Food Review – Paleo Meals To Go

Over the past few years I’ve noticed the outdoor food industry growing by leaps and bounds.  With only the same freeze dried meals being offered for many years, lately I’ve been pretty excited at all the changes I’m seeing around me.  Enter Paleo Meals To Go.  While I’m not a participant of Crossfit, nor am I part of the Paleo lifestyle, I get excited when I see new food products for the backcountry, especially because as a hiking guide spending approximately 120 nights a year out in the woods I tend to get a little tired of eating the same thing over and over again.  Paleo Meals To Go offered to let me try their product in exchange for a review of the meals.  Here’s what I thought:

Caldera Chicken Curry

After a short 11-mile day on the Appalachian Trail in the Smokies, I hungrily awaited the rehydrating process for my first Paleo Meals To Go.  After adding boiling water directly to the pouch, I read the ingredients while I waited.  Chicken, Pineapple, Spinach, Coconut Sugar, Red Bell Pepper, Garam Masala, Spices, Curry Powder, Onions, Sea Salt.  That’s it.  No strange ingredients and everything I can pronounce.  Paleo Meals To Go  also included some Celtic Sea Salt packets to add to my meals if they needed the extra flavor – in my opinion they did.  One packet did the trick and everything popped with flavor.  You could taste each individual ingredient and the textures were really spot on with fresh fruits and vegetables.  My only complaint was that I ate this flavor too fast!

Mountain Beef Stew

My second day on trail was much shorter than the first, only about 6 miles in total.  Regardless, I was still hungry and chose the Mountain Beef Stew as my second meal on the trip.  Again I prepared this meal the easy way, by adding boiling water straight to the pouch and reading the ingredients:Beef (beef, salt), carrots, onions, mushrooms, celery, spice blend (spices, granulated garlic).  Once again – easy to read and I can pronounce them all.  This meal also needed the packet of salt to brighten up the flavors.  The mushrooms were the standout item in this dish for me – they tasted very fresh and reminded me of the flavor you get when you eat the mushroom soup at a Japanese restaurant.  I was a big fan of this dish.

Canyon Chicken Chili

The final day of my trip brought me to my final meal – Canyon Chicken Chili.  Chicken, Sweet Potatoes, Coconut Sugar, Cauliflower, Green Chili Pepper, Spices, Celery, Sea Salt were the ingredients and for this meal I really noticed the sweet potatoes and cauliflower.  This flavor, I admit, wasn’t my favorite.  I think a big thing that kept this meal from being a standout is that I didn’t mix it well enough and all the flavors sank to the bottom.  The package lets you know to shake it well upside down before you add water and I skipped this step.  What I did appreciate though was the freshness of the vegetables despite the fact they were freeze dried.

Paleo Meals To Go was developed by a mother and son team and is based in Colorado.  All of their meals are gluten free, dairy free, and soy free.  Even though I don’t follow the Paleo diet myself, these meals were a great addition to add to my backcountry food plan.  If you want to learn more about the company you can click here to read their story and shop their site.

Three of these tasty meals are going in my food bag!

Disclaimer: I was provided these meals for free in exchange for purposes of testing, review, and feedback to be published online. All opinions are my own.