Essential System #8 – Nutrition (Extra Food)

Continuing our countdown of the ten essential systems we get to the food category. In our grab and go bags we have a few Clif Bars – they taste alright, don’t require cooking, and have a relatively long shelf life.

The problem with Cliff Bars is that they prove tempting when we have the occasional sweet tooth attack. This is why some people keep MREs (meals, ready to eat) on hand, because they taste so foul you won’t be tempted to bust them open. They also don’t require cooking and some even come with a chemical heating packet. As for the taste of M.R.E.s, SurviveLA correspondent Corey Travis reports on a recent attack of the munches while at the office. All he had was an MRE in the hot trunk of his car. Scared by the main entrĂ©e he just ate the cracker and chocolate. Here is what he had to say, “The cracker was what you’d expect – a cross between balsa wood and salt. The chocolate energy bar was much more substantial with a thick, waxy chocolate-like-ness, almost completely masking a surprisingly malty undertone. I’d use the word cloying, but I hate that word.”

Should you require another opinion on MREs, someone calling themselves “Badtux the Snarky Penguin” has a review of the chicken tetrazini MRE.

We prefer the more upscale freeze dried backpacking food to MREs. They taste better and have an astonishing shelf life. You will, however, need to heat them up with something and they are also expensive. Our favorite brand is Mary Jane’s Farm, though someone should tell her about the implications of her name (read our review of Mary Jane’s Organic Buttery Herb Pasta).

We also keep the SurviveLA pantry well stocked with canned items and we always maintain a vegetable garden, so that we’ll have fresh stuff when the shit comes down.