Firepot Dehydrated Meals
When we go out camping, especially when travelling light weight, food is one of our most important considerations. For people like me who is useless at cooking, but can just about manage to boil a kettle, ready-made dehydrated food can be an excellent choice. During our recent Clitheroe meet we had a short discussion on this topic and I offered to write this article, so I will start with my considerations, which might totally differ from yours!
1. The food I carry needs to be lightweight. In my case that means mainly dry food, except my essential chocolate spread and peanut butter, exceptions can be made for luxuries!
2. Easy to cook and prepare.
3. Tasty - in my case I can eat almost anything so this is a pretty easy one to pass!
4. Reasonable cost, although this is at the bottom of my list if I can satisfy points 1-3.
I have tried a variety of pre-prepared, dehydrated food and frankly have no preference on brand. However, the one that I had just eaten at Clitheroe was a "Firepot" one so I decided to photograph that one and review it here. Please note that I am not connected with Firepot in any way and unfortunately I won't receive any money from them for this review, not even a freebie packet!
So this one was the dal and rice with spinach, which happens to be a vegan option. This is rated at 750 calories, which is one of their higher calorie range and was left over from my Ireland trip, where I certainly needed those calories! You can see on the front of the packet that it is marked "Extra Large".
This meal also happens to be lactose and gluten free. It's probably worth mentioning here that the Firepot range has a few key selling points:
- Only use natural ingredients
- This means no additives
- Hand made in Dorset
They are very easy to prepare:
1. Tear off the top and remove oxygen eater sachet.
2. Add boiling water to the required mark, which varies depending on the meal type, and stir.
3. Reseal the bag and leave to stand for 15 minutes. NOTE: I have found that it is better to leave them a few minutes longer than this otherwise some of the contents may still be hard.
4. Stir again and enjoy.
I have found them to be very tasty and enjoyable but, as I mentioned, I'm certainly not a good judge of tasty food. They also seem to be quite healthy but I'll leave that to your own judgement, but the low salt content is very good as this is important for my blood pressure regulation.
Otherwise, like another lightweight camper and YouTuber, Susanna Thornton (Brompton Touring), you can prepare and dehydrate your own food using a dehydrator, but that is well beyond my abilities.
Perhaps you should reconsider dehydrated food for a future camping trip, they are not necessarily the tasteless mush you perhaps thought they are.