I'd like to start out by saying I don't have any credentials in this area, I'm not a long distance backpacker, professional chef, nutritionist or anything else. I am however a decent cook and I've been pondering the idea of survival cooking and eating for a long time. Just search my name and cooking on the forums and you'll see its a pet topic of mine. I also just bought the book NOLS Cookery and started looking at food to take camping (I just returned to the US from Korea and plan to go camping now that I'm back).

I will assert that while not eating for a week won't kill you, it might contribute to getting you killed. Food gives you energy to keep you warm, it fuels physical activity and both fuels mental activity and calms you down so you don't do something stupid. I will also assert that the better the food you carry is, the better you perform.

So first off, for long trips, over about three days, NOLS recommends a weight based bulk rationing, rather than planning individual meals. That means you take so many pounds of quick bread mix, so many pounds of soups and sauces, so many pounds of pasta and so on per person per day. The goal is to give you enough nutrition for a long trip, but also to give you the option of deciding what you want to eat on the day you eat it, not two weeks in advance. I think this is great for backpacking, but I would modify it for survival by including more ready to eat foods. Ready to eat foods are for the first day or two and for times when cooking isn't an option.

Along with that, came the realization that the super market is packed with foods you can "cook" just by adding water and heating. I knew this already, but since I don't normally eat those kinds of foods I wasn't really that familiar with them. You can get brownie mix, mashed potatoes, chedder broccoli soup, alfredo sauce and on and on in a box, and they all are just a couple cups of boiling water away from a "homecooked meal". Likewise, the supermarket is full of "MRE entrees". Soft retort or plastic pouches of foods identical to MRE's.

The final piece is because these things take so little to prepare, you can eat much better than MREs or Mainstay bars, for less money (spent on consumables), with just a camp stove and a few utinsels. A small pot/frying pan mess kit, a canister stove, a good water bladder, a tupper ware bowl, a small strainer and a spoon are about all you need plus or minus. You also need/want to carry a few consumable tools like cooking oil and a few condiments.

The down side is you do need to do some work, not just tear open and eat. This is also a plus because if you're waiting by your car for three days for help to arrive you have to do something to occupy the time. Also you need to do some practice and planning. You also need to carry a decent amount of water for cooking and cleaning. Finally, these foods are long shelf life, but not indefinite. Say six months in a shot, but probably safe for much longer. But since they're regular foods and inexpensive, rotating them out and eating them for lunch or dinner isn't much of a hardship.

In case you're wondering I've carried a butane/propane canister stove and lantern in my car both in Texas summer heat and Wyoming winter cold. I've never noticed any evidence of leakage or had any performance failures. My lantern and stove were both made by coleman and cost about $20 each (actually I bought them on sale, but they were supposed to be $20). My whole kitchen set probably cost over $100, but includes about ten mini-nalgene bottles for seasonings, a pepper grinder, a whisk, a strainer, a spatula, a fry pan and pot (I only carry one each from a nesting set), a tupperware bowl, an insulated mug, a folding chopstick and spoon set and is completely and totally over kill.

I recommend the book NOLS Cookery, they have a lot of experiance cooking and eating outdoors, and I highly recommend you take a walk through the grocery store reading the instructions on packaged foods. They were both eye openers for me.