Taste Test of Dehydrated and Freeze Dried Foods part 3

As you can see by now the results were all over the place.  I was surprised at the results and how different people looked at the same product.  There seemed to be good and bad in every company’s products.

One thing that I want to point out strongly is that you need to be sure you are comparing apples to apples when you compare their products.  You cannot go by the number of servings.  There is too much difference in serving size. I suggest that you multiply the number of calories in a serving by the number of serving.  This will give you the total number of calories in the pouch or can.  Now you can compare the calorie count and determine which is the best buy.  You will be surprised, some companies show a large number of servings, but the servings are very small and don’t provide many calories.

For instance I looked at two #10 cans containing entrees.  One showed 12 serving at 350 calories each, the other showed 17 serving at 230 calories.  The one can with the 12 serving contained 4200 calories, the can with 17 serving only contained 3910 calories.  The can that only showed 12 servings contained more food and more calories.

Today we are going to look at the results for vegetables.  Tomorrow will be fruit and dairy.

VEGETABLES

Mountain House corn

• Taste 7
• Texture 6.2
• Appearance 6.6
• Overall 6.9
• Calories per serving 90
• Sodium 0mg

Remarks, on the mushy side; very nice; great color, texture sweet; spongy; tastes like regular canned corn.

Thrive green beans

• Taste 4.2
• Texture 4
• Appearance 4.2
• Overall 4
• Calories per serving 10
• Sodium 0

Remarks, tastes flat and chewy; good taste; unremarkable; a little spongy; did not like taste odd.

AlpineAire vegetable mix

• Taste 3.4
• Texture 4
• Appearance 4.8
• Overall 3.7
• Calories per serving 70
• Sodium 75mg

Remarks, great color and texture, very poor taste; nice vegetable taste, not sure how to turn this into a dish everyone would like; bad taste wouldn’t use; definitely needs to be with other items;

AlpineAire peas

• Taste 5.4
• Texture 5
• Appearance 6.2
• Overall 5.4
• Calories per serving 80
• Sodium 140mg

Remarks they were good tasting and seemed fresh; a little past maturity, too starchy; musty had to spit out; plump and great tasting.

Mountain House peas

• Taste 7.8
• Texture 6.8
• Appearance 8.4
• Overall 7.8
• Calories per serving 80
• Sodium 125

Remarks, lovely product very fresh taste; great color and texture perfect taste; looked and tasted like peas out of a can; tastes like fresh.

AlpinAire garden vegetable

• Taste 6.6
• Texture 5.8
• Appearance 6.8
• Overall 6.5
• Calories per serving 70
• Sodium 85mg

Remarks, bright color, good peas, a little mushy, but good flavor; good, not great; good color nice flavor; taste sweet, texture a little chalky; tasted sweet the mix was good.

Thrive corn

• Taste 5.2
• Texture 5.4
• Appearance 6.6
• Overall 5.4
• Calories per serving 35
• Sodium 0mg

Remarks, tastes like mature corn and not young fresh corn; great corn flavor; looked good, bland in flavor; tastes like canned; does not taste fresh.

Provident Panty corn

• Taste 5.4
• Texture 5
• Appearance 5.6
• Overall 5.4
• Calories per serving 70
• Sodium 0mg

Remarks, corn looks nice and plump even color but poor taste, no flavor; ok; processed taste; pretty average; not as fresh tasting, starchy..

Honeyville Farms corn

• Taste 3.6
• Texture 3.2
• Appearance 3.6
• Overall 3.6
• Calories per serving 45
• Sodium 0mg

Remarks, chewy; strange taste; poor texture and appearance, flavor ok; it could be better.

Ready Reserve diced potatoes

• Taste 3.6
• Texture 4.4
• Appearance 4.8
• Overall 4.4
• Calories per serving 72
• Sodium 5mg

Remarks bland not tasty; good boiled potato taste, poor appearance; tasted boiled; didn’t like the taste

Ready Reserve carrot slices

• Taste 7.4
• Texture 7
• Appearance 7.8
• Overall 7.4
• Calories per serving 40
• Sodium 27mg

Remarks good tasting; good flavor; good color and crunch, very carroty taste; yummy; good carrots.

Howard