My personal opinion is that in your 72 HOUR KIT, you want foods that can be eaten without cooking, without heating and can be eaten while walking or traveling. You don't know what kind of a situation you will be in and if you will have access to heating elements.
Here are 6 different options with their pros and cons.
1. MRE's (Meal Ready-to-Eat)
- Pros - Variety of meal choices, is a complete meal (main dish, crackers, peanut butter, salt, etc), is a hot meal, long shelf life.
- Cons - Expensive, bulky, requires heating, does not come with a cooking source, may not be the type of food your body is used to eating, cannot be eaten "on the go"
- Pros - Variety of meal choices, is a hot meal, comes with it's own heater, and water for cooking, is a complete meal
- Cons - Bulky, expensive, not a long shelf life, requires heating, cannot be eaten "on the go"
3. Dehydrated Meals
- Pros - Variety of meal choices, is a hot meal, very long shelf life.
- Cons - Expensive, requires heating, does not come with a cooking source, cannot be eaten "on the go", requires water to "cook"
4. "Regular Food" - Foods that you'd pickup in the grocery store, such as Hormel "Compleats"
- Pros - Variety of meal choices, is a complete meal, is a hot meal, more like the kinds of food your body is used to eating
- Cons - Expensive, bulky, requires heating, does not come with a cooking source, 1 to 2 year shelf life, cannot be eaten "on the go"
image from ehow.com
- Pros - Nutritious, lasts indefinitely, easy to make, cheap, can be molded into the shape you want (i.e. bars, loafs, etc), can be eaten "on the go", does not require heating, compact
- Cons - Is not a hot meal, you must make it, just one flavor so you may need to supplement with snack foods.
6. Emergency Bars
- Pros - Nutritious, shelf life of 5 years, inexpensive, can be eaten "on the go", does not require heating, compact
- Cons - Is not a hot meal, just one flavor so you may need to supplement with snack foods.
2 comments:
I have never seen an MRE without a heating source. Could you provide your source of heaterless MRE's so I can avoid ordering from them?
They generally have a light green plastic bag that you place the main entree in and add water. This causes a chemical reaction that heats the entree. The con in this case would be that it requires water to heat, though it is only a small amount of water.
I don't have a source for MRE's (heaterless or not) Most of the things I buy are from Emergency Essentials. I would just double check before buying. Sorry I can't be of more help!
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