Thanks for the
great feedback guys!
As I mentioned, that page is really
long, so I've split out just the
summary data table to one compact separate page:
http://TurtleNomad.com/food/kits/compare_table.htm
I've added some more notes (based on your feedback), and added a new column "
space efficiency", which is just calories per liter of volume, based on actual cubic space occupied
including wasted space (e.g. there is
less wasted space in a
square container).
The Wise food kit rates the worst (of the buckets), despite the cool square shape.
I was a little surprised that the circular Augason Farms 30-day bucket had almost twice the calorie density of either square bucket!
dirtbag:
The granola Dew experiment was a complete success.
I've done it for the last two days. Will post pics, soon.
dirtbag & Ruleryak:
You both raise
excellent WATER points, so I'm going to start a separate thread.
I do have alternate cooking stuff:
Regular & mini Esbits (in car kit), Sterno, "magic heat", and two of those Swiss surplus military gel stoves.
There's also a barbecue thingie on the patio of the apartment I'm subletting. I have zero BBQ experience, but there's charcoal.
Since about half of the Wise stuff was not tastee, I've tried two varieties with cold water rehydration, with mixed success (rotini was crunchy, fettucine was fine).
dirtbag & ak70g2:
Yes, I did receive the minimum firearms training (just rifles) when I was in the Air Force reserves. I have not shot since then, but I attended my state Caucus this year, where I was invited to a private shooting range, which I'm considering doing.
I've never fired a shotgun, and that does feel about the "right" speed for me. I'm planning to buy rural land (possibly soon), and have been seriously considering a shotgun for protection. I'll have to write up my caucus experience (most of you would get a chuckle out of it), and pick your brains about the etiquette of a private range.
Name_not_found:
Is that a vote for me to do a detailed Wise review first?
That and the AA-14 are the only kits that I've eaten 100% of the varieties, so they're the easiest to start with!
One of the reasons I bought the Wise bucket was that it's 100% vegetarian. Part of the year, I abstain from meat, so that was a big plus.
About half of the Wise varieties had almost no TVP. In general, they were the worst tasting ones, and were the poorest in nutrition (there's a small nutritional summary table on the main page - I'm going to enhance it and break it out to a separate page).
The ones that did have noticeable TVP were generally the
best ones, both in taste and nutrition.
Note that all four of the Wise
sample varieties do have significant TVP, and all are reasonably tasty. I'm pretty sure that's not a coincidence.
One of the things I've been experimenting with is
adding TVP to the low nutrition vareties. It definitely improves them, though part of that might be psychological.
On the other hand, it would be hard to make those worse!
Here's some
Wasa crackers and
Bob's Red Mill TVP that I've been using to "jazz up" both the AF-30 and Wise:
The Wasa has about a year shelf life, the TVP about a year and a half. Amazon has excellent prices on both.
Allergy info: Most had it. I'll take a closer look, and list any which do not have it. Is there a specific one you'd like me to look for?
In general, the more expensive "backpacking" oriented kits have more info, and have it on the individual pouches. The cheaper "prepper" kits definitely do
not list it on the pouches.
Bonus stuff: Other than the aPacks MREs and the Augason Farms 30-day bucket, there was no cool stuff.
Here's side-by-side pictures of the three different bucket pouches:
The Augason Farms 30-day bucket pouches are
huge compared to the rest!
However, the AF-30 pouches do
not have any cooking information.
I'll weigh them as soon as I pick up my food scale from storage.
Here's a closeup showing the nice gasket on the Augason Farms 30-day bucket pouches:
Since these have about 15 to 20 "servings" each, it's a nice addition. They're also
much tougher than the Wise and AA pouches, as I mentioned in the way-too-long page (I'm going to gradually chop that up into smaller, more focused pages).
