In case of emergency, eat book ...

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Friday, May 18, 2012

Land Rover has taken a leaf out of the Bear Grylls text book and released a survival manual you can actually eat. The guide provides basic survival techniques such as building a shelter and even hunting birds for dinner, should you find yourself stranded in the Arabian Desert with a broken-down Land Rover. The book is printed on potato-starch paper with a glycerine-based ink for a slightly sweet flavour. It is said to offer a nutritional value equivalent to a cheeseburger, providing enough calories to endure the desert's scorching temperatures, deadly animals and sinkholes a little longer. Advertisement: Story continues below It also covers topics such as whether to abandon your vehicle, as well as how to navigate the 2.3-million-square kilometre desert, signal for help and light a fire, to name a few. Similar to army rations, the novel survival guide is wrapped in reflective packaging, which could be used to signal for help, and bound with a metal spiral used for cooking. It was devised by the British off-road brand's Middle Eastern ad agency, Y&R Dubai. "We researched every indigenous animal and plant people could encounter in the Arabian Desert and how they could be used to survive," the company says. The book was sent to 5000 existing customers, added as a supplement to the vehicle's owner's manual and made freely available in sports stores across the Middle East. The agency says Land Rover was so happy with the response it has requested the guide be inserted in a popular car magazine with a circulation of 70,000 readers. Land Rover Australia marketing and public affairs manager Tim Krieger says the novel approach fits well with the brand's "go anywhere" ethos and is investigating it for Australia. It also fits well with the marque's reputation for less-than-stellar reliability. Land Rover is a regular cellar-dweller in US automotive quality surveys.