View Full Version : food containers
jacobrama
04-27-2012, 19:25
Any one have suggestions about what to use as food containers on the hike?
I am planning six weeks and will not pack food for 6 weeks but will pack food for a week or so at a time. Things like oatmeal, quinoa, lentils, cheese, nuts, dried fruits, peanut butter, olive oil, etc.
What do people use? Tupperware? bear canisters?
Any suggestions appreciated.
Thanks,
jacob
Pedaling Fool
04-27-2012, 19:32
Food in plastic ziplock bags and put ziplocks in nylon stuff sacs.
jacobrama
04-27-2012, 19:38
any advantage to meal sealers or the like? or do ziplocks do the trick just fine?
Ziploc brand freezer bags, but not the one with the slider.
The next container depends on where you're going. It could be a nylon sack, Opsak, bear canister or Ursack.
Pedaling Fool
04-27-2012, 19:43
Ziplocks is all I ever use; just don't keep food long enough, freshness is not an issue with me, but keeping my stuff waterproof is.
I use baggies to hold dry goods. A small plastic spice jar was repurposed for preserves. Olive oil in a plastic bottle with a tight-fitting cap. Buy peanut butter in plastic jars. It all goes into an OR Ultralight 10L dry bag for packing and bear-bagging.
Take everything out of the box it came in and put it in a 1 quart ziplock freezer bag. You'll have less trash and no spoilage if it gets wet.
If you look around, you can find pint size, and snack size freezer baggies too.
Kerosene
04-28-2012, 15:42
I use freezer bags for week-long section hikes: full zip-shut for powders, and slider bags for grouping items. I usually try to fit all my food for the day in one ziploc, just for convenience and so I don't overeat. I do like to bring pita bread or flatbread for sandwiches, which I will store in a small disposable Gladware container.
A few years ago I saw a SOBO thru-hiker in Tennessee who was using 4 square Tupperware containers to store all his food. Seemed like more weight than I'd want to carry and take up more space, but it seemed to work for him.
hikingshoes
04-28-2012, 15:49
I use zip-lock bags as well. Then put them in my Ursack Minor food bag.HS
Oatmeal, quinoa, lentils, nuts, dried fruits do well in bags. You can mix some of it together in the same bag and still pick out what you like for variety. Peanut butter is best kept in its original container, and what you don't use on one section you can think of as your emergency food, so you don't need any other emergency food. Olive oil needs a good sealing plastic bottle, and again the one you buy it in might do if conventient. Olive oil or canola oil can double as stove or lamp fuel to justify a larger bottle. Slow burning but good for simmering and lamps. Twine makes a good wick. Cheese in ziplocks.
Regarding the ziplocks and baggies. Are they typically re-used? Do people ship them home for re-use? Are they mainly one-time use only?
What is the alternative?
It seems wasteful to toss them (my cheap, er, frugal side kicking in) but I don't know of better alternative and shipping them home can get expensive too. As for environmental impact, I don't know that shipping is friendlier than tossing. I'm just looking for ideas on this.
Pedaling Fool
04-30-2012, 08:06
Regarding the ziplocks and baggies. Are they typically re-used? Do people ship them home for re-use? Are they mainly one-time use only?
What is the alternative?
It seems wasteful to toss them (my cheap, er, frugal side kicking in) but I don't know of better alternative and shipping them home can get expensive too. As for environmental impact, I don't know that shipping is friendlier than tossing. I'm just looking for ideas on this.I do save them, but then again I'm a little bit of a freak on plastic waste. I still have baggies from 2006, if they get a hole I duct tape it:D Seriously.
Food in plastic ziplock bags and put ziplocks in nylon stuff sacs.
Yep, that's all you need. Save the Tupperware for car camping.
bigcranky
04-30-2012, 08:12
All my food gets repackaged into bags of some sort. Snacks and small items in ziploc sandwich bags, some "freezer-bag-meals" into pint or quart ziploc freezer bags. Some stuff stays in its own package, like poptarts (take them out of the box of course), jerky, crackers, candy bars. When I pack for a section, one day of food goes into a 1-gallon ziploc freezer bag. Those definitely get reused, either as trash bags, or taken home and used again on the next trip.
Ziploc brand freezer bags, but not the one with the slider.
What is wrong with the slider? Without the slider, I am also worried about closing them completely.
Tipi Walter
04-30-2012, 09:57
If nothing else I've become an expert on food and backpacking and here are some thoughts---
** After long years of usage, Hefty bags are better than Ziploc as Ziplocs tend to open easier by accident---not good. And I always use the quart bags with the slider zipper. The gallon bags are sometimes useful too but rarely used except for big items like a plastic egg container (in case of leaks). It's also important to double-bag certain items like leaky foods or powdery foods like protein powders or fruit powder drink mixes or powdered eggs or milk.
** Of course I spend a couple hours before a trip arranging my food load and removing packaging, etc. Some stuff can stay in its packaging like rice cakes, a loaf of bread, certain dehydrated meals like Pasta-Cides and Hawk Vittles (see below).
** Probars and Clif bars etc and be packed w/o "ziplocs", obviously.
** Small containers are important for mayonnaise (I use eggless mayo), bottles of jam or jelly and nut butters in original jars. My fave is the Nalgene 8oz lexan bottles with the white screw tops as shown below in one of the fotogs. On a typical trip I take four of these babies.
** Honey presents the biggest challenge on summer trips as it tends to leak out thru these Nalgene containers and so I usually keep honey in its original small jar---bummer cuz it's heavy.
** Store bought food is usually left in its wrapper (like Sub Way sandwich or burritos etc) and placed in a quart or gallon ziploc. Often before a trip I make my own burritos and stuff four into a gallon bag for on-trail eating in the first 2 or 3 days.
** Oil like olive oil can be placed in a small Nalgene 8oz white HDPE bottle and then ziplocked.
http://www.trailspace.com/assets/7/d/e/763870/Trip-78-072.jpg
Here's part of a typical food load for a 15+ day trip. Everything is bagged except for the breads and the energy bars.
http://www.trailspace.com/assets/7/e/2/763874/Trip-78-071.jpg
This shot shows the two Nalgene containers, a bottle of soy sauce (too heavy!), an egg container in a hefty bag, and hummus left in its own container. The left items are small tupperware thingies for honey and jelly. The orange stuff was frozen at home bagged.
http://www.trailspace.com/assets/7/e/8/763880/TRIP-104-107.jpg
Store bought foods like burritos can be bagged and eaten the first few days on the trail. Here's a Tomato Head restaurant burrito from Maryville, TN, and packed on a trip.
http://www.trailspace.com/assets/7/e/c/763884/TRIP-114-452.jpg
Finally, some dehydrated foods are best left in their original packaging as above.
double d
04-30-2012, 16:56
TipiWalter, how do you like the Hawk Vittles dehydrated foods? Seems like a good company for hiker food at reasonable prices.
Ziploc brand freezer bags, but not the one with the slider.
...
Leftye speaks the truth. No slider!!
Tipi Walter
04-30-2012, 21:26
TipiWalter, how do you like the Hawk Vittles dehydrated foods? Seems like a good company for hiker food at reasonable prices.
They're pretty good although lately I haven't been carrying them.
Leftye speaks the truth. No slider!!
Simple mathematics. After having shut a million baggies, the slider zip works the best for me as often the no-slider bags tend to get more debris-filled and nearly impossible to cinch shut, and they tend to open unexpectedly. The slider bags can also gum up and open behind the zip but it's less of a hassle since they are easily cleaned and I'm tired of the no-zips requiring me to line up the seam every time just to get a seal. The zip does it for me.
I don't need to use a million baggies. I've already had enough problems with the slider bags. Usually the slider falls off or is finicky. I suppose I could run up to a million slider bags, and then it'd look good if none of the rest have problems, but that'd be ridiculous. Actually, I believe "insane" is the appropriate term. The only problems I've had with freezer bags was an off brand freezer bag. Those off brand bags split at the seams or the zip slides open, a couple times before I even opened my mail drop box. Unfortunately I packaged a bunch of things years ago in those bad bags, so much that I'm still using them, and I'm too hard headed to repackage all of them in ziploc bags. My ziploc brand quart-size freezer bags without the slider are usually used for a day or two once I start eating from them, but the gallon size bags are typically used for a couple weeks before I stretch holes into the plastic before the zipper, but the zipper still works.
Different luck, different strokes, or something like that I guess.
Every time I "burp" air from a ziplock now, I flashback to the trail. Them's some good memories.
Funny how your mind works.....