Wise Foods and Mountain House

The good news about both companies is that they put out perfectly edible food that's compact and easy to prepare.

Mountain House generally gets a slight edge on flavor, but that might be because they use real meats instead of soy substitutes. They also get good marks for ease of preparation. However, they are more expensive.

Wise products are all good. Last night we tried their version of chili and macaroni. It was perfectly tasty, but the Mountain House version gets slightly higher marks. The Wise version is spicier, so that could be a plus or a minus, depending on taste.

Wise has more actual food and calories in their pouches. The assorted bucket we got has more variety than the Mountain House bucket. If budget is the major concern, and you aren't afraid of having some soy products in your diet, got with Wise.

What am I going to do? Personally, I'm going to buy from both companies. That gives me more options and better variety. If we are really hungry and don't mind getting a pan dirty, Wise products are a good choice. Sometimes we don't want to dirty a pan and want to eat off paper plates so we go with Mountain house. If you are really hardcore you can east it right out of the bag.

It has been handy having dehydrated foods in the van. We don't worry about refrigeration. You can carry a lot of food in a fairly small space. That has made it nice when camping in more remote locations. Knowing there's a lot of meals in those buckets gives peace of mind.

One more thing, ignore the suggested servings sizes. Yes, they might be “normal” servings. If you'd add in a salad, bread, and dessert. That's not what you get them for. Often it's all that we have for a meal. Sometimes we'll add fruit or bread -if we have it.

In general, I'm happy with my purchases and will buy more in the future. Nobody sent any meals to test. They were bought out of my own budget.

-Sixbears