I've tried Power Bars and those Zone Perfect bars, and they left something to be desired, taste-wise. What do you folks recommend trying, and is there a way I can get a few samples?<br><br>

Craig, is this for casual or serious food supply? The Richmore bars have a wide variety of flavors , and the Luna are palatable and well balanced nutritionally. There isn't a power bar on the market that really measures up for long term storage or " bang for the buck" compared to the Booooring, but excellent Mainstay bars I carry. I do grab a few for preplanned hikes. They are convenient and nice 'comfort food'. They are also comparatively EXPENSIVE. I can get a bar for approx. a $1 vs. a 9 piece Mainstay pack locally from the maker @ $4. If you can't locate these brands locally, let me know, I can always make up a fancy food basket variation on those fruit cake and nut baskets that comes for Christmas-ewwwwww.<br><br>

For more suggestions in the "casual" food supply category, you could try the "Balance Bar" brand (similar nutrition to the Zone Perfect you mentioned). The chocolate and mint chocolate are good as are the yogurt-berry and many other flavors. They have some labelled "outdoor" that don't melt as easitly. They are available at some normal grocery stores and also health food stores.<br><br>

Backpacker Mag did an evaluation of many bars a while back. See below. I usually stick with granola bars myself. http://www.backpacker.com/technique/article/0,1026,2358,00.html<br><br>

Backpacker Magazine did a comparison test a while back, check it out. I usually stick with granola bars myself.<br><br>http://www.backpacker.com/technique/article/0,1026,2358,00.html<br><br><br><br>

HOOAH Bars. Have only been able to find them for sale on EBAY though.<br><br>

Personally, I love the granola and chocolate chip bars, but the knowledgeable folks on the forums I visit seem to dismiss them.<br><br>

Cool! Thank you.<br><br>

Hi Chris,<br><br>This would be for casual food supply, for keeping in the small kit I take with me to the office every day, along with my water bottle. Like if I'm stuck at my work during a snowstorm, or simply caught in a traffic jam when I'm really hungry and need to eat.<br><br>

For whatever it’s worth, I tend to be VERY suspicious about the value of food-related items in any short-term survival kit.<br><br>It’s often cited that you can go for up to a month without food. I’ve fasted for up to 7 days, and many times for shorter periods. After the first 2-3 days you actually gain energy, as the 20+ percent energy “overhead” of your digestive system shuts down. Any weakness in the first 2-3 days seems to be psychological, and real detrimental effects seem to take at least weeks. We didn’t evolve without going hungry for decades or more at a stretch- it may even be unhealthy.<br><br>Hunger makes you much more alert, speeds your reflexes, sharpens your senses, all of which are very good things in a survival situation- that’s what millions of years of necessity will do to an organism- hunger seems in fact to be a cue to the body that you're IN a survival situation. I think it’s reasonable, for short-term kits, to sacrifice the prospect of some comfort for an increased chance of living through the period.<br><br>Personally, for the “urban bugout” kit, the only food-related item I have, or am planning to have, is the P38 can opener. Since my typical wilderness excursions are two days or less on foot from my vehicle, not involving aircraft over mountain ranges and deserts, even for the wilderness kits I’ve decided to forgo the fishing gear and snares- the object of those kits is to get out of the situation, not to become a mountain man. I think the typical tea bags and bouillon cubes in an off-the-shelf kit are sort of a joke- reassuring for those who fear hunger because it's so unfamiliar. At worst, food could lead to a comfortable false sense of security and complacency- which could easily kill you.<br><br>None of this applies, obviously, to deep wilderness situations where it might legitimately take weeks to get out. Nor does any of it apply in the least to water consumption.<br><br>So, you might want to at least give it a second thought. Are you preparing a kit to help you survive, or really worrying about short-term comfort? Might you actually be trading one for the other?<br><br><br>

a late reply - but we have started to pack Nutri-grain Elevenses bars (UK name). Slightly bulky package but moist and very tasty. My son and I have five packed in the butt-pack grabit kit - one for each member of the family and there is a pack in the car (six bars). I carry a couple in my works bag and they stave off hunger quite well when we can't get a system up and have to work late. They are also good when we go day walking as snacks - and being a consumer product they do not cost the earth. Each bar is stamped with a use by date - and having looked at the pack dates the ones in there are to be replaced March 2002.<br><br>The other thing we both have are small nalgene screw top bottles into which we pack our own mix of toasted sunflower seeds, chashews and raisins rolled in brown sugar. These are robust and store well.<br><br>Clive<br><br><br>

Was this a voluntary seven-day fast, or were you forced into it by your situation? <br><br>I'd fall over, well, probably not dead, but in a dead-faint, anyway. When I fast for eight hours before a blood test, I get very weak. I'm built for three square meals a day. <br><br>

In your opinion, how do the "excellent" Mainstay bars you mention stack up against the S.O.S. Food Labs bars I've read about?<br><br>I've found a place on the web from which I can order single-bar samples of Mainstay that should suffice for a taste test: http://www.preparedness.net/noname69.html for $6.25. Seems a little pricey, but what do I know.<br><br>Haven't found the same for S.O.S. - yet.<br><br>

>>Was this a voluntary seven-day fast, or were you forced into it by your situation?<<<br><br>It was entirely voluntary. It was also a long time ago- I had worked up to it by fasting for several shorter periods, in order to know what to expect. I have also, for instance, lived for 5 days on spirulina (farmed blue-green algae, often thought to be close to a perfect food based on it’s composition) tablets alone. I found it easier to fast. After 5 days I couldn’t face the smell of the tablets, much less swallow them. I was hoping they’d be a long-shelf-life backpacking/survival food. The longest I’ve fasted in recent years is 3 and a half days- but now you guys have got me thinking about it again…<br><br>The body does some interesting things when fasting, including getting rid of some noxious stuff, about which I can only say that you’ll be glad that it’s not in you anymore- that takes more than 3 days. I’m told that when it switches to internal resources it also scavenges damaged and diseased cells first, which is one of the things that leads some researchers to think that it might actually be a necessary cycle for long term health. The only negative effect I noticed from seven days was that my throat seemed to constrict a bit, and it was a bit difficult to swallow my first solid meal after it was over. By the second one, it was not a problem. Hunger was never a problem after the third day, often not after the second- unless I smelled food. Talk about sharpened senses!<br><br>>>I'd fall over, well, probably not dead, but in a dead-faint, anyway. When I fast for eight hours before a blood test, I get very weak. I'm built for three square meals a day. <<<br><br>I’m not a doctor, and wouldn’t presume to give advice, but I’ve found that people who report such things tend to fall in to two categories- those brainwashed all their lives to believe that they must be weak if they haven’t eaten, and those who’s diet is high in carbohydrates and sugars and who don’t get aerobic exercise much. For the first group, there’s not much to be done but reflect on the fact that virtually all of your ancestors went hungry on a regular basis- it’s natural, not something to be in a panic about. The second group seems to have trouble physically converting to burning their own fat for energy when their blood sugar is exhausted, because the enzymes in their bodies are adjusted to processing sugars, not fats. That group can work on it by running long slow distances and/or reducing sugar and carb intake- this exhausts blood sugar so the body gets used to processing fats, internal or external, again. That’s not a bad thing to happen once in awhile. <br><br>Believe me, I eat as much bad stuff as most people, but so much of what we eat, me included, is mostly sugar and wheat. Bread is not a natural food- you dry grass seed, grind it into a fine powder, make that into a paste, let the paste bubble and ferment, and put the resulting goop in a fire to kill it. This only seems reasonable because we’ve been doing it for thousands of years- but that’s not long enough for evolution to adjust. Your hunter-gatherer ancestors never ate anything like that. Someone will probably denounce all this as heresy- so be it. Your mileage may vary.<br><br>Quick story- way back when I was doing this sort of thing regularly, I happened to be working with a Vietnamese gentleman and some young guys in a religion famous for it’s activities in airports, and we all talked about fasting. The Vietnamese gentleman had been a jet pilot for the French, the South Vietnamese, and the Americans in the war there. The other guys and I exchanged fasting notes, and one of them asked the Vietnamese gentleman if he had ever fasted, and for how long. He said he wasn’t sure, that he had gone for a month without real food once, but “in the jungle, there’s a lot of green stuff in the water- I don’t know if that counts”.<br><br>You’re a lot tougher than you think you are.<br><br><br>

"I’ve found that people who report such things tend to fall in to two categories- those brainwashed all their lives to believe that they must be weak if they haven’t eaten, and those who’s diet is high in carbohydrates and sugars and who don’t get aerobic exercise much."<br><br>Guilty as charged. Grin. I think I'll let you handle the fasting. I get enough headaches as is.<br><br>

I'm right there with you. 4 hours without food and I start getting a headache, irritable, weak, foggy-headed. Ahh, the joys of hypoglycemia. I'm not in a hurry to test it, but hopefully it gets better as the fast extends.<br><br>