Healthy Go Bag Food Ideas And A Delicious Homemade Better-Than-Lara-Bar Recipe

Last Updated on January 10, 2022 by John Martin

What’s the best kind of survival food?

Everybody tells you what food to pack in your go bag. Complete with all the chemical preservatives to aggravate your health issues and make a bad situation far worse. Few people tell you how to packing healthier. Here’s a one-of-a-kind collection of healthy and super practical survival food principles. Plus a downright delicious recipe.

Most people assume their survival backpack should have all the stuff you take camping. Comfort gear, comfort food, or even the normal food you eat (or should eat.) Camping conjures up thoughts of fun… but also heavy stuff you can’t possibly carry on your back. Stuff like fresh fruits and vegetables.

So the backpack you see here? It’s HUGE! This is NOT a survival backpack. Don’t even think of packing a survival go bag like this. Why is this?

Survival could mean walking, (or running to escape), for miles carrying a pack. Survival means you’ll either kill your back or you’ll give up and throw away stuff you really need. Survival is NOT camping.

So I’d suggest you chuck those cans of spam and baked beans out of your pack right now.

When it comes to survival food, you’ve got to get the most calories (and nutrition) per ounce. Unless you’re a stronger athlete, don’t even plan on carrying a stove.

You want ready-to-eat food. The kind that doesn’t require any cooking. This is the first (if not only) food you should pack in your go bag. For most people, this means candy bars and beef jerky. Or at least that’s what I used to carry.

Why I started searching for healthier foods

Fifteen years ago I woke up feeling like someone cut off my foot with a chainsaw. The doctor laid the horrible truth on me: I have gout.

Everyone else enjoys their salty steak and beer without punishment. And these are the fun camping foods, in my opinion.

But my body turns these foods into a mountain of acid I can’t pee out. Which gives me overly sweaty/smelly armpits, bad breath, muscle aches, tiredness, high blood pressure and heart palpitations… just to name a few things.

Now I love to camp and hike. So this totally changed what I put in my backpack.

I’ve tried most of the “healthy” diets: keto, paleo, Mediterranean, Super Shred, raw, vegan, organic, plant based – you name it – I’ve probably tried it.

But you know what’s helped me the most? A combo of the alkaline and anti-inflammatory diets.

I’m not a doctor, but…

So many doctors and health experts lament how our diet ends up making so much acid in our body. To stay alive, your body must compensate and keep your blood at an even alkaline/acid balance.

Your body will even cannibalize your precious minerals and electrolytes to bring balance to the force.

But the sacrificed minerals and electrolytes are the very things that keep your heart and blood pressure working right. And keep the toxins from building up to smelly levels.

And if you have gout? Your body hoards sodium like a deranged prepper. Minerals and electrolytes are the only healthy way to get all this excess sodium out.

Here’s how I know a bit about this.

I once did a lot of distance running. I knew from experience that Gatorade wasn’t any healthier than Coca Cola or Red Bull. But I was completely ignorant about how much of my electrolytes I needed to replace.

I woke up in an emergency room just in time to see a medical team running to resurrect me with a defibrillator. The doc said I had almost zero potassium in my system.

Why most survival foods may not help you survive

Most backpack foods will actually deplete your electrolytes. You need foods that will pull you out of mineral debt.

Sadly, some survival experts have died from cancer and heart disease. Both of which are linked to mineral debt.

Some years after my emergency room incident, I developed a constant heart fibrillation. Dr. Carolyn Dean says this could be because of a severe magnesium deficiency.

Even though the standard magnesium tests will show you’re normal. (There are only a handful of labs in the US that bother to find your real magnesium levels.)

Dean also says current farming methods are depleting more natural foods of magnesium and making us more dependent on supplements.

And I’ve learned from experience (…let’s just say I’ve tried a lot of different kinds…) that her advice about magnesium supplements is true: the only ones that actually help you (and don’t cause diarrhea) are the liquid kind with picometer sized particles that mimic those in natural food.

My cardiologist had a good laugh at this.

But my experience seems to prove Dr. Dean is right: magnesium can help stabilize your heart rate.

I sleep in a smart bed that measures and trends my heartbeat stability. Over the months, I see a direct correlation with my magnesium supplement and a more stable heartbeat.

Another expert, Suzy Cohen R. Ph, says my heart med may be stripping me of the magnesium I’m taking in. Although my cardiologist admitted the heart med has failed to help me, I’m still taking the med on her advice. At least while I do more research. They say it’s a black box med that can have life-ending consequences if you stop taking it without doctor supervision.

Can this story get any scarier? Yes, and here’s what you need to know

There’s another vital electrolyte: calcium. For years, countless experts have been telling us the standard American diet is pouring truckloads of acid into your body.

Many studies later, it’s common knowledge that calcium is one of the electrolytes your body is sacrificing, just to counteract all this acid and keep you alive. Ever heard of osteoporosis?

And the standard American response? Eat more pills. Pour more calcium supplements into your food. Next time you’re at the store, look for food labels that brag about their fortified calcium.

Problem is, doctors say the wrong kind of calcium or an unnatural ratio of calcium to magnesium can send your body into fits of inflammation. In my case, this means unimaginable pain.

And after years of loading my body with acid… any kind of stress, lack of sleep, unhealthy food or dehydration can send me into gout agony.

It’s my hope all of this can help you be more aware and avoid my suffering.

Here’s how I’ve made some (relatively) simple changes to eat more alkaline and anti-inflammatory

Greens-heavy salad for the main course once a day
Olive oil and citrus for salad dressing instead of the creamy white stuff
Himalayan pink salt instead of sea salt or that worthless iodized stuff
Buying no-salt or low-sodium foods and adding my own pink salt
Sneaking almonds, almond flour and almond butter into more dishes
Choosing more dishes that work well with ginger, garlic and turmeric
Coconut oil and ghee instead of butter and vegetable oil
Less sugar (even fruit sugar) and honey but more dates, stevia and brown rice syrup
Dressed up brown rice instead of the white stuff
Quinoa and barley instead of wheat and corn
Avoid MSG and high-fructose corn syrup like the plague that it is
Eat more gluten free
More seeds, nuts and avocados
Work up to daily drink the same ounces of water as half my bodyweight in pounds (180lbs / 2 = 90 oz)
Add a good magnesium supplement to drinking water

Which natural foods have a longer shelf life?

Properly stored dates, nuts and seeds can last at least 6 months. Coconut oil lasts a long time. So do dried fruit and veggies.

From what you’ve learned about me so far, you probably see why I love Lara bars. Just several plain, simple, healthy, gluten-free ingredients. I’ve found they change flavor a bit after a couple years in my backpack, but they’re still edible, for sure.

My Luxurious Homemade Coconut Lime Better-Than-Lara-Bar Recipe

1 Tbsp. Coconut Oil
1 Tbsp. Almond Flour (or 15 almonds pre-ground into flour with a coffee grinder… chunks are ok)
5 Dates (Deglet or Medjool) softened with a bit of water
1 Tbsp. Dried Fruit, such as 1 dehydrated half of a lime

Use a knife to chop the dates and dried fruit into small bits.

Combine all ingredients and mold into shape. Makes one bar.

Enjoy!

This recipe has at least 570 calories and 8 grams of protein.

If you’re making this at home with all the conveniences, go ahead and drop the ingredients into a food processor along with 1 tablespoon of fresh lime juice, the zest of one lime and an optional packet of stevia.

And hey, if my story, the go bag food ideas or the recipe helps you, please share and comment below.