Anyone ever seen Green belly meals?

Posted by: toddfw2003

Anyone ever seen Green belly meals? - 05/23/16 08:25 PM

http://www.greenbelly.co/

I just spent two weeks in Canyons of the Escalante in Southern Utah. I was backpacking an average of 12 miles a day with lots of slot canyon exploring. At the end of the day I looked forward to a hot meal and in the morning some hot coffee. These meals are cook free so I wondering if sacrificing 10 oz for my cookset would be worth these meals
Posted by: Glenn Roberts

Re: Anyone ever seen Green belly meals? - 05/23/16 10:50 PM

These appear to still be bars - despite the advertising spin to call them something else. (I think it was the old Bear Valley Pemmican that tried calling its product "Meal Packs" but they were still bars. Very good bars, but still bars.)

I don't think I could use them as my sole source of food for any length of time, for several reasons:
1. I'd still need a lot of water, since they're going to be dry. One advantage of a cooked supper with a sauce is that it is getting water into you along with the food.
2. You said you like hot food (I like a hot supper, too.) Cold food in the evening just doesn't satisfy. There's assuredly no nutritional science behind that, but we're not out her to rough it; there's no need to eat something you don't like just to save half a pound of kitchen. (The Army, which knows a bit about walking in the countryside, found out long ago that giving a person an adequate, balanced diet with enough calories isn't enough: the person has to actually eat the stuff to get any benefit.)
3. You like coffee. No cookset, no coffee. (Again, I suppose you could substitute those coffee bean snacks that Starbucks sells. YOU could; I wouldn't.)
4. Although they come in several varieties, they're still bars. Variety in texture and consistency is, to me, just as important as flavor.
5. They're still bars. I've eaten lots of bars in my backpacking life (at one time, I was Granola Kid.) Over the years, I've cut way back, and now only carry one or maybe two bars per day; I've come to prefer trail mix or dried fruit over bars. But that's just me.

You could try it for a weekend, to see how you like it, but I wouldn't go to an all-bar diet cold turkey for a two week trip.
Posted by: a_gunslinger

Re: Anyone ever seen Green belly meals? - 08/23/20 07:23 PM

Greenbelly was ok. But Ive really enjoyed Pack It Gourmet and Trailtopia meals lately. And Mountain House still makes some of my favorites (Biscuits and gravy!). Always prefer to bring and add extra spices and supplement them. But as a starting point they have come a long way. I use a FoodSaver to reseal them in smaller bags and bring a couple to the manufacturers ziplock cook bags and just resuse them.