GENERAL IDEAS: I'm a vegetarian. I don't live on tomatoes and cucumbers. I eat everything carnivores do, just without the meat. I go to McDonald's, and order a Big Mac without the meat. For those who do eat meat, beef jerky will last forever and is great stuff, especially when you are starving for sustenance. For the rest of us, there is vege-beef jerky available. Great stuff! Vitamins might also be in order for long term hikes to make up for any deficiencies. Check out various company's Emergency Rations. There are dozens of differnet ones. They tend to be pretty expensive, but they are handy. Buy a loaf of enriched white bread (the really light and soft stuff). Take it home, stand the whole loaf on end, and compress it. I can get a whole loaf of bread squished down into a block of bread about the thickness of three or four normal slices of bread. Doesn't work as well with any of that multi-grain stuff, though. One thing to keep in mind is that, while you shouldn't expect to be stranded in the middle of nowhere, you shouldn't expect everything to be just peachy, either. Somewhere in the middle there is a gentle compromise between "free" and "paranoid." I like to call that middle ground "prepared." My friends insist that I am a pessimist, and that I should be an optimist. I'm not a pessimist, and I'm not an optimist. In between that is where I am: a realist. Take extra food.

KING SIZE SNICKERS: Everybody is familiar with the popular Power Bar. Check it out, though. Except for having more fat, which is most cases is bad, but in this case only constitutes more energy, The Snickers tastes better, and has more of everything. It also costs about half as much. Don't believe me? Go ahead and check it out for yourself.

SESAME CRUNCH: If you are a little more of a health nut, and don't want to eat a Snickers, I respect that. Go check out your local health food store, and ask for Sesame Crunch. These little candies are awesome! They are sesame seeds and honey formed into little bricks and individually wrapped. Sesame Crunch, in my opinion, is one of the best all around hiking snacks available. Well, those and honey-sweetened banana chips. This is an actual scan of one Lisa gave to me. I ate it after the scan was complete.

BANANAS: Though they don't last long at all, and won't stand up to any sort of punishment, fresh bananas are one of the best. Try getting banana chips, sweetened with natural honey, which are the next best thing.

GRANOLA: this is available in any health food store by the pound. There are so many hundreds of flavors available that I'm not even gonna start trying to name them, or tell you which one is better.

CHEESE AND CRACKERS: Try the cheese and crackers things that moms put in the kids' lunches. Lotsa fat = lotsa calories = lotsa energy. Just don't live off the stuff. They are really inexpensive, and are easy to eat. They come individually packed, and have 3 crackers and a few spoonfuls of cheese with a plastic spreader stick.