Mountain House Cooked Ground Beef | Freeze Dried Survival & Emergency Food | #10 Can | Gluten-Free

Bottom line up front: This type of food is a great choice for an emergency food supply, especially for sheltering in place or evacuating by vehicle. The #10 cans have a 25-year shelf life, so you can buy them and not worry about rotating your stock for a couple of decades. The biggest downside is that once opened, they need to be used up right away. SHELF LIFE - The #10 cans have a 25-year shelf life (unopened). The biggest downside to #10 cans versus individual pouches is that the 25-year shelf life turns into a 1-week shelf life once they've been opened. Since each can has enough for 10 servings, you'll be eating the same thing for several meals unless you're cooking for a group. TASTE - In my experience, Mountain House food is really tasty. Let me caveat this review by saying that although I've eaten other Mountain House freeze-dried food, I haven't had occasion to open the ones in the #10 cans (see my review of the "Mountain House 72-Hour Emergency Meal Kit"). That having been said, the Mountain House food I have tried has been very, very good tasting -- not just good compared to other survival foods, but good period. I have no reason to expect that these would be any different. WEIGHT/CONVENIENCE - As steel cans, they're reasonably durable and reasonably lightweight (not backpacking light, but you don't have to be a weightlifter to move a large box of them). They do take up a bit of volume, but since the overwhelming majority of long-term emergency scenarios involve sheltering in place or evacuating by vehicle, I wouldn't let that be a deal breaker (personnally, I have a stock of individual pouches just in case I have to leave on foot, but most of my food is in these cans). CALORIES - The problem with most freeze-dried emergency food is that a so-called "serving" has too few calories to meet an adult's energy requirements (2500 a day for men; 2000 a day for women -- more with heavy exertion), so you end up consuming more than you planned. These are no different. So even though a typical can ostensibly contains 10 1-cup servings, you really need to eat two servings per meal to get enough calories to survive -- perhaps more. Plan your purchase accordingly.

These beef crumbles are very convenient. I bring them to a boil in chicken stock, along with dehydrated carrots, then simmer for about 20 minutes, then add instant mashed potatoes at the end. It makes an easy, one-pot, soft stew!

I add this to my spaghetti dry camping meal. Works great for more of a meaty taste/texture to the meal. I do soak it longer than what the instruction recommends. I find that most of these freeze dried foods require longer soaking time to avoid chewy texture.

A great, high quality, product for long term storage needs.

Trop cher