Great points JJ. I never knew that about MRE's. I knew they were high calorie but didn't know about the sodium. How about the Mountain House freeze dried meals Arch mentioned.

Good question!

I just did a little research, and WOW! They pack the meals with sodium. I looked at a the Mountain House Chicken ala King first and it has 1120mg (insane amount) of sodium for 310 calories. As a reference, an entire MRE has an average of 1800mg of sodium for an average 1200 calories. That comes to a little more than 3mg of sodium to a single calorie in the Mountain House chicken ala king, and a little more than 1mg of sodium to 1 calorie in an MRE. Both MREs and Mountain House meals vary depending on the menu, but those are good indicators these are NOT good meals when water is scarce, especially not the Mountain House ones.

Mainstay rations bars are 23mg of sodium to 400 calories. That comes to 0.04mg of sodium to 1 calorie. Datrex rations have 0.75mg of sodium to 200 calories. Too small to bother with a ratio.

You must consider the amount of exertion you will be doing. If you are working hard and sweating, high sodium is a good thing. If you are waiting it out in an arid environment and not really doing much heavy physical activity with minimum water, sodium can kill you.

You can prepare for both by packing a sports drink powder high in potassium and sodium with your Mainstay or Datrex.

I pack the Gatorade G3 Recovery Powder. You can get it in individual 1 ounce packets single serving packets. They have a good amount of protein, carbs and electrolytes.

Just checked my Mountain House beef stew and chili mac with beef.
Beef stew=210 cal per serving and 850mg sodium. 2.5 servings per pack.
Chili mac=290 cal per serving and 810mg sodium. 2.0 servings per pack.

Boy we're getting some good stuff now! Gatorade G3 recovery powder. Gotta put that on Arch's list I printed out with an extra sheet for more stuff!

With those amounts of sodium, you would consume daily about 8500mg of sodium assuming you consume 2100 calories in a day.

Daily suggested allowance for sodium is 2400mg.

Better be drinking lots of water and sweating a lot.

Well I guess it's back to square one half!

On to more important matters (besides food). WATER!

Ok. I figure the water filter is not that hard to figure out,a Katadyn hiker or one similar. The Steripen is what is driving me nuts! Which one to get. I've found them from $44.00 all the way to $170.00 for the solar rechargeable one. If Bill Gates was my uncle I know which one I would have! But he's not even close to my family grapevine, so.... I'm just looking for one for emergency use. I figure if the folks up at the old home place can still drink out of a spring without getting sick it should be good in the event of an earthquake if the New Madrid fault decides to cut loose. I figure we could walk the 12-15 miles IF NEEDED, but hopefully we would be able to drive up to the hills.

Go with the Classic or the Traveler. Both take AA batteries, which are easy to find and have many recharge options. The only difference, besides the pricing and design, is the Classic lamp is rated for 8,000 uses and the Traveler is 3,000. Both seal into standard bottles for easy sterilizing.

Thanks JJ, those were the two I was concentrating on.

Ok, here's our plan. The only REAL, MAJOR disaster (I am not counting Tornadoes in this, because thank GOD they are mostly localized)is the New Madrid fault breaks loose we intend to load up the truck and literally head for the hills. I am originally from about 10 miles north of here, and it is about another 2 miles to where Patty lived her entire childhood until she was in her 40's.

Her family has almost 80 acres that includes about a 4 or 5 acre lake that has a spring feeding into it. It has been stocked with channel and flathead catfish along with bass and perch. There are deer and other animals all over the place as the entire area for at least 3-4 miles in every direction is probably 85-90 percent woods. There is also a spring on my cousins place (that borders Patty's families place) and another on the 60 acres Dad used to own (wish he hadn't sold it back in the mid 80's) that also borders Patty's families property. It is as I said up in the hills and although a secondary highway runs right through the middle of it, it isn't that much traveled.

IF we bug out there my problem is there would be 8 of us. I am not worried about food and shelter, but Water for that many people. I'll admit I am cheap. But would it in a case like this be better to save up an extra month or so and go for the Katadyn Pocket filter instead of the hiker pro even though the springs are still used from time to time with no ill effects?

And YES, I know you can't save everyone, but family.... And I know THEY have not given thought to any type of disaster, manmade or nature and living through it and the aftermath.

200 oz?! Yowza. And I thought the 150 oz Gerber Assaults that I have are big.

Skunk I have the Adventurer Opti and like it alot. Its small and fits into the opening of my Klean Kanteen 40 wide-mouth. It uses the same CR123 batteries that I use in my flashlights so minimizes spares. If needed I can pull a battery out of something else also. The MSRP is about $90. They also make a solar recharge case but that pair goes $150. If you have another way to charge batteries then it is unecessary.