Product Review: I Can't Believe It's Not Food!

Long before I've actually finished writing this my watch will have passed midnight, so Happy Star Wars day everyone! May the 4th be with you!

Okay, now that I've got that out of the way, on to the "meat" of the post. You'll get the pun in a moment, and I am preemptively sorry. I'm going camping in just a couple of weeks; it's up to Killarney with my Dad to get some fresh air. I thought this would be a good opportunity to do something that I've been meaning to for awhile now, which is to blog about the equipment I travel with. I haven't owned a great deal of travel equipment in my day, but hopefully my experiences can prove helpful to someone out there, and any discussion that this generates could prove influential to my future purchases.

I decided to kick this off with something lively - a bit of an experiment that we conducted this weekend. I was home visiting the folks, so I brought home some freeze dried camping food to try out. The idea is that these pouches of freeze dried food weight VERY little, but when you add hot water they turn into full meals for two. A pretty convenient concept, but one that neither my father or I have ever put to the test. So, as they say, the proof is in the tasting. I picked up a couple of the highly recommended meals from Mountain Equipment Co-Op (check them out at www.mec.ca) and brought them home for a test drive. By the way, Camper's Tip #463, always test out your gear, even if it's just dehydrated food before you leave home, you really don't want to find out that it sucks in the middle of the Canadian Wilderness.

The two meals that we took for a test-drive were the Hawaiian Rice with Chicken from Backpacker's Pantry and Beef Stroganoff from Mountain House. Graydyn decided to join in on the taste test, though please keep in mind that he's something of a Gourmand, and as such has declared food that I thought was perfectly lovely to be quite unfit for human consumption. He took the first crack at the chicken dish and proceeded to describe it in terms that I am too polite to repeat in a public forum. So yeah, that one didn't go over so hot. As usual I didn't find it nearly as bad as Graydyn, though I did see his point of view. There's more garlic and ginger in there than chicken, which makes the taste quite powerful, and quite uniform. If you don't like the first bite, you're not going to enjoy the second one any more. That said, I didn't find the flavour as offensive as Gray, but Dad wasn't too keen on it either, so I get out-voted 2 to 1. I also came out very soupy, as if the amount of water that they tell you to add is a bit too high. Another thing to note is that it has red peppers in it, and I genuinely believe that all colours of Bell pepper should be avoided in freeze dried or frozen foods, they take on a really appalling texture.

Next on the hit list was the Beef Stroganoff, which actually was something of a hit! We all agreed that it tasted like Beef Stroganoff, which may not seem like a glowing review, given that it's supposed to taste like that, but keep in mind that this is freeze dried food - hitting the mark is quite an accomplishment! The water-to-food ratio was more accurate on this dish, so the texture was what you would expect. I was pretty happy with the end result, and so was Dad, so I think we'll be grabbing another one of those to take with us on our trip. We'll probably get another from Mountain House as well, since that one worked out so well.

In general then, I've got a few tips from my limited experience with camping meals. First, try before you camp! Find something you like, because if you really found the food unpalatable in the woods you wouldn't be able to just run out for a pizza. Second, it seems like you're better off getting simple dishes, and avoiding anything with too long of an ingredient list. Third, and this is important, make sure you're hungry when you take one for a test drive so that you get a feeling for how well it will fill you up. Most of these pouches advertise that there's enough food for two people there, but I've read reviews from several people who said that they would consider that only enough food for one. Make sure that if you're planning on splitting the pouch that you won't end up hungry.

All of that said, I think they're a brilliant concept, especially for backcountry camping. They are light weight, easy to prepare, and can be eaten right out of the pouch they come in. Certainly worth checking out if you're planning a lengthy and remote camping trip. Hope that helps, and tune in soon for more gear discussions.