Prudent Prepping: The Taste Test

The dust has settled and the First 72 Hours have passed. Follow along as I build a long term plan via Prudent Prepping.

When I wrote about my friend the Master Chief ordering freeze-dried long term store-able food, our esteemed Editrix asked the obvious question, "But how do they taste?"

Here is my answer.

Wise Emergency Food
I opened both buckets and chose one item from each that I am reasonably certain of how they should taste: Apple Cinnamon Cereal and Noodle Soup.

Easy Choices

Preparation
This was straightforward: read the label, boil the correct amount of water and taste. The cereal uses 3.5 cups of water which I nuked in a microwave.

WARNING! 

REMOVE THE OXYGEN ABSORBENT PACK

 BEFORE ADDING WATER!

Too much water

Apple Cinnamon Cereal
This is an instant cereal most of us have eaten. I take instant cereal with me every day, in case I didn't eat breakfast or get hungry before lunch.

Wise doesn't break down the ingredients, nutritional values or serving sizes for their multi-serving packages in an easily copied format, so here is the page for the entire contents of a bucket, with the cereal towards the bottom.

The flavor is very good with enough cinnamon to make things flavorful and not just sugary, and the texture is different from the single-serving oatmeal I've eaten; this is closer to slow-cooked whole oats. As is my normal way to try new items, I followed the directions as shown. Also as is usual, the amount of water listed is more than I feel is needed to mix or cook the test items: the cereal is runnier than I like, and I'm tempted to use at least 1/2 cup less water or add the cereal to the pot while still on the fire to cook off some of the water and possibly speed up absorption.

Noodle Soup
Another item most people have eaten in the past, and another favorite from my earlier days, before Ramen became popular. This product's information is also on the page mentioned above.

This package recommends 4 cups of water, which I'm going to use, because this is actual soup!

Noodle soup

The texture came out better than I expected, with the curly noodles cooked enough to be firm but not chewy. What did not come out better was the taste: salty.

Lots and LOTS of salt in the soup, to the point that the other flavors seem sharp tasting; I don't know and other way to describe the 'taste'. I've eaten instant soup exactly like this in the past and wasn't a fan then; I still don't like it.With water filtration systems available, something this salty might not be a problem if you have enough plain water to drink in an emergency.

The vegetables reconstituted as expected and you could tell you were chewing something other than a noodle, but that was all. Did I mention salt?






The Recap

• Wise freeze dried long-term storeable meals, first mentioned in this post. Available from Amazon
• As with most things, the more money you spend (to a point), the better off you are in quality. The Master Chief and I both think Mountain House is better tasting, butat a higher price point that neither one of us can afford at the moment.

The Takeaway

• Buy what you can afford and upgrade when you can. Nothing is perfect, but in an emergency the calories you have now are better than the ones still on a store shelf.
• Wise Foods gets my recommendation for emergency food, even with the minor flavor/salt issue.

Just a reminder: if you plan on buying anything through Amazon, please consider using our referral link. When you do, a portion of the sale comes back here to help keep this site running!

If you have comments, suggestions or corrections, please post them so we all can learn. And remember, Some Is Always Better Than None!

NOTE: All items tested were purchased by me. No products have been loaned in exchange for a favorable review. Any items sent to me for T&E will be listed as such. Suck it Feds.