Every number and rating on Freeze Dried Ratings is calculated the same way for every meal, so you can compare options apples-to-apples. Here's exactly how we measure meals and how the 1–5 ratings work.
Net weight is the weight of the dry food inside the pouch — what you actually carry, before adding water. It does not include the pouch itself, the oxygen absorber, or the water you'll add at camp. We use net weight (in ounces) for every weight figure on the site, so meals are compared apples-to-apples regardless of packaging.
Calorie density is total calories in the pouch divided by net weight in ounces. It answers the backpacker's core question: how much energy am I getting for the weight I'm carrying? A meal at 150 cal/oz fuels you with far less pack weight than one at 100 cal/oz. Most freeze-dried meals fall between roughly 100 and 160 cal/oz.
Per pouch. Many brands label a pouch as "2 servings," but most hikers eat the whole thing, so per-serving numbers understate what you're comparing. All calorie and protein figures on the site are totals for the full container.
Value is price per 100 calories — the pouch price divided by total calories, times 100. A $12 pouch with 800 calories ($1.50 per 100 cal) is a better deal than a $10 pouch with 500 calories ($2.00 per 100 cal), even though its sticker price is higher. Lower cost per calorie earns a higher value rating.
Prices are the brand's own list price for a single pouch. For brands that don't sell direct (e.g., AlpineAire), we use REI's regular price. We use regular prices, never sale prices.
Every meal and brand gets a 1–5 score on four axes:
Each score also carries a word label, e.g. a 5 on calorie density is "Ultralight," a 1 is "Heavy"; a 5 on value is "Bargain," a 1 is "Splurge."
Relative. A meal is scored against the other meals on the site, recalculated whenever the catalog changes. A 5.0 means "among the best currently listed," not "perfect." This is intentional: the ratings answer "how does this compare to my other options right now?"
No. Each meal is rated only within its own category — dinners against dinners, breakfasts against breakfasts, desserts against desserts. A 5.0 breakfast is the best breakfast on the site, not a breakfast pretending to be a dinner-sized meal. Extreme outliers are clamped (we normalize between the 5th and 95th percentiles) so one unusual product can't distort the scale for everyone else.
Brand ratings use the median dinner entrée for each brand — the typical dinner you'd actually buy — and compare those medians across all brands on the site. Using the median keeps one standout (or one dud) from skewing a brand's score. Meal ratings score every individual product, so a brand with a modest average can still have individual 5.0 meals.
Because ratings are relative, adding or removing meals and brands re-scales everyone. If a new ultra-dense brand joins the site, existing meals may drop slightly on calorie density — they didn't get worse; the field got stronger.