A one week civilian home made MRE (Meals Ready To Eat)

[Captain Maltese]

This thread is a spinoff from the other MRE and survival threads I already have on this forum. (I'll post links to those eventually). The object here is different in that long time storage is not relevant and packaging does not have to be individually wrapped, total but weight and volume is absolutely vital since the resulting one week package is designed to be carried in a backpack along with all the other gear you need for a one week cross-country trip.

Calorie count is still vital. 2100 calories is no more than needed per day for a wilderness trip. By comparison a one day military MRE easily has 3300 calories, but not a whole lot of modern soldiers carry a week's worth of food on their own back. Nor is a camping trip supposed to be a physical endeavor of life-or-death struggle. So we'll go with 2200 for now.

[Captain Maltese]

Continuing. Since this is expedition food, the price is less vital. Still I intend to go with grocery store goods rather than the sports store varieties. There are several reasons for this. One is that in sports stores here in Norway, a freeze dried portion of stew for a single person single meal commands a hefty ten dollars. My expeditions are not state funded. Also, my ancestors who were fishers and hunters and woodsmen would spin in their graves, and also I have managed to go on all sorts of camping trips for a lifetime starting with early childhood and still have yet to rely on sports stores food. Doesn't mean I am refusing the concept. Or that I have not tried it. On one delightful NATO exercise we were served those dry food bags for dinners ten day in a row and the commonly agreed term for the meals by the end was 'pig fodder'.

Anyway. The goods I intend to rely on will possibly include the following:
- dry oat porridge
- raisins
- salt biscuits. Or at least not very sweet. They replace bread.
- tubes with caviar and cheese, maybe even jam. Spreads that don't demand a fridge.
- energy bars.
- cooking chocolate
- coffee, and tea
- artificial sweetener rather than sugar because they are very compact and are sold in those little handy dispensers.
- a small bottle of oil for frying. In the old days we always carried some butter but these days butter is mostly oil anyway.
- dry freezed stuff. Soup, pancake mix. Maybe stews, but I need to explore the store shelves further.
- rice and macaroni are options.

Also maybe canned tuna and canned meat, but cans and backpacks make bad company.

A couple of things to know about camping in Norway. Finding water is not a major problem unless you head up the tougher mountains. Making a regular campfire in the wild is prohibited nationwide from spring to autumn, unless you are making it literally at the water's edge. So I always carry a gas or liquid fuel stove, and a pan/pot/kettle combo. Works great for cooking, and pan frying, but limits your option for heating stuff on embers and so on.