A few weeks back I was asked if I would review SurvivAmino, a survival protein supplement designed with preppers in mind and, specifically, for your bug out bag. Initially, I was hesitant to do the review because I wasn’t sure how in the world I was going to review a bottle of pills!
Eventually, I agreed and wound up deciding that the only way I could review these was to take them for a week and report how I felt. But, I wasn’t just going to add them to my diet… I was going to remove as many protein sources during that time as I could from my diet and see what happens. After all, that’s the entire purpose of these pills, right!?
So, I cut out all meat, seriously cut back on dairy and eggs, didn’t eat a thing with beans (my wife appreciates that), and avoided nuts (I don’t eat many anyway). I started this a little over a week ago and began supplementing with SurvivAmino pills instead. Now, the directions say to take 5 pills with each meal but I don’t like taking pills and often don’t follow directions so with most meals I had 2-3 pills but occasionally choose to consume 4 at dinner. And so I did this for a week straight without fail.
The question, obviously, is how did I feel? Well, I can’t report that I felt wonderful or vibrant with energy and I wasn’t really expecting to. However, I was concerned that I would feel bad, sluggish, maybe have digestive problems, or something like that because I did seriously alter my diet; I’m happy to report, however, that I had none of these problems and actually felt quite normal. 🙂 In fact, I even started exercising again near the end of the week.
Now, this isn’t a complete protein source but it does cover the essential 8 amino acids (the building blocks of protein) as shown below:
… and according to their product description “SurvivAMINO™ is an innovative formula consisting of pure amino acids, taking care of your protein needs in a fraction of the space and weight.” I’m not sure how to verify that but I did find this interesting review that attempted to compare the protein you would get from SurvivAmino versus cans of tuna fish and I was surprised at the conclusion:
“SurvivAmino claim to contain as much protein as four servings of pemmican and twenty times that of canned meats. That’s a little vague for me so I’ll assume a bit here. A can of tuna fish usually has 19 grams of protein so does that mean that each serving of SurvivAmino has 380 grams of protein. I just tried calling them to get some clarification and was sent to voice mail. Serving size on these pills are five pills per serving and recommended three times a day. That’s 15 pills a day with bottle sizes of 100, meaning roughly six days per bottle, four bottles per month. It would take 12 bottles to make a 90 day supply which costs $495. Doing a little math and using the body builder motto of consuming 1gram of protein per pound of weight per day and using an average weight of 200 pounds I get 11 cans of tuna per day. I use tuna for it’s cheapness and compact protein. Tuna being the cheapest canned meat you can get comes out to $990 for three months if you get them for a dollar a can and it also means storing 990 cans of tuna. In that way one box of SurvivAmino wins out.”
What else I liked about these pills is that they “contain no fat, sodium, sugar, yeast, gluten, soy, corn, wheat, rice, GMO, preservatives…” and more. As near as I can tell it’s just essential amino acids with some wax coating. Considering we’re trying to get away from much of the aforementioned ingredients, this was a huge plus.
I should also point out that these pills are solid and not capsules or anything that I think might degrade easily. Though I couldn’t find anything that suggested how long they could be stored (in years) I would assume if you choose to vacuum seal them (or in mylar) then they would last for years on end so long as they’re kept out of extreme temperatures.
As for cost, one bottle costs $45 while a case of 12 costs $495 which is a little less than a 9% discount if purchased in bulk. The thing is that a single bottle will last one person almost a full week if consumed as directed, so if you have a family of four and only want to sustain yourselves for a 72 hour bug out then you would need two bottles. If you’re like me and are willing to cut back on the dosage then maybe one bottle will suffice. That said, in a true bug out situation where my body is taxed, my mind is stressed, and I’m tired, I think I would choose to consume as directed.
Since I like the idea of compact protein in my bug out bag I’m going to order two bottles and call it good!
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