Popular YouTuber Eats 37-Year-Old Mountain House Meal

Sure, the Internet has its fair share of trolls, misinformation, and all-out horrors, but let’s remember there are some treasures out there in cyberspace as well - and we’re not merely referring to this here Mountain House blog!

A definite online treasure is the YouTube channel of one Steve1989MREInfo, whose videos document his meticulous exploration of - and gastronomic experimentation with - vintage Meal, Ready-to-Eat (MRE), Long Range Patrol (LRP), and other field rations. “I’ll eat just about anything!” Steve1989 notes in his YouTube bio, with the all-important caveat: “Provided it passes a reasonable visual/smell/taste test.”

Some of the rations he’s profiled date back an awfully long time, including military MREs from the 1940s and '50s and even Civil War hardtack from 1863 (which he did consume, by the way). And Steve1989 definitely doesn’t restrict himself to the field rations developed for the U.S. Armed Forces: He reviews both historical and contemporary analogues out of everything from the British Royal Air Force to the Portuguese Navy.

The Steve1989MREInfo Review of a 37-Year-Old Mountain House Long Range Patrol Chicken Stew Meal

Well, Steve1989 made a video focused on a vintage Mountain House Civilian LRP meal, sent to him by another MRE reviewer, Oldsmokey. We produced these freeze-dried products from 1970 to 1988, and the particular example featured in the video is a Chicken Stew LRP from 1981.

Now, here at Mountain House we're proud of our legacy of producing freeze-dried meals for the military - our parent company, Oregon Freeze Dry, has been doing so since the Vietnam War, the waning days of which saw the Mountain House brand officially launched - as well as backpackers, paddlers, hunters, anglers, mountain climbers, and other outdoor adventurers. And besides the deliciousness and variety, you can't beat the Mountain House shelf life: This is 30-year survival food, thanks to our refined freeze-drying process and premier packaging that also results in wonderfully lightweight, supremely packable and totable sustenance.

Doing the math, you'll see that the 1981 LRP Chicken Stew that Steve dines on (including some astoundingly preserved Fig Newtons) is outside that Mountain House shelf life window, and we certainly can't recommend such courageous sampling of "well-aged" eats: As you can imagine - and as Steve1989 himself emphasizes throughout his videos - there's some definite risk involved. That said, we were happy to hear Steve1989's appraisal!

How Long Does Mountain House Food Last?

Our 30-year Mountain House Taste Guarantee ranks as the longest-proven shelf life for freeze-dried food in the industry, and it means our meals aren't just ideal for military and outdoors applications but also emergency preparedness and survival purposes. To learn more about Mountain House freeze-drying, check out these previous blog posts:

• “What is Freeze Drying?”
• “How to Prepare Freeze Dried Food”

Meanwhile, 2019 will mark our half-century anniversary here at Mountain House, so stay tuned for some fun and illuminating historical coverage here at the blog. To get you started, here’s our “History of Mountain House” blog post from last year!

A very big thanks to Steve1989 and Oldsmokey for bringing us this unique review of some old-school Mountain House!