I Tried ReadyWise Freeze Dried Foods and Here Are My Thoughts

We’re relatively new to preparedness and have never wanted to be that family with 10 years of freeze dried foods taking up three rooms of their house. Having a few months of freeze dried foods was always in our plan, but we did not want to become hoarders.

The biggest concern was finding a freeze-dried brand the whole family could enjoy. There are a few options out there so I decided when we had some extra money we would give them all a try.

Today, I am writing about ReadyWise, a freeze-dried food company that has been around for a while. 

About ReadyWise

ReadyWise, formerly known as Wise Food Company, is a leader in emergency food preparedness based in Salt Lake City. The company underwent a significant transformation and rebranding from Wise Food Company to ReadyWise, completely reworking their emergency food kits to provide better calories, nutrition, and variety. This is what made me want to give them a try! 

ReadyWise has the capacity to produce up to 1 million food servings daily. Their most popular product is a four-week, one-person bundle priced at $300 that provides 2,000 calories per day.

ReadyWise review

I picked a day that no one wanted to cook and decided to give a few meals a try. It was easy enough to make which I loved. Open an envelope, remove the O2 package, add some boiling  and reseal the bag. Let sit for 10-15 minutes to allow the foods to rehydrate.

We decided to try three different meals. This resulted in us eating at different times since they all took different lengths of time to rehydrate. No biggie, but you should be aware of this if you plan on eating together. 

Once they were done we each tried a bit of each dish. 

• Chili Mac – maybe because I’m from Texas and used to some good tex-mex, even in a chili mac, this was neither chili nor mac. In fact, there really wasn’t much of a taste at all except a vague tomato taste. I know that not everyone likes spicy, but ‘flavor’ would’ve been good. My kids seemed to like it, but they have not had a lot of tex-mex in their life. 
• Pasta Alfredo & Chicken – was way too salty for our liking. The alfredo seemed overly powdered tasting and goopy. But the whole family seemed to enjoy it anyway. It might need just a bit more water to remove the “goop” than what the package suggested.
• Lasagna – this is reviewed by my husband and kids since I did not get a bite. They said it was OK and felt like it was a step up from a can of Spaghettios. 

Overall, we felt all the meals were bland, too salty, and not something we’d want to eat everyday.

I don’t know if the flavors of the meals were for the generic person who doesn’t like highly spiced foods, or if there is a reason that in stressful times, having flavor in your food is a bad thing? We would not choose to eat ReadyWise, but would be fine with keeping it on hand for emergency nutrition since it was not horrible. 

ReadyWise is available for purchase on Amazon or on their website.