Er, no.<br><br>I’ve been the minority opinion on this before, and there are lots of people that feel otherwise, but there are currently no food related items in my PSKs other than a P-38 can opener that doubles as a striker for the ferrocerium rod. No Mainstay rations, no candy, no fishhooks, no snares, no aluminum foil, no bouillon cubes, and no teabags. If I were flying over the boonies regularly I might reconsider, but food is such a low priority for short-term survival that I consider such things "comfort" items- and comfort is not the objective.<br><br>Tea has no nutritional value (in terms of calories, anyway). It’s a diuretic, which could easily contribute to dehydration. If it kills pain, I haven’t noticed that effect, and it certainly can’t have been much pain. If a tea bag stops bleeding, it was going to stop anyway. I haven’t tried it as tinder, so I don’t know if the filter paper will catch a spark, or flame from a glowing spark- I would think ordinary paper would work better.<br><br>My personal view- and again there are many that disagree- is that comfort items have no place in a PSK designed for short-term emergencies, because seeking comfort and short-term survival are too often at odds. A cup of tea is less likely to keep you alive in an intense survival situation than feeling complacent and letting your guard down is to get you killed. The object is to get through the situation still breathing by whatever means, not to set up light housekeeping. <br><br>FWIW, I drink a LOT of tea (Japanese style green tea) during the course of a normal day, so it's not that I wouldn't miss it.<br><br>Let me say again, there are plenty of people who disagree, and I completely respect their right to make their own choices. Many of the arguments resulting from my previous posting (which got migrated to another forum), though, seemed to distill down to the fact that they'd rather be comfortable, physically or psychologically.<br><br>Here's what I posted on 10/2:<br>_________________________<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>