Isle Royale Forums

Has anyone had a mountian house dinner not rehydrate? I am curious since I went to rock island 2 weeks ago and 3 of our dinners did not "work" and they were not edible. The dates were good, water was boiled in jet boil, and I let them sit longer and did the whole stir and everything. It kinda worried me if this could happen again while on a longer trip, I have never had a problem before.

I've never had that happen, and some of them have been quite "old" so to speak. On occasion I'll get a 'dry spot' for lack of a better term, when I don't fully stir or mix the stuff, but the rest of the meal has always been fine. Very interesting, and I'll be interested if others have had problems. Mountain House has always been solid for me.

Nope. I've had the potatoes be a little too chewy, but never an inedible one. If it is really cold out the water could cool off before the dinner completely rehydrates, so wrapping in a sweatshirt might help.

Bob

I don't generally use freeze dried foods since I got on a dehydrator kick a couple of years ago. But, I've found that many, especially those with meat, need to be simmered for a while even though they say they are fine rehydrating in the bag.

thanks for the input, i have used them for years too, and not had a problem, could not understand it.. oh well maybe it was a fluke.

We have usually taken 1-2 Mountain House meals on every 5-6 day trip we have been on for the last 12 years and have never had a problem. The only issue we've had was an occasional "dry spot" like Tom mentioned. However, now I open the bag 3-4 times during the re-hydrating process and thoroughly stir the contents each time and we don't seem to have that problem any more.

All I can think is that there was a pin hole in the bag that let humidity in. In that case the food inside would be a solid mass. It it was normal looking before the water was added I can't think of why this would happen.

I've been eating almost nothing but Freeze-Dried on all my trips to IR, except for oatmeal and my trip last fall. Never had a problem.

Last fall, I even pricked packages to release extra air. I don't recommend it - the flavor suffered & didn't gain that much space-wise, but they all cooked.

Did you contact Mountain House to explain the problem?
About 10 years ago I found several old packages with expiration dates a few years previous. I sent an email and had an answer less than w week later.
Now I dehydrate my own.

On a side note, I was at a wilderness medicine class recently. The doctor made the statement that a leading cause of dehydration is eating freeze dried and dehydrated food. Everyone there were backpackers, including the doctor. It took some discussion before we could accept the statement.

slosteppin wrote:On a side note, I was at a wilderness medicine class recently. The doctor made the statement that a leading cause of dehydration is eating freeze dried and dehydrated food. Everyone there were backpackers, including the doctor. It took some discussion before we could accept the statement.

So what was the rational?

sgatz wrote:

slosteppin wrote:On a side note, I was at a wilderness medicine class recently. The doctor made the statement that a leading cause of dehydration is eating freeze dried and dehydrated food. Everyone there were backpackers, including the doctor. It took some discussion before we could accept the statement.

So what was the rational?

I've wondered this same thing. Perhaps if your meal isn't completely rehydrated, it actually "uses" water that normally passes into your large intestine to be absorbed by your body?

sgatz wrote:So what was the rational?

My guess would be that the dehydrated food never regains the water content of undehydrated food and that backpackers don't compensate for that by drinking more water. The problem with that theory is that the cause of dehydration is not eating dried foods; it's that your net water intake is less than your net water loss. If you are peeing regularly you aren't getting dehydrated. The solution to the problem is not to stop eating dehydrated foods, it's to drink more water and count how frequently you piss.

Another thing that may be contributing to this is that most of these meals have a fairly high sodium content.

Ernest T Bass wrote:Another thing that may be contributing to this is that most of these meals have a fairly high sodium content.

Good point. When we camp sand islands near the ocean, we often get our "cooking water" from slightly brackish island ponds. In these cases we try to make up our own meals with as little added salt as possible.