I don’t like Freezer Bag Cooking

[Eric Blumensaadt]

I use FBC a lot in summer but maybe 30% of the time I also have to just cook teh food in my pot. Mox nix, (makes no difference to me.)

BUT, in winter I love my FBC sitting there in my thick fleece cozy envelope W/ its Velcro colsure, finishing its 10 or 15 minutes of bag cooking. Virtually no heat loss and no dishes/pots to try to get frozen food cleaned off.

BTW, I use pleated bottom 1 qt. ZipLoc bags B/C they're easier to get food out of the bottom.

[Gregory Petliski]

Hey Laurie Ann, is that the GSI lexan bowl? Love that thing 2.2 oz!

I use the freezer bag method for cooking and eating, cuz for me, eating is a necessity, not a joy (even though strangely I'm italian so you'd think I'd love food..). I do whatever I have to to make it light and easy. I dont want to have to hang my pot each night or risk the bears crushing it. Can bears crush titanium??

[Bob Gross]

If you clean your cook pot out and leave it flat on the ground, no bear is going to waste any time with it once it sticks its snout into it and determines that there is no food. Now, if you leave the cook pot upside down, the bear has to flip it over to see if there is anything for him. Some bears have been known to claw or bite the cook pot to flip it.

So, it is possible to crush anything, but a bear isn't going to waste the time unless it senses that there is a reward there. If you don't clean out the cook pot, the bear may chew on it a bit.

–B.G.–

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

I fear squirrels more than bears. Turn your back fer one lousy second and your spoon is gone, over in the bushes being devoured by a porky rat with a fur coat.

I have had cooking pots dragged by them – with no food in them. I now hang my cooking pot on a tree branch. If it falls, it scares the bedoodles out of them ;-)

[Laurie Ann March]

It is a GSI bowl. Bryan and I often eat out of the pot but our little guy gets a bowl.

[Bob Gross]

Sarah, I hiked up Mount Hoffmann in Yosemite, for the view. When I arrived on the summit, I set down my daypack and got out a lightweight aluminum lunch box, then started grazing. As I munched my lunch, I heard a faint metallic sound behind me. I turned around to look, but there was nobody there. A minute later, I heard a similar faint metallic sound behind me, so I turned again to look. Then I looked down at the lunch box. Here was this tiny, furry paw. It was a yellow-bellied marmot down in the rock crevise next to the lunch box, and he was trying to drag my lunch box into his crevise so he could begin the feast.

Marmots are the worst!

–B.G.–

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

Bob, One night I woke up to this horrible scratching sound next to me. It was stupid ol' Marmot going to town on my trekking pole handles – which were under the tent fly. And the Marmot was hitting the tent constantly. I smacked it through the tent and it went away.

They will steal socks, anything you don't tie down.

[Dicentra OPW]

I think they are typically more after the salt encrusted on your gear than anything else…

Bowls are heavy. I either eat out of my ziplock or the pan itself. I don't bring an extra bowl. Just something extra I have to clean. And I hate cleaning.

[Bob Gross]

Some internal frame backpacks were constructed thirty years ago with a big leather patch (3"x4") right between your shoulders, and the shoulder straps converged there.

I had backpacked up to the Tablelands in Sequoia National Park and I left my backpack on the ground outside my tent while I hiked away. When I returned, the backpack had been moved slightly. Hmmm. The next day, I was getting ready to pack up and move on. When I lifted one shoulder strap, I saw that some marmot had been at work. It had eaten the entire leather patch and had left the nylon stitching intact.

Undoubtedly, it had eaten the leather because it was salty from my sweat. But it was smart enough to leave the nylon thread behind.

–B.G.–

[Laurie Ann March]

I remember those from even longer than 30 years ago so I guess that shows my age… lol. My brother Bruce had one. Neat story about the marmot. Sounds like you didn't need a field repair though.

I know those packs were heavy but I still wish I had my brother Bruce's. It would be more for nostalgia as I wouldn't carry a pack that heavy.

[Curtis B.]

Sarah et al,
Where do you go to get these hand towlettes? First google search result shows these:
http://www.amazon.com/Purell-Sanitizing-Towelettes-Individually-Towelettes/dp/B000FZ23FA
But they are 5"x7", which seems rather overkill! But anything smaller seems to be double the price.

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

I found mine at Sam's Club and similar (I need to check at Costco now…I had bought a couple cases!)
http://www.germx.com/product_detail.aspx?id=46
The big size is REALLY nice though.

[Eric Eaton]

I generally don't use a cozy for FBC. Just throw it into something handy (cap, bandanna, whatever).

While my meal is hydrating, I sip any hot water left in my mug/pot with or without an herbal teabag.

When the food is ready, it's time to get folding. I pull the sides outward and then fold them down so no sticky mess is exposed. A bit hard to describe, but I basically end up with a triple-walled half-height bag that fits nicely inside my mug.

Now I can eat "out of my mug" using a short-handled Ti spoon without any mess.

When finished eating, I place the days collect garbage in the bag, lick my spoon (don't worry, it will be sterilized when I use it to light my stove next time), and then I drink some cold water from the mug to clear out any peppermint tea residue.

Oh yeah, most important step is to find a comfy place with a great view to have dinner before moving on the perfect place to sleep the night away.

Works for me. Although, I do struggle with using plastics. Even re-used until they die, baggies eventually will end up in the landfill. I sometimes have nightmares of future beaches composed of tiny plastic bits instead of sand.

[Eric Eaton]

Nobody mentioned "cooking" in a bag under your shirt as you hike.

Here are a few advantages:

– No stove to light
– No fuel to carry
– No frustration from lighting/sparking/striking anything in the wind/rain/snow with cold fingers
– Amaze yourself and your hiking partners at how much heat a hiking human body generates

I'm sure there are others, but you get the gist.

Of course, you can't do this in a pot. At least, I don't think so…

[Jim W.]

I agree with the OP about not liking to eat out of a bag. Then you're left with a slimy bag too.

Also a 1 qt Freezer Bag is about 1/4 ounce. When I packed a 1 week resupply using a daily gallon Ziploc with lunch, breakfast, dinner broken into quart Ziplocs I had over a pound of Ziplocs!

Instead of a cozy for the bag I have a lidded Gladware bowl which I covered with Reflectix. That way I can pack my food in much lighter bags than the Ziploc Freezer Bags. Cleanup is easy and I don't have a bunch of messy, slimy Ziplocs to pack away.

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

You all do realize that you can get pint bags right? And that not everything needs to be packed in freezer bags. Only cooked foods do.

All bags weigh – the only difference is in the thickness of the bag (the mil). A weeks worth of sandwich bags still add up. And brands matter as well. Ziploc is the heaviest out there – but for good reason – the bags are the toughest ones on the market. Store brands are thinner and with less robust closures (which is also one area where Ziploc rules on all of their bags!).

If one is packing just enough food there shouldn't be anything left in the bag after they are done eating as well outside of a bit of oil or the last drops of sauce. Same with eating out of a pot or mug – you shouldn't have leftovers. If you do, you haven't dialed in your meals tightly enough to avoid waste/carrying extra weight.

[Curtis B.]

Sarah wrote:
—
You all do realize that you can get pint bags right? And that not everything needs to be packed in freezer bags. Only cooked foods do.
—

Um, no? I feel silly, but am now sufficiently enlightened. Har.

[Laurie Ann March]

Sarah wrote: "If one is packing just enough food there shouldn't be anything left in the bag after they are done eating as well outside of a bit of oil or the last drops of sauce. Same with eating out of a pot or mug – you shouldn't have leftovers. If you do, you haven't dialed in your meals tightly enough to avoid waste/carrying extra weight."

While this is a fairly easy task for those of us with a great deal of experience on the trail and in the kitchen, it isn't always that perfect of a science. It rings especially true for people newer to backcountry travel or on longer trips where they are just starting their learning curve. Often appetite can be diminished in the early part of a trip only to return full force after 3 or 4 days. I've also been in situations where the appetite of someone, who I was new to cooking for, wasn't what I had anticipated (although over the years I've become pretty adept at judging that). Weather can play a factor too. I've noticed, on occasion, if we had an unpredicted hot spell then both Bryan and I ate a little less. In cold, the opposite. There has to be some flexibility; a balance between meeting the needs of the eater and not having a considerable amount of leftovers.

Portioning is such an individual thing and it's something very difficult to ascertain. It can be different between climates, gender, size of person, ruggedness of trip, and other variables.

[Kattt]

While we are resurrecting old threads….
For a few weeks after the fire we ate out of paper plates and with plastic cutlery; once we got a bit settled one of the first things we did to feel normal again was cook and then eat out of solid vessels with tools that feel good in our hands.
While I am quite adaptable and can survive harsh realities, there is even less chance today that I would choose to eat out of a plastic bag.

[AK Granola]

I hope you are enjoying a feast, Kattt! Agreed, I still don’t like eating out of gooey hot plastic. If I could eliminate plastic from my life, I would, but not practical to do so. Giving blood, skiing, food packages, shampoo, so much of our lives are plastic. Shopping I take my own bags, I decline plastic cutlery and straws (I have a small portable wooden set that is always in my go-to-town bag), and try to use all of my plastic clothing until they’re rags. But hiking I eat from the pot and drink from a … oh yeah, my hot cup is plastic! lol

cheers and happy thanks giving

[Bob Kerner]

Silicone bags though heavier are not as floppy and blistering hot compared to Ziplocks. And you can wash them in the dishwasher. Yes, there’s a weight penalty but it’s a product actually designed for exposure to heat. Ziplock on its own website used to say: “we don’t intend for you to cook in this” though that info is no longer on the site since they determined to market the bags for use in a microwave; but dig deeper and you’ll find temp ratings on the bags (158 degrees).   I’m on the fence as to whether to commit to a silicone bag system. Ive used them in the comfort of my home and they work very well, but not sure I want the extra weight.

I suppose you’re carrying the weight in one form or another. Commercially prepared meal pouch or Cook in pot and then have to carry some extra water and a towel for clean up.

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

As I have said before….nothing stops a person from cooking in their pot and eating it that way. And that covers commercial meals as well, that come in Mylar lined bags. I developed 1000’s of recipes for FBC because people wanted them – but since 2010 or so (or earlier, don’t remember) I have included multiple methods for preparing the recipes, including 1 pot method. The key is FBC meals are easy to prep. No matter HOW you cook them. You use one of my recipes, you won’t be doing tedious cooking for an hour to eat, or to be cleaning up a couple pots (and one bonus is the FBC recipes are dumped INTO the boiling water, meaning the meal isn’t fried onto the pot from boiling it, hence cleanup is a snap).

[Jerry Adams]

I put my meal in a thin plastic bag.  Grocery store produce bag.  Gallon ziploc bag with most of my food including the dehydrated dinners to protect all of them.

Boil water in pot.  Turn off.  Throw in dehydrated food, stir, put on lid, wait 10 minutes.

I wouldn’t want to put hot water in a plastic bag.

 

 

[Author]

Posts