If you get stuck in a survival situation, the only thing that matters is how you will get food and how much of it will available.
But lets say that you are preparing for something the apocalypse or going on a camping trip. You have got the world of flavours to choose from.
Russian MRE…
So lets begin. You have all the options in the world to choose from and we have all the reviews of those options for you. We plan on providing you with something you like and something tasty. So hop on and lets begin the reviewsss!!!..
To start off we have two basic types of foods:
- Heat and Go Meals.
- Sodium Laden.
What Types of Food Do I Need in a Survival Situation?
This is something that only you know the answer to my friend.
When you need something that is light and it does not require anything special to prepare, you will have an option that is entirely different from someone who wants a well-balanced meal and is camping under a sheltered place or has a stove.
Since there are a lot of options to choose from. We have made these sections explaining every option. So that it becomes easy for you to choose what’s best for you. Hope you find your snacks. Here we go.
These are the 4 main categories that our food is divided in:
- MREs
- Emergency Food Bars
- Backpacking/Camping Meals
- Emergency Food Buckets
We have tasted most of the options ourselves so that you get the best reviews.
Let’s dig in:
MREs
MREs stands for Meals Ready to Eat. This means you can prepare them on the go. This is what their purpose is and what makes them one of the best options for camping, survival or even apocalypse(that is if that happens 😉).
These military rations are not that hing end in their quality and flavor but they are self-heating and portable packages that are easy to make.
A variety of MREs
I am sorry Warfighters, but seeing the food branded as “Warfighter Recommended, Warfighter Approved, Warfighter Tested” does not make this a confident choice for me.
However, it is pretty easy to find MREs and they are pretty easy to use. So this might not be the best high calories meal but it might be something very helpful when needed for survival.
List of Best Survival Foods – All Types
1. Mil-Surp MREs
1st Menu: We tried Chili with Beans. This looks like a good option. We were surprised that it looks this good.
MRE Chili with Beans
Complete packaging included:
- Chilli
- Cheddar cheese spread
- Vegetable crackers
- Pepperoni Cheese Pizza
- Accessory Packet:
- Wipes
- Cutlery
- Hot Sauce
If we just talk about flavor. It was not something that tastes that good. But in a survival situation this thing can prove to be very useful. On average one MRE contains 1,250 calories per meal. This makes it a good enough option nutrition wise for any situation.
Preparing the chili.
Every packet contains a ration heater so you don’t have to worry about buying something extra to heat this food.
These MREs are packed in individual packets. The only struggle is how to pack them all together for traveling. This becomes a cause for some extra trash after every meal and it becomes hard to dispose off this trash in a camping trip.
2. Russian MRE
Some of the containers found in the Russian MRE
Instruction for these Russian MREs are in Cyrillic to begin with. We had a hard time going through this adventure of reading Cyrillic but it was fun.
The packaging approach is a bit different in Russia if we compare it with a standard USA approach. Instead of packing single meal in a single package, they prepare a 24 hours package containing breakfast, dinner and lunch. It becomes easy to take care of the trash and pack these MREs for travel. To top it off!!… These Russian MREs contain some additional snacks as well 😉. Food is packed in small containers and looks fancy.
Russian MRE Paté
We tried everything. Like everything to give you our unbiased review about the food that was being served in this magnificent packing.
One of the entrees in the Russian MRE… stew, perhaps?
Everything tasted magnificent. It tasted better than it looked. I wonder what it would taste like to eat it after heating it up. Thatrs right.. We tasted it at normal room temperature. Why did we do that. Well the answer is simple. So that we can see how it tastes like if someone is in a survival situation and does not have enough time to heat this food up or does not want to put in the effort of heating up the food while camping. See, we always think about how to perfectly present our review even if something is as delicious as this one.
Russian MRE Kasha
This product is available on amazon. The description present on amazon for this product is not justifying at all. This is a jampacked product with amazing nutrition to calories balance. So if you are in a mood for camping, this easily comes in that option.
All I will say is that it might not look amazing, but the taste is very good!!!..
Russian MRE Mystery Goop
We don’t know what else to call this lol. Hope you enjoyed this Russian MRE review. If you don’t have an issue with carrying weight and taking care of remaining trash. This might be your option.
Bottom of Form
Visually upsetting? Yes. Tasty? Also yes!
Camping and Hiking Meals
If you are talking about fun adventures that are few days long or some hiking plans. You would want to take something with you that is lighter and causes much less trash than the MREs we discussed above. These are freeze-dried meals, low trash, low weight and a lot more adventure… woohoo.
So now lets talk about the taste.
3. Mountain House
Mountain House and Jet Boil–ready for adventure!
You want to know why mountain housing has a cult following. Well, they are better than military MREs in every possible way. One of the reasons is their taste. Might not be as good as something you prepare at home but man is it good.
Okay if we talk about survival. These don’t sound all that good. Why you ask? Well, technically Freeze-dried entrees are not the best way to go with if we are talking about survival. That is why they are preferred for camping and hiking situations. But still they can be used as a good version of MREs. You want to know how?
Mountain House Biscuits and Gravy
This is a prepared meal “Biscuits and Gravy” that we sampled. Even though Beef stroganoff is the fan favorite. Do you want to known how we prepared it? It’s easy
- Remove the packet
- Pour in the amount of water prescribed in instructions.
- Stir
- Seal
- Wait for 10 minutes
And there you go. Your easy to wrap up meal is served Sir!. haha
Adding boiling water to our Mountain House meal.
We talked about how to prepare this amazing meal. Now lets talk about the composition of this whole package. It contains
- Biscuit
- Gravy
There are total of 310 calories for a meal and if we talk about whole pouch. There are 620. They are not filled with as much calories and nutrition’s as Russian or USA MREs but they are a good option for light camping or an occasional trip. They have a shelf life of 30 years apparently so they might be a good option for storing food in case any apocalypse occurs. See there are always plus points to everything and we tend to find them for you haha.
Bottom of Form
Llllll
Emergency Food Bars
Okay so we got done with Full calories-based meals and light calories-based meals.
Now let’s talk about something that is very small packet of meal with very high amount of nutrition’s! Energy Bars. If you don’t have time to choose or thing before buying or you don’t have enough space to keep MREs or frizzed foods. This will do the trick. These food bars are the shape of chocolate bars and they are jam packed with nutrition’s. It will reduce trash and probably one of the lightest thing that you can carry.
4. S.O.S Emergency Ration Bars
SOS Food Bars
This is a vacuum packing and it looks like something amazing.
When we tested it, it had a very crisp taste. It tasted sweet, its taste was like vanilla. They were a bit dry and and they had a crumbly side. These bars are a complete meal in itself. All you will have to do is carry some extra water with you. People are simple creatures. We want to travel with minimum weight and carry minimum amount od trash. That is where these bars come in handy.
In my personal opinion. If I am hiking. This would be the best option for me. This is an instant energy booster and with an instant energy boost comes instant moral boost.
Inside the package
The packs have a shelf life of 5 years. Each pack is worth 3,600 calories. This one pack will last 72 hours. Which becomes more than 3 days in our case.
5. Grizzly Gear Emergency Food Rations
Grizzly Gear Food Bars
A bit of a similar concept of food bars discussed above. The only difference is their Flavor. We would not like to recommend these. As we ate these, we felt like they were a bit more dry anf less sweet. Sos bars are vanilla flavored while Grizzly Gear bars are lemon flavored.
These bars are a bit crumblier as well.
Inside the package!
These are almost the same thing with respect to calories, for example, it has 3600 calories just like Sos bar. It can last 72 hours in a hiking trip. And this has a 5-year shelf life. This is a Halal product. Shelf life depends on the packaging for. If the seal is opened then the bars will expire sooner than expected. So, they should be packed carefully.
Last but not least…
Emergency Food Supply Buckets
Looking to stock up for an emergency?
Concept of this kind of food is to make something that is amazing and that can be stored for emergency. The product has different shelf life than which varies between 5, 10 or 30 years. These meals are packed in a handy bucket. We can store them up for any kind of inconvenience or literally something like a Zombie apocalypse haha!…
6. Ready Wise Food Storage 60 Entree Bucket
Ready Wise Food Bucket and meals
These kinds of foods are called preparedness foods, which means that they are ready for any kind of emergency. They are meant to be put on the shelves and be forgotten about until the time comes.
Now when we come to the tasting part of this review. It is saddening for me to tell you that this is not a good enough food. We are going to go for it if and only if its an emergency for us all, something like a survival situation in literal sense. Else this is not going to be something that would be recommended for a casual hiking or camping trip.
Adding boiling water to our Ready Wise Food pasta dish.
As we discussed above. We were not happy with the taste. Maybe when we ate these meals, they were not properly rehydrated or maybe there was some other reason. But everything aside we were not happy with that.
We tried the pasta dish and Vegetable rotini dish. Got to say. They might only come in handy if something serious happens. Our review is an honest one and we plan to stick with that.
But as they say. Something is better than nothing and that’s true. One should have these buckets at their home stored in some basement or their garage.
Wise Food Creamy Pasta and Vegetable Rotini
Okay if we talk about calories. It has 200 calories per serving. So this is not that nutritious as you can see.
7. Augason Farms 30-Day Emergency Food Supply
Augason Farms Emergency Food Bucket
This is the same thing by design that we have discussed above. We are going to elaborate this Augason Farms Food Bucket as our final review product. This has a 20-year shelf time.
We tasted Creamy Potato Soup for our taste testing. This was just like wise company food bucket, just a little better.
This is a high calories meal. This bucket contains 30 days worth of supplies. People might have a good time during their apocalyptic situation. It contains 1800 calories for one person per day.
Augason Farms Creamy Potato Soup simmering away.
They are hard to find online.
These are the simple steps to prepare them:
- Open packaging properly
- Put the soup in a pan
- Heat it up for 10-15 minutes
- Eat it!!! 😉
Parting Thoughts
Okay so I hope you enjoyed our review of all the survival foods we could find. Our source of purchase in most of c=the cases was Amazon and in some cases our retail stores.
We know you cannot taste everything before choosing a product for your travels. We chose to do that for you and we hope now you have some sort of a vague idea of how everything tastes like.
Every kinf of food has its pros and cons. We tried to highlight them all together in this review. You can choose according to the situation you are having.
This is our farewell for now. I think we did our job of reviewing everything properly. Rest, hope to see you soon in our other articles.
