Review: Mayday Lifeboat Rations
Jun. 11th, 2026 04:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brin_bellway[cw: food (including calorie counts)]
To help you picture it, it looks like this:
---
The main selling point of a lifeboat ration is that you can leave it in a vehicle for up to five years and still have it be edible at the end.
I left three of them in a vehicle for around four years. The seals burst on all three.
I left the fourth one indoors, in my bug-out bag. The seal on *that* one was intact, 58 months after its manufacturing date.
---
(Due to what appears to be a translation error, it is ambiguous whether the minimum storage temperature is *plus* 22°F or *minus* 22°F. If plus, that would be an issue, though I suspect it's minus.)
---
The inside of the 3600kcal block has scoring marks but no individual wrappers. I broke a ninth off along the scoring marks, then broke that one in half, to be a side dish with dinner.
The taste is fine. It's a dry cookie with artificial cinnamon flavouring. Theoretically also artificial apple flavouring, but I only really tasted cinnamon.
Between the lack of wrapper to hold it with and the crumbliness, it's not a *super* mask-friendly food (albeit not the worst). Which is fine in my living room, but not in pretty much any non-test circumstances.
---
(I've heard lifeboat rations are sufficiently nutritionally unbalanced that, when living on them, you start feeling viscerally off very quickly. I ate several other things that day including notably peanut butter (which balances it well), so I did not experience this directly, but it does likewise seem concerning for non-test circumstances.)
---
I expect I'll finish the pack--bit by bit, not living on them--but I'm not planning to buy them again. The five-year rotation is nice, but if you can't actually leave them in your trunk, it's not worth the downsides. (I didn't even mention yet how hard it is to find reputable sellers who ship to Canada at decent rates!)
I'll start taste-testing energy bars from the grocery store and pick something to store a few of in my bag, with a calendar reminder to cycle them out.
To help you picture it, it looks like this:
---
The main selling point of a lifeboat ration is that you can leave it in a vehicle for up to five years and still have it be edible at the end.
I left three of them in a vehicle for around four years. The seals burst on all three.
I left the fourth one indoors, in my bug-out bag. The seal on *that* one was intact, 58 months after its manufacturing date.
---
(Due to what appears to be a translation error, it is ambiguous whether the minimum storage temperature is *plus* 22°F or *minus* 22°F. If plus, that would be an issue, though I suspect it's minus.)
---
The inside of the 3600kcal block has scoring marks but no individual wrappers. I broke a ninth off along the scoring marks, then broke that one in half, to be a side dish with dinner.
The taste is fine. It's a dry cookie with artificial cinnamon flavouring. Theoretically also artificial apple flavouring, but I only really tasted cinnamon.
Between the lack of wrapper to hold it with and the crumbliness, it's not a *super* mask-friendly food (albeit not the worst). Which is fine in my living room, but not in pretty much any non-test circumstances.
---
(I've heard lifeboat rations are sufficiently nutritionally unbalanced that, when living on them, you start feeling viscerally off very quickly. I ate several other things that day including notably peanut butter (which balances it well), so I did not experience this directly, but it does likewise seem concerning for non-test circumstances.)
---
I expect I'll finish the pack--bit by bit, not living on them--but I'm not planning to buy them again. The five-year rotation is nice, but if you can't actually leave them in your trunk, it's not worth the downsides. (I didn't even mention yet how hard it is to find reputable sellers who ship to Canada at decent rates!)
I'll start taste-testing energy bars from the grocery store and pick something to store a few of in my bag, with a calendar reminder to cycle them out.
