What Preps are you doing this week? Part 9

[Sneddle]

just ordered the £180 something pack of dried veg from mountain house on amazon.

How much actual food do you get for that? I have access to a freeze drier, just wondering how much more expensive it is to buy stuff prepared rather than doing what I'm doing now.

Preps this week have mostly been of the "get ready for winter" variety - checking the caravan is OK and that the electricity is still working alright, putting some gritted panels down on the deck, etc. I've got a few new solar lights to go up to replace the one that worked for a day, too. Hopefully winter won't be too bad this year, last year was pretty mild iirc. I think we only had one frost.

[steptoe]

just ordered the £180 something pack of dried veg from mountain house on amazon.

How much actual food do you get for that? I have access to a freeze drier, just wondering how much more expensive it is to buy stuff prepared rather than doing what I'm doing now.

Preps this week have mostly been of the "get ready for winter" variety - checking the caravan is OK and that the electricity is still working alright, putting some gritted panels down on the deck, etc. I've got a few new solar lights to go up to replace the one that worked for a day, too. Hopefully winter won't be too bad this year, last year was pretty mild iirc. I think we only had one frost.

I tried mountain house while their stuff is good there are cheaper firms out there and some british firms also , i will say i get my whole powdered egg from the states due to it beign so cheap .
Do not forget to look round but if i had a freeze drier i would work out what the machine cost to run with a full load and go from there .I tell you who might know the running costs of that sort of machine will be yorkshire andy

[jennyjj01]

just ordered the £180 something pack of dried veg from mountain house on amazon.

How much actual food do you get for that? I have access to a freeze drier, just wondering how much more expensive it is to buy stuff prepared rather than doing what I'm doing now.

Preps this week have mostly been of the "get ready for winter" variety - checking the caravan is OK and that the electricity is still working alright, putting some gritted panels down on the deck, etc. I've got a few new solar lights to go up to replace the one that worked for a day, too. Hopefully winter won't be too bad this year, last year was pretty mild iirc. I think we only had one frost.

I tried mountain house while their stuff is good there are cheaper firms out there and some british firms also , i will say i get my whole powdered egg from the states due to it being so cheap .
Do not forget to look round but if i had a freeze drier i would work out what the machine cost to run with a full load and go from there .I tell you who might know the running costs of that sort of machine will be yorkshire andy

An Excalibur 9 Tray Dehydrator is rated 600W, which at full power will use 6kWhr over a 10 hour run. At 34p per kWh, that would be £2.04 Since you don't run it full power, call it £1 to £1.50 or so.
A Domestic Freeze Dryer, such as SFD-06 FREEZE DRYER, runs at 1.75kW or roughly 3 times the power, so would cost up to £6 for the same 10 hour run.
Freeze dryers are MUCH more expensive to buy at about £5,000

Warm air dehydrating is very different to freeze frying and has it's drawbacks. I wouldn't be without mine. Just don't expect the drying process to be reversible.

So. Where do you get those powdered eggs? I used to use Internationalegg at about £13/kg but I believe they stopped trading.

[Frnc]

I looked for Mountain House on Amazon, could hardly find anything. The search brought up big buckets but they are by ReadyWise.

[steptoe]

How much actual food do you get for that? I have access to a freeze drier, just wondering how much more expensive it is to buy stuff prepared rather than doing what I'm doing now.

Preps this week have mostly been of the "get ready for winter" variety - checking the caravan is OK and that the electricity is still working alright, putting some gritted panels down on the deck, etc. I've got a few new solar lights to go up to replace the one that worked for a day, too. Hopefully winter won't be too bad this year, last year was pretty mild iirc. I think we only had one frost.

I tried mountain house while their stuff is good there are cheaper firms out there and some british firms also , i will say i get my whole powdered egg from the states due to it being so cheap .
Do not forget to look round but if i had a freeze drier i would work out what the machine cost to run with a full load and go from there .I tell you who might know the running costs of that sort of machine will be yorkshire andy

An Excalibur 9 Tray Dehydrator is rated 600W, which at full power will use 6kWhr over a 10 hour run. At 34p per kWh, that would be £2.04 Since you don't run it full power, call it £1 to £1.50 or so.
A Domestic Freeze Dryer, such as SFD-06 FREEZE DRYER, runs at 1.75kW or roughly 3 times the power, so would cost up to £6 for the same 10 hour run.
Freeze dryers are MUCH more expensive to buy at about £5,000

Warm air dehydrating is very different to freeze frying and has it's drawbacks. I wouldn't be without mine. Just don't expect the drying process to be reversible.

So. Where do you get those powdered eggs? I used to use Internationalegg at about £13/kg but I believe they stopped trading.

Hi Jenny i have a dehydrator i got mine fro mthestates way back when it was not heard of in the uk and well it works , i could never warrant spending out on a freeze drier to expensive .
The egg powder we get is https://theminusplan.com/product/hoosie ... wder-1-kg/ . the stuff is lovely and just add salt and pepper to taste we use no salt mainly just some chive if doing and omelette , it does lovely fluffy scrambled eggs to

[steptoe]

I looked for Mountain House on Amazon, could hardly find anything. The search brought up big buckets but they are by ReadyWise.

Be careful mate because they do not ship meat products to the UK and some of their other stuff is iffy to , and also watch out for huge taxes if it goes in to customs they will bang on huge chunk we got caught like that back in the day when i ordered a dehydrator from the states but it was still worth it , i should by a uk version but we use a power convertor and it has been going 20 odd years now so lol it works fine

[jennyjj01]

As someone who's never stumped up for Mountain House stuff, or any commercial 'MRE', my observation is that you are likely to pay way over the odds for what is a glorified range of 'pot noodle' type meals. There's plenty of variety, and quality seems good, but on a price per meal I'd sooner track down instant dehydrated meals in the supermarket.
Mountain House claims it's 25 Year shelf life, but I'd prefer something with 5 years that could be rotated into regular diet.
In Europe, Mountain House is now branded as Fuel-Your-Preparation
https://evaq8.co.uk/fuel-your-preparation
E.g. £49 for ten portions of Scrambled Egg. https://evaq8.co.uk/freeze-dried-tin-sc ... egg-1.html I don't think so!!!

[Frnc]

I looked for Mountain House on Amazon, could hardly find anything. The search brought up big buckets but they are by ReadyWise.

Be careful mate because they do not ship meat products to the UK and some of their other stuff is iffy to , and also watch out for huge taxes if it goes in to customs they will bang on huge chunk we got caught like that back in the day when i ordered a dehydrator from the states but it was still worth it , i should by a uk version but we use a power convertor and it has been going 20 odd years now so lol it works fine

Ah, was looking at uk site. I don't eat meat anyway. I was only looking out of curiosity, I'm of the same mind as Jenny about just getting cheap food and rotating it. I do have one 25 year tin from FYP and a few FYP 7 year bags in my BOB. Obviously they are good for BOBs as they are light and fairly compact. I will eat the 7 year one when they expire. Might not live long enough to eat the 25 year one!

[Frnc]

As someone who's never stumped up for Mountain House stuff, or any commercial 'MRE', my observation is that you are likely to pay way over the odds for what is a glorified range of 'pot noodle' type meals. There's plenty of variety, and quality seems good, but on a price per meal I'd sooner track down instant dehydrated meals in the supermarket.
Mountain House claims it's 25 Year shelf life, but I'd prefer something with 5 years that could be rotated into regular diet.
In Europe, Mountain House is now branded as Fuel-Your-Preparation
https://evaq8.co.uk/fuel-your-preparation
E.g. £49 for ten portions of Scrambled Egg. https://evaq8.co.uk/freeze-dried-tin-sc ... egg-1.html I don't think so!!!

I generally agree, except the individual bags are great for BOBs. I did get one big tin but that was when I first started prepping. Didn't know FYP was Mountain House.
25 years is for the big tins. Individual pouches are usually only 7 years or less.

[Sneddle]

Freeze driers are quite costly to buy, but one of the benefits I've found is prepping against inflation costs. Buying up cheap food now and storing it against future cost rises has already been worth it, for me. I've seen things go up from e.g. £5/kg to £7/kg in just the last few months. Also, if my freezers go down, the freeze dried stuff is fine. There's no ongoing cost to run a freezer full of food that's subject to mechanical failure and blackouts.

There is a definite up front cost, and there's no guarantee that the freeze drier will carry on working any more than the freezer will. Overall, if rather have some cheap food on the shelf that I can cook with boiling water, than a freezer full of stuff I can't cook if TSHTF because eive run out of gas. There's no way I can afford to freeze dry everything, nor would I want to. Being able to go to the wholesalers and buy up four turkey crowns for less than £25 each and keep them for years, has been useful, though. How much will a cooked turkey crown cost in a year's time? Or even five years?

Some of the prices are a complete rip off - 40g of freeze dried peas on Amazon for £.7.98. Equivalent to £199.50 a kilo! And that's reduced!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Supergarden-Fr ... 07GLTSK1M/

If I could go into business selling freeze dried food, I reckon I would. There's got to be a profit margin in that.