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Wayfayrer Hot Food Kit - First Bite |  | |
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Wayfayrer Hot Food Kit - First
Bite
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Price:
£4.99
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Weight: 365 grammes (including heating
sachet and cutlery)
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Features:
Foil-packed wet food - chicken casserole in this case - plus
plastic cutlery, salt, pepper and serviettes plus heating
element. 300 gramme pack provides approximately 400 calories
/ 9g protein, 7.4 g carbo, 7.5g fat per 100
grammes.
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No stove needed, makes good butt warmer post meal
Debris weighs 110 grammes
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 The
Concept Wayfayrer's latest friendly food wheeze is an all in one,
self-heating wet food kit. The advantage is that you don't need to
carry a stove and fuel so you save a little weight and bulk, plus
compared to dehydrated camping food, the foil-packed 'wet' sustenance
actually tastes pretty reasonable. Claimed heating time is around 12
minutes for a 300-gramme meal and all you need to do is to add water to
activate the heating pack.
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Features Pre-packed in a tough poly bag, you get one of
Wayfayrer's normal meals plus a long placcy envelope containing the
heating element. You also score a plastic spoon and knife-fork
hybrid and sachets of salt and pepper. Very 'in flight' ...
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In Action The sample turned up just in time for lunch - dinner
if you're a northerner - so we ate it.
Preparation is dead easy. Simply rip the top off the heating pack
envelope, slide the foil meal pack inside - you need to fold over one
of the edges to fit it - then add 40 millilitres of water and stand
well back... okay, really you fold the top over and leave it sitting
for 12 minutes.
 The
water sets off an exothermic reaction in the heating pack, so don't
go trying to eat it by mistake. There's mucho fizzing, steam and a
nasty metallic smell like shorting out iron filings with a battery.
After 12 minutes we removed the food packet, cut the top off and ate
the contents which were nicely hot.
The chicken casserole we tested is a mix of dried chicken with
potato, carrots, peas and onions in a 'creamy sauce' and was a bit
like an extended, thicker version of a Heinz Big Soup. To be honest,
we'd not eat it by choice at home, but it's significantly more edible
than some of the lightweight dehydrated camping food we've used in
the past and a real step up from a bowl of pasta with a bit of tuna
mixed into it .
Of course you're saving weight by not needing to carry a cooker,
but the flip side of that is that you can't brew tea or coffee and
you also, if you're wild camping, need to carry out the debris. We
weighed the debris at a not inconsiderable 110 grammes including all used
sachets and the heat pack.
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Leaving aside the taste issue, which is really pretty subjective,
the Hot Food Kit is a very convenient way of feeding on hot grub
without carrying a stove, fuel, lighter, cutlery and pots/bowls since
you can eat straight out of the foil sachet the food comes in. It's
also pretty hassle free, which beats peeling garlic and dicing
carrots at the end of a hard day on the mountain.
There's a downside too. We weighed the debris left over from our
chicken casserole feast at a hefty 110 grammes, all of which you'd
have to carry out with you. An MSR Pocket Rocket stove weighs 84
grammes, though you can add around 250 grammes of gas to that as
well.
You also need to bear in mind that at 400 calories odd, you'll
need a load more calories from somewhere. To put that in perspective,
a 70-gramme Clif bar or similar provides around 250 calories and for
the weight of a Hot Food Kit, you could have around five bars or 1250
calories. Of course you'll miss out on the morale-boosting lift of
warm food, but there are more efficient ways of carting around the
carbs.
If you're after sheer convenience though, perhaps for a hassle
free overnighter, then this makes reasonable sense. Of course there's
always the pub...
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Know more or want to?
If you'd like to add your own experiences of this product check
out our user review system and post your opinions to the world. If
you have questions you can mail
us direct, ask
Richard Gear or try a posting to our gear
forum.
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| | Discuss this article, 1 of 9 messages, read more: |  Alastair Dent | |
| Posted: 10/06/03 09:46:31 31 | These selfheating meals sound like a lousy idea for hiking - but maybe an excellent thing to carry in case of emergency winter bivvis.
What do you think? |
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