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For those who don’t know, an emergency ration bar is a food designed to keep you alive during some sort of survival scenario. Emergency ration bars have a very long shelf-life, but most importantly, they are calorically dense. Typically, one bar has several hundred calories, making them ideal for bug out bags or survival caches.
There are a couple of downsides to ration bars, though. They usually don’t taste very good, and they’re not very nutritious. In fact, you could say they are downright unhealthy since the ingredients are mostly flour, sugar, and shortening. Yes, they will keep you alive, but you probably won’t feel well.
That’s why I recommend making your own emergency ration bars at home. You can buy them on Amazon, but if you make them yourself, you can control the ingredients and ensure you’re getting everything your body needs to stay healthy. Plus, you’ll save some money.
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There are many recipes out there, but my new favorite is this one I found on the Youtube channel, Prepper Logic. Unlike typical ration bars, these are actually good for you. They don’t have a lot of sugar (although they’re still sweet), they’re loaded with protein, and they taste great!
Here’s the recipe:
Dry Bowl Ingredients:
- 6 cups of oats (1800 calories)
- 2 Tbs of chia seeds (140 calories)
- 3 Tbs of hemp flour (60 calories) or almond flour (120 calories)
- 2 Tbs of fruit powder (optional)
- 6 scoops of protein powder (720 calories)
Wet Bowl Ingredients:
- 1 cup of honey (1000 calories)
- 1 cup of coconut oil (1900 calories)
- 10-12 heaping Tbs of peanut butter (1000 calories)
Instructions:
1. Mix the dry bowl ingredients together.
2. Mix the wet bowl ingredients together. To do this, you’ll need to use the microwave as you go until you have a nice, consistent liquid. Try 25 seconds in the microwave, stir, then another 25 seconds, etc. until it’s ready.
3. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry bowl and mix everything together thoroughly. The resulting mixture should be hard yet crumbly.
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4. Use a 12-cup muffin pan to form the ingredients into “bars”. Then put them in the freezer for 12 hours. When they’re done, they should look like this:
5. Now just scoop them out and either eat them or store them. To store them for the long-term, vacuum-seal them and keep them in a cool, dark location. To make them last even longer, put an oxygen absorber in with each one. Otherwise, just put them in a Ziploc bag in the freezer.
I did the math and found that these bars come to about 550 calories each, which is pretty good, especially since they’re not even loaded with lots of sugar like most ration bars.
To learn more about this recipe and see it made, watch the video below.
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Peanut Butter? Not for those who have a life threatening allergy. How about something that can be eaten by someone that has such allergies.
Raw grains such as oats is not healthy because of the phytates which prevent mineral absorption in the body.. Oats are especially high in phytic acid.
You should not use oxygen absorbers I. Hi fat foods it is not safe and can cause botulism. The suggestion to use PBS powder is good but really any item that has high fat is not long term stable. It’s ok for a few months but not 9k to put in a bag and leave for a year. The recipe does look tastey as a short term item.
thank you for the warning.
If no electricity? How long can these keep? Until the peanut butter goes rancid?
last longer when not exposed to air. no expiration date is necessary NOBODY eats rancid peanut butter because of the smell and taste.
I have 2 questions. (1) What kind of oatmeal did you use? Old-fashioned rolled oats or the quick oatmeal. I use only the quick oatmeal in my baking and it looked like the finer texture of quick oatmeal in your video but I would like to make sure so I don’t waste the other ingredients. (2) What flavor of fruit powder did you use? Can you recommend a source for the fruit powder?
How big is a scoop, what size.
Yeah my thoughts.
Some of these internet recipes are vague and therefore pretty useless
I think it would be best to use a double-boiler to melt the “wet” ingredients. I know that the oils in the peanut butter will go rancid in a year or 2 at room temp. Best to freeze them for long term storage. Adding raisins or other dried fruit sounds like it would make the bars even better. I plan on rolling the mix out and cutting the bars with a pizza cutter.
You can use PBfit as a substitute for the peanut butter. It comes in a powder form so there should be no oil residue.
If vacuum sealed with oxygen absorber how long do they last?
cant think of any reason you would not eat them within a few months.
Well there is sugar in it from the honey. Approx 84 calories which still isn’t bad at all.
Well, you can use a sugar substitute but there will be no bonding like honey provides. Honey will act as a form of glue so it can hold the mixture together.
I would not recommend using microwave. Microwave destroys any nutrician in food chemistry. I would use dehydrated fruits and vegtable chunks that haold their nutrician and and use a stovetop to heat it and mix it. Then they won’t make you feel lousy. The retained nutrician will make you feel good and keep you healthy.
Microwaves don’t destroy nutrition any more than a conventional oven does. If you overheat things, yes, you’ll break down some vitamins. Otherwise, it’s the same thing.
People are still arguing about the safety and other issues of microwave usage, whether nutrition, free radicals, etc. This “expert” says this. And that expert says “that”. Which is typical. And then you have to try to make the best decision you can based on whatever information you can get and hope you make the right one.