My group is thinking of buying Mountain House in the #10 cans for the cost savings. Can we put single servings in ziploc bags or is it important to seal it in vacuum seal bags? We worry about moisture with the ziplocs, but it sure would make the process easier. Can boiling water be added to vacuum seal bags like it can to ziplocs? The ziplocs would be easier to add the water to and reseal while we wait for it to "cook". Thanks for your time and wisdom~Journey

Hi Journey,

We used the Food-Saver vaccuum-bag system for our home-made dehydrated meals, and they worked WONDERFULLY. They kept the food from getting smushed and beaten to tiny crumbs while jostling around in the pack, you can pour boiling water right into the bag (not sure if you can do this with ziplocs for an extended period of time?)and you never have to worry about the food getting puncutred in the pack, or accidentally opening up and spilling all over everything, which was great, and the food stayed amazingly fresh...so fresh that we are still eating extra maildrop foods we packaged LAST November. By using the vaccum bags, we also found we could let food "warm" in a pot of hot water while we prepared other parts of our meals becuase the bags will hold up to boiling. The only drawback we found was that you do need to cut the bags to get into them, so you need some sort of knife or leatherman, which you will probably have anyway. Vaccuum bags certainly aren't a neccesity for maildrops, but they worked wondefully for us.

Also, just to let you know, you might want to call Mtn. House; we spoke to someone at Mountain house about the 10# cans last year during our trail prep, and they sent us a form for whole-sales deals from them because we were doing the trail.

Good luck!

This past weekend we hiked in snow and 28* weather to test gear and our alcohol stoves. I boiled water and added it to a large ziploc along with a Mountain house meal, zipped it up, mixed it and put it inside my jacket for 10 minutes. It worked great. My meal was cooked and I was warmed up. The large bag was difficult to eat out of, so next time I'll use a smaller bag. Journey

For my hike this year I am not buying food in advance to any great extent. However, for our hike in 2001 BA Turtle and I bought a lot of food up front in bulk like ramen and powdered soup mixes, etc. We broke them down into meal sized portions and placed them in freezer strength ziplocks and never had a moisture problem. I don't think you can go wrong either way, although I have never used the food-saver vacuum approach.
There were times when we did not want to eat an entire meal and were happy that we had the flexibility to use what we wanted and then re-seal the baggie.
If you decide to go the ziplock route I would suggest that you consider the "freezer strength" type though. They are worth the extra cost in terms of durability.