I was lucky that one of my contacts Jayson Moloney of Blade and Stone AU started stocking a very unique product I had to get in on. These are a long shelf-life survival ration biscuit that looks to provide long term reliable food source as an emergency backup, much like the Mainstay Survival ration bricks I've reviewed in the past.
The rations, produced by ;Qinhuangdao Ocean Food CO.,LTD.formerly known as the Chinese people’s Liberation Army No.4003 factory a supplier for the Peoples Republic of China's military, https://qhdhysp.en.alibaba.com The rations themselves are in the form of compressed biscuits individually wrapped and stored in Mylar foil bags. The 4kg tin carries 20x 200g vacuum wrapped packets. When kept in optimal storage conditions; stored at normal temperature in a cool, dry place they have a minimum 24 month shelf life.The ingredients are Wheat Flour, Palm oil (uh oh, that's not eco-friendly) sugar, glucose syrup, salt, and sodium bicarbonate. These are mixed into digestive style biscuits and compressed into blocks. They have been heat-treated but don't appear to have been baked. Following high temperature and high-pressure sterilization, they are suitable for long-term storage and transportation, The biscuits are tightly plastic wrapped and outer-layer foil bagged plastic bag packaging creating a package both hygienic and convenient, suitable for military and civilian use.
Each foil sachet holds four individually wrapped biscuit each pressed into two distinct portions easily cracked to share or for ease of eating or sharing. The vital statistics are listed as follows:The unopened sachets are 8cm (~3") square and 3cm (~1") thick.
Given that each sachet is 200g and has four biscuits, each 50g portion has half these values. So two whole sachets gives you 100% of the daily recommend intake and most of the daily protein and carbs. That's not bad for 400g of dry biscuit. Obviously you'd want water to go with it and I found they go very well with a nice cup of tea.The compressed biscuits are non-moisture absorbent, soft, and easy to break up and eat. but not mushy or crumbly. They are a high energy, rich source of nutrition, making them anti-fatigue, and promote the rapid recovery of physical strength. They are dense with a tight texture which leads to you being more likely to feel full after eating.
Although they are made of same flour used to make wholemeal cookies, but because the high quality of the material used which is more closely refined, the use of the anti-orangutan palm oil softener to lower its moisture content, and not easy bibulous (moisture absorbing) which means even minor punctures to the protective covers will not be too much of a concern , make cookies in the active ingredients can supplement physical strength (ingredients) under the same volume content more, so to make it more resistant to hungry. A long-lasting, sustaining Digestive Biscuit.
The foil sachets are small and sturdy enough to be put in a pocket, or stuffed into the bottom of a bug-out bag. They also fit four into a Platatac FUP dual magazine pouch. That's 800g of nutrition ready to carry your adventure on over hill and dale for a bit longer.The biscuits are tasty and wholesome, my kids liked them and even put smiles on our faces after some arduous crafting on the couch.
They're tastier than the Mainstay rations and have a much nicer mouthfeel. Apart from the palm oil I have no qualms recommending these as survival rations and suspect they will become a hiking and camping loadout staple for us.
BREAKING NEWS: Jason tells me he will be getting in a new order including the pork jerky flavour through the Blade and Stone site. If your dietary restrictions allow you should check it out!
