Trail Food: Disney Freeze Dried Real Sliced Apples

Today's trail food experiment was a "two fer." We combined two experiments into one. The trail food candidate was Disney Freeze Dried Real Sliced Apples that we found in the fruit section of our grocer. The freeze dried apples come in individual serving sized bags for about $1 ea. Each serving contains about one and a half apples for about 40-50 calories.

As we do for all taste tests, we opened the sealed bag and tasted the apples directly. Our first thought was "Oh, look! Little pieces of apple flavored foam." The bag was about a third full of little thin crisp wedges and looked as if a foam plate had been shattered. Fine. Not the most appealing look, so how do they taste? Munch, munch, munch... They taste vaguely familiar for those of us having dined on freeze dried peaches in meals rejected by Ethiopians (MREs). There was a bit of apple taste, but not overpowering.

We then proceeded with our "two fer" experiment. When we bought the freeze dried apples for trail food, we thought they would likely be good for supplementing the small bits of apple that come in our flavored oatmeal packets. So we added our remaining apple crisps to a quart freezer bag containing two packets of instant apple flavored oatmeal, one of our favorite trail foods of all time. We noted there seems to be more apple in the oatmeal packets than we remember. Nonetheless, we placed the quart bag in a bubble wrap padded envelope and added about a cup of hot water. (The padded envelope is the two in our two fer. More on that experiment later.) Minutes later we stirred everything; waited another minute or so; then chowed down. Yum! The now rehydrated apples were a welcome addition to the oatmeal. The meal seemed heartier and more satisfying both in taste and amount.

Disney Freeze Dried Apples makes our menu for the upcoming section hike, at least until the first resupply point. We plan to combine the freeze dried apples with two packets of Quaker apples and cinnamon oatmeal in a quart freeezer bag. That will be a major portion breakfast for the first five mornings, along with protein fortified hot chocolate and snack size fig newtons. So, our next trip to the same grocer in two weeks will include five bags of freeze dried real sliced apples.