Which makes better sense for solo?

You could rinse and turn the baggies inside out and let air dry for a couple minutes. No more wet mess. :)

I use a lighter, shorter spoon with a plastic jar than when I do the FBC thing. There may be a weight savings there as well.

I'm much happier eating out of a jar and that is worth a little weight to me. I wash it out with a drop of Dr. Bronner's every second or third day with some water and vigorous shaking.

You can save weight with this method packaging food in bulk in those thin bags from the produce section of the grocery store.

(I'm highly enthusiastic about this solution if you can't tell)

+1 to what Matthew said.

From an environmental, cost, and enjoyment perspective, I don't need much to justify those 2 oz. I hate buying Ziplocs (I don't even use them at home and really only buy them to carry hiking stuff, which seems sort of ridiculous). The Twist n Lock type jars are so much nicer to eat out of, and if you are particularly impatient you can rehydrate food in your pack while you hike (something I don't trust a freezer bag with).

Dianne, I would recommend using a Ziplock three cup snap-top refrigerator storage container for rehydrating your meals. Glad makes one just like it BTW and both handle boiling water with no problems.The one I use weighs about 1.2 oz and will hold a typical boil and soak meal with room to spare. You will want a bigger cozy though. This more rigid container feels better in your hand, is easier to eat from and is easy to clean. You can use it for coffee or tea as well. To clean, just add a half cup of water and a drop of soap, snap on the lid, shake, dispose of the soapy water responsibly and rinse.

Freezer bags weigh about 1/3 oz (9 gm) each and nearer a half ounce with moderate food residue. It doesn't take many freezer bags to outweigh the snap-top bowl. You can cary your boil and soak food in sandwich bags (about a gram each) and either heat seal or use a twist tie (<1gm ea) to close the bag and then trim off any unused part of the bag to cut weight further. Sure, you can clean each freezer bag after use but that is about as much work as washing the cook pot you ate from. For a hike of a week or more one can easily cut 2-3 oz of packaging weight this way. I have been using the same snap-top container now for nearly two years.

I have a 2 cup ziploc screw top container, with Reflectix cozy. I usually use 1 1/4 cups water to rehydrate dinners. Container too small? I would like something large enough to put my mug into.

Where can you find three cup containers that can withstand boiling water, preferably round and with a leak proof lid?

In stores and online, I mostly see two or four cup containers, and the larger ones are tall and narrow. I'd like something that would make a good bowl.

I recently got some 2.7 cup round containers (ordered from wayfair.com and made by Lock 'n' Lock, I think) which are pretty good in my early tests, but the lid is rather difficult to remove. I've only used them at home, and had to struggle to get the lid off after I tested rehydrating a meal in it.

I think the Ziplocks are just this side of too flimsy to safely allow liquids into my pack. Extensive thread here:
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=104984&disable_pagination=1

"Where can you find three cup containers that can withstand boiling water, preferably round and with a leak proof lid?"
I get them at Safeway or Fry's (one of the Kroeger stores). They were still available when I looked a week ago. They come in 1, 1-3/4 and 3 cup sizes in packs of four IIRC. Look in the "food storage" section. They are all bowl shaped.

At 3 cups and wanting tough and surviving boiling water, a regular ol' Nalgene is starting to look pretty good.

If your ziplocs weigh 0.2 oz, then 10 days

But ziplocks should be food packaging, so they are zero by comparison

Diane asked: "How many days of wet ziploc trash do I need to justify the additional 2 ounce weight of the container?"

That depends on how close you will be to a water source. Carrying extra water for clean-up will negate any weight savings in packaging very quickly. Two of the things I like about eating out of the freezer bags are that there's no clean-up and thus that there's no water to carry for clean-up.

MB said: "But ziplocks should be food packaging, so they are zero by comparison."

Technically food packaging is part of base weight, though I admit I never weigh it that way. And whether base weight, consumable weight, worn weight or whatever, it's all weight you carry no matter what.

I got polypropylene jars from usplastic.com in 12, 16 and 24 ounce sizes. They are quite waterproof and much more durable than the grocery store ziplock containers. This was important to me on my 21 day JMT this summer.

Shipping is expensive at USP. I purchased a lifetime supply of little dropper bottles for repackaging along with my jars.

http://shop.locknlock-usa.com/ll-standard-pp/151-round-tall-food-container-3-cups.html

Lock n Lock are pretty bulletproof. I would confidently put one in my pack with food/liquid inside. They're also a bit heavier than your typical ziplock options.

That said, I've always found a 16 oz container to be plenty big enough for one meal.

The weight-incurred-by-water argument only applies if you're cooking multiple meals per day, and are concerned about washing after every meal. I rarely cook breakfast or lunch and if I did cook lunch I probably would not bother washing 'til after dinner.

I picked up some Zip Lock 2-cup containers and found that they hold the same volume as my 2.7 cup lock-n-lock cups. The difference is that the latter measures volume to the brim, while the former measures volume to below below the brim to include a bit of margin so you don't spill hot soup all over yourself.

So, the Zip Locks are cheaper and lighter, while the Lock-n-Locks are more robust and give a much better seal. If I were to carry a filled container in my pack (say, rehydrating without cooking), I'd go with the Lock-n-Lock. However, that's not my eating style, so I'd probably go with the Zip Locks since they are not at a volume disadvantage.

I will add that, in my test at home, when I poured boiling water in the containers than tipped them on the side or upside down, that the Zip Locks leaked while the Lock-n-Locks did not. With cold water, neither leaked. My assumption is that the Zip Locks deform slightly when heated, allowing them to leak. The Lock-n-Locks have thicker plastic and a silicon ring in the lid, which (possibly along with the type of plastic) makes them more leak proof. So I wouldn't suggesting shaking a Zip Lock with hot water, nor putting it in your pack, but these are not the sorts of things I would do anyway.

How much does the 12 oz and 16 oz variety weigh? Do you have a digital scale?

Can you post some pics? I've always tried to eat out of my pot or from steam-in-bags, but the bowl with lid idea has me intrigued.

How about use a vargo bot? It's a food container, a water bottle, a pot though it's a bit heavy and a bit difficult to open and close.

It seems like it would be inconvenient to eat from and clean food out of given how tall it is.

I use a short spoon (4-3/4″ long) with my bot, and found it’s not too difficult to eat from. As for cleaning, you can shake it with a little water in it after finishing your meal since the lid is water tight. You don’t really need to clean it thoroughly, do you?

If you really don’t like its height, mysolo have something similar but shorter. Theirs even has addition space for your folded utensil.
mysolo c1

They also have another version with handle which I really wish my vargo bot had.
mysolo c1+ (with handle version of c1)

My only concern about mysolo c1 is that it seems the secret space would open when I want to reach the main space.

(photos of mysolo are copied from their site)

Amazon sells these, but the kits aren't in stock, so I haven't tried them.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EVZWJEU/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=DF8TVBO3Z3DW&coliid=I2J2GGTIKPMEWY&psc=1

There is also a taller/narrower kit that looks interesting as well.

Anyone have experience with them?

Eat food. Fill with water. Shake & scrap. Drink. Add water. Heat. Tea. Drink. Bot is clean, use a second water container.

If you are concerned about weight, why not just cook in your mug instead of using bags or an extra container? Since you are using rehydrated meals anyway, nothing is going to burn onto the pot. If you are using a titanium mug, eat all of the food and do the first "cleaning" with sand/rocks/dirt. A water rinse should be just about all that you need to clean the mug. My 2 cents.

I use 900 ml Ti pot

Boil water, turn to simmer, throw in food, stir, put on lid, let simmer for 15 seconds, let sit for 5 minutes. Or 10 minutes

I just don't like the idea of putting boiling water into a plastic bag or container. Probably not a big deal to do occasionally though (for backpacking). It may leach chemicals that have a subtle health effect.

On my recent solo hike, I ditched the fabric cozy, brought a 900 ml pot and a 2 c Ziploc screw lid container, with a cozy. Definitely the 2 c was *not* large enough for the food. I did cook and eat out of my pot one night, or rather, I boiled water with my rice noodles soaking in it, then put the rest of the dried ingredients in, put the lid on, and let it sit and soak. I think next time I will just eat out of the pot, although I was worried about scorching the food in the pot with a hot stove–alcohol stove. Pot cozy may be necessary. If I were doing no-cook, then the 2 c container might work, but not for boiling water.

Although, I really need to find some way to check my portions. Sometimes I think I could downsize, sometimes I need every bite, I just never know.

A lot of people like cozies, but I've tried them and it didn't really make much difference. Especially since I can simmer for a short time, mostly just making sure it gets back up to boiling after adding dry ingredients. If you pour boiling water in a pouch with dry ingredients, it immediately gets a little colder, warming that all up, which reduces the rehydrating effect.

I've only used alcohol stove a little, but canister stove is so much easier – turn down to simmer and off when desired. Canister fuel weighs half as much alcohol (to heat the same amount of water) and it's even less if you add water to the alcohol and have to burn off some of it because you can't turn it off. So, especially when I start a trip, alcohol stove doesn't save that much weight.