Mountain House 3-Day Emergency Food Supply Kit
It should go without saying that food is an important part of an emergency kit.
If you disagree, try fasting for 3-days under high stress conditions. Not fun at all. Headaches, fatigue, cloudiness of thinking, all bad things you want to avoid when lives are on the line.
Don't be a tough-guy: have food in your emergency kits.
If you buy anything with the links we provide on this page we get a small percentage of the sale from Amazons end. For more info click here.
Bug Out Food Options
Do SOS Ration bars work? Sure, but there are better long term options.
Military-style MRE's are a good option. You don't need to cook them and they are easy to carry around and eat on the go.
You can also look into getting freeze dried food, like we will be discussing here.
Freeze Dried Foods
There are some benefits and some issues with relying solely on dehydrated foods.
Downside: Freeze dried foods need to be re-hydrated. This typically requires a heat source, water and time. Although it doesn't take all that long, you can't really eat them on the go - you need to take a break and get your cooking gear out. You can prepare them with cold water if you need too, but the taste and consistency won't typically be as good.
Upside: They taste much better than MRE's or SOS bars, and have better consistency and are more like the food we normally eat everyday. This is important for keeping morale positive.
Since you can get veggies from food like this too, your "pipes" shouldn't block up either, if you know what I mean 💩. Also freeze dried packaged foods can have a shelf life from 20 to 30 years.
What's the best approach? Have a combination of a few types of food in your portable emergency kits. If you are only concerned about bugging in food supply, then freeze dried foods are the way to go.
Mountain House Made it Easy
The good news for us is that Mountain House, which makes really good freeze dried meals, has premade 72-Hour 3-Day Meal kits available to purchase.
The Mountain House 3-Day Emergency Food Supply Kit takes the guess-work out of your emergency meal prep.
What's in it:
- 20 Total servings with approximately 1,650 calories per day
- Includes 9 total pouches:
- Eggs & Bacon (2) - The comforting taste and smell of crispy, crumbly bacon combined with scrambled eggs.
- Biscuits & Gravy (1) - Hot fluffy buttermilk biscuits with creamy pork sausage gravy make for a hearty, family-favorite.
- Beef Stroganoff (2) - Tender beef, noodles, and mushrooms smothered in a rich sour cream sauce.
- Pasta Primavera (2) - Zucchini, spiral macaroni, cauliflower, broccoli, red & yellow peppers and green beans in a creamy, parmesan cheese sauce.
- Rice & Chicken (1) - Rice and chicken in a savory sauce accented with pimientos.
- Chicken Teriyaki (1) - Chicken, rice, mushrooms, bamboo shoots and vegetables with a sweet and tangy oriental sauce.
This gives you a pretty good baseline with which to build upon based on your personal preferences.
Here are the Nutritional Facts:
One thing to notice is the Sodium numbers. They are a little high, and this is not atypical in foods prepared in this fashion.
As long as you are getting enough water then the sodium is a good thing, you need salt and it actually helps you to re-hydrate, unless you do not have enough water, then it does the opposite.
How Does it Taste?
Mountain House meals are actually pretty darn good, especially after a long hard day of work or hiking. We've tried nearly all of their meals and have been pretty impressed with the flavor.
Mountain House is at the top of the list of all the brands we have tasted and tried. We once had a get together with a bunch of prepper friends and made a few dozen ready to eat meals to see what we all liked best.
Backpackers Pantry meals ranked number one on a per meal basis, but Mountain House was a close 2nd, and also typically less expensive.
Why a Kit?
Save money when you buy a kit like this, as opposed to purchasing a bunch of meals individually.
The per meal price in this kit is $3.30. Typically individual Mountain House meals usually cost $8 or more, so it really only makes sense to buy them in packages.
The 3-Day Emergency Food Supply Kit is designed for one person, for one 3-day stint. If you need food for more people or for a longer period there are other kits available:
But I Can't Cook!
Can you boil water? No? That's OK, because you don't have to - just open the pouch up, add water, wait 10 minutes and stir.
Now, it will all taste much better if the water is hot, so practice your boiling skills and be a happy camper.
Other Considerations
Mountain House has some of the lowest oxygen contents in the package in the industry. You should read the study they did about it, pretty eye-opening.
TLDR; Mountain House leads the industry in low-oxygen levels. That is important, it affects shelf life and nutritional value.
Where to Get Them
Amazon has all of the kits, many (if not all) have Prime shipping.