What is the best ration type?

When it comes to survival food there are certainly plenty of choices, but which one is the best to take with you and what are the pros and cons you should watch out for?

 

M.R.E’s

what is the best ration type

Stands for meal ready to eat and provides the single most complete meal experience. Made for soldiers in the US, these packages contain a main meal along with various sides and drinks. They also provide the highest amount of calories in a single meal and come with a flame-less ration heater, giving you the ability to have a hot meal and coffee in the middle of no where.

 

Advantages:

  • Provides the highest amount of calories from a single meal than any other ration type.

 

  • Gives the widest range for a single meal

 

  • Flameless ration heater allows hot food without the need for a fire

 

  • Normally comes with other useful items, such as a small amount of toilet paper, chewing gum, and toothpicks.

 

Disadvantages:

  • By far the heaviest ration, with the average M.R.E weighing in between 600 to 700 grams and requiring 3 per day. At this weight, a week’s worth of food would weigh 4.2kg to 4.9kg, over 2kg heavier than freeze-dried food.

 

  • Since they are designed for soldiers they normally have very low fiber content and very high salt content, typically designed to make a soldier poop as few times as possible while in the field. This can be either an advantage or disadvantage depending on your situation.

 

  • The shelf life of only 5 years from the date it was made, which is good for most situations but still the shortest shelf life out of all the options.

 

  • They are normally quite bulky as none of the water has been taken to reduce the size and there’s also much more packaging involved.

 

Dehydrated food

 

This type is made by creating some kind of meal, and then putting it in a machine that dries it and removes as much moisture as possible. There is still a little moisture left in the finished product and the process also removes some of the taste. This is one of the foods you can make at home, as dehydrating machines aren’t expensive at all.

 

Advantages:

 

  • Professionally dried food has a shelf life of around 10 years from the point it was made.

 

  • Can easily be made at home

 

  • Very lightweight

 

Disadvantages:

  • Loss of flavor

 

  • Requires much more water to prepare

 

  • Cannot eat without first hydrating

 

Ration Blocks

These are some interesting little things, but normally not the kind of ration you would take with you in large amounts. They can typically be found in things like lifeboats on ships and in short-term, survival situation emergency kits. Each block provides the full daily calorie allowance for an adult, as well as all the vitamins, nutrients, etc.

 

Even though there are many different brands of this ration type they generally fall into 2 main categories, sweet and savoury. The sweet ones taste like someone put a cheesecake on top of a large treacle sponge and squashed it down into a tiny bar, they are incredibly dense to eat but usually very tasty and rammed full of sugar.

 

The savory ones taste like someone made a gallon of beef and vegetable stew, and then somehow squashed it into a little block. They aren’t quite as tasty as the sweet version, but one advantage of these is you can break a piece off and dissolve it in some hot water to make a reasonably nice soup. Sometimes these also come in a condensed bread-type bar with various other ingredients, which are more pleasant to eat directly but don’t quite make as good a soup.

 

The blocks are usually stamped, marking out the breakfast, dinner, and supper sections, and even though they provide everything you need to stay alive, they do nothing to fill you up on their own. In the event of being stranded somewhere and you didn’t have access to plenty of water to make soup, these would end up being quite unpleasant after a while. These things last for anywhere between 5 to 15 years depending on the brand and type.

 

Advantages:

  • Very compact, you could fit a week’s worth of food in the pockets of a standard coat.

 

  • The sweet ones are very tasty, and the savory ones can be made into a soup to provide a more filling meal.

 

  • One of the cheapest ration options in comparison to how long they last against the other types.

 

  • Needs no water or any kind of equipment to prepare.

 

Disadvantages:

  • The sweet ones can become sickly quite fast, and the savory ones aren’t the best tasting in comparison to other ration types.

 

  • Boring variation and least choice. Lifeboats will most likely only have one type on board, and if you order a pack they will likely all be one flavor, and eating the exact same flavor and nothing but can get boring really fast.

 

Even though they provide what you need, they can leave you feeling hungry. The contents are very condensed and simply don’t provide the volume your stomach needs to feel full, and if you don’t have the ability to make soup all the time from the savory ones, surviving on nothing but these will leave you constantly feeling hungry.

 

Freeze-dried food

what is the best ration type for hikes

 

This one is my personal favorite for various reasons and by far the longest-lasting. Freeze-dried food is made by first cooking a normal meal, then freezing it at a very low temperature, normally somewhere between -30 C and -50 C. After the freezing its put into a machine which creates a vacuum and sucks out all the moisture, and since the freezing at such low temperatures makes the water expand considerably, the process can remove almost all of it.

 

This means that these types of rations have a very long life span and are very lightweight, with professionally made freeze-dried food lasting for up to 25 years. Even when opened and exposed to the air, most dishes will still be good for up to 1 year.

 

This version also comes with the most variety and can also be bought containing only one ingredient, such as a tub of potato slices or just peas. This makes them the best choice for permanent long-term survival shelters. They are also the lightest of the choices as they have more water removed than any other ration type, though this can also work against them as you can’t eat them without hydrating them first, as the food would suck moisture out of your stomach, and make you dangerously thirsty.

 

Advantages:

  • Biggest range of meals and individual ingredients

 

  • Longest shelf life by far – up to 25 years

 

  • The lightest weighted ration out of all types

 

  • Very compact, the single serving packs can slip in between all the gaps in your backpack you just couldn’t cram that extra pair of socks into.

 

  • The process does not suck any of the flavor or nutrients out of the product.

 

 

Disadvantages:

  • One of, if not “the” most expensive of the options, depending on what you go for. The process of making this kind of food requires much higher levels of technology and takes considerably longer, with the average time to create a batch being up to 40 hours. This lengthy process is often reflected in the price.

 

  • Requires large amounts of water to prepare a day’s worth of food, and cannot be eaten without rehydrating first.

 

 

Whichever ration type you choose, the single most important thing to consider is your situation and how long you’ll be in it. If you’re constantly on the move for a couple of days then M.R.E’s or freeze-dried meal packs would be my first choice, were as freeze-dried food would be the best to stock a long-term survival bunker for example. Ration blocks are always handy to have a couple of days’ worth just in case or in some kind of small emergency kit, but you’ll regret having nothing but these on a long walk as you’ll constantly be hungry.