An option for breakfast on the road in your truck is freeze dried eggs. One sealed pouch -- which has a plastic "zipper" type seal inside -- is shown here.
We prepared two pouches of Mountain House's scrambled eggs with bacon on Friday morning, April 2, 2010.
This is our photo review.
First, note on the left side of the front of the pouch the wording "Breakfast serves 1".
In our opinion, this is subjective, because it really depends upon your appetite as to whether or not the contents will fill you up.
The dry weight is 2.25
ounces. The instructions on the back says that it makes about one 8 oz.
serving.
Note also that this product comes "precooked". You will not have to deal with raw eggs.
The back panel has a short informational section
about
Mountain House at the
top, a "Nutrition Facts" strip along the left side, a listing of the
ingredients, and complete directions on how to fix the contents.
One of the things that we
really like about this product is that it has 25 grams of protein.
As you can see from the
ingredients listing, this product contains actual eggs and bacon.
We noticed the smell of bacon as soon as we opened the pouches.
Just for the sake of comparison
So, in order to get about the same number of grams of protein, you would need to eat about 3 large eggs and 2 slices of bacon.
Of course, you can buy the equivalent amount of fresh eggs and cured bacon for a whole lot less than the freeze dried eggs pouch (as we show below).
The stamp "Best Used by Dec
2015" means that it would have been good for another 5.5
years.
Our choice for breakfast: two
pouches of Mountain House Freeze Dried Scrambled Eggs with Bacon and
grits.
The two photos here show what the contents of
the
pouches look like.
The one on the left has large yellow chunks on top and you can see some of the freeze-dried bacon below.
The one on the right shows more of the bacon crumbles toward the top.
Please note that the oxygen absorbing packet (which was removed from both packets prior to preparation) is shown near the top left of the contents in the left photo.
Although the pouches are designed to be torn open by hand, we always use heavy duty scissors to cut the tops off (being careful, of course, to leave the zipper intact).
Remove and discard the oxygen absorber.
The pouches are designed to stand upright, as shown in this photo.
The instructions state to add one cup of water to each pouch, which is why we have the two pouches standing in a large bowl.
The pouches -- open and standing -- are ready to receive the water as soon as it boils.
In our case, we heated enough water in our hot pot to add to the pouches of freeze dried eggs and prepare the grits.
Carefully add 1 cup (8 oz.) boiling water to pouch.
Stir thoroughly and close zipper on top of pouch.
Let stand 5-6 minutes.
Carefully drain excess water from pouch.
Serve.
For your convenience, eat right out of the pouch.
After adding the cup of boiling water to the pouch, Mike
The amount of time it was going to take for the
freeze dried eggs and bacon to rehydrate was sufficient time for us to
cook our grits.
Since we were going to eat the grits from a bowl, we decided to eat the freeze dried eggs and bacon from a bowl, too.
When Mike looked down into the pouch after the rehydrating period was over, he saw that there was a pretty good bit of water in the pouch that the food did not absorb.
In the process of pouring off the excess water, he noticed how much of the freeze dried eggs and bacon solids were coming off with it.
So, he decided that we would just deal with it.
How much water was in excess?
In terms of volume, we couldn't say, but these photos might help you decide.
The photo on the left is of the freeze dried eggs and bacon.
The photo on the right is a close-up of the water next to the spoon.
The rehydrated freeze dried eggs and bacon in the left bowl and the grits in the right bowl were the two major parts of our breakfast.
Please note that the contents in the left bowl represents the rehydrated freeze dried eggs with bacon from two pouches.
Even though the contents of two pouches was
supposedly enough for two people, it
was not enough
for a full breakfast for the two of us by itself.
For this product on a scale of A+ to F- (with A+ being the best, F- being the worst): B-
The cost of this meal at the time this page was written was:
Contrast the cost of each pouch with 3 eggs and 2 slices of turkey bacon.
Contrast $4.88 (the cost of the freeze dried product without the grits) with $0.54 (the cost of real eggs and turkey bacon).
The freeze dried product is close to being 10 times as expensive as the fresh product.
Due to the difference in cost, if you are interested in having freeze dried scrambled eggs with bacon, we recommend you use it only when absolutely needed.
Note: Your costs may be different.
Money saving tip: Although this product can be purchased from Amazon.com (with whom we have an affiliate relationship) -- at the price shown here -- we bought our pouches from a local Wal-Mart Supercenter (in the sporting goods
section) for $4.88 each.
This is certainly a better buy than from online.
You may be able to find freeze dried meals for a better price if you buy them in bulk, such as in a #10 can.
However, you need to bear in mind the limitations associated with the lifespan of the food after you open such a large can.
Remember that properly preserved freeze dried food needs to have less than 2% oxygen.
Once you open a can, you don't have that anymore.
It is possible that you can transfer the unused contents from a #10 can into a vacuum-sealed plastic bag.
Regardless, a meal made from fresh ingredients is much cheaper.
Return from Mountain House Freeze Dried Eggs, Scrambled, with Bacon: A Review to our Product Reviews page or our Truck Drivers Money Saving Tips home page.