Meal 6: Emergency Starter Meals?

The more I think about it, the more I realize that I'm not really living off these emergency rations. I'm using them as a side dish or as a base to my meals. As Michael has pointed out, there is simply no way that I could survive on just the contents of the package alone. Well, I suppose I could, but it wouldn't be pretty. In the spirit of the challenge, I've amassed a large collection of dried food to boost my meals. Black beans, red beans, split peas, black eyed peas, great northern beans, white rice, and brown rice. These are all food items that wouldn't perish were my heat and electricity knocked out. Even better, the sodium level for those food items are all low too.

I've surfed the internet for other emergency food rations and found that the full calorie meals are also likely to kill you with their fat content and sodium levels. Sure they meet the caloric demands better, but I wouldn't suggest using them as your main source of emergency food. For one, they're bulky, heavy and expensive. I could pack all the above food items in a backpack and be set for a month.

MREs seem to be better suited for combat situations where you have a main base of operations but don't have the time to build a fire and cook your food. MREs are meant to be eaten on the go. You don't carry a ton of them with you. On average, an MRE has a whopping 1,200 calories per meal and aren't meant to be eaten for more than 21 days. The theory being that logistically speaking, a dedicated food operation should be constructed by then.

As such, a long term survival plan should not rely on MREs. Still, fighting zombies, roving biker gangs or raiders has got to be hard on the body. If put in that situation and MREs are available, I'd chow down. The average solider uses around 4200 calories a day. Survival situations require large energy demands. When you add cold into the mix, your calorie demands skyrocket even further. The worst thing that can happen is that you enter a negative calorie cycle while you're fighting the last vestiges of humanity for control of the non-irradiated water supply. Interestingly enough, I'm learning a lot more about survival strategies due to this experiment and have concluded that my bucket of food is a poor choice. In my current situation where I can easily supplement, it's not half bad. It's more a battle against boredom than anything. I'm still curious to see this thing to the end.


Dinner tonight was western stew. I mixed it with some white rice and I put a pot of black beans to simmer for tomorrow. It tastes ok, but I certainly wouldn't order it on purpose.



Yes, this looks completely unappetizing. Don't worry, I also had an apple and orange juice and milk with dinner tonight. I may have to try out the pancakes this weekend. I figure those can't be half bad.