I came across this in my local Lidl discount supermarket whilst buying some Wychwood Hobgoblin Beer.



Eridanous Original Greek Speciality Halva.

0.4 kg compact block of high energy food @ 539 kcal/100 grams

Best before date 09/12/2011 so a shelf life of more than 2 years.

400 grams = 2156 Kcal i.e. enough for 24hrs food energy supply.

Cost was £1.99 or around $3.00

Should go nicely with a nice cup of hot tea of coffee whilst out in the hills.

Ummm, Halva. My mouth is watering. Good stuff, I have been eating Halva since I was a little kid. If you have the chance try Persian Halva, very different from the Turkish or Greek versions. My favorite commercial brand is Joyva Halva Superstore

There are many recepies Wise Greek and have even tried to make it at home once or twice, but never got it quite right.

Pete

Looks delicious. Is it primarily ground sesame seeds mixed with honey and oil?

The ingredients on the packages are as follows;

Ingredients: Tahini (ground sesame seeds), glucose fructose syrup, almonds (7%), vegetable oil, flavouring.

Other versions of Halva were also available in my local discount supermarket such as a marbled version with Cocoa.

I dare not open it for now as there are just to many coffee/hobgoblin dark ale accompaniment delicious calories in such a small lightweight package.



Wow, two times 12lb buckets for $120, thats almost 60,000 Kcal or enough for someone to survive almost 40 days at 1500 kcal per day.

Ed Wardle should have just forgot that Dutch Oven and took along a couple of 12lb buckets of Halva.

You can't just eat dessert though!
Sheesh, didn't your mother teach you anything?

There is one problem with halvah as an emergency ration- you end up rotating out stock too often. Halvah... *drools*

Twice the calories of the one true hill food!


Disadvantage is that Halva is edible, where as Kendle's can only really be used as bait for catching DoE students.

"You can't just eat dessert though!
Sheesh, didn't your mother teach you anything?"

I will quote a very famous bumper sticker:

Life is Uncertain -- Eat Dessert First!"

Sue

That stuff is like 1/2 oil. I would probably not be able to eat more then a slice without dying of heartburn.

I think Mainstay/Datrex type rations are better, since they are made with wheat and are not nearly as fatty.

The nutritional information on the pack gave the following;

Per 100 grams

Energy 2247 kJ / 539 kcal
Protein - 14g
Carbohydrate - 42g
Fat - 35g

The Mainstay ration nutritional information is slightly more difficult to read but for the following 216 (250 gram ??) / 1200 kcal pack



Protein - 4g
Carbohydrate - 57g
Fat - 29g

These figures are for per 100 grams


So the fat content of the Halva is only slightly more than the Mainstay ration. The Mainstay ration of course has a much longer shelf life and is said to be non-Thirst Provoking.

Perhaps the Mainstay ration would be be suited to hotter environments where water may be at a premium and the Halva suited for colder wetter environments where a slightly higher fat and protein content is acceptable.

Then of course there is the famous Kendal Mint Cake.