Food is important. On a milsim though, kitchen space and time are both limited. MRE’s are an option, but are expensive and not to everyone’s liking. However, a trip to the local supermarket can get the job done for much less, and give you more choice and avoid playing ration pack lottery with the meal selection.

Sometimes, there just isn’t an onsite shop. No burger van will appear in the middle of a firefight. Jamie Oliver isn’t going to sort you out with a Vietnamese bun cha with lemongrass beef. And from experience, trying to explain to a pizza delivery driver exactly where the site gates are at 10pm is a pain in the ass. So, you need to be self sufficient in the field and be able to feed (and water) yourself for 24hrs until you hit that KFC on the way home. This is also where all the cool surplus cooking kit comes in handy that you lug around just because.

A milsim or Military Simulation, is just that; it’s not a caravan holiday so don’t try to elaborate on your diet for two days. Food here is just fuel and you need to keep yourself going with the least amount of fuss.

I do find with ration packs, which are incredibly high calorie, that there’s always loads extra at the end that doesn’t get used at all and I’m never feeling hungry by the end of the event. I do wonder if soldiers basically spend their entire 24hrs just eating and making drinks because the British Army ration packs in particular seem to suggest so. There are other useful bits in there such as a plastic spork, matches and water purification tablets that are sometimes worth hanging onto, but overall it’s probably a bit much just for airsoft needs.

You can go and buy other ready meals if you want to split a ration pack down and essentially take the important bits, but they’re not cheap either. This example I found in a local outdoors store has only 465 calories, and we still want lots of calories because we’ll be burning them off, so I think it’s pretty easy to do better for a lot less. With these boil-in-the-bag ready meals, you’ll be expecting to set up a stove or fire anyway so it’s not like it’s much easier, you’re just paying more to think that it is.

Now, before I go into the food suggestions, there are some things that will require cooking and some that won’t. I don’t want to detract from the fun of making fire and cooking on it, but sometimes there’s no need to carry all that cook kit if you don’t mind cold food, such as in warm summer months, or on occasions where lighting a fire or stove isn’t practical (stealth required, regulations prohibiting fires). Ideally, I’d take a stove anyway and it’s worth having one in your kit in the long term. In colder weather, hot food is not only a morale boost but also helps your resistance against the cold – it does warm you up just before getting into a sleeping bag and it can be a life saver. So there are times when you may need to carry a stove.

For milsims and the whole issue with having to carry a weighty kit, I highly recommend keeping it as simple as possible. My favourite options are always solid fuel burners, such as hexi type stoves, because you can get away with a smaller amount of fuel than a gas canister, and I find it annoying that gas canisters are circular because it’s more difficult to fit into pouches, depending on your loadout. If I’m doing a family camp or hike, I’ll take something else (yes I do have gas stoves) but on a walk up a mountain with my kids I’m not having to also carry guns, ammo, radios etc so I give less of a fuck about heavier setups. For milsim, light is definitely right.

Stoves and cooking stuff

Top two in my books are the classic British Army style Fire Dragon stove;

This is, at the time of writing, £3.50 which is as cheap as you’re ever going to get. It folds into a flat square shape which is very easily stored in pouches, and in the second picture you’ll notice the fuel tablets (either the gel fuel pictured or hexi tablets) fit inside, which is excellent for packing. Note, the solid tablets stink of fish so keep them bagged up. Both will boil a litre of water per tablet, so it’s not a campfire to keep you warm through the night but it also means you don’t have to wait long for it to burn out so you can pack away. It also won’t stay on for 2 hours to boil up some haggis, but the whole point here is to make quick meals so you’re not out of action long. Quick, cheap and easy. Of course, you’ll need something to cook or boil water in, and the square British Army style mess tins are cheap and easy too, and being square the stove then packs away inside the smaller tin. You will likely only need the one tin as well; don’t carry what you don’t need. Alternatively, if you can stow a round pot, pick up a 750ml titanium cook pot like this one from Amazon.You can get them for under £20, don;t pay extra for the different brands because a metal pot is a metal pot, and they’re all probably out of the same factory anyway

As an alternative, my favourite option is the BCB Crusader cook kit which I’ve mentioned in several blogs now.

As with the Fire Dragon, it’s fuelled by the same gel or hexi tablets but I love the metal mug/pot for cooking, eating and drinking out of, and it nestles together brilliantly. It fits into a water bottle sized pouch with a water bottle included, so everything is packed nicely but it doesn’t have much space inside for fuel storage etc so you’ll need a second, small pouch for your other bits and pieces. The trade off is that your water supply is in there too and doesn’t take up a pouch elsewhere. If nothing else, the crusader mug on its own is a sparkling bit of kit and you could get it on its own and combine it with the dragon stove for a more compact kit, that’s kidney-shaped so it’ll fit on a belt order comfortably.

Also, get a couple of squeezy bottles like these travel containers and put washing up liquid in one, and if you’re frying meat or anything put cooking oil in the other. Write on it in a marker pen what’s in it, so you don’t accidentally use the wrong bottle at the wrong time. In this “kit” I’d also recommend adding matches or a lighter in a sealed plastic bag, as well as a wash cloth (cut it in half, you don’t need a full one) to clean your kit out afterwards. Lastly, get a spork or 3 piece cutlery set to eat with.

The Food

I’ll split this into four sections – breakfast, lunch, evening meal, and drinks. Because that’s an easy way to split up your scran*.

*colloquial term from the north of England, referring to any kind of food.

Everyone has different needs, and often there’s a temptation to just go all out on sugar and live off Haribo jellies for two days but it leaves you feeling like shit and not smashing tans like you should be. A balanced intake will get you through your physical exertions much better and keep you going for longer, so think of slow release carbs, high energy fats and the like. You can go to the gym the rest of the week if it bothers you. Most of the weight in our daily foods is water, and if you’re set up correctly you’ll have a good supply of water on you to add to dehydrated food, to mix it on the go.

While you’re at the supermarket, pick up some zip lock bags for all your food. Most food packaging is prone to bursting, and isn’t always the most space-efficient – zip lock bags are more malleable and you’ll fit them better into your kit. Also, you wouldn’t want to be carrying a kilogram of pasta in a bag off the shelf if you’re only going to eat 100g of it (average meal portion – you can weigh it out if you like).

1. Breakfast

First meal of the day, and always the most important. How you approach it might depend on how the previous night was. Get much sleep? Woken up cold and wet? Slept in and got no time to actually make anything up properly because you’re still half asleep? That last one is important especially if you need to move out – you’ve got to pack all your camp kit as well and get yourself up and running quickly, so messing around with a stove might not always be possible. (Sleep is important, as tempting as it is to stay up late scrolling through Instagram videos, and having the discipline to go to bed early and get some rest will help you out a lot the following day.)

My top choice on a morning is/are “overnight oats”. This is something that will need prepared ideally the night before and will need to be stored chilled, so this meal is probably more one for the first day of the trip. Basically, grab a suitable leakproof container (bag, box) and tip a portion of dried oats or granola in. Then add milk or yoghurt, or a combination of both. Mix it up and slap it in the fridge. The idea here is that the oats soak up the yoghurt and milk overnight, giving you a sort of porridge mixture without cooking anything. Into this, for a boost, you can add dried fruit, choc chips, honey, maple syrup or whatever you like. It all adds flavours and calories.

Granola on its own is a great high calorie food and you can take a bag of powdered milk to add to water, if you want to mix up some more containers during the weekend. Fresh milk will go bad quickly, so don’t risk it. Powder is your friend. Because it doesn’t require cooking, it’s one that can be put in your kit to eat later when it’s done soaking up the liquid.

You can get instant porridge mixes too, for a hot option if you’re able to boil up some water. Most supermarkets sell boxes of porridge sachets, each one being enough for a meal. And again, you can add stuff in for extra flavours/sugars/caffeine (there’s always a way to add more caffeine). Hot food is very welcome on a cold morning if you have time to make it.

You could feasibly bring bacon, sausages etc and do a full fried breakfast but it’s time consuming and that smell will drift, attracting rats, large predators, or the enemy team. If you want to avoid cooking altogether, cereal bars are everywhere and are the fastest, easiest thing to carry and eat. Cereals and nuts will give you slow release energy, and there’s usually a good dose of sugary stuff in there too and each bar is typically 200 calories, so you can stack a few together for a big chunk of your daily intake. And no cooking required, so if you want to go stoveless for your trip, they’ll help keep your kit weight down.

Avocado on toast is a very difficult breakfast to make in a muddy field, and as nice as they might be, fruits are generally going to get bashed or squashed and that’ll bring many ants into your trousers. You can afford to be unhealthy for a few days.

2. Lunch

Lunch is a very bad time of day to be getting a fire going, because usually you’ll be in the middle of the action. Some events may allow an amount of time off the field to have a break, but ideally you don’t want your whole team abandoning all objectives just to get a bbq on the go while the sun is out. It might be that you have an intelligent commander who rotates squads so there’s enough cover for you to fall back a bit and have a breather, but more often not because everyone is jacked up on adrenaline and fighting for points.

Therefore, instead of suggesting a main meal, I’d suggest a number of smaller snacks that you can quickly eat without really stopping the fight. Lots of little lunches perhaps. At weekend events I used to make do with a cold tin of beans and a fork, and at AI500’s nothing more, but there are other options that pack a bit better into pouches for you to carry during the game. Such as…

• A tin of cold beans. I have a water bottle pouch though.

• More cereal bars. Or protein bars. Just think of it as an extension to breakfast. Or second breakfast.

• Flapjack. High energy cereals and sugar/syrup. They fill you up well when you’re hungry. Nothing worse than trying to assault a position with an empty, rumbling stomach. It’s not stealthy either.

• Cheese. High fat, high energy foodstuff that will possibly have an effect on your sleep afterwards. Don’t sleep with your RIF beside you just in case. You can usually find individually wrapped portions, or squeezy cheese in a tube but on the whole it tastes like rubberised vomit.

• Canned fish. A lot of canned fish has a decent amount of food compacted into a small area. Some of it also comes in foil pouches which are even better for storage. Do check that it’s not cat food first; always read the label and be especially careful if you’re playing in another country with a different language.

• Soup. Prepped beforehand, you can pick up a good thermal flask to keep it warm for lunchtime, which is a godsend in winter conditions. Pouches of soup powder take up next to no weight or space and fit easily into pockets.

• Beef Jerky. A bit chewy but tastes good, satisfies your protein needs and packs down small.
• Nuts – 100g of nuts is a good 600 calories, they’re not the quickest thing to eat during a gunfight though. But a great source of energy and they burn really well – I remember that from physics class. Do what you like with that information…
• While we’re on about nuts, sesame seed bars are a good mix of nut and flapjack.

3. Evening Meal

Speed is still of the essence on an evening, although a lot of games tend to ease off in the evening as some players get tired, others are busy testing NVG’s, so you usually find yourself with at least a little bit of time. If you’re in a squad, have half of them cook at a time so you still have security up.

Soups are a good one for the evening meal too, assuming you can get cooking as the sun sets and the cold kicks in. But for extra calories, and also to fill you up, boil some pasta or rice up first and then add the soup powder into the water once the pasta or rice is cooked for a quick and easy sauce. You can add in dried meat such as chorizo, or more canned fish to bulk it out further. This isn’t an excuse to break out a chopping board and start slicing up meat and veg, just throw something in the pot and get it done.

You can also buy cheap pre-made packets of flavoured pasta or noodles, which should be around 400-500 calories per pack and saves some time and effort, as they usually cook in a couple of minutes. Like a Cup-a-Soup. Personally, I avoid noodles because while pasta is easy to eat with a spoon, noodles feel like a massive calorie burn just winding them on a fork and slurping them up. But, eat what you like. I know that looks like a pretty limited option on the evening meals, but there’s a lot of choice and while I’m writing I can’t think of a better solution.

4. Drinks

Firstly, I do like a good drink. As in alcohol. But don’t take beers to milsim – a lot of sites don’t allow it, and in cold conditions alcohol can freeze in your blood. Beer = brrrrrrr cold. And that’s bad. Remember, we’re trying to fuel ourselves properly for the event, it’s not like the National Airsoft Festival in the UK that’s somewhere between a bad picnic and a crap night out, with sporadic skirmish inbetween.

Water is obviously key both for drinking and cooking. Usually, an adult needs 2 litres of water per day. If you’re doing a high energy activity such as hiking, that can increase to a litre every 2 hours. Airsoft is a bit more stop start, so lets assume a litre every 4 hours, therefore your weekend will need around 6 litres just for drinking (2x12hr sessions). Consider the weight of a standard two litre bottle of cola and you can imagine the issues surrounding carrying all that extra weight somewhere.

This is the solution. The Sawyer Mini water filtration system (you get the full kit) which I covered in the blog Stop Carrying Water, is now by far and away the most important piece of kit across all my outdoor gear, airsoft and otherwise.

If you don’t want to read the full article, basically you just fill that foldable water bottle up from absolutely any water source and it’ll filter it all clean for you. I use it in rivers, lakes, mountain streams and puddles (I can’t bring myself to use toilet water yet) so that instead of carrying my own body weight in bottled water, I can just refill on the go. Dead easy to use, absolute life saver, and only around the £40 mark which is a fantastic investment.

If you don’t like the taste of water, add some juice (you can buy those tiny little pods of juice concentrate which take up very little space), or juice powders. One thing that is worth adding is an electrolyte tablet – you can usually find these at sports stores in running or outdoor departments. This helps rehydrate you faster by replacing stuff like salt and potassium that you lose when you sweat. And most airsofters do sweat a lot. Sorry. Basically, you can get by on a bit less water.

If hot drinks are your thing, obviously little sachets of coffee or hot chocolate are easily added to boiling water, but do consider that that’s a whole extra load of water to boil and another stove session.

Well, that’s my take on milsim meals. It’s by no means a complete list but hopefully it points you in the right direction. Food companies will have an array of alternatives and it will vary from country to country too. It’s also not the most exciting, Michelin-starred menu either but in terms of functionality, keeping it lightweight and compact too, it works. The longer the event, the more you might want to vary the flavours a bit but there’s nothing particularly unpleasant here and it’s not quite as bad as some of the funky brown sludge you get in a few of the ration pack or ready meal bags.

Got any other ideas? Share them in the comments.