What a lot of people forget about these rations is that they are designed to be used in a life boat. If your stuck in a life boat or your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere and you're not moving much, they will keep you alive. If, on the other hand, you're hiking out of a national forest or such you will need to eat nearly an entire package per day. 2000 calories may be normal for someone who drives to their job in an office, and 1200 can easily sustain them in a life boat, but you need much more for a day of strenuous activity. Many thru-hikers pack 3k+ calories a day. This is also a time when carbs are your friend. The other advantage of the hiking/back pack foods or MRE's is that they are more filling. Nothing kills moral like hunger cramps.
CzechSixTv Yeah its rather odd, Calories doesent always equal filling. those mountan house meals are pretty filling at 680 calories per packet. which doesent seem like much, but damn they are good. I think these little bars could come into use as something eaten with other food. like a MRE or a Mountan house than have a bar or 2 with that meal.
The Datrex stuff is more or less EMERGENCY calories with few vitamins and minerals, etc. However an MRE provides that PLUS alternate energy sources....
I think a fair point is that those emergency ones are more designed for just sitting around and waiting for rescue, I imagine after a few days on just those trying to forage for more food would be pretty tough on the system.
Has anyone developed a long term survival ration? Something you could eat your entire life getting all the nutrients you get in food, in one package? Lets say there's an international pandemic and your held up in a storage facility with plenty of fresh/clean water; if you were to have one kind of ration lining the shelves of that facility, what would it be?
fackingpos You still need water and nutrients to produce milk. And unless you're one of those special people who have a condition you're gonna need to knock up the woman first.
on all my overnight backpacking trips I always take these and the airtight sealed tuna bags and some cliff power pars. If I have enough room I might even bring a small amount of red peeper flakes. Works great to spice up that tuna after a while and they wight nothing. Awesome vid bro!
I would go with packing a mixture of dehydrated/freeze-dried, and some of those bars to supplement. A note on the packaging: I like that once the outer packaging is opened there are individually wrapped bars, but I don't care for how they are stacked inside it. It seems like how they are arranged would take up the most space in a pack.
As a seaman in the UK Jeff we actually get food not too dissimilar to shortbread biscuits on our lifeboat, the texture isn't quite the same but they're not bad. You also get seasickness tablets that are dished out regardless if you need them or not. Personally, if the ship is sinking I'll find the time to grab some chocolate!
the rule is 1 (one) calorie for kilo per hour for an absolute maximum of 2100/2200 calories for people who work in a office. 2500 calories is for really active people who made hard work like a contruction worker
I tried one called SOS emergency ration. It was in a white vacuum package. It was also coconut flavor but the individual bars were not wrapped as tightly. They just had cellophane neatly wrapped around them. Much easier to get at the bar, but probably less waterproof once you open the vacuum seal, also it seemed less crumbly than these, I also thought they tasted pretty good. My review is under Mountain House Chili Mac Review on my Channel.
emergency rations are not supposed to taste great, to prevent the temptation to snack on them. The orginal army emergency rations were supposed to taste a little beter than a boiled potato
If they had added protein powder and some vitamins and minerals, you might be able to use these to stay relatively healthy in an emergency situation for weeks or even months. In their current form, I think they are pretty useless for anything more than keeping your blood sugar high for a few days. Without protein, many of the body's functions break down in a matter of days unless there is a lot of muscle to take from.
those bars might be designed to be compact but a jar of peanut is extremely compact for the calories as well and much much better tasting and a complete food, dried nuts, dried vegetables, beef jerky, dried fruit as well as any whole grains are also all very compact so its not really necessary to carry those bars, those bars aren't very good in all honesty.
Who is the guy that advertises the meal bars that taste really good and you don’t even need to have a drink with them because they don’t make you thirsty. He said they were the perfect prep food for your car. Anybody got a clue??
I think one of the things your forgot to mention Jeff was the main reason someone would choose this over an MRE.... Yes, I would pick an MRE over this any day but MRE can't handle the temps that these can... An MRE in a hot car will only last a month or so... These can handle temps of -20 - 149 F
Putting together a little emergency kit in my truck, think I'm going to add these and maybe trail mix or jerky to it. These are going to be last resort but the jerky/trail mix might just be if I'm out and need a snack haha good video!! What do you think about long term water storage in a vehicle?
1 big jar of peanut butter has 8000+ calories. Great for BO bags. It has sugar, fats, and proteins, so its great survival food. Also super compact for the calories. Not exactly long term, but for a 72 hr kit, its good stuff.
What about adding some multivitamins in some amount or form to your emergency food kit. Those bottles can be very small or Sams Club big but will really help keep your body regulated.
I don't get why they haven't added protein powder and some vitamins and minerals. These might keep you alive for a while, but your body will be destroyed very quickly and have trouble hydrating, digesting and healing without proteins and vitamins+minerals. If you really want compact, pure energy in the form of simple carbohydrates and fat, you might as well bring a bag of sugar and a bottle of olive oil.
My next Amazon order will definitely include some of these. For 72 hours and not being too expensive! Maybe stick a few mre peanut butter containers with these? They'd taste better and you get a little more bang for your buck.
I would take the extra weight with MREs and some Mountain House meals just because they would taste better than the Datrex bars or almost any life raft kind of rations.
Theres a certain way to open these. On the sides of each bar, you can see there is a shrink wrap seam that is closer to one side of the bar. Go to the opposite side of the bar and on the big flat side there is a super hard to see line. If you scratch that back and forth, you'll separate the overlap of the shrink wrap and then you can lift it up and tear the shrink wrap seams on both sides and then you'll have a perfectly unwrapped Datrex bar with almost no crumbling!
if you stock up on datrex blocks, you can throw in a bottle of centrum multi-vitamins to the batch to complete it :) lolol idk just something I though up of
You don't really need to waste all that space and money on water pouches if your going hiking or prepping for stuff where you can go outside. You can just buy a life straw. A life straw is like a personal water filter. But if you are prepping for a disaster were you might need to stay inside, then you can buy those.
Andre Krumins ! guess that's true... it does depend on your climate and geography of where you live. In my area, I would not have to bring water but some people may.
I'll take the MRE's over those emergency bars any day of the week and twice on Sundays. They might have more calories; but they are empty calories. You will end up peeing most of them. The MRE's are more nutritional and will help you to stay alive longer in the long run. And when the taste test veredict is that It's not THAT bad, it still means it's bad. Regular granola bars are about the same price. A chocolate bar is just a little more expensive. I'll pass on these.
I don't really see comparing MRE components to the emergency food. They are designed for two different uses. The shelf life isn't even the same from what I remember, could be wrong there. My MRE's are all boxed up :) But a nice review of the emergency food.
At that calorie count I would just as soon buy a case of snickers bars, there would be more calories and WAY more nutritional value. The idea for these food ration bars is a good one, but I feel like there are better alternatives.
John Arnold First off. The comment you responded to is almost 2 years old. Not that it's relevant, but it took me by surprise. Second, for personal food storage I would still go with some kind of candy/protein bar. As I recall, Datrex bars are basically flour, sugar, and fat. From a personal survival standpoint, that is a terrible food source. For commercial use, it's cheap and easy to store. I'm just saying I would never purchase these for personal use, given that there are suitable alternatives that will last nearly as long.
you could eat pure lard 8 to 9 cal per gram. ooom good. Is there an issue with discipline eating such a low volume of food? I would think that you would want to eat at least one "real" meal a day if possible.
Honestly, i tried not to write this but i couldnt resist after seeing u choose the bars over the mre's and mountain house lol.. :P i feel like having a more fulfilling meal would help you survive and keep hunger away then technically addin calories to ur body. because trust me, you wont notice.. lol :P
Caloric intake isn't the whole story. You can carry around a pound of syrup, and by caloric content you should be fine. This is obviously ridiculous though. The human body needs more than fat and sugar to survive, which is virtually all these cookies are.
jeff you should read cody lundins book. it's called something like, "When all hell breaks loose". It's a good book, and cody's way of writing is straightforward and sometimes funny...
Hahaha! Nice vid, CL! I laugh because I personally love Datrex bars! It's extra-embarrassing to admit this because I'm a professional chef. For whatever reason I can totally wreck a block of these bars. Now, I have a pro-grade chamber vac sealer at home: I think the ideal rat would be, say, 2 x Datrex blocks + 12 Survival tabs + 2 x Coconut oil caps + a piece of jerky. You could easily bundle these items even without the Pro level sealer I use. A Foodsaver would suffice. Again, good job!
You kind of belabored the point you were trying to make about the bars being more compact calorie for calorie. I got the point after the second of 8 or 9 examples you showed.
jeff thank you so much i've been trying to find something to keep in the house, that would sustain myself if there was ever a natural disaster, or any disaster for that fact, so thank you!
![[TH] 2024 PMSL SEA W2D1 | Fall | ต่อเนื่อง ในสัปดาห์สอง](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ElcO9uC_Dbk/mqdefault.jpg)
What a lot of people forget about these rations is that they are designed to be used in a life boat. If your stuck in a life boat or your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere and you're not moving much, they will keep you alive. If, on the other hand, you're hiking out of a national forest or such you will need to eat nearly an entire package per day. 2000 calories may be normal for someone who drives to their job in an office, and 1200 can easily sustain them in a life boat, but you need much more for a day of strenuous activity. Many thru-hikers pack 3k+ calories a day. This is also a time when carbs are your friend.
The other advantage of the hiking/back pack foods or MRE's is that they are more filling. Nothing kills moral like hunger cramps.
CzechSixTv Yeah its rather odd, Calories doesent always equal filling. those mountan house meals are pretty filling at 680 calories per packet. which doesent seem like much, but damn they are good. I think these little bars could come into use as something eaten with other food. like a MRE or a Mountan house than have a bar or 2 with that meal.
The Datrex stuff is more or less EMERGENCY calories with few vitamins and minerals, etc. However an MRE provides that PLUS alternate energy sources....
"multi-purpose emergency ration, that's its only purpose" lol
I wonder how much calories a Labrador is...
+Laydown Delivery D
Depends on if you are referring to the dog, or a human from Labrador.
***how many
I think a fair point is that those emergency ones are more designed for just sitting around and waiting for rescue, I imagine after a few days on just those trying to forage for more food would be pretty tough on the system.
for those of you that havent had an mre befor the meals dont take up the entire box
Nice! My preps are under my bed, in my kids closet, garage, pantry, etc. 😂. I’m running out of room! Stock up folks food shortages coming!!
Has anyone developed a long term survival ration? Something you could eat your entire life getting all the nutrients you get in food, in one package? Lets say there's an international pandemic and your held up in a storage facility with plenty of fresh/clean water; if you were to have one kind of ration lining the shelves of that facility, what would it be?
Breast milk
fackingpos You still need water and nutrients to produce milk. And unless you're one of those special people who have a condition you're gonna need to knock up the woman first.
Soylent.
on all my overnight backpacking trips I always take these and the airtight sealed tuna bags and some cliff power pars. If I have enough room I might even bring a small amount of red peeper flakes. Works great to spice up that tuna after a while and they wight nothing. Awesome vid bro!
I would go with packing a mixture of dehydrated/freeze-dried, and some of those bars to supplement. A note on the packaging: I like that once the outer packaging is opened there are individually wrapped bars, but I don't care for how they are stacked inside it. It seems like how they are arranged would take up the most space in a pack.
As a seaman in the UK Jeff we actually get food not too dissimilar to shortbread biscuits on our lifeboat, the texture isn't quite the same but they're not bad. You also get seasickness tablets that are dished out regardless if you need them or not.
Personally, if the ship is sinking I'll find the time to grab some chocolate!
I like the bars. I carry one when I go biking. One bar plus a small sports drink & I'm all set. :)
the rule is 1 (one) calorie for kilo per hour for an absolute maximum of 2100/2200 calories for people who work in a office. 2500 calories is for really active people who made hard work like a contruction worker
Human flesh is plentiful and have all the nutrients you'll need.
See you when the SHTF... ;)
DIVIDED BY FOUR !
If I had that calculator I would throw it out of the window...
i was told by a doctor once that vitamens and supplements really only help if you have a deficancy
I tried one called SOS emergency ration. It was in a white vacuum package. It was also coconut flavor but the individual bars were not wrapped as tightly. They just had cellophane neatly wrapped around them. Much easier to get at the bar, but probably less waterproof once you open the vacuum seal, also it seemed less crumbly than these, I also thought they tasted pretty good. My review is under Mountain House Chili Mac Review on my Channel.
I didn't know we all stay up 24 hours a day all the time so your suppose to wake up twice during the night to eat a small brick of bird suite
emergency rations are not supposed to taste great, to prevent the temptation to snack on them. The orginal army emergency rations were supposed to taste a little beter than a boiled potato
If they had added protein powder and some vitamins and minerals, you might be able to use these to stay relatively healthy in an emergency situation for weeks or even months. In their current form, I think they are pretty useless for anything more than keeping your blood sugar high for a few days. Without protein, many of the body's functions break down in a matter of days unless there is a lot of muscle to take from.
you'll never be taken seriously with a gimmic calculator like that!
those bars might be designed to be compact but a jar of peanut is extremely compact for the calories as well and much much better tasting and a complete food, dried nuts, dried vegetables, beef jerky, dried fruit as well as any whole grains are also all very compact so its not really necessary to carry those bars, those bars aren't very good in all honesty.
Ya know, every single time I'm looking at buying something I look at youtube, and about half the time I find a video by you. Applause man.
Who is the guy that advertises the meal bars that taste really good and you don’t even need to have a drink with them because they don’t make you thirsty. He said they were the perfect prep food for your car. Anybody got a clue??
@1994Juggernaut this is about survival meaning the necessity not necessarily the ideal
I think one of the things your forgot to mention Jeff was the main reason someone would choose this over an MRE.... Yes, I would pick an MRE over this any day but MRE can't handle the temps that these can... An MRE in a hot car will only last a month or so... These can handle temps of -20 - 149 F
I prefer my boxes of spam, but it's good to have options. ^^
omfg the peanut butter and chocolate spread that comes with some mre's is the best ever!
So in summary, Jeff likes small packages and always carry a knife :)
Putting together a little emergency kit in my truck, think I'm going to add these and maybe trail mix or jerky to it. These are going to be last resort but the jerky/trail mix might just be if I'm out and need a snack haha good video!! What do you think about long term water storage in a vehicle?
@cutlerylover you can also tell how many hours there will be before sun set by using your hands.
Personally i would take the bulk of MREs because they would taste better and be a good morale booster if you're in a stressful situation.
When the shit goes down, I'm going to Jeff's house
1 big jar of peanut butter has 8000+ calories. Great for BO bags. It has sugar, fats, and proteins, so its great survival food. Also super compact for the calories. Not exactly long term, but for a 72 hr kit, its good stuff.
I prefer the food with high in nutrients, getting sick in the wild or SHTF situation is a hell march.
To back when jeff was hooked on Bug Out related items.
It's 2015, did you use all of those rations?
+Serp1313 what you mean ?
+Steiner Eichmann he's asking if he consumed all of the item.
thanks mate
I always take a brick of these when I go camping, not the best tasting thing on earth, but it's good for hiking.
CutleryLover, can I ask why you get all of these emergency foods? is it a hobby? or is it for if something bad happens which you will need to use :o?
What about adding some multivitamins in some amount or form to your emergency food kit. Those bottles can be very small or Sams Club big but will really help keep your body regulated.
Just looking at them makes me want a glass of water.
I don't get why they haven't added protein powder and some vitamins and minerals. These might keep you alive for a while, but your body will be destroyed very quickly and have trouble hydrating, digesting and healing without proteins and vitamins+minerals.
If you really want compact, pure energy in the form of simple carbohydrates and fat, you might as well bring a bag of sugar and a bottle of olive oil.
i think they look like suet cakes for birds
My next Amazon order will definitely include some of these. For 72 hours and not being too expensive!
Maybe stick a few mre peanut butter containers with these? They'd taste better and you get a little more bang for your buck.
i feel like im in a kindergarten class with all these explanations of simple fact.
I rather carry more stuff than deal with the deprecation of morale
I would take the extra weight with MREs and some Mountain House meals just because they would taste better than the Datrex bars or almost any life raft kind of rations.
Theres a certain way to open these.
On the sides of each bar, you can see there is a shrink wrap seam that is closer to one side of the bar. Go to the opposite side of the bar and on the big flat side there is a super hard to see line. If you scratch that back and forth, you'll separate the overlap of the shrink wrap and then you can lift it up and tear the shrink wrap seams on both sides and then you'll have a perfectly unwrapped Datrex bar with almost no crumbling!
if you stock up on datrex blocks,
you can throw in a bottle of centrum multi-vitamins to the batch to complete it :)
lolol idk just something I though up of
You don't really need to waste all that space and money on water pouches if your going hiking or prepping for stuff where you can go outside. You can just buy a life straw. A life straw is like a personal water filter. But if you are prepping for a disaster were you might need to stay inside, then you can buy those.
Malia Engle Many people don't live by anywhere that has streams or rivers. where I live you would have to travel a few hundred miles to find a stream
Andre Krumins ! guess that's true... it does depend on your climate and geography of where you live. In my area, I would not have to bring water but some people may.
Hey do you have any advice for survival food, something with protein or meat and stuff to get through the economic meltdown ?
don't forget the phsycological effect of a good meal. I find that 99% of these survival videos dont remember the phsych effect.
whats the fat content of the survival rations? i think that plays a big factor in survival food as well as calories.
I'll take the MRE's over those emergency bars any day of the week and twice on Sundays. They might have more calories; but they are empty calories. You will end up peeing most of them. The MRE's are more nutritional and will help you to stay alive longer in the long run. And when the taste test veredict is that It's not THAT bad, it still means it's bad. Regular granola bars are about the same price. A chocolate bar is just a little more expensive. I'll pass on these.
@HachiZenki Yep, those Datrex rations are great for car/boat/backpack use. But when weight isn't an issue, canned goods are hard to beat.
you realy needed to do 18 divied by 3?
Lmfao, I didn't look to see who made the video and I was like "I know this TH-camr from somewhere..." lol..
Great video man. Thanks for all the good info. Peace
I don't really see comparing MRE components to the emergency food. They are designed for two different uses. The shelf life isn't even the same from what I remember, could be wrong there. My MRE's are all boxed up :) But a nice review of the emergency food.
lets just assume we dont have a knife..... impossible
At that calorie count I would just as soon buy a case of snickers bars, there would be more calories and WAY more nutritional value. The idea for these food ration bars is a good one, but I feel like there are better alternatives.
Snickers bars would melt. these are designed to sit in survival kits for aircraft and boats four years without degrading in condition
John Arnold First off. The comment you responded to is almost 2 years old. Not that it's relevant, but it took me by surprise. Second, for personal food storage I would still go with some kind of candy/protein bar. As I recall, Datrex bars are basically flour, sugar, and fat. From a personal survival standpoint, that is a terrible food source. For commercial use, it's cheap and easy to store. I'm just saying I would never purchase these for personal use, given that there are suitable alternatives that will last nearly as long.
Christian's Channel interesting perspective. I appreciate the feedback
your calculator is a terminator!
what's the different between generic water and those pouches?
Thanks,
Kanphot
Jeff have you seen the emergency food bars by the name of MAYDAY food bars?
you could eat pure lard 8 to 9 cal per gram. ooom good. Is there an issue with discipline eating such a low volume of food? I would think that you would want to eat at least one "real" meal a day if possible.
Honestly, i tried not to write this but i couldnt resist after seeing u choose the bars over the mre's and mountain house lol.. :P i feel like having a more fulfilling meal would help you survive and keep hunger away then technically addin calories to ur body. because trust me, you wont notice.. lol :P
bring a couple packs of that peanut butter to put on it
Caloric intake isn't the whole story. You can carry around a pound of syrup, and by caloric content you should be fine.
This is obviously ridiculous though. The human body needs more than fat and sugar to survive, which is virtually all these cookies are.
jeff you should read cody lundins book. it's called something like, "When all hell breaks loose". It's a good book, and cody's way of writing is straightforward and sometimes funny...
And you need a calculator !! Holy jesus
Hahaha! Nice vid, CL! I laugh because I personally love Datrex bars! It's extra-embarrassing to admit this because I'm a professional chef. For whatever reason I can totally wreck a block of these bars. Now, I have a pro-grade chamber vac sealer at home: I think the ideal rat would be, say, 2 x Datrex blocks + 12 Survival tabs + 2 x Coconut oil caps + a piece of jerky. You could easily bundle these items even without the Pro level sealer I use. A Foodsaver would suffice.
Again, good job!
short term i would still rather have an mre all together larger more variety
so whatcha do is put the peanut butter on the meal blocks, problem soved
I'm pretty sure I've seen an emergency food that can also be used as a fuel tablet for boiling water :S
I've got a pack of these in a backpack right now.
i love reading the tags
You kind of belabored the point you were trying to make about the bars being more compact calorie for calorie. I got the point after the second of 8 or 9 examples you showed.
lol...I LOVE your tag mate.
Damn, I'm bringing these on my day long bike rides.
Talking calculator!!!! The machines are rising...
is it dehydrated water? LOL! ive actually had people believe it could exist
jeff thank you so much i've been trying to find something to keep in the house, that would sustain myself if there was ever a natural disaster, or any disaster for that fact, so thank you!
can you make a vid about all the thing you would have for an emergency situation (short and long term)
ITS PEOPLE! YER EATIN PEOPLE!
Of all Ration Bars on the Market which lasts the longest? I don't care about the flavor.
Jeff are u going to do more mountain house testing ???? :)
Taste difference > size difference XD
u could squeeze the peanutbutter onto the ration so itll hopefully taste better
jeff you probably should use the little ration bars in there whole packaging when comparing them to other ration foods in there packaging.
Great video, very informative. Also, will you be doing any knife/firearm reviews soon?
from experience i'm sure the Datrex tastes better than the MRE.
Thanks for the review. Food & H2O are the final things I need for my SIP or BOB. These definitely look like an efficeint, short-term option.
pretty sure u ate plastic on that first bite its hard to notice but i swear i saw a flake of plastic on the left side of the first bite lol...
What's better? Emergency food...or year old Twinkies?
what kind of camera are you using?
great video jeff will be looking to add them to my food storage items even though they look like little freeze dried blocks of sick
that is a ridiculous calculator jeff.... how can you think when it is saying stuff?
You left 20 calories worth of crumbs on the table
@woofwatcherminecraft Also if u carry a mechanical watch constantly , u wont be needing the sun.
jeff your are my favorite subscription.