Help me find this 'emergancy bar' recipe please emphasis on HIGHLY dehydratable

[mik matra]

I posted in the Food, Hydration and Nutrition but haven’t got a reply so I thought I’d have a go with it here.

I know ’emergency bar recipes are easy to find BUT I need one with a specific parameter….it has to be able to reduce weight significantly with dehydration!!

On a trail about a year ago a hiker said she got onto one of the world emergency organisation’s websites and they had recipes there for ’emergency bars’. She said these bars were designed to give the right amount of carb vs protein and furthermore when she dehydrated them they were ONLY 20g each (2/3rd ounce) !!!!!

The problem is I haven’t been able to find said recipes :-(. Has anyone heard of these emergency bars? Is there such a bar that can be dehydrated to such a low weight????

Ta

[Franco Darioli]

no offence but my wife can’t tell the difference between 5 and 10 meter or 3 and 5 kg.
She is not alone.
By that I mean that there is a good chance that the 20g is not all that close to the real weight of something that will make a difference once ingested.

[mik matra]

Hmmm I understand. That woman on the Overland track we met was a weight weenie and knew the weights of just about all of her gear. Say she was out a bit still maybe mentioning the weight is not the point but the highly dehydratable part is.

[Franco Darioli]

Double post

[Greg Mihalik]

“She said these bars were designed to give the right amount of carb vs protein and furthermore when she dehydrated they were ONLY 20g each …”

Granulated white sugar is about 1 calorie per gram.  It’s pretty “dehydrated”. Protein has the same caloric density as carbs. If you Could find some mythical “granulated protein” to make the perfect ratio for a 20 gram bar, you would need about 150 per day for hiking.

YMMV.

[Bob Shuff]

If something sounds too good to be true…

Maybe showing my ignorance, but I thought rice and beans, both very dehydrated, formed the basis for a lot of third world emergency rations.  I’ve heard they have the right mix of carbs and proteins and amino acids.  It sounds carb heavy to me.  I guess you could argue about vitamins too

According to the USDA…”Carbohydrate provides 4 calories per gram, protein provides 4 calories per gram, and fat provides 9 calories per gram.”

Not an expert, but Iheard fats are hard to dehydrate.

All heresay, and wish I was wrong, but I think this is a unicorn.

 

[Ken Thompson]

A dehydrated bar? Would you rehydrate before ingesting? Would it still be in bar form? Why is the dehydrated part so important to you?

[eric de haan]

Maybe something like this.

[Clue M]

Ultra dehydrated food makes sense as part of a plan to soak up extra water from too much cameling up in the morning.

[Franco Darioli]

The driest you will get is simply by using powder.
Whey protein powder and say maltodextrin for carbs will give you that.
But then of course you will need water to ingest it and maybe something else to make it palatable so in practice something like the Emergency Bars Eric has linked to above (4.6 calories per g) is probably about as good as it gets.

anyway…
“Say she was out a bit still maybe mentioning the weight is not the point but the highly dehydratable part is.”
Well, looking at your original comment :
“and furthermore when she dehydrated them they were ONLY 20g each (2/3rd ounce) !!!!!”
those FIVE exclamation marks would sort of in a round about distant way maybe suggest that THE WEIGHT WAS THE POINT !
You can get around 350 calories in a 100g bar that can be eaten as it is (no adding water nor other stuff to make it palatable) so if in proportion you can’t get better than that (so 70 calories per 20g portions) it does not matter how dry or not the bar is.

[Lori P]

If you dehydrate a hockey puck, you get… a hockey puck.

I shudder to think what your backpacking goals are – mine include not suffering unnecessarily, which includes, you know… food, with a taste. Generally I dehydrate it and take enough that I don’t find emergency rations even need to enter the picture.

I’ll just leave this here. http://tinyurl.com/goqmceb

It looks about as dense and water-free as you’re ever going to find. The five year lifespan argues against it being at all food-like, tho.

[Ryan K]

Just google/youtube emergency ration bars.

The NRG-5 emergency ration biscuit is 129 cal/oz.  The ER EMERGENCY READY Food Ration bar is 137 cal/oz.  $5 for 3700 calories is a pretty good deal, compared to similarly the sports drink powdered meals.   Funny that the ER site says it’s not thirst-inducing. How else are you going to digest that super-dry bar?

Check out this video for a taste test from someone braver than me:

It’s basically flour, sugar, and palm oil.  Mmm, yum!

There are a lot of recipes online for date-and-nut based energy bars similar to a Larabar.  They’re pretty concentrated (~120 cal/oz) and yummy – I’ve made several versions, still experimenting, although I’m finding I now prefer to just have it GORP-style where I can pick out dates and other fruit, nuts, candy, etc. depending on what’s most appealing to me as I’m huffing and puffing up a hill.

 

[Ryan K]

It would be interesting if a zoo did a bear test on those emergency rations.  Maybe a bear wouldn’t even detect it as edible?

[Ryan K]

Not an expert, but I heard fats are hard to dehydrate.

You can’t dehydrate peanut butter or something high in pb concentration.  I tried it. :P

Peanut butter powder has the fat and water squeezed out, so it’s lower in cal/oz than peanuts or peanut butter.  JIF makes a chocolate peanut butter powder I picked up at Market Basket today – 125 cal/oz – it’s pretty damn good, either mixed thick with water or more diluted with almond milk.  I’m gonna see if I can come up with a trail smoothie recipe mixing it with Trader Joe’s flattened bananas.  Sorry for the tangent.  Go back to discussing inedible emergency rations.

[Clue M]

If anything has changed, maybe update the new thread too.

[Bob Shuff]

Not sure what “the new thread” is.

I checked out peanut butter powder.  It was OK as a flavor in drink mixes. Not having the fat is really the roadblock for me.  Peanut butter is also easy to pack and shelf stable – worth the weight in my view.

Along that line of thinking (understood it’s not the Op’s question) – I recall Snickers being a great match for many of the designer energy bars.  For higher temps, I carry a mix of things, like jelly beans, nuts, jerky for emergency rations.  I’ve started carrying a separate emergency rations for when I will heat water, like instant oatmeal, cocoa and of course coffee.

Kurt Papke has a video for a Mocha Protein Shake that I’ve tried a couple of time and has great energy and flavor, and a decent consistency.  There’s lots of options for mixing powdered ingredients for on-the-trail use, and assuming you have access to water it will help keep you hydrated.

[wim b]

I make my own bars and so far have found out the more fat the longer I can keep going, I only use a small amount of refined sugar.

Depending on the activity I dehydrate them in an Excalibur but they become very crunchy, break in the bags and need gentle chewing and rehydrating in your mouth.

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