Review of Mountain House Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

Mountain House - Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

It's 2pm and I'm starving. I haven't eaten all day. What better time to test out a food product? My meal of
choice is Spaghetti with Meat Sauce, by Mountain House. My restaurant of choice is Joshua Tree National
Park, California.

Anybody who has ever reached for a freeze dried meal after a long hike knows that the results rarely meet
expectations. The very names of the meals sometimes elicit a certain level of culinary expectation. Pair that
anticipation with the natural appetite stimulation of physical effort in the great outdoors and you've got a
natural recipe for a let-down. To further raise the bar, I make a very mean spaghetti sauce at home.
Preconceived notions, a preferred alternative…Mountain House had its work cut out for it.

I picked the 16 ounce, single serving Pro-Pak for this test simply because there was nobody interested in
handling any leftovers. I chose spaghetti because it's generic enough to somewhat eliminate preconceived
notions about what the meal should taste like.

Mountain House deserves credit for listening to its consumers and adopting a single serving size option. The
pouch - 6 ½" by 6 ½" by 2ish - fits nicely in a pack and weighs in at a mere 4.06oz before adding water. The
smaller size (relative to the traditional 2 serving packages) allows a hiker the luxury of packing greater
variety and eliminates the need for two campers to dine on a meal that may not mutually suit palates. The
package also boasts a convenient stand-up design and a zippered closure to allow for in-pouch cooking.

For those of you counting, nutrition breaks down to 490 Calories (120 of them from fat), 40mg of
Cholesterol, 1290mg of Sodium, 65grams of Carbs and 29grams of protein. The meal requires 1.5cups of
boiling water to cook and hydrates in about 8-9 minutes.

It would be entirely unfair to compare Mountain House's freeze dried spaghetti to what I make at home. A
more reasonable comparison would be to toss Mountain House into the ring with a can of Chef Boyardee
Spaghetti and Meatballs and see how the two stack up.
A can of Chef Boyardee spaghetti will add just shy of 4 times more weight to your pack for a 15oz can. You'll
also have to give up some food calories (precious few) which you might miss lugging around the extra
weight. In that can you'll get more fat, less cholesterol, more sodium, slightly less carbs and less protein.
Basically, the only benefit for carrying 4 times the weight is the diminished cholesterol (about 34mg vs. 40mg
in the pouch) which doesn't seem like much of a selling point.

As important as the nutritional value may be, few of us are interested in how much sodium there is in our
meal after lugging camping equipment up a mountain or through the desert. The real prize is flavor and I
have to give credit here, Mountain House did not disappoint. The spaghetti had about the same consistency
as a canned variety but tasted better. I didn't feel the need to add salt or pepper to the mix, though your
mileage may vary and a bit of spicing up would enhance the flavor. The meal didn't taste as acidic as Chef
Boyardee's Spaghetti and Meatballs, nor did it have that odd underlying sweetness. The meat sauce was
adequate and, though not exactly meatballs, the chunks of beef lent an acceptable (though slightly rubbery)
texture to the product. The spaghetti took me right to the edge of full without overstuffing, there was no
unpleasant after-taste and, 3 hours later I was still satiated. I would have certainly enjoyed a slice of garlic
bread and a salad with this dish to break up the monotony, but it did ok on its own and I devoured it all.

Nobody will ever confuse freeze dried camping food as a substitute for a home-cooked meal. Rating Mountain
Home's Spaghetti with Meat Sauce requires rating it against its peers. We give it a 3.5 out of 5 placing it
above average. It isn't the first thing we'd reach for given the choice but it does the job and I've certainly
eaten far worse. For higher marks we suggest you add a dash of fresh air, the comfort of a fire and some
good friends (one of whom does all the cooking) and consider a side-dish of some kind.