So Im in REI yesterday and it was brought to my attention that there was a powdered egg mix in the foods section. Hmmmm. The usual preparedness breakfast meals keep quite well but, frankly, after a while oatmeal, grits and cornmeal much are gonna get pretty darn tiring. Eggs…mmmmm….that would be a nice change. Also, if youre gonna store all that wheat it might be nice to have some eggs to use for making bread, caked, etc.
Anyway……
The product was a 6 oz. foil package of “Wakefield Brand All Purpose Egg Mix” by Michael Foods Company. (This company is subject to a website urging them to be boycotted because of their factory farming process. I. Dont. Care. When the dust clears and the choice is between starvation and survival I really dont give a rats ass that the eggs Im eating came from a chicken that was ‘oppressed’.)
$2.50 for the 6 oz. package. According to the package, it is the equivalent of 10 eggs when you mix contents of package with 2 cups water. Or 2 tablespoons of product plus 1/4 cup water = one egg.
I opened the foil package and thought immediately that this stuff reminded me of the cheese powder you get with macaroni-n-cheese meals. It was kinda peach/orangey colored. I mixed it up in a bowl using a hand whisk and it looked highly unappetizing and smelled nothing like eggs. Poured the mess into a buttered frying pan and was still feeling skeptial. It cooked slower than ‘real’ eggs and the color was still bothering me. After about four minutes of high heat and stirring with a spatula, all that changed. Suddenly it started smelling like real eggs, started cooking like real eggs, and started looking like real eggs. Now I was intrigued. I continued cooking. (I like my scrambled eggs ‘dry’) and when done these things were absolutely indistinguishable from ‘real’ eggs. Tasted exactly the same. I mean ‘exactly’. I melted some cheese over them and they tasted no different than regular crack-em-open eggs. And all for $2.50!
So, I called Michael Foods (1-800-328-5474) and am trying to get ahold of their regional sales rep to see if I can get more of these at a discount and if its available in #10 cans. Theyre website doesnt mention the ‘Wakefield Brand’ at all but its a new product as far as I can tell. The info person at the 800 number sent me to someones voice mail about regional sales so I’ll try them and report back.
This is good stuff, I highly recommend it if you can find it.
Have you given any thought to eventually raising some livestock? hehe…, EXTREME cattle rancher…
Sure. If I had a big enough place I’d have chickens, rabbits, a fish pond and a cattle. But I also want some stored food ‘just in case’ and unless I poke holes in the can, a Black Angus aint gonna live too long in a #10 enamel-walled can.
But I also want some stored food ‘just in case’
Well yeah, of course I knew that, and I was sure you’d considered the livestock, but I just thought it might be something best kept in the “to be executed” file, rather than the Recycle Bin.
Oh it is…in a perfect world Id have chickens, rabbits, bees, a fish pond, a cattle or two and that sort of thing. Trouble is, that sort of menagerie requires you (or someone) to be around the house a good bit….
Any idea what the shelf life is on them?
‘Sherry’ at MF, said that it was 6 mos. but that was the ‘official’ line. The skinny is that this particular product is made from government contract orders…when they whip up a hundred tons of this stuff for Uncle Sugar they also run off a batch for themselves since theyve already got the equipment running. Since its for Uncle Sugar, Im guessing the ‘real’ shelf life is of a magnitude several orders higher. A year is what she said but after looking at the packaging, I’d say at least a couple years if stored properly (cool place) and the packaging keeps its integrity (no punctures or creases). What im going to do is get a case (30 packages/case) and vaccuum seal the pouches up together in batches of 5 and then box them to protect them…i figure that oughtta do the trick.
I like my scrambled eggs ‘dry’
Eww.
you should try them with some Pleasoning brand seasoning mixed in
http://www.pleasoning.com
You don’t need eggs to make bread, you need yeast. Proving to yourself that you can create and maintain a yeast culture from dry yeast would be very handy indeed.
Eh…my pasta and calzone recipes call for eggs.
I read somewhere that you can ‘harvest’ yeast as it seems to basically just float around on the wind like other spoors.
sourdough…
A yeast culture can be kept going, but you need to be baking bread from it on a regular basis to keep it “fresh”. (going back to lurking now)
dry whole eggs?
from baking section at Stop & Shop supermarket, DEB EL 8oz can of whole dried eggs for $3.79, shelf life about five years. as for government productions, never know what “short cuts” might be in the contracted products! ever considered quail for egg production? Wildflower
Re: dry whole eggs?
Deb El was my first choice. My local stores carry the Deb El product but only the whites and the omlette mix. Theyre unable to get the whole egg versions. I tried contacting Deb El to order straight from them but they were of no help, saying I had to go through their regional distributor and from there I got shuttled into voicemail hell.
If Im going to go straight to the source for my eggs, it’ll be genuine chickens.