*Mountain House Scrambled Eggs with Ham and Peppers Product Review*
By: Gottin_Himmel
28 February 2019

There are few things faster or easier to prepare than scrambled eggs, at least under normal circumstances. In a grid-down situation, we may be faced with preparing meals under abnormal conditions. This is when Mountain House and other freeze-dried meals become invaluable.

All you need to do is add water- hot, cold or lukewarm. If you're using a one-, two- or four-person pouch, you don't even need to use a serving plate. Just add enough water to the pouch's contents, stir well, close the pouch for about 10 minutes, open it and eat the goodies.

There has been some discussion among Rubicon members whether to pouch or not to pouch. I'm a not-to-pouch person because I think the meals taste better when prepared in a bowl. My edumicated guess is that more oxygen is incorporated into the food while preparing it this way, making it tastier on the tongue.

My personal exposure to freeze-dried meals is rather limited. On the other hand, I have kept freeze-dried fruits and vegetables in my preparedness pantry ever since I joined the Rubicon. They aren't quite their fresh counterparts in terms of taste and texture, but they aren't bad, either. They are simply different.

And so it is with Mountain House Scrambled Eggs with Ham and Peppers. For the purpose of this product review, I will be relying on my impressions of the contents of a #10 can.

From past experience, I would recommend giving your freeze-dried meals a good shake before opening. All the powdered sauces, seasonings and ham and pepper bits tend to settle on the bottom of the package during shipping.

Your first glimpse of the scrambled eggs might rock you back on your heels. They look like nothing so much as small chunks of yellowish Styrofoam. The ham and pepper bits resemble jewelry beads. You will not be tempted to eat the meal in its uncooked state.

According to the label, you should be able to get 15 servings of scrambled eggs, ham and pepper from the can. I would say this is an accurate estimate under normal conditions. During periods of stress and a heightened level of physical exertion, your mileage may vary.

As this is a normal day, I put a single serving in my favorite soup bowl and added boiling water. There are no listed estimates of how much water to use for a single serving, but the label states that 8 ounces will rehydrate the entire can. With a bit of extrapolation, I used about a couple tablespoons in my soup bowl.

The result is excellent. This won't taste like a plate of scram 'n ham at your favorite diner, but neither will it taste like a plate of free-dried eggs. Given just enough water and time to rehydrate, the ham and pepper bits are pretty convincing. If you want to be fancy, a drop or two of Tabasco won't hurt a thing.

Mountain House says that each serving provides 190 calories, 100 of them from fat and the remainder in the form of protein and carbohydrates. The high fat content makes this egg product a great source of long-term energy.

The pepper bits furnish 15 percent of the daily requirement of vitamin A, 15 percent of the calcium, but only 2 percent of vitamin C. It would be wise to serve this freeze-dried meal with a side of potatoes, strawberries or some other vitamin-rich food.

The eggs and ham bits provide 15 grams of protein, or about 30 percent of an adult's daily requirement. During emergency conditions, the requirement may be a bit higher because of additional physical stress in daily life.

In summary, Mountain House Scrambled Eggs with Ham and Peppers makes a tasty addition to your preparedness pantry. But as with everything else in the preparedness lifestyle, "it doesn't work until you've tried it."

Incorporate this and other freeze-dried meals into your family's daily diet often enough that they won't seem foreign and strange in a grid-down situation. People do better in stressful times when they are surrounded by familiar things, and this includes food.

I paid about $35 for a #10 can of this freeze-dried meal, which works out to slightly more than $2.00 per serving. So, you could work this into your family's normal diet without breaking your budget.

And when you're done, don't forget to save the empty can. It holds about a gallon of liquid and is also the right size for a homemade hobo stove. You have plenty of time to make up your mind about what you're going to make. The shelf life for this product is between 25 and 30 years.

Gottin_Himmel

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