Mountain House Pasta Primavera Review
Kevin Felts 03.02.17
March 1, 2017 was a wonderful spring day here in Southeast Texas. It was perfect weather to take a day hike and have a lunch of pasta primavera next to a clear running creek.
The daytime high temperature was in the mid-70s, and the skies were partly cloudy. A cool front had passed through the night before so the winds were out of the north.
I grabbed the Travtac Oynx that had been packed the night before and headed out. The goal of the trip was to take some pictures and video for the article, Five Top Quality Hiking Day packs. Besides getting content for the article, I also wanted some peace and quiet time. I wanted to find a place next to the creek, have lunch, relax, and enjoy nature.
The trip started by traveling through an area of woods, down an old abandoned logging road then through another section of woods until I arrived at the creek. Where I intersected the creek, the bank was almost a vertical drop of around eight feet. I traveled along the top of the creek bank until I found a slope to gain easy access to the water.
Pasta Primavera Nutrition Information
This is from my pouch of pasta primavera, which is a Mountain House Pro-Pak and was about seven years old. The back of my pouch says “serving size one package.”
- Calories 440
- Sodium 1,200 mg
- Sugars 11 g
- Protein 17g
- Vitamin A 30%
- Calcium 45%
- Vitamin C 90%
- Iron 10%
- Net weight 4.06 ounces
Current pouches say 2.5 servings. The nutrition information on current pouches have been reduced by about half to reflect the change in serving size.
Preparing The Meal
The Coleman Max stove was setup and water was put on to heat. While the water was heating, I got my water filter out, went to the creek, and filtered some drinking water into an Army OD green canteen. While there are a wide variety of water bottles on the market, for some reason I still use military canteens I buy off Ebay.
Freeze dried meals like the pasta primavera are fully cooked. To prepare the meal just add hot water, stir, wait until cool, and then eat.
Using a blended fuel stove, it did not take long until the water was at a rolling boil.
The pouch of pasta primavera was opened, the oxygen absorber removed, hot water poured into the pouch, and then the pouch was resealed with the ziplock on the pouch.
Most Mountain House pouches call for six to eight ounces of hot water. The pasta primavera called for 14 ounces.
Where a normal single serving pouch may be ready to eat in 10 minutes, this one took maybe 20 minutes to cool down enough to eat.
Most of the single serving Mountain House pouches weigh around 1.91 ounces.
The pasta primavera pro-pak weighs 4.06 ounces.
Taste Test
The meal had plenty of flavor and the sauce tasted like a cream of zucchini soup. The zucchini overpowered just about everything else.
Ingredients listed:
- Pasta
- Zucchini
- Cream
- Cauliflower
- Broccoli
- Red peppers
- Green peas
- Several other items
The only things I could taste were the creamy sauce, zucchini, and pasta. I could not taste the green peas because of the overbearing zucchini.
Sodium Hit
Maybe 20-30 minutes after eating, I felt the sodium hit my system. I got very thirsty, like what happens when you eat seafood and started to sweat. It was a very uncomfortable feeling all the way home.
Final Thoughts
I will be adding the pasta primavera to my preps, but mainly for the Vitamin C content. This has some of the highest Vitamin C content of any Mountain House meal I have tried so far.
The current rating on a pouch of pasta primavera is 2.5 servings, 210 calories and 580 mg of sodium. Usually, meat dishes have a higher sodium content than fruit and veggie meals. Maybe it is because of the cheese and cream that the sodium is so high?
One of the drawbacks, currently I can not find pasta primavera in a single serving pouch. Everything I see is 2.5 servings.
Since I like zucchini, I put the flavor somewhere around the quality of beef stew.
If you do no like zucchini, this is not for you.
