Legacy Food Storage 32 Serving Emergency Food Supply Bucket, 8 Entrees, 12,440 Total Calories, Shelf Stable Lunch & Dinner, Freeze Dried Survival Meals for MRE Camping, Hiking, Prepping

My wife and I took several of these Legacy meals (along with some Wise Company Freeze Dried Meat) on an extended camping excursion to Hazel Creek in Smokey Mountain National Park earlier this year. I had not eaten any freeze dried food since my college backpacking days in the 1970's and into the 1990's. Five nights and six days on the AT in 1986 with a variety of freeze dried food available back then left me unimpressed, at best. I was a skeptic.Well, things have changed in a big way, I discovered. The flavor and texture of these Legacy meals is remarkable and their packets are huge. We ate the Legacy meals alone and as an experiment, combined them with Wise freeze dried meat packets. Combined, the two make a pig-out meal for a couple of very hungry campers. We had to save the leftovers, hoist them up in our packs on the bear cables and eat the rest the next evening. Texture of food is a big deal. The texture is close to "normal" food - for both the Legacy stuff and the Wise meat. The Legacy meals are genuinely tasty. Ditto for the Wise meat packets.

The shipping was nice and fast as always with Prime, one of the reasons I almost always buy Prime eligible items over non-Prime, unless there is a large percentage price difference. When it arrived though, one corner of the bucket wasn't closed all the way, and one packet had a 3/4" long tear in the corner so the seal was broken. Apparently that may have happened at the factory, just didn't quite get it closed all the way. Anyway, it was in the one I most wanted to try, so I emailed Amazon and within a couple hours they responded back and offered to either have me return this bucket and replace it OR refund a 20% credit to my card. I accepted the latter option and was satisfied with that.What makes this product stand out though is two things: First, I cooked the Stroganoff up for dinner last night for the family, because I wanted to try it and make sure everyone would be willing to eat it if we needed it in an emergency. My teenager and I both had seconds, and my wife who just started a diet a week ago only wanted a little bit to try (one spoonful), but I gave her a small amount (maybe 1/3 cup) and she then wanted some more! LOL Also, we have almost 3 yr old twins, one wasn't that hungry apparently because she didn't want to try it (or anything else at that time), and the other one who is our pickier eater tried it and said his new favorite word for food... "delicious!", and he asked for seconds too! 6 cup serving size was enough for us to all feel like we had a good meal and we had a tiny bit left over. The only thing I would add is that if it was possible, I'd prefer to cube and brown some beef to throw in with it, as this is a vegetarian meal... I missed the meat! BUT, it WAS very good, especially for a quick and easy meal. Time to boil the water, cook it, cool down for 5 min... about 30 minutes total, and easy enough that I have no problems cooking dinner like this! :)My second note about how pleased I am with it is due to emailing the company... the packets were all just made in November 2014, and I was curious if the one that had a slit in it was still edible or not. I've never bought any dehydrated meals before, so wasn't sure. Anyway, Amy from the company responded quickly, within a day or so, and said to please throw it away and she would happily send me a replacement free of charge, just asked for a picture if possible to give to their engineers, and the order number and codes off the damaged packet, and my address. So, even though I wasn't asking for a replacement, since Amazon had given me a partial refund, she offered it without hesitation. That's good customer service, and they've earned my business... after getting back to normal paychecks here in a few more weeks, I certainly will order more, as I thinks this is a great and easy way to store up some food for whatever disaster may strike, whether tornado, economic problem, or I guess WW3! Thanks Legacy!

I tasted only the Pasta Primavera packet just to see if this would be palatable and worth storing as emergency food. First I must say it was actually pretty delicious, as far as an emergency ration would go it's really tasty and filling. The problem with these packs is that they require quite a bit more preparation and resources than something like Mountain House offers. Also as other reviewers have mentioned the portion size per packet is too large, each package should be cut in half and made to be 2 packets instead of 1. You really do have to have a pot to boil water over and keep it boiling as it cooks. Compared to something like Mountain House, which you can just boil water and dump in the package, or even just add cold water to and forget about (even though it will take about 3x as long to reconstitute the food as with boiling water). So this product kind of falls flat in comparison, but it does make up for it in price per portion ratio.Overall I'd say this is a decent product but due to there being a little bit more tools and preparation needed to make this (you need to actually dump it into a pot and continuously stir, vs pouring in water and forgetting about it) I would rate it just behind competitors. The Pasta Primavera was actually good enough for me to scoop up the remaining sauce on my plate and eat it though, so that does count for something. But, even though the price/calorie ratio is really a bargain with this product, I think I will stick to Mountain House for my emergency food supply just because it is so much easier to make. I think this product could greatly benefit from redesigned packaging that would include cutting the portion sizes per packet in half, making it so the packets can stand up on their own when full of water (thus they must also change the cooking directions on the packet to use about half as much water, to remove the need to boil out the excess moisture of the water which makes the pasta saucy instead of soupy), and adding a ziplock top not only so that it can cook in its own bag but also so that you can save whatever portions you might not eat for later.

Shipped quickly, well packed, arrived in perfect condition.