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Comment by maxerickson | Hacker News Reader

13,600 calories is enough food to actually feed a family of 4 for about 2 days.

The "servings" of the meals listed on their website are about 250 calories. 500 calories is small meal for many adults.

I presume these are supposed to be survival rations. In a survival situation, I damn hope you're on a reduced calorie diet.

Why hope that? Having enough calories is essential to being able to do strenuous work. Taking hunger out of the equation is the point of having a food reserve.

I’d be more concerned about water TBH. Most of us carry a fair amount of fat, enough to survive several weeks without eating. Having rations available extends that timeline a lot. But without drinking water, that’s all moot, since you can’t survive long without that.

Really depends on your timelines. Prep for short-term disaster scenarios on a 1-2 week timelines should be manageable for most, and really we should all be doing it. Prep for longer timelines is much harder.

>I’d be more concerned about water TBH. Most of us carry a fair amount of fat, enough to survive several weeks without eating.

They used to call it "the law of twos" - you can live two minutes without air, two days without water, and two weeks without food.

So yeah, water is the big concern. Two weeks without food is the low end, but electrolyte imbalances can kill you even if you still retain plenty of stored calories.

700 calories a day isn't going to make that much difference over a week or two.

It'll be a little happier.

You can survive on a whole lot less, though. During the last famine in North Korea, the daily ration was 700 calories.

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