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What do people think of these as far as emergecy food?

I'm not talking about MRE's but the compact bars that are sold for survival situations that contain about 2400 calories each.
- Has anyone here ever had to use them?
- How's the taste?
- Good for Long term survival?
- Any brand better than others?

I'm just curious because they seem small and lightweight and good for a bugout situation.

What's the word on these?

Funny you should ask - I just broke open one of my Mainstay emergency food rations. I only took a few bites but I'll try to take some pictures this evening and post them here.

The short review of them is that they range in taste from "ok" to "sawdust". They aren't something you're going to eat for fun but if you're in an emergency situation, they're lightweight and long-lasting and you'll be glad that you have them if you have nothing else to eat.

Here are some pictures I just took. This is a "Mainstay 2400 Emergency Food Ration". It's difficult to make out the text on the ration because it's darn near impossible to take decent flash pictures of these foil-wrapped packages.



These particular rations were packaged in 1996 and had an expiration date of 2001. I chewed on one for a while and it seemed to still be ok. I can't say it tasted good, but it wasn't terrible and was edible.

There are 6 of these blocks per package and each block contains 400 calories (so it's 2400 per package). According to the instructions, you're supposed to eat two blocks per day. Wow..that's a pretty low-calorie diet but I guess that's why it's for emergencies.

These were designed for Life-Boat rations... 800 kcals is enough when you are just sitting 24 hours a day. Slow starvation, but better than nothing.
When I was in the navy, back when Noah was a messcook, our lifeboats were 30 years old, and had only those sugar coated jelly bars for food. they also had cigarettes from 1943 ! Lucky strikes with the green dot ! Dry as dust and hard as a rock

some pictures:

one of each is gone, i tried it. tastes ok, better than nothing

bye

jubifahrer

Great pics, jubifahrer - thanks for sharing!