To many people, food storage is having 20 cans of Pork N Beans in the pantry or Military Meal Packs (aka MREs). These are great options for short-term food storage but both items have a shelf-life of up to 5 years. They may still be eatable after 5 years but the taste and texture start to change making these less appetizing and kind-of gross as they continue to age. For preppers, food storage includes dried rice, beans, and flour that last 25 years. It takes cooking skills to prepare these food staples. It also takes 45 minutes to cook rice and up to 3 hours to cook beans.

I’ve been looking into premade food storage meals for two reasons.

First Reason – I know several preppers that struggle with food storage. The hassle of rotating it, storing it, and cooking it, is such a contrast to pulling chicken nuggets out of the freezer. They spend a lot of money on food storage and after 3-5 years of not using it, they throw it away. Yikes…I imagine most of you are cringing at the thought of this but it is true and happens more often than you would think. It’s not that they don’t want food storage, they just realize that they are storing food their family just won’t eat.

Second Reason – Have you ever tried to cook beans during a power outage? Most long-term food storage uses a lot of fuel and water to cook. Precious resources that you may not want to use up the first day, especially during a time of uncertainty. Preparing meals from scratch usually takes a lot of dishes, makes a large mess, and requires the chef’s full attention for an hour or more. Cooking from scratch can be impractical if you’re in a disaster situation with no running water.

One preparedness goal that I’m currently working on is to have a designated five-gallon emergency bucket loaded with a 2-week supply of premade food storage meals. There are many food storage companies that offer meals that are ready in 15 minutes and can be stored up to 25 years. The challenge is finding premade meals that taste good and are filling. Especially, when you’re looking for gluten-free with no MSG.

Legacy Food Storage Gluten Free Meals Review

This week I’ve compared food storage meals from 6 different food storage companies. Legacy, Wise, Valley, Augason, Alpineaire, and Mountain House. Some were good and some not so good. Today I’ll be reviewing Legacy Food Storage Gluten Free Meals (aka Gluten-free Sample Pack). The GF Sample Pack includes 4 meals: Classic Chili, Creamy Potato Soup, Cheese & Broccoli Bake, and Enchilada. I’m happy to report that these meals will be added to my emergency food bucket.

Cheese and Broccoli Bake 

Enchilada, Beans, and Rice

Classic Chili

Creamy Potato Soup

Pros:

1. The Meals Taste Great! – It’s hard to find premade meals that taste good. These tasted great without adding anything to them. My husband gives them a rating of 4 out of 5 stars. I give them a rating of 4.5 stars.
2. Gluten-free Options – Legacy offers 7 gluten-free meals. However, they are sold in package deals so you can’t buy just one of your favorite meals.
3. Safety Measure to Protect Against Gluten Cross-contamination – All gluten-free meals are produced in a separate room, on dedicated machines following additional allergy standards set for gluten-free. The meals are produced as set forth by the FDA standards for gluten-free – they have to adhere to many requirements to obtain the certification.
4. Meals Are Filling – Have you ever eaten a meal and then felt hungry 20 minutes later? I didn’t have that problem with these meals. I only ate a 1/2 serving for lunch and when it was time for dinner I was still full.
5. Easy to Make – I only wanted 1 serving instead of 4 servings so I guessed how much water I would need. Each meal only takes 12 minutes to cook and all four meals came out perfectly.
6. Versatility – Any one of the four meals listed above can be made into a soup or a casserole by adding more or less water. For example, the Chili can easily be turned into taco soup; the Cheese & Broccoli can be a soup, or I can lessen the water by a 1/4 of a cup, add ham, more vegetables, and corn flakes turning it into a casserole.
7. Long Shelf Life – If stored properly and kept sealed, these pouches can last up to 25 years. This is possible by freeze-drying their products, using oxygen absorbers, and sealing food in mylar bags with a nitrogen flush.
8. Quality Ingredients – Legacy Food Storage doesn’t use GMOs or MSG, it has NO Trans Fats, is low in Cholesterol, and uses Sea Salt instead of heavily processed table salt. If you like Honeyville products then you’ll likely enjoy these meals. Honeyville manufactures and packages Legacy meals.  Legacy uses many of its own ingredients for meals but you could say that Honeyville is the main supplier.
9. The Value – One thing that I don’t like about other brands is that 40% of the meal seemed to be fillers and spices, the other 60% staple ingredients. Whereas Legacy’s meals seemed to be 90% staple ingredients and 10% fillers and spices (see photo below). Legacy cuts cost on packaging where they can offer more food at a better price. For example, their serving sizes are larger than their competitors and they fit 4 large servings in one meal pouch. Another way they cut costs on the packaging is the pouches don’t have a zip seal. So if you only cook 2 servings, you’ll need a bag clip to save the rest for later.

Things to Be Aware Of:

1. High Salt Content – This is common in premade boxed meals. The Legacy meals didn’t taste salty, however, out of the six brands I compared, Legacy had the highest salt content. The salt content ranged from 40-49% of the recommended daily sodium intake for a person.
2. Cooking Versus Warming Up – There are two types of premade food storage meals, those that require pots and those that don’t. Those that don’t require a pot, would have you add boiling hot water into the meal pouch and wait 15-20 minutes (typically designed for hikers to lessen the weight of packing cook pots). Typically, these meals have a shelf life of 1-5 years. The meals that require a cooking pot typically have a longer shelf-life; Legacy meals fall into this category.  The Legacy meal is great for storage but will not work in a bugout bag without bringing a pot along for the journey.

Price:

The price is currently $52 for a variety of four GF meals totaling 53.7 ounces. These prices are subject to change.

Free Giveaway!

Legacy Food Storage was kind enough to offer a giveaway. One lucky winner will get a Gluten Free Meal shipped to their home. If you would like to try one of these meals for free, add a comment or question to the bottom of this page for a chance to win this giveaway. A contest winner will be chosen by a website called PickAtRandom.com on June 28, 2018.

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