Two words: freeze dried ice cream. I always try to bring some on canoe/hiking trips and it's a huge hit, though it's $4.50/oz. It could pay for itself right there!
I take both dehydrated (my own and purchased) and freeze dried meals on trips and the FD meals are better than the store bought dehydrated ones, though my home-made meals are the best. There's a big difference in
energy requirements, though, between FD and dehydrated meals. The FD meals just need to soak in boiled
water for about 15 minutes, while the dehydrated ones need to simmer, so there's a time issue too. I prefer to cook with fire, but that isn't always easy, so I bring FD meals and a stove with fuel for quick meals that use very little fuel. I'll often put dehydrated meals in a bottle in the morning with water to let them hydrate partially during the day to save fuel at night.
The texture, as Matt says, is much different, too. I've got a Cabela's 80 litre dehydrator, which can dry a crazy amount at a time and I put it on the lowest heat that I'm comfortable with, but it's still heat. From what I've read, the FD method loses less nutrition than dehydrating, though I'm not sure how big a difference it is. You can also build a
solar dehydrator (plans on this site) with a huge capacity and no inputs, so there's that.
I have thought of a FD machine but, like Matt, I would be buying it to make FD meals for sale. You can buy FD strawberries from Mountain House or other companies, so your wife could try those and other foods compared to dehydrated meals. I've read, but have no
experience, that you can FD a steak and then re-hydrate it and it'll be much like fresh. If you're handy, there are a few people out there with DIY FDers, so that may be an option too.
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