There are many companies producing dehydrated foods for preppers and backpackers/campers. I have some thoughts about the role of dehydrated foods for prepping. I do have one bucket of Mountain House dehydrated meals that we could grab in 30 seconds and be gone. It would last the wife and I for one week.


1) Dehydrated meals generally do not provide a large number of calories. You need to READ the labels on the meals. Some packages say they offer 2 servings but each serving is tiny and only provides 600 calories.

2) Dehydrated foods will require a water supply to re-hydrat. Can you count on having a water source?

3) A diet of nothing but dehydrated meals can lead to some digestive issues, particularly constipation after more than a few days.

4) Rather than using dehydrated meals, it seems to me that purchasing some dehydrated ingredients makes more sense for long term storage. Some cans of fruit, veggies, ground beef, egg powder, other items that may become difficult/impossible to locate when SHTF would be good to stock.

We have a small weekend/vacation place in a mountain resort in the San Bernardino Mountains and we do have some full meals stored there for the times when we may visit and get snowed in and we have used supplies we took up or purchased for the planned time. Even this winter which was almost a non-event in California saw my daughter snowed in for a few days around New Years before the road was plowed.

In conclusion, my feeling is you use dehydrated foods as a PART of your food preps, not the entire food source. Your thoughts, feelings, ideas are appreciated.