Legacy Food Storage 32 Serving Emergency Food Supply Bucket, 8 Entrees, 12,440 Total Calories, Shelf Stable Lunch & Dinner, Freeze Dried Survival Meals for MRE Camping, Hiking, Prepping

My wife and I took several of these Legacy meals (along with some Wise Company Freeze Dried Meat) on an extended camping excursion to Hazel Creek in Smokey Mountain National Park earlier this year. I had not eaten any freeze dried food since my college backpacking days in the 1970's and into the 1990's. Five nights and six days on the AT in 1986 with a variety of freeze dried food available back then left me unimpressed, at best. I was a skeptic.Well, things have changed in a big way, I discovered. The flavor and texture of these Legacy meals is remarkable and their packets are huge. We ate the Legacy meals alone and as an experiment, combined them with Wise freeze dried meat packets. Combined, the two make a pig-out meal for a couple of very hungry campers. We had to save the leftovers, hoist them up in our packs on the bear cables and eat the rest the next evening. Texture of food is a big deal. The texture is close to "normal" food - for both the Legacy stuff and the Wise meat. The Legacy meals are genuinely tasty. Ditto for the Wise meat packets.

I purchased this package for a 5 day camping trip as my primary food source. Using the general rule that a dehydrated serving is usually half of what the package says, I brought 5 packages of food. After making half of the first package, I found them to be spot on for serving size. I ate half of what I made and was full (200 lb male). Use the amount of water called for or just a little more and you'll be on your way.The flavor is much better than I expected. I was pretty impressed and would recommend the chili very highly (I cooked it for about 8 minutes longer than called for to soften the beans). That was a camp favorite as I made it for the other two guys with me. All in all, the calorie to sodium ratio is good for the weight you'll be packing. Just don't cook the oxygen eater with your meal!

Kit arrived opened, with entrees missing. Disgusted.

I tasted only the Pasta Primavera packet just to see if this would be palatable and worth storing as emergency food. First I must say it was actually pretty delicious, as far as an emergency ration would go it's really tasty and filling. The problem with these packs is that they require quite a bit more preparation and resources than something like Mountain House offers. Also as other reviewers have mentioned the portion size per packet is too large, each package should be cut in half and made to be 2 packets instead of 1. You really do have to have a pot to boil water over and keep it boiling as it cooks. Compared to something like Mountain House, which you can just boil water and dump in the package, or even just add cold water to and forget about (even though it will take about 3x as long to reconstitute the food as with boiling water). So this product kind of falls flat in comparison, but it does make up for it in price per portion ratio.Overall I'd say this is a decent product but due to there being a little bit more tools and preparation needed to make this (you need to actually dump it into a pot and continuously stir, vs pouring in water and forgetting about it) I would rate it just behind competitors. The Pasta Primavera was actually good enough for me to scoop up the remaining sauce on my plate and eat it though, so that does count for something. But, even though the price/calorie ratio is really a bargain with this product, I think I will stick to Mountain House for my emergency food supply just because it is so much easier to make. I think this product could greatly benefit from redesigned packaging that would include cutting the portion sizes per packet in half, making it so the packets can stand up on their own when full of water (thus they must also change the cooking directions on the packet to use about half as much water, to remove the need to boil out the excess moisture of the water which makes the pasta saucy instead of soupy), and adding a ziplock top not only so that it can cook in its own bag but also so that you can save whatever portions you might not eat for later.