Has anyone considered Ensure for their emergency preparation? It's already in liquid form; no need to add water and it does not require heating or refrigeration. Ensure comes in different forms: Ensure, Plus, High Protein, High Calcium and Fiber. I tried the high fiber because it seems to be the most well-balanced and because it is the only one in a can rather than a bottle it is easier to stack. It tastes good but the only problem I've ran into so far is that it is making me thirsty.

http://ensure.com/products/index.aspx

Jeanette Isabelle

I survived on Ensure for four weeks after oral surgery and didn't run into any noticeble problems. Well, other than a hatred for the stuff.

-Blast

They have a rather short expiration date, as far as I know. Those cans are also very heavy (steel).
Another thread entitled The water question probably should address this issue

Doesn't it come in plastic bottles too? I thought I saw some at my parents' house. They use it as a dietary supplement.

I hope you're keeping in mind that Ensure is a food, not a liquid. You will still need to drink enough water to digest it.

Also, it's calorie content isn't exceptionally high: 250 calories. For a 1500-calorie daily diet, you would need 6 a day.

Sue

short shelf life of any milk liek product is always a concern
they do make most of theses in powder forms if you shop around, course again you could always mix protein powder and this and that and "make your own shake".

probably would be easier to eat a "meal replacement bar" or some sort and just carry water.............less weight and the nurtitional contents are roughtly the same

-dont forget your vitamins..........rarely mentioned, but for long term applications, they could really help one to "maintain" daily requirements.........and lessen chances for further problems, yeah i know the content of an average vit is minimal, but worst case senario, even using 1-1.5 /day would at least give you something, course im referring to body homeostasis, not food replacement by any means

I drank a few and it's nothing to write home about. The vanilla ones are like a milkshake, but not nearly as tasty...

I'd rather have a box of Powerbars and some water. <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Personaly, I can't stand "Ensure," but love "Boost." Maybe it just has more sugar, but it tastes a lot better.

I had a similar question a while ago:

Original Post RE: Ensure



Text from post:

"Great question and I have wanted to look into it so here are my thoughts.

First lets take Ensure nutritional supplement. It is basically designed for people that don’t have the wherewithal to consume nutritional foods alone.

A weight gainer such as GNC’s powder weight gainer mix. http://www.gnc.com/productDetails.asp?id=350477 is made for healthy people that are planning on doing a lot of heavy activity (surviving in our case).

Now there is a little give and take here but I think I am in favor of the Weight gainer. Lets take a look at some rough numbers then you can decide.

The numbers:

Ensure liquid form is approximately 250 calories per 8 oz can. For the sake of conversation let’s assume you carry four cans for each day you plan to be “out”. That is a total of 1000 calories and 32 ounces of liquid.

Weight gainer is in powder form. (I hope you can follow this) Weight gainer is approximately 600 calories per serving with 8 oz of water. So let’s just guess that the dry weight of weight gainer for the equivalent of 3, 8 oz servings is 8 ounces dry weight. We know for a fact that 8 ounces of water per serving times 3 servings will be 24 ounces. This gives us a weight of 32 ounces total for water and weight gainer powder.

Bottom line is 32 ounces of weight for Ensure gets you 1000 calories that are put together for the elderly. Or 32 ounces of weight gainer for a minimum of 1800 calories that are put together for active people.

If anyone can come up with a better product please let me know I am very interested.

Cameron
Chicago IL"

Cameron now living in Seattle

In my kit used to Bug Out, i.e.: I need to leave in a hurry and don't want to carry too much weight, I only have Datrex rations, a few water rations +water filter/desinfectants.

Liquid nutrition is probably OK to keep at home, since it doesn't require cooking, if for example electricity/gas is out.

I would advise against keeping Ensure in their Bug Out Bags (BOBs). As stated in the previous threads it is less then ideal because its: heavy, not too high in calories, has a lot of ingredients that would require additional water for digestion and can't be used for other purposes, like irrigating a wound. Additionally, if one would like to share their liquid nutrition with others, they would need to be aware of the allergens present in that liquid nutrition (soy, lactose, preservatives, ... the works)

My big concern would be trying to live on these. Some people get rather *coughs* runny when they switch over to largely liquid weight loss diet, such as slimfast, so I'd want to test these under a controlled, simulated situation. When the stuff hits the fan, that is not the time to be digging a cathole every half hour.

For the same calorie content, you could pack a Hooah! bar. Much more transportable. Again though, the thirst problem.

The only emergency rations I've tried are Mainstay. Weird experience eating those...they're called "low thirst". Something about them makes your mouth water, so there's little need to drink with them. 400 calorie blocks.

Just googled "SOS rations" and found a site that sells "The New Millenium bars" which look like a Power Bar type food...also 400 calories each. I'll probably try some of those sooner or later.

I'd have to agree...keep the liquid supplements around the house if you like, but find something more portable for gettin' outta Dodge.

I carry some Datrex from Redflare (shameless plug) in the bottom of my pack for emergencies and other goodies that I will most likely be eating higher up and/or closer to the outside.