Emergency food

Just curious as to what people carry as emergency food. I've always got a packet of biscuits to hand & a tin of tuna, peanuts & soup sachets stored away. I've read of people swearing by oats, honey or peanut butter.
Not anything only available in the West or big cities rather something easily picked up on the road in remoter countries.
I guess the post is inspired by being about to head back to Laos where I sometimes just can't face another noodle soup.

Nothing at all for me.But I am not on a bike ;-)

Actually,I do carry some tea bags.That is all.If I'm cooking in hostels,some salt,oil etc.

But for a normal backpacking trip,nothing. Partly as I don't want the extra weight, and partly as I don't mind trying anything I find as I go....

emergency? why? most people aren't likely to be riding in places where no
food is available.

i don't normally carry emergency food, but will pick up some snacks if the
next town/village is more than 40-50km. nothing special - whatever's on
hand at the snack shack on the edge of town...cookies, crackers, pickled
mangos, etc.

if i'm taking a jungle trail with no towns for 80km or more, and might have
to overnight, pretty much the same......only a little bit more.....and maybe
some of those extruded meat tubes with corn kernals. yum!

Choudoufu,
Emergency why? I've found I've been caught out when I'm least expecting it.
Shit day, blown tyre arriving in town when all the restaurants are closed or just taking on a route where you expect services & theres none around.
My best example would be crossing the Cardomon mountains from Koh Kong to highway 4 in Cambodia to find no Guesthouses or restaurants at the junction, long story short but arriving in Veal Rein @ 11pm I was bloody glad of that tin of tuna stashed in my bag

My emergency food is for when I get stuck on the road without any food, not for evening meal, etc. Basically something that is always in my pannier just in case.

You can normally find something, but there are the odd times when there is nothing. Normally for me its peanuts in some form. Long shelf life, easily available and plenty of energy and protein. Just what you want to avoid the bonk.

I have a bag of nuts and raisins as my emergency stash for my next trip. As its Korea, I reckon it might stay unopened.

For days that are going to be long and I'm unsure about the availability of food along the way, other than bananas I'll grab a couple bamboo joints of sticky rice, or just one if they are fairly large, at the morning market (if there is one) before heading off. Aren't you seeing any baguettes around?

I've normally got daily food in the panniers, but emergency food no, due to lack of will-power, so it would need to be something I don't find overly nice for it to stay there, but some weight loss won't hurt, that way I can eat more crap when I get home. :)

We never go anywhere without a food stash.
Even in China where there is supposedly food everywhere we often got stuck. Some of them hills go forever and we were thankful we had a stash of muesli and milky drink.

In Laos the food does get tedious. We would carry the sticky rice in a bamboo container and have some coconut drink or condensed milk and mix it together for a good sweet feed.

I always have bananas with me. Any normal day I eat 4 or 5. If there is no nearby place for breakfast I just eat a couple of bananas and drink half a litre of water.

Last year when cycling through central India I ended up having a very long day and towards the end of it I was worried I might totally 'hit the wall' and not be able to finish the day. Then I promised myself to always have a chocolate bar or some such as an emergency energy boost.

Brilliant guy,
I really appreciate the responses & I'm really looking forward to trying sticky rice, condensed milk & bananas. Sounds pretty close to the sticky rice, coconut milk & ripe mango that I absolutely adore in Thailand.
sugarsdaddy - come to think of it, no there weren't many/ any baguette vendors outside the main towns or I would have been eating them when I saw them. Perhaps Northern Laos will be different.
I have to say for me (forget the tuna) having some sachets of soup & peanuts stashed away gives me a lot of peace of mind & even if I don't use them during an entire trip I'm always glad they are there just in case.

I don't carry emergency food. I eat whatever the little stores I pass sell, lately in Latin America it's cola and potato chips.

I'm taking with me usualy a protein bars, and chocolate (when wheather condition wont melt it). Sometimes some cookies :P

Perhaps Northern Laos will be different.

Speaking of Northern Laos and food. Particularly in that are have I had excellent use for a little German booklet called 'Ohnewörterbuch' (Book without Words). It is a handy little booklet with pictures of many things one may need when travelling. Most particularly there are pictures of many types of fruits and vegetables plus other foodstuff.
Many times in the Lao outback I have had to sustain myself on fried eggs (and bananas). Since many Lao don't speak English it is so much easier to get my wishes through when I can point at a picture of what I want.
http://www.amazon.de/Langenscheidt-Ohne-W%C3%B6rter-Buch-600-Zeigebilder-Weltenbummler/dp/3468298382

Bicycle Traveler had a free PDF book with pictures, similar to above, I've used it a few times and rehashed it to suit my needs, but take pictures of what you like along the way and add them to your own picture/pdf book.

http://www.bicycletraveler.bicyclingaroundtheworld.nl/

Once I used the picture pdf, in Thailand for fried eggs, I got a hard boiled egg, but it was mostly raw inside, they dipped it in hot water for a few minutes. After much discussion and picture showing, I got my fried eggs.

take pictures of what you like along the way and add them to your own picture/pdf book.

I actually took pictures of every page in my 'ohnewörterbuch' and have them in my smartphone. That way I can easily enlarge a picture, and I always have it handy anyway.

I used to carry a bag of oatmeal into the mountains. If I ran out of food, the oats gave me 2 days to get down to a store, before I went without. Emergancy food is good to have. If it rains like never before, for 9 days, the roads could become, well, .... ...

As long as I had normal food, the oatmeal was in the bottom of the bag.

Once I added a banana, liked it, and started to eat it more often.

oatmeal
cheap
healthy
travels well

I don't carry emergency food but if i was in your shoes i would take my own stove so you could cook for yourself. That's what intend to do next time I go to india because i dont' like chilli much.

I can't believe I'm the only one here who's into freeze dried meals! They're light and pretty delicious if one tires of the same old same old in a particular country. Not to mention should you wind up short of an intended destination and are living rough with no village or store around. Even the porters were curious how my wife and I were getting by without their assistance when we hiked the Inca Trail (we did it sin una agencia). Whether hiking or biking, I've always got a few of tem in my bag.

It's unnecessary weight.

...Even the porters were curious .....Whether hiking or biking, I've always got a few of tem in my bag.

trying to visualize a few porters stuffed into the bottom of your rucksack....

Sherpas are quite small.....

We usually carry Clif Bars, a kind of nutrition bar(http://www.clifbar.com/). I wouldn't exactly call them "emergency" food. We resort to them when we're too busy for lunch--we want to get across town and see a certain museum before it closes. They run about 240 kilocalories. One will take the edge off your hunger and make you less cranky when you're standing on the street corner with your map trying to figure out which way to go.

On our recent two-week trip, we took 12 bars with us and came home with three.

So nice to see other people staring at Laos with the same eyes! Great country, great people, but terribly repetitive and simplistic cuisine. Here in Yunnan - which in my opinion beats Laos hands down on rice noodle variety and taste - I usually did the peanut or cashew stash (cashews are far pricier and also hard to find fresh in small places, though). However, distances here between towns are far smaller so not carrying food is generally fine. I carried baguette and cheese, tomatoes and a knife in France, nothing in Romania, and nothing in Taiwan.

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