packaging wet ingredients on the trail

I have brought fish sauce on the trail and used a small Nalgene bottle (I mixed the curry past into it). I have a few of those Japanese sauce bottles, but I worried too much about them breaking open and having it stink up my backpack.. I did see somewhere that some used plastic straws and heat sealed the ends with an iron. That seems like a practical solution, I just haven't tried it yet. BTW, I will be experimenting with ground up dried fish flakes (Bonito Flakes) to see if they are a good substitute for fish sauce.

jars

I have not tried it, but I am wondering if using these food grade poly bags in the 1"x2" size:

http://m.uline.com/h5/r/www.uline.com/BL_114/Uline-3-Mil-Industrial-Poly-Bags?keywords=

with a heat sealer would be an option? Like a diy dressing or sauce packet.

Jars +1. Works. They keep the odor in as well. Keeps your tortillas not tasting like coffee. Reusable.

Okay, disposable water bottles are evil, filling up landfills, destroying the ozone layer, blah, blah, blah.

But the sturdier ones are far cheaper and lighter than any Nalgene offering. And can be reused many times for water. And yet are cheap enough (free at the cycling center!) that I don't hesitate to use for one-time purposes like transporting cooking oil, detergent, etc.

For olive oil or other liquids in moderate quantities, I like the the 8-ounce Evian or Dasani bottles. The lids are quite good. They will hold more pressure than your car tires (really!) Often they are free at conferences or in first-class on the plane or just buy a 8- or 24-pack for very little per bottle.

"I read once here that someone used a vacuum sealer to make individual packets of sunscreen, etc. How would you do that with liquid ingredients–don't they just run out when you try to stick them in the sealer?"

You can press the button that seals without activating the vacuum (on the model I have).

Vac-packing liquids – you can also make ice cubes of water, pesto, catsup, and many cooking oils and then vac-pack the frozen material. Consider using a bowl or Tupperware as a form – so you have a flat, smooth shape to vac pack.

P.S. toilet paper gets really small when you vac-pack it AND is super waterproof then.

For 3 ounces of wet ingredients, I like repurposing these "5-hour Energy boost" bottles. 3 ounces, really strong, water-tight. And free. Sold in all convenience stores and venues frequented by skate-boarders and hipster dudes with those goofy little goatee things on their chin, they are laying around as litter outside of any such place. Being HDPE, you can run them through the dishwasher to wash off the hipster-dude cooties and between uses.

Peeling the 5-hour wrapper leaves a simple white container (and saves 1.73 grams).

For an ounce of stuff, there are lots of "travel-size" and "sample-size" containers in every supermarket and Walmart. Hand sanitizer, shampoo, mouthwash, etc. For 97 cents. Kind of expensive for an ounce of goo, but far cheaper than small Nalgene containers at REI. I prefer keeping liquids in factory-labelled containers, but if I've removed the hand sanitizer label and the contents are now red and chunky, I know it is salsa.

I'll also note that a lot of people could trim half a pound from their toiletries and other liquids by going from 2- and 4-ounce containers of DEET, sunscreen, hand sanitizer, toothpaste, anti-fungal, etc to 0.25-, 0.5- and 1-ounce containers, some of which can be found in such sample-size displays. I have NEVER run out of hand sanitizer using a 2-ounce container, even with 5 people along. So I just grabbed a 1-ounce container. Why bring a 1-ounce tube of toothpaste? Have you ever run out on a trip? Get a 7-gram tube and refill it between trips.

Akin to: "If you weren't wearing all your clothes at some point on the trip, you brought too much clothing", "If you came back with cosmetics, soaps or other liquids, you should downsize for your next trip."

>"and saves 1.73 grams"

you know, of course, that 87.4% of statistics are made up on the spot.

I have been using these:

but was thinking there might be a better, more compact way. If I get fancy in my food bag, there can be several of those little bottles, that I am then carrying for no good purpose!

I suppose that perhaps I should designate this trip as "Thai menu", and carry one slightly larger bottle of fish sauce and chili paste, or that trip as "Italian menu" and carry flavored olive oil, rather than mixing my cuisines and having multiple little bottles! That's why I was thinking about smaller, disposable, individual packets. That's just more landfill, though.

David, those 6 hour energy bottles don't leak? I use a ton of those, but I've had them leak in my glove compartment, so I didn't trust them for re-use.

Diane,

>"David, those 6 hour energy bottles don't leak?"

I've had one that I use for air travel, so it is constantly being depressurized to a density attitude of 7500 feet and back to sea level. Sometimes 4 times in a day. And I haven't had any problems.

Cars can get really hot in the sun. In excess of 140F. I've had some plastics fail in that setting.

Or maybe one of us has an intact seal inside the lid and the other one doesn't?

Did ya know that Just Mayo is going to have packets soon? ;-)

I still have a bunch of 35mm film containers that are leakproof and good for small quantities of stuff.

Some of you will not know what I am talking about :-(