Whats you favorite survival food?

Originally posted by Brandon88
Granola, Peanuts, cranberrys, and oats all mixed together. Can bring a large amount and lightweight.

Trail mix. I like that too but I end up wanting to just keep eating it and it never seems to satisfy me.
I am sure its better for you than just scooping peanut butter up with your finger or smearing peanut butter on a couple pieces of bread, but then its done, and I feel satisfied. The hunger is gone.
Not so with granola.

I did some research and found out that granola bars, make you hungry. They make your stomach produce acids and digestve juices and end up just making you more hungry.

Thats why they say to lose weight, snack often, then your metabolism will be high and your digestion will just keep working and you will burn fat.
But you will be hungry all the time.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by Rocketman7

 

Brand certainly does make all the difference on some specific things, doesn't it? I've tried other stews down here but Dinty Moore is the one with the solid meaty taste and is actually filling on one can.

When I was on the truck running cross country I bought these by the case:

Heater Meals

They're quick, self contained and surprisingly good. I chose to eat one of those for dinner more than once while sitting in a truck stop with a restaurant right there, if that tells ya how good they are. It's surprising, considering the same company puts out the Military MRE packs and the language I've heard relatives describe those with isn't within T&C to repeat here.

www.heatermeals.com...

I'd love to get a case of those. I think I will order one if its not too expensive. I love that heat itself concept.
Mountain House dry foods, have a bag that you can get, with a chem pack, that will heat the water that you use for the dry meal too. But I couldn't find it locally. I did find the dehydrated Mountain House food packs though, bought 7 of them, but haven't tried them yet. 6 year shelf life so its part of my B.O.B.

the cans of beans and weanies, those are the best.

reply to post by Rocketman7

Perhaps this will help some. I've been off the road and out of trucking a bit over a year now, but all the Flying J's carried the Heater Meals then. I'd be surprised if that has changed since Pilot also carried them and after merging, surely they kept those.

Canadian Flying J/Pilot locations

There are all your Canadian locations. I got from your msgs that your up there? Anyway, that should give a selection of places to find some. Figure the current fuel price list is a bonus if any of that is useful.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by Rocketman7

 

Perhaps this will help some. I've been off the road and out of trucking a bit over a year now, but all the Flying J's carried the Heater Meals then. I'd be surprised if that has changed since Pilot also carried them and after merging, surely they kept those.

Canadian Flying J/Pilot locations

There are all your Canadian locations. I got from your msgs that your up there? Anyway, that should give a selection of places to find some. Figure the current fuel price list is a bonus if any of that is useful.

I'm in Victoria BC so I think I might just order a case on-line.
64 bucks from Sam's Club and the meal comes with treats and drink mix and is self heating.
$64.88 for 12 meal kits
So they say 2 kits a day will keep you happy.

So then one case will feed you for 6 days. More if you stretch it. You can supplement your meals and not eat the good ones all at once.

The free ranging Hereford or black Angus beef runnin on the neighbor

C Rations weren't all that bad if you had time to eat them... I lived on 2 C Rat meals a day except for going as many as 5 days at a time with nothing to eat at all because of monsoon weather socking us in when in the mountains or unable to take resupply and give away our position... I always traded peaches and pound cake for 2 or three date puddings, fruit cake or fruit cocktail... Hershey's Semi Sweet Tropical Bars in the B Rations weren't popular either so people would just give those away.... Rice is great but when there is 6 tons of it and there is nothing dry to burn and cook it on it is pretty much worthless.... A person can learn to love any kind of food if they are really hungry and are loosing strength...

Salisbury steak MRE
is my favorite and most
in stock.

Grilled rattlesnake over an open fire rubbed with rosemary and a pinch of sea salt. If I can't find any rattlesnakes, a can of spicy spam would be my second choice.

Originally posted by hypervigilant
C Rations weren't all that bad if you had time to eat them... I lived on 2 C Rat meals a day except for going as many as 5 days at a time with nothing to eat at all because of monsoon weather socking us in when in the mountains or unable to take resupply and give away our position... I always traded peaches and pound cake for 2 or three date puddings, fruit cake or fruit cocktail... Hershey's Semi Sweet Tropical Bars in the B Rations weren't popular either so people would just give those away.... Rice is great but when there is 6 tons of it and there is nothing dry to burn and cook it on it is pretty much worthless.... A person can learn to love any kind of food if they are really hungry and are loosing strength...

5 days with nothing to eat at all. That sucks out loud.

Thats the kind of thing the new heater packs are supposed to fix I guess. Lots of companies have them now, where you add water to some kind of salts, and the chemical reaction creates heat, and it heats up a boil in the bag meal.

Another thing some people like are those energy bars. You can live a long time on a 3600 calorie energy bar.
I have tried a lot of those things but few of them are tasty, and right now, since its not a disaster, now is the time that I can pick and choose. Sure I have my bag of rice. Thats a last ditch kindof backup. And some other stuff I would probably just throw out and not even eat, unless I was starving.
Thats how I used to stock up. For instance I bought a 10 pound bag of trail mix. I tried eating some of it a while back and it was stale bulk crap. So I would have to be starving to eat it.

So after trying to eat some of the stuff I had stockpiled, I decided that I can do better than that.
So I bought some of these for starters...
Mountain House dried lightweight meal pouches

The downside is, one 10 lb bag of rice will feed you a long time, as opposed to actual meals in pouches.
The downside to the rice is, its third world living. Morale is important too. Good tasting food can help to cheer you up and lighten your mood and give you strength etc.

Originally posted by LeTan
Grilled rattlesnake over an open fire rubbed with rosemary and a pinch of sea salt. If I can't find any rattlesnakes, a can of spicy spam would be my second choice.

You can't find anything more dangerous to eat than rattlesnake?

I heard it tastes like chicken.

And spam comes in spicy now? Hm.

I can't wait till the weather warms up a bit. I am going to do a lot of camping to try out my gear and meals etc.
Thats gonna be fun. I am switching to 4 day weeks so I will have 3 day weekends for adventures.

Want to see something funny?

I was looking at some span recipes, and this came up from Japan...
noodles and spam

and see on the right, the green stuff in her hand?

green stuff

I was thinking geezus what the hell are they eating in Japan now?

(Its jade jewelry)

Ill say peanut butter will hold you for a long time and is easy to carry and you don't even need a spoon, your finger will do. but when peanut butter runs out, then is time to get on the survival mood. Deer meet, wild pork, are great, but if you don't have the equipment to hunt, you'll be in big trouble.

Originally posted by guanicaPR
Ill say peanut butter will hold you for a long time and is easy to carry and you don't even need a spoon, your finger will do. but when peanut butter runs out, then is time to get on the survival mood. Deer meet, wild pork, are great, but if you don't have the equipment to hunt, you'll be in big trouble.

I grew up in the city and the country on a farm. But when I was 13 I lived on a hobby farm, in the real stix of Ontario and my neighbor was a hillbilly.

They had a son my age, and so we would go out and he knew everything about the bush. We ate turtle eggs, right out of the turtle, frog legs, fiddle heads, mushrooms all kinds, of course fish and berries and all of that but they had a farm and butchered their own hogs, and rabbits and we ate fresh pork liver right out of the hog and into the pan.

But it takes a life time or several generations to learn about your terrain like they knew it. I learned a lot from hanging out with him in the bush. I got a rabbit with a bow and we ate it. Frog legs taste great, and they kick while you fry em.
The turtle eggs were good, but the process was gross. A lot of things grossed me out, but didn't phase him at all.
Butchering animals well you get used to that pretty quick on the farm. Its still pretty messy work and you have to be very careful not to puncture the intestines or you will spoil the meat. We caught beaver and skinned it and stretch dried the skins as well.
One time me and my brother-in-law got a duck in the swamp, by chasing it down and clubbing it with a stick.
It can be done. But when we cooked it, it was tough and greasy. Tough because of the way we beat it to death.
The trauma makes the meat tough.

My hill billy friend taught me how to kill chickens. You lay a piece of straw over their eye, and they will lay still on the chopping block. Then its off with their heads, and since they are not traumatized, the meat is not tough.

Mary Kitchen's Corned Beef Hash or Dinty Moore Beef Stew. The plus with the stew is that it can be stretched nicely with white rice and yellow cornbread. Corned beef is best with scrambled eggs, which might be rare in a survival situation.

Originally posted by sweetnlow
The free ranging Hereford or black Angus beef runnin on the neighbor

Is there anything better than a black angus steak on the BBQ? If so I haven't found it.

You know what else is good is smoked salmon. I think I could eat smoked salmon every day if I had to.

I worked on a fish farm for a little while once because I lived on the ocean, had my own beach, in cottage country, and could paddle my canoe to work on the floating salmon farm dock in the bay.

And catching salmon with a net, out of the pen, and then right there frying it up with dill weed? Man you would not believe how good salmon tastes if you cook it immediately after catching it, and if you kill it right, by cutting the gills while it is still in the water and bleeding it to death.
You wouldn't think it makes much difference but it sure does.

Even so, knowing that, I would still smoke salmon, and eat it that way. So good. And candied smoked salmon, even better still. I could live off that stuff, with a few greens.
There are so many things you can get if you are by the ocean and the shore is not polluted.
We used to catch shrimp, they are easy to catch and boil them right there. Again, the fresher the better.
Crab, same thing, easy to catch by hand or with a net or to trap.
Clams, easy as digging them up. The small ones are the most tender.
Fish are plentiful in the ocean and off the rocks are rock cod. Go out a bit and get a ling cod? Oh thats a good tasting fish. Salmon and halibut. A halibut can weigh in at 100 pounds. If you had a way to store it and I suppose you could can it or dry it or salt it, but thats a whole lot of high quality meat.
If you could freeze it that would be best.
There is sooo much stuff on the sea shore you can eat. And most of it is good for you.

And you can make the tools you need to harvest it. As opposed to trying to hunt for a deer with a wooden spear.

Ha! Noone has mentioned my favorites yet...

Vienna Sausages, Sardines and Velveta Cheese and a bag of Cheetos, in case you need to start a fire

Have a look at a map of the coast

From Seattle all the way to Alaska, that entire coast is unpopulated and teeming with life.

If TSHTF and you could make it anywhere there, as long as you can survive the cold and the damp and the constant rain at night and the wind, you will never starve.
There are no bugs close to that shore either because the wind and the salt breeze and the rain, make it difficult for them to live. On the beach though are bees, that eat carrion, like dead fish, and sand flies but neither bother people.

The only dangerous animals are bears and cougars.

Other than that you have no predators.

But finding food is as easy and going and picking it up off the beach, or near the rocks. Or fishing, or diving if you have the skill.
But so much food that you would never miss a meal.

You can't say that anywhere else really because if you kill a deer in Montana, and their is no electricity, what do you do to store it?
Smoke it? Salt it? You need a lot of salt.
Not only that but if you tried to live off wild rabbits are you going to be able to snare one every day?
And then, you have to skin them, gut them and all that is messy business.

Compare that to a crab. Throw it in a pot and eat it.
Clams? Same.
Mussels, oysters, shrimp etc.
And catching shrimp and crabs all that takes is for you to make a trap. Thats it. You throw it in the water and wait, and the bait attracts them into the trap. No legwork at all. And you want more? Make more traps.
Granted the cold wet weather would be difficult if you are not used to it or dressed for it, but native Indians did it with cedar skirts and cedar hats.
Salmon have to spawn in rivers. So if you don't feel like going out into the ocean to get your salmon, wait for them to come to you, and get a thousand and smoke them and you are good for a year.
Just don't take them all or their won't be any next year.
And the stuff is never tough. All seafood is not difficult to chew or digest and its healthy.
Compare that to the old animal you shot because thats all you could find.
Tough and gamey.

Originally posted by berkeleygal
Ha! Noone has mentioned my favorites yet...

Vienna Sausages, Sardines and Velveta Cheese and a bag of Cheetos, in case you need to start a fire

edit on 2-2-2012 by berkeleygal because: (no reason given)

I think Velveta cheese is pretty good. What about that jar cheese or sqeeze a snack cheese?

Cheeze wiz. Thats good stuff. But I think peanut butter is more nourishing.

Sardines, well lots of people like them. I am not sure I do though. Cheetos? Wumpf. gone in 60 seconds.

One thing I would miss most of all if TSHTF is BBQ chips. Lays BBQ chips. I eat them every day.
Not the whole bag a day, but a portion in my lunch every day at work.

My favorite camping food is peanut butter, SPAM, and pita bread (not all at the same time, sicko!). The problem is that pita bread isn't going to be a good survival food because it's not shelf stable.

So maybe rice as the starch or, even better, instant potatoes!