Yeah, I agree with food. I have several different styles of stoves and probably use most of them at one time or the other. Just depends...I really like the alcohol stove for boiling water. It is simple and very very light. It takes very little fuel to boil a couple of cups of water so the weight trade off for fuel is not that great at all. With that said I do always carry a back-up stove, even if it is another alcohol stove I usually do take a spare. They are pretty flimsy so if one gets damaged, I always have another to work with.