Whether your car breaks down, you are caught in a blizzard, a chemical spill or gas leak prevents you from getting home, or if there is massive civil unrest, you want to be prepared to make it on your own for a day or two until you can get home or get help. Food is not the most important priority, but it is a biggie, as having something to eat can take the edge off all the stress versus going hungry for a day or two.

Best Survival Snack – in the Woods or Trapped in Your Car

If you’re backpacking, the best snack is Frito corn chips. In addition to providing you with fat and salt and carbohydrates that you need when you are engaged in strenuous activities, Frito’s are food preppers an excellent fire starter. Due to the high oil content, you can put a match to a Frito and it will burn. That means that in addition to being a snack, they can save you the time of scrounging for tinder to start a fire, which you may need to boil water to make it safe to drink, cook food that you have trapped, or just keep warm.

Worst Survival Snacks – Foods to Avoid

Snickers bars or other high sugar snacks are not a good idea. Instead of the spike in energy and blood sugar that they provide, you need sustained energy, which comes from complex carbohydrates and protein. That being said, ensure that you have something, whether in your car or in your food stockpile, that you enjoy and will eat. The worst thing you can do is store in your trunk or stockpile in your pantry things that you don’t normally eat, but figure you would have to get used to in a tough situation.

Tough situations are stressful and any creature comforts you can supply yourself with are going to help you psychologically. Before the year 2000, the “Y2K” scare had many people stockpiling food for fear that society would breakdown due to computer failure. Many bought cases of beans, which they ended up throwing away because they didn’t want to eat them!

The Importance of Survival Snacks

Frequent snacking throughout the day is better for you in a survival situation than just eating three meals. Both with respect to caloric intake (physiologically) and your mood (psychologically), frequent snacking wins hands down over eating three big meals. A high calorie snack before bedtime in a cold environment will kickstart your metabolism and help you keep warm and sleep better. While most people can easily go three weeks without food before they are in any danger of starvation (and some even longer!), going without food compromises you in many ways.