Survival Food: Drink Mixes

Just thought I would do a quick little article about some things that I am currently storing as an alternative to soda pop. Need to get off that caffeine, and some of these drinks are good to carry in an emergency vehicle bag.

Teas: Yes, I drink a lot of tea. Most of the time I make a lot of my own herbal mixes for different reasons. Most are made for medicine when I am sick or just for plain enjoyment. Some though I do buy from the store and many are good and not so good. The best ones that I like are Biglows Tea and Native American Tea Company teas. Those two I find consistently taste the best. There are several downsides to this choice for drinks. 1. Many teas contain caffeine, and if you are in an area where water is scarce, you do not want to be losing more water than you take in. Caffeine makes you pee a lot. This is a good thing to keep in mind. 2. A good base of knowledge in herbs really helps, ESPECIALLY if you grow/harvest/forage/purchase in bulk whole leaf teas. It is good to know the effects and side affects of plants and how they affect you! You have to be very careful and know what you are doing. Boxed teas are for the most part ok, but if you plan to harvest wild plants, learn all that you can about them. You cannot make a mistake with something like this. I say this because some poisonous plants look a lot like safe plants out in the wild. It is a good idea to do a lot of reading from resources like Peterson's Field Guide to Edible and Medicinal Plants, get good instructional training. For me studying plants is a lot of fun, I enjoy it. But if you feel this is not the route for you, don't do it. In a survival situation, you cant afford to make mistakes.

Dry Milk: This is good for a lot of stuff, just to drink and to cook with. At $7 a box it easily is a bargain to buy than the gallon stuff if you drink or use a lot of it. There are also some individually wrapped packets that can be put in backpacks for on the go. Which I think it would be a good idea as it does contain protein. The only downside of this is it does taste like skim milk, otherwise it is not bad cold.

Gatorade Dry Mix: Yep, I drink Gatorade quite a bit. I get the big cans of it from walmart for a pretty decent price. Also it comes in individually wrapped packets for those on the go, I have seen them at places like REI. If anyone else knows where I can get those, let me know. It is good for sodium and electrolytes as well as flavoring water.

Emergen-C Packets: Good for adding vitamins to your drink, but not so good as a stand alone. It does have a lot of C in it as well as B vitamins. I do suggest adding it in with something else like juice to make it more palatable. They are a little pricey too, but still ok. This is carried by a lot of grocery, health food and drug stores.

Hot Chocolate: Again it is another option for flavoring water. You can buy them in canisters and individual packets. I just recently got some from Honeyville Farms hot chocolate with marhmallows, though I have not tried it out yet as I am still finishing off a canister of Nestle's Quick that I bought 6 years ago. The powders I find never really go bad. It works well as a nice morale booster. What better way to end the day fighting the massive zombie hoard, or living through a cold winters day than a nice cup of hot chocolate? **/joking** Kids would like this. This you can get most anywhere.

Kool-Aid and other brand mixes: This is my last choice for a drink mix, only because of several things. 1. A lot of them have Aspartame so READ LABELS. 2. Other chemicals like dyes and stuff. I am really odd when it comes to those things. If anything else though, this is still AN option for flavoring water. Many come in individual packets and whole canisters. Kool-aid even came out with a tablet form of mix like that of Alkaseltzer, just drop in the tablet. No need to add sugar and each of the tablets is individually wrapped too, so they do not take up much space. Kids love this, but I am not too keen on having this. Again, this you can get most anywhere.

That is all I have for the basics in drink mixes, if any of you out there have any suggestions, just put them in the comments area. I would like to hear your ideas and findings.