TL;DR - In prioritizing weight, we wanted to find high-calorie, tasty meals to eat for dinner. Reviews suggested that Peak Refuel would fit that bill, so we tried a few. They were all tasty.
Fancy Ramen noodles!
We ended up with Peak Refuel meals after reading around online about various brands and deciding that the combination of pack-to-pack consistency, taste, and calorie count per pack were optimized with Peak. Then, we ordered several meals we thought we'd like and give them a try at home (having an always-hungry 14-year-old who is burning an infinite number of calories at sports practices every day helps in a situation like this).
To try at home, we ordered Chicken Pesto Pasta, Beef Stroganoff, Sweet Pork & Rice, and the Backcountry Bison Bowl. In the end, we ranked them:
- Sweet Pork & Rice - Pro: good flavor, nice rehydrated consistency, low(er) saturated fat content, reasonable quantity. Con: high added sugar content.
- Chicken Pesto Pasta - Pro: great flavor (best), nice rehydrated consistency. Con: low quantity, might have upset our stomachs afterwards.
- Backcountry Bison Bowl - Pro: best quantity, felt "good" afterward eating. Con: poor rehydrated consistency (biscuits never rehydrated), somewhat bland flavor (but not offensive).
- Beef Stroganoff - Pro: good quantity. Con: poor rehydrated consistency (too soupy), high(er) saturated fat content, might have upset our stomachs afterwards.
With those rankings, we ended up purchasing two 6-packs of Sweet Pork & Rice (pack) and Chicken Pesto Pasta (pack). That would mean eating each for two nights, but we saved a bit of money purchasing them in packs.
We also "went blind" into the hike with one pack each of three additional flavors to cover our fifth night on the trail: Beef Pasta Marinara, Butternut Dal Bhat, and Venison Country Casserole.
Fancy Ramen noodles!
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