When you have hard items like food bars or liquids in rigid containers, pack them inside a baggie of something granular, like rice or couscous.

That's very good advice about poking a small hole in sealed packages. A loose bean bag consistency uses the available space best. Aside from allowing the air out during packing, it also prevents swelling due to altitude changes. I packed my cannister at 400 feet - when I opened it at 7000 feet, the contents began overflowing the container! I had to unpack, vent all the bags, then repack.

I still advocate vacuum packing because it allows you to keep a your dried items a lot longer than if they are loose packed in bags. You can always vent a vacuum pack bag. I prep stuff months in advance, usually when the food item goes on sale.

The problem with vacuum sealing sharp dry contents requires a bit of pre-packing. Don't just throw the food in the vacuum bag. Put the food into an empty potato chip/breakfast cereal bag first, trim it to size, then that goes into the bag. You shouldn't have problems with noodles poking through now.

I like miso as well. Like Frank, I make my own. A heaping teaspoon of miso paste, mix in 1/4 tsp of soy sauce, then add 1/2 tsp of powdered dashi soup base. You should have a really stiff paste, which will keep without refrigeration at least a week, due to the salt content. The other ingredients are optional. Some dried green onions, dry wakame (seaweed), sliced and dried shitake mushrooms and freeze-dried tofu make it pretty authentic. Freeze-dried tofu is actually possible to do at home. The first time I tried drying tofu I just threw it in dehydrator. I got hard chunks of leather that never absorbed water - basically inedible. The trick is to freeze it, then put it in the dehydrator for 30 minutes, then back in the freezer for 2 hours, and repeat until dry. If you cube the tofu fairly small, it should only take the first trip through the dehydrator to get a nicely dried, crunchy product that rehydrates quickly.