Emergency food for a hiking day pack: what the experts carry and how to pick yours

This page is for you if you're putting together your first day pack and want to know what "extra food" should actually be. It's also for you if you already carry a bar or two and wonder whether there's something better. And if you came here from my Ten Essentials guide, this is the full rundown on the extra food.

Keep in mind that prices change, and so does stock. Check the linked page before you buy.

What matters in emergency food if you get stuck out longer than planned?

So emergency food isn't your lunch. It's the food you eat when a hike goes wrong, like a wrong turn, a twisted ankle or a night out waiting for help. Basically, you want food that still works when you feel bad and when the weather is bad. Here's what good emergency food needs:

• Pick food you'll still eat when you feel sick, cold or tired. Appetite drops up high, and the Institute of Medicine found people eat less above about 10,000 to 12,000 ft, whatever the temperature. So pack food you already like at home. If a bar tastes like cardboard on your couch, it won't taste better on a cold ridge.
• Good emergency food has lots of calories for its weight. Calories per ounce tells you how much energy you carry for the weight. Many thru-hikers, people who walk a long trail end to end over months, aim for at least 100 calories per ounce. Nuts and nut butter reach about 160 to 200, and most bars land between 100 and 145.
• Good emergency food stays edible in cold and heat. A lot of bars turn rock hard in the cold, and chocolate melts on a hot day. Nuts, jerky and date-and-nut bars handle both much better.
• Good emergency food keeps for months in a pack or a car. Emergency food sits around, so shelf life matters more than it does for lunch. Heat shortens it, because the fats in nuts and bars go stale faster when they're warm.
• Good emergency food has some salt. Sweet food alone gets old fast, and salty food is easier to get down when you feel queasy. The National Park Service asks for "salty and easy to digest" snacks for your extra food (NPS Ten Essentials).
• Good emergency food includes fast sugar for someone who's cold. Fast sugar surprises a lot of people, so here's how it works.

And the last thing that matters is how you carry it. Keep the emergency food in its own bag that you don't open on a normal hike. Write the date on it, and replace the food by the earliest best-by date inside.

What do the experts actually carry as emergency food?

So all kinds of people carry emergency food, from search and rescue volunteers to casual weekend hikers. And the people who know the most agree more than you'd expect. Preppers are people who keep supplies ready for emergencies, and bushcraft instructors teach outdoor survival skills. Here's what each kind of person carries, and why.

A Clif Bar Chocolate Chip, the bar that shows up in almost every group's pack. Photo: Clif Bar.

Why are Clif Bars and Snickers the go-tos?

So the Clif Bar is the one food that nearly every group names, and the Snickers is close behind. And there are good reasons for that, even though neither one is a health food.

• They're cheap and you can buy them anywhere. A Clif Bar is about $1.46 and a Snickers about $1.40, and every gas station and grocery store has them.
• Clif Bars and Snickers both hold up in a pack. A Clif Bar can ride crushed at the bottom of a pack for months and still be food. And a Clif Bar doesn't melt in summer heat.
• Clif Bars and Snickers are foods most people already know. When you feel awful, a food you know is much easier to eat. A Snickers also gives a real morale boost.
• The Clif Bar is boring on purpose. Thru-hikers and preppers like that they're sick of the Clif Bar's taste, because then the emergency bar is still in the bag when they need it.

Now there's a flip side to Clif Bars and Snickers. A Clif Bar is only about 104 calories per ounce, and it gets hard in the cold. A Snickers reaches about 134 calories per ounce, but the chocolate melts in a hot pack. Both use syrups or sugar, and the Snickers also has palm oil. But for a bag you rarely open, a lot of people find that trade worth it for the price and toughness.

Why do survival experts use Coast Guard ration bars?

So ration bars were made for lifeboats, and that's why they're so tough. SOS and Datrex bars are made to the Coast Guard's lifeboat food rules. Basically, a ration bar is a dense, crumbly block, a bit like shortbread, in a sealed foil pack.

• They last 5 years. SOS, Datrex and Mainstay all give a 5 year shelf life.
• They handle a hot or freezing car. SOS says its bars hold up from -20 F to 149 F. The Prepared, a survival gear review site, baked ration bars at 200 F for 8 hours to copy a hot car. Datrex bars stayed firm and edible, while SOS bars went soft and sticky, then firmed up again once they cooled.
• Ration bars need no water or cooking. And they're made so they don't make you thirsty, which is what lifeboat food has to do.
• People rarely snack on ration bars early. One reviewer finds Datrex tastes like shortbread, slightly chalky. People don't agree on the SOS bar: some search and rescue volunteers find it bland enough to stay in the bag, while survival instructors like its sweet, cookie-like taste.

Keep in mind ration bars are mostly flour, sugar and shortening. One tester on MREInfo, a forum for ration and MRE fans, felt rough and craved salt after eating more than about half a day's calories in lifeboat bars. So if you carry ration bars, add something salty.

SOS 3600 calorie ration packs, nine bars in each. Photo: SOS Food Lab.

Which heavily advertised emergency food brands don't experts carry?

Some of the most advertised emergency food brands barely show up with the people who know the most. Each brand name below links to the maker's home page, so you can look for yourself.

• 4Patriots is advertised all over YouTube, but none of the expert groups pick its food bars. The Prepared tells readers to avoid 4Patriots bars because their Coast Guard claims aren't verified.
• ReadyWise runs TV and store ads. Only the bushcraft instructors mention it, as a freeze-dried pouch for a surprise night out, and those meals need water and a stove.
• Nutrient Survival sponsors a lot of survival podcasts, but no group names it.
• Peak Refuel shows up at the top of paid search results, but no expert group picks it for a day pack. Its meals also need hot water.

So ultimately, a big ad budget doesn't mean better emergency food. The ration bars experts actually carry, SOS, Datrex and Mainstay, hardly ever come up with casual shoppers.

Long shelf life or clean ingredients: which matters more to you?

So here's the trade-off, and it really comes down to what matters to you. The foods that last longest and take the most abuse are not clean foods. By clean, I mean no palm oil, no seed oils like canola, soybean or sunflower oil, and no refined sugar or syrups. Honey, maple and dates are fine under that rule.

• If you want long shelf life and toughness, ration bars last 5 years, even in a hot car. Clif Bars survive almost anything. But every ration bar and the Clif Bar have sugar or syrups, and most ration bars have palm shortening.
• If you want clean ingredients, date-and-nut bars, nut butter, nuts and meat sticks all pass the rule. But they keep for about 9 to 12 months, so you replace them every year or sooner. Heat shortens that, because nut fats go stale faster when they're warm.

Basically, for fast energy, honey and dates work the way table sugar does. The American Diabetes Association lists honey right next to table sugar as a way to bring low blood sugar back up (ADA). So what clean food really costs you is money, and the chore of swapping the bag every year.

So ultimately, if you'll forget about the bag for years or keep it in a car, ration bars or Clif Bars make sense. And if you'll put a reminder on your phone to swap it every 9 to 12 months, the clean picks below do the same job.

Which emergency food should you pack?

So here are my picks for each kind of person, with my reasons, so you can figure out what makes sense for you.

The grab-and-go standard: what most experts carry

So the grab-and-go bag is the easy route. You can buy everything at a gas station or grocery store, and it holds up in a pack.

Something to note is that Honey Stinger Honey Waffles come up a lot too. They're 140 calories in a thin 1.06 oz waffle, about 132 calories per ounce, at $25.49 for 16 (about $1.59 each). But OutdoorGearLab found they turn brick-hard in the cold. Honey Stinger Classic Energy Chews ($31.99 for 12 packs) are soft and easy for kids to chew. The waffles fail the clean rule because of palm oil, brown rice syrup and sugar. And the chews fail it because of tapioca syrup, sugar and sunflower oil. But if clean ingredients don't matter to you, both are easy, light picks.

A bag for the car or long storage: Coast Guard ration bars

If your emergency food lives in a car, or you know you'll forget to swap it, ration bars are made for exactly that kind of bag. Each maker sells them by the case on its own store.

Preppers also carry New Millennium Energy Bars, which come vacuum packed in 12 flavors. SOS Food Lab sells them at $73.45 for 24, about $3.06 a bar, and they also keep 5 years. SOS Food Lab's store doesn't give their calories, weight or ingredients, so they're hard to compare with the bars above.

So ultimately, one Datrex or SOS pack covers a full extra day, and then some, for about $9 to $15. Just remember every ration bar here fails the clean rule, and add something salty.

Clean bars: no palm oil, seed oils or refined sugar

These bars pass the clean rule. Swap them by the best-by date, which for most of them is 9 to 12 months out.

The Kate's Real Food Lemon Coconut bar, sweetened only with honey. Photo: Kate's Real Food.

Something to note is that the RXBAR Chocolate Sea Salt also passes the clean rule. It's dates, egg whites and nuts with no added sugar, at about $21 for 12 at Walmart, or about $1.77 a bar. Clean eaters, search and rescue volunteers and thru-hikers all name it. But at about 109 calories per ounce it's the lightest bar here, and long-distance hiker Jennifer Pharr Davis found it gets pretty hard in cold weather.

The KIND Caramel Almond & Sea Salt bar looks clean, but it has glucose syrup, cane sugar and palm kernel oil. KIND's own page shows no price. And Trail Butter Maple Syrup & Sea Salt packs ($35.99 for 12, about $3 each) are almonds, cashews, avocado oil and maple, at about 172 calories per ounce. Trail Butter packs are close to clean, but they also have sunflower lecithin, an ingredient from sunflower seeds that keeps the blend smooth.

Whole-food people: nuts, nut butter, jerky and cheese

The people who know the most, like guides, polar travelers and hunters, mostly carry real food rather than bars. So these picks are the packaged versions of that food.

And for something savory, add meat or cheese:

• Chomps Original Beef sticks are $25.60 for 10 (about $2.56 each). Each 1.15 oz stick has 100 calories and 10 g protein, and keeps 365 days sealed. At about 87 calories per ounce, it's a salt and protein food, not a calorie food, so pair it with nuts.
• EPIC Beef Sea Salt + Pepper bars are $31.99 for 12 (about $2.67 each), 130 calories in 1.3 oz, about 100 calories per ounce. EPIC doesn't list a shelf life.
• Moon Cheese Cheddar Believe It is crunchy dried cheddar, $14.99 for the medium size. It needs no fridge, won't melt, and has about 180 calories per ounce. Moon Cheese doesn't say how many months a sealed bag keeps.

Keep in mind regular salami and hard cheese are day-hike food, not months-in-the-bag food. The USDA's sausage guide gives hard or dry sausage 6 weeks in the pantry unopened, and 3 weeks in the fridge once opened (USDA FSIS, archived).

Animal-based eaters: meat and fat bars

Meat and fat bars are newer, and you won't see them in many experts' packs. They're the packaged version of pemmican, the dried meat and fat that polar travelers and people who eat mostly meat carry. Basically, they're the densest clean food you can buy in bar form.

Carnivore Bar Everyday Bars in all three flavors, with the Salted bar at the bottom. Photo: Carnivore Bar.

If you want true pemmican, the Steadfast Provisions Pemmican Meal Bar in Simply Salted is $19 for a 4 oz bar with 750+ calories, about 188 calories per ounce. It's dried beef, beef tallow and salt. Steadfast gives no shelf life number, and one buyer says it gets oily at room temperature, so the Carnivore Bar Everyday Salted is the easier one to carry.

Nut allergy: what's confirmed nut-free

So if you have a nut allergy, these are the foods where the maker has said something about nuts. Peanuts and tree nuts are two of the nine major food allergens, and reactions can be life-threatening (FDA). So keep in mind only you and your doctor can decide what's safe for a severe allergy.

• Moon Cheese: Moon Cheese says it's made in a nut-free facility. It contains milk.
• SOS ration bars: SOS Food Lab says it's a nut-free facility. The bars fail the clean rule.
• Datrex ration bars: Datrex says its bars are free of peanut products. The bars fail the clean rule.
• Chomps Original Beef sticks: Chomps says they're free from the top 9 food allergens, which include peanuts and tree nuts. Its facility handles soy, milk and sesame, and Chomps says nothing either way about nuts in that facility.
• Carnivore Bar Everyday Salted: the ingredients are only beef, tallow and salt. Carnivore Bar hasn't published a facility statement, so ask Carnivore Bar directly before relying on the bar for a severe allergy.
• Equip Prime Bar Mixed Berry: no peanuts in the recipe, and it's dairy free. But Equip makes its peanut flavors in the same facility on separate runs, so it's not for a severe peanut allergy.
• Bee Inspired honey sticks and Maple UnTapped: each has one ingredient, honey or maple syrup. But neither maker says anything about nuts in its facility, so ask before relying on them for a severe allergy.

Something to note is that all of these contain nuts or may contain peanuts: both Larabars, Kate's, Rise, RXBAR and Mauna Loa. And Once Again Sunflower Butter packs ($10.99 for 10) are sold for nut-free schools, but they contain cane sugar and sunflower oil.

Vegetarian and vegan

• Vegan on a budget: the Larabar Cashew Cookie (about $1.07) is just cashews and dates, and Larabar labels it vegan.
• Vegan best value: Once Again Organic Peanut Butter packs ($10.99 for 10) are only peanuts.
• Vegan and dense: Mauna Loa Sea Salt Macadamias ($24.99 for 12, sold out on the maker's store right now) and Wonderful Pistachios No Shells ($8.68 for 9) are just nuts and salt.
• Vegan for the car: Datrex says all its ration bars ($181 for 20 packs) are vegan, but they fail the clean rule.
• Vegetarian, with honey or milk: Kate's Lemon Coconut ($38.99 for 12) has honey, and the Rise Bar Almond Honey ($30.99 for 12) has honey and whey. Moon Cheese ($14.99) doesn't name the source of its cheese enzymes, so a strict vegetarian should ask the maker.

Fast sugar for every bag: honey and maple

Whatever else you pack, add fast sugar. The Mountain Rescue Association's examples, like glucose gel, Lifesavers and Gatorade, all use refined sugar (Mountain Rescue Association). For a clean option, honey works as fast sugar, since the American Diabetes Association lists honey as one way to treat low blood sugar (ADA). And maple syrup is the same kind of simple sugar.

Bee Inspired raw honey sticks, 18 in each box. Photo: Bee Inspired.

How do all these emergency foods compare?

So here's every food on this page side by side. "Clean" means no palm oil, no seed oils and no refined sugar or syrups. Calories per ounce is just the label's calories divided by its weight in ounces.

How much emergency food should you pack, and how?

So the usual rule is an extra day's worth of food that needs no cooking. That's what the National Park Service asks for (NPS Ten Essentials). RMI Expeditions, a Mount Rainier guide company, asks its climbers for about 1 lb of food per climbing day. For a day hike, I'd aim for a sealed bag of about 2,000 calories, which is about what RMI's 1 lb of food holds.

Here are three example bags, so you can see what that looks like, with the prices from above added up.

• Grab-and-go bag, about $16: 4 Clif Bars, 4 Snickers and 6 honey sticks. That's about 2,090 calories.
• Clean bag, about $16: 4 Larabar Peanut Butter Cookie bars, 4 Once Again peanut butter packs, 2 Maple UnTapped packets and 1 Chomps stick. That's about 1,960 calories.
• Car bag, about $14: 1 Datrex 3600 pack and 6 honey sticks. That's about 3,690 calories, enough for more than one extra day.

And here's how to pack it:

1. Put the emergency food in its own bag. A zip bag or a small drawstring bag works fine. Don't open it on normal hikes.
2. Write the date on the bag. Use the earliest best-by date of anything inside, and put a reminder on your phone.
3. Swap the food before that date. Eat the old food on a normal hike or at home, and refill the bag.
4. Keep the fast sugar where you can reach it. A few honey sticks or a maple packet in a chest pocket stay soft and easy to squeeze in the cold.
5. Mind the heat. In summer, keep chocolate away from your back. And if the bag lives in a car, swap clean food at least every change of season, because heat makes nut fats go stale faster.

Questions people ask about emergency hiking food

Is a Snickers good emergency food?

Yes, as long as you don't mind the ingredients. A Snickers is cheap, dense at about 134 calories per ounce, and you can still bite it frozen. Guides and search and rescue volunteers carry it. The downsides are that a Snickers melts in heat and has corn syrup, sugar and palm oil. But for a cheap bar you can bite frozen, it's hard to beat.

Can you eat an energy bar past its best-by date?

A Clif Bar usually stays edible past its best-by date. But the fats in nut-based bars go stale faster, especially in heat, so I'd swap the bag by the date rather than test it in an emergency.

Are ration bars overkill for a day hike?

For a pack you use every weekend, a full ration pack is a bit much, since it's 3,600 calories and weighs about 1.6 lb. Where ration bars shine is a bag that sits in a car through summer heat and winter cold. You can also carry just a few of the wrapped Datrex pieces instead of the whole pack.

Should jerky be my main emergency food?

No, keep jerky as the salty extra. Jerky and meat sticks only have about 80 to 100 calories per ounce. And when you're helping someone who's cold, the Mountain Rescue Association says to skip hard-to-digest food like beef jerky (Mountain Rescue Association). So pair jerky with nuts or nut butter for the calories.

What should I pack for kids?

I'd pack what your kids already like, because a tired kid is a picky eater. Soft foods like Larabars, Honey Stinger chews and peanut butter packs are easy for small hands. And add a few honey sticks for fast sugar.

Do I need extra water for emergency food?

Ration bars are made so they don't make you thirsty. But salty food, nut butter and jerky all go down easier with water, so carry extra water too. Extra water is another of the Ten Essentials.

What's next after you pack your emergency food?

1. Go back to my Ten Essentials guide to pack the other nine.
2. Read my guide to layering for a mountain, since warm clothes and food work together on a cold night.
3. See my guide to starting mountaineering from zero for where this fits on the whole path.

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