1 bag of that sports drink powder is usually mixed with 1L of water. (Finnish canteen is 1L) Your drinks were probably on the strong side. :D We also have this foldable tool called "Luha" (LUsikka-HAarukka) which means Spoon-Fork. We use that to eat. Also to heat water we usually use "Trangia", which is a basically a camping stove. Some hardcore people have some heaters that use gas but the "Trangia"'s are the ones sponsored by government. We also tested this new ration which is a vacuum sealed bag of food inside a larger bag. The larger bag has a small bag of some chemical in it which starts realeasing heat after you add water to it. It was actually very good and fast.
The gum was mostly xylitol. It's a natural sugar you get from birch and it's really good for your teeth. I eat 2 after every meal even as a civilian and I never have problems with my teeth.
About water... this is Finland you're talking about. Remember those 180K lakes? Any will have drinkable water if you just boil it and most of the time it would be safe to use even without boiling the water. And the land is full of trees so there's no lack of wood to burn either. And during winter, you use snow and fire to boil water. It will work fine, just take quite some time to melt and boil.
This ration needs to be eaten outside in a snowy forest with temperature at -4F (-20C) or lower. The only allowed heating method is a spirit-stove and snow is the water source.
