Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Best site to purchase MREs, Mountain House, Peak Refuel

Looking for website recommendations for good deals on MREs and freeze dried meals. Where do you shop?

It's my understanding that it's illegal to sell genuine military MREs on the commercial market. So I don't think there's a site for that. I live near three military installations and occasionally I hear about someone or other selling MRE's. If I want to buy some I don't ask questions about how they got them. The commercial variety of MREs are no good crap.

Mountain House prices don't seem to vary very much from one site to another. There are lots of sites selling them. Just Google Mountain House. Wal Mart prices are cheaper then those at sporting goods stores. I think that MH freeze dried offerings are the least digusting. Some even bordering on edible.

I don't know anything about Peak Refuel. Here's the URL for peak Refuel at Amazon.
Peak Regfuel at Amazon

I think I would want to know about preparation. I steer clear of freeze dried products that require a lot of mixing and simmering. Something always seems to go wrong with those kind of products.

Peak refuel usually has a promo code or 2 floating around. They are IMO better than MH.

sierra trading post

It's seasonal but Costco carries boxes of assorted meals, 12 in a box IIRC. It's the cheapest I've seen.

price

Our church's scout troop uses MRE's but we have a source - our troopmaster is a retired army ranger. He gets them at an air base near here. They're filling but they're also heavy. They have the water still in them.

Take a look at Walmart. They carry large containers of freeze dried and dehydrated foods that can be repackaged into the sizes you want. I haven't compared the prices with Mtn House but that comes packaged in individual meals. That's expensive to produce.

Wally's used to carry large containers of Wise Freeze dried foods for emergency storage. It was priced better but it was mostly vegetarian.

you can get MRE`S on the internet,just type in MRE`S,they will be shipped to your home

Bear Creek Meals from any box store such as WalMart for about $3

Peak Refuel are the very best of the Freeze Dried.

I ate enough MRE's in the Corps to never want to eat another in my lifetime again.

Are they good enough to be worth 50% more than Mtn House?

I would say yes! But in fairness I haven't ever paid for them.

Peak is definitely much better tasting and filling than most MH meals. My stomach handles the Peak meals better also. I have a buddy that gets torn up from MH. Had him try the peak and he loves them now.

MCH:

You don't know how good you had it. I ate C Rations in Viet Nam. MREs are not nearly as disgusting. But I agree with you, I don't want to eat any more of them.

I don't think I have eaten any Peak Refuel meals. I just checked the Sportsmens Warehouse web site and the entres cost $12. There is a limited selection offered on the website. They don't appear on the Walmart website.

KC

Oh I have had C Rations. MRE's are a slight step up!

If I am slumming packaged food it is going to be Peak Refuel. When the day comes that I have to pay for them I will continue to eat Peak Refuel.

I just checked the website and they state that are not military MREs. They are commercial MREs and they are even worse than the military variety.

The website also states that it's illegal to sell genuine military MREs.

I understand there have been big improvements in MRE's used today than those from my era. I would hope so, otherwise don't know why anyone would even be interested in purchasing any.

Phil

my old elk huntin partner who was a front line wounded/Marine Viet nam vet always said this we ate world war 2 C Rations over in Nam and these newer MRE`s aren`t that bad to me and so on a elk hunt we ate these MRE`s for 2 weeks in the mountains a couple of years ago.and believe me he is one heck of a mountain man or just a tuff old Marine, his famous words were these MRE`s all make a turd and fill the belly good enough .

I, Unlike some, preferred C-rats to MRE's and would still if they were available.

For freeze dried , I like Mountain House.

Compared to what?????

A few years ago I took my son and daughter to hike the Escalante Canyon. We stopped along the way to camp for a night. One of us was carrying an Alpine Aire freeze-dried entre. It was horrible. None of us could stomach it and even the dog would not eat it.

KC there’s a reason they are called Alpine Air! Phew!😁

Alpine Aire has to be the worse meals I've had, and I spent 20 years in the Army and have had a lot of MRE's!

Has anyone tried backpacker's pantry?

Only once. It was terrible but that isn't much of a test.

I've tried only a few Backpackers Pantry offerings. They made me wretch. On top of that, some of them require mixing and/or simmering.

I dislike most of the Alpine Aire stuff, enjoy about half of the MH meals, and quite like most of the BP entrees. Haven’t tried Peak yet.

Dang you guys are picky. Don't you know the backpackers collary?

"The quality of the food is directly proportional to the distance from the road"

God, most of you guys sound like my granddaughter... she doesn’t like anything.
She has the excuse that she’s only 9.

I guess you can look at it like that, though it's a pretty shallow way of looking at it. Your 9 yr GD hasn't developed a pallet yet. One can survive off of a lot of horrible foods. However I am at a point in my life I don't need or care to eat trash.

My point being, unless a person has tried every meal from every freeze dried company, general statements don’t work. I’ve tried most of the variety from Mountain House, BP, Alpine Air and a few others. All of them had meals I would not buy, and all of them had meals that were ok.
No, freeze dried food is not like what I would eat at home but is convenient and mostly nutritious.
The fresh meat and vegetables that I mostly subsist on is not practical on a backpack hunt.

In this day and age there are many choices of backcountry meals, some of which are better than others. Why not use what you like the most?

I prefer Peak to most of the freeze dried offerings

Exactly!

So where do you all buy your supplies? I've seen a recommendation for Walmart and another for Sierra Trading Post. Any other recommendations?

It isn't like there are a million different offerings. I think most guys by now have found the ones they like from the brands they like. That being said from my experience Peak Refuel is hands down the Winner for me! Your point was not what you wrote in this last post. Your statement or point was, You were comparing guys to your 9 yo gd. Basically saying they are picky eaters. I don't find that to be true at all. I see it as freeze dried food has evolved and guys are finding that the old guard of Freeze Dried food is garbage.

Most of Peak's offerings are about half the sodium as the others as well. Another plus to me. Of course they have offerings that are not to my liking. But in fairness I don't like any Freeze dried Breakfast offerings. The only two offerings from Peak I don't eat are the granola and the eggs.

I agree with MCH. There are plenty of options for freeze dried but Peak Refuel is my choice also. They also take less water than MH and others. Chicken Alfredo and Beef stroganoff are both excellent. Waiting to try the chicken pesto. I’ve heard it great also.
I do want to try a breakfast I read about though. Mix a MH biscuits and gravy with a breakfast skillet. Supposed to be very good and filling.

Several box stores and Amazon sell the Bear Creek Meals for about $3

When I went to AK, we made our own. Bought the different rice/pasta Lipton meals, Bear Creek soups and repackaged. Even repackaged mac and cheese. But we were not backpacking and had a great water source and plenty of fuel for the stove.

Took some dehydrated beef to add, and then supplemented with fish, ptarmigan and caribou.

I am not a fan of Bear Creek, MRE's are horrible, and MH has been eatable. I would like to try some Peak refuel, maybe this fall as I am scheduling a couple of overnight trips in September.

The most recent variety of MREs are pretty decent. Some of them are down-right tasty. There have been big improvements made in the past few years. We eat them about every-other month here in Korea during exercises. I have many cases of them that have been issued and keep them for the zombie apocalypse.

Camofire has a 6 pack today of the Peak Refuel for $45. I decided to try them out based on this thread.

Camofire

I'll have to give them another shot. Any favorites that come to mind off the top of your head?

We're so much worse than that Ed!

I'm a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy, so keep that in mind when considering my preferences

Lasagna is a favourite, as is Stroganoff w/ beef and mushrooms. Chicken breast with mashed potatoes was my favourite, but they discontinued it. The mashed potatoes with gravy and beef is also really good. The Cheesecake desserts are amazing after a few days in the mountains, as well

Ordered a couple of the 6-packs today.

I bought a case of commercial MRE's from Amazon.I think they were about $80 and had pack date on them.Trouble with MRE's is they have too much garbage left after the meal.

I bought a case of commercial MRE's from Amazon.I think they were about $75 and had a pack date on them.Trouble with MRE's is they have too much garbage left after the meal.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075CP1ZZ4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

My hunting partner and I took a couple of brands to the ANWR on a 10-day DIY hunt. We liked these the best. I bought a couple variety packs of them on Amazon.

Ordered on 12/31 and it arrived today. Can’t beat that.

WalMart in Store or online.