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I recently talked to a woman about her going on a mission. She's going to what sounds to be to be a Hellish part of Africa. They keep the stints short, weeks long and rotate them in and out because, from what I understand from another person, it's ardous, physically taxing, and there's little or no food. Because of cost and remoteness, personal baggage is limited. Fortunately, water is so vital that they do have means of acquiring fresh drinking water, but food is limited to basically what you need.
This provided me with a good mental exercise on what I'd do if I was facing a period of approximately three weeks in a place where there's protein deficiency, lots of green veggies but little else. My bags are limited, and fortunately, clothing weight and other gear is nominal. You don't go hunting and trapping because there isn't much and you'd be taking stuff out of the mouths of the people you're helping, but you'll be receiving mostly stuff to partially sate hunger but it doesn't provide the nutrition.
This is the tropics so preserved food of some form is necessary.
What I'd go with would begin with vitamins. They are light and they'll prevent and vitamin deficiency. At that point I'd be worrying about lipids and protein. Considering the environment, I'd go with Hooah Bars, part of the rations developed my the US military. My rationale, they provide some of what I need in good energy, they're scientifically designed not to have an energy dump effect, unlike chocolate, and they're stable even in terrible environments. I'd also pack some cans of corned beef because that's lipids and proteins and a lot of calories for 12 ounces. But I also noticed that canned butter has 2400 calories in just 12 ounces and canned cheese is 770 in just under 8 ounces. I'm figuring that if each person carried a few cans of each corned beef, cheese and butter you'd be splitting the cans. I'd also pack a lot of freeze dried fruit.
This provided me with a good mental exercise on what I'd do if I was facing a period of approximately three weeks in a place where there's protein deficiency, lots of green veggies but little else. My bags are limited, and fortunately, clothing weight and other gear is nominal. You don't go hunting and trapping because there isn't much and you'd be taking stuff out of the mouths of the people you're helping, but you'll be receiving mostly stuff to partially sate hunger but it doesn't provide the nutrition.
This is the tropics so preserved food of some form is necessary.
What I'd go with would begin with vitamins. They are light and they'll prevent and vitamin deficiency. At that point I'd be worrying about lipids and protein. Considering the environment, I'd go with Hooah Bars, part of the rations developed my the US military. My rationale, they provide some of what I need in good energy, they're scientifically designed not to have an energy dump effect, unlike chocolate, and they're stable even in terrible environments. I'd also pack some cans of corned beef because that's lipids and proteins and a lot of calories for 12 ounces. But I also noticed that canned butter has 2400 calories in just 12 ounces and canned cheese is 770 in just under 8 ounces. I'm figuring that if each person carried a few cans of each corned beef, cheese and butter you'd be splitting the cans. I'd also pack a lot of freeze dried fruit.