch of other items to try, but here is a list of what we have tried so far.

Likes:
Dehydrated Hash Browns
Ova Easy Eggs (egg crystals)
Sausage Crumbles
Dehydrated Re-fried Beans
French Vanilla Granola
Nutty Granola
Freeze Dried Strawberries & Mangos.
Dehydrated Banana Slices & Apple Slices
Canned Turkey & Chicken & Pork
Freeze Dried Beef we thought was better than the canned beef.
Dehydrated Potato granules with imitation butter & just the plain no butter.

Was not a fan of:
Brownie mix, we felt you would be better of buying regular old Duncan Hines.
Powdered Sour Cream

Mixed:
Dehydrated Cheese- I liked just fine, but my wife thought you'd be better off with Kraft Singles or Velveeta. Though she thought it was fine in taco's.

Obviously, this is just a part of our overall preparedness plan, equipment and supplies.

 

[Misteramax]

Ikemay, that powdered sour cream sounds like a potential disaster. Lol.

 

[woody06]

You may be thinking of augason farms at Walmart. I haven't tried them. I have several cans.

That's it, "Augason" Thanks . Our son and his wife are coming over tomorrow so if they're up to it we'll try one and post the consensus tomorrow. If I can remember.

 

[ikemay]

Ikemay, that powdered sour cream sounds like a potential disaster. Lol.

Totally not worth the money. It was thin, tasteless and added nothing to the meal. It also doesn't thicken and resemble sour cream at all, so yeah ........ disaster.

 

[Misteramax]

That's it, "Augason" Thanks . Our son and his wife are coming over tomorrow so if they're up to it we'll try one and post the consensus tomorrow. If I can remember.

Let us know. They were cheap so I invested in six cans. Apple juice, potato slices, carrots, stew, chilli, and eggs.

 

[Misteramax]

Totally not worth the money. It was thin, tasteless and added nothing to the meal. It also doesn't thicken and resemble sour cream at all, so yeah ........ disaster.

The most horrible things I have tried normally do come out of MREs. On occasion I will have a freeze dried meal that makes me wonder why it was made.

Chicken breast out of an mre. They should call it a compressed cat food salt bar. I think in this scenario of survival I would just bait a bear with it.

 

[Motomom34]

I have had one or two Wise food entrees. They were not bad but they seemed pricey. I store Mt. House, Thrive, Valley Foods and some other food vendors. I lean towards buying the veggies, fruits, meat etc.. and creating my own dishes. Thrive foods has a large library of recipes on their site that use dehydrated foods. It seems healthier and will give one more variety if SHTF and you have to eat your food storage.

Continue to favor Mtn House Beef Stroganoff though.

I will agree that Mt House Strogenoff is the best of their entree selection but it is real salty. Some of the other Mt. House entrees are fair.

Rainy Day Foods (division of Walton Feed) o

Thank you for you post. I have never heard of Rainy Day Foods- Rainy Day Foods-food storage--home page-wheat-dehydrated and freeze dried foods-emergency supplies I am always looking for food storage companies that have decent food.

 

[woody06]

Let us know. They were cheap so I invested in six cans. Apple juice, potato slices, carrots, stew, chilli, and eggs.

Oops. My air compressor developed a problem and we got wrapped up in trying to fix it so I completely forgot about trying them. Darn it, now I'll have to wait at least until next weekend.

 

[AMProducts]

About 2-3 years ago I started looking for a replacement for my aging stockpile of MREs, I looked at Mt House, Wise, and a few other brands. At the moment I've gone entirely with Mt House, the main reason: Real meat. Wise is about 10-15% cheaper on average (per pouch) but the calorie count was also lower, and in "meat entrees" there was really never any real meat in it, wise makes heavy use of TVP, and their taste suffers for it. I bought one of those "person 30-day" buckets, that were advertised on the radio at the time. over-all impression wasn't that great, I still have some in the bucket, the mt house is more expensive, and especially more expensive if bought at retail. That said, IIRC you can get the Mt House "Just in Case" buckets from walmart for about $60-80. Lately I've been buying them from amazon, where I can get the classic bucket for $50-60. I usually add one "essentials" bucket every 3rd time. (I don't like the contents that much, but I will eat them).

Speaking of which, I'm starving, and I have a "biscuits and gravy" right here.

 

[Alexx1401]

Ikemay, that powdered sour cream sounds like a potential disaster. Lol.

I tried some made by Hoosier. It's expensive stuff. It was to sour cream what powdered milk is to milk. I found it since the Wife bought some from them that was powdered milk that was not skim. For cooking it was great. FAR better than the damn powdered milk that is non fat. The sour cream could be made to any consistency since you're just adding water. Taste by it's self was meh. Adding it to some freeze dried stuff like stew and lasagna it was not bad at all. Certainly not something I would choose over the stuff at the store. If for some reason there is no store to buy from though it will keep me eating fine. It's supposed to be good for a couple years or so in the pantry. I keep it in the fridge. If we don't use it for a couple years I will buy more and use up what we have in some cooking.

 

[Alexx1401]

That's it, "Augason" Thanks . Our son and his wife are coming over tomorrow so if they're up to it we'll try one and post the consensus tomorrow. If I can remember.

I like their stuff. One of the members here mentioned it. Bought some from Amazon to try and it was great for what it is. Jazzing it up with a little stuff and it's totally good. For something to set aside in case of a disaster it was great. To me it was FAR better than the last time I tried some MRE's.

 

[Misteramax]

I think the funniest thing ever is making sure we stock up on goods to promote stomach health and handle...Well, an explosive problem. Lol. Some MREs are just gut bombs. Mountain house beef stroganoff; Wrecks me. Can't do it.

As far as I care that's the only reason etools were made. To handle the situation of emergency food butt.