freezer bag cooking

[Donald Howard]

My Philmont crew met last night to discuss preparations, first on the agenda was changing their cooking method. They decided to stay with freezer bags and carry out all bags. As a back up plan they will have bowls so they can go with reconstituting in the bag and then dish out into bowls if needed. If they can do freezer bag cooking they'll take the ziplock bags, if not they'll take the bowls and leave the bags at base camp. The same pots and stoves can be used in either. The crew (6 scouts, 2 adults) will purchase 2 MSR Pocket Rocket stoves and we'll use two pots from troop cook kits.

[Hobbes W]

Do yourself a favor and get some bubble envelopes – one for each person – that are large enough to place freezer bags inside. This obviates the need for a separate cozy/lid for each bowl.

Once someone uses a bowl, and then has to deal with properly washing & disposing of the soapy water, I'd be surprised anyone deviates from eating out of freezer bags again.

[Donald Howard]

I guess the reason why people don't use the freezer bag method is because Philmont is now discouraging it. I understand they make you carry the gear for cooking (large pots, cleaning stuff etc). End result, not much weight savings.

Has anyone out there reconstituted the Philmont dinners in the original bag? These bags are different than the Mountain House meals you buy.

[Stephen Everson]

Question to those on the forum.. my Reactor stoves are not going work with Philmont pots….the only pots usable with a reactor stove are the 1L and 2.5L MSR Reactor pots…

Is Philmont going to force me to purchase new stoves once I get there?

From your comment Donald, I did not realize the mountain house meals at philmont are different than the one you purchase in the store… I take it that you can't just reheat in the bag… so then you are forced to dump the contents into a pot for rehydration…

Anyone who went to Philmont this year care to comment?

The staff at Philmont should attend the backpacking light school in Montana next month… :)

[Mark Rash]

I also use Reactor stoves and my crew used two of them at Philmont this summer. What I would do is rehydrate in ziplock bowls (if they absolutely will not let you use freezer bags). That way you use the Reactor stoves and pots. You have to clean the bowls, but you won't have to clean any pots.

[Stephen Everson]

Thanks for the reply. I can try that method on our next shakedown with the scouts. Our goal with the reactor pots is to just boil water in them and not use them for cooking.

Thanks again

[Donald Howard]

I have heard that Philmont rangers have told some crews that they should not try to reconstitute the meals in the bag because the bag will release toxins when the hot water is added. I contacted Mountain House directly and they said that the reason why they do not recommend that meals be reconstituted is because the bags will not withstand the heat. They state that the bags will not release toxins.

I've heard that some do use the bags to reconstitute the meals. Has anyone done this?

[Jay L]

Our ranger told us that the Philmont MH meals use less expensive bags and contain a few ounces more than off-the-shelf meals.

[Stephen Everson]

Thanks for the insight. Must have been worth it to Mountain House to make a production run of product using different materials versus just selling the everyday consumer product to Philmont. All about price points and production costs.

[Gordon Forrest]

A couple observations having just returned from Philmont last week (Crew 731-E, Trek 22)…

Freezer bag cooking is not being permitted at all at Philmont. Additionally, not all of the dinner meals are from Mountain House so there is little uniformity in the meal bags so that wouldn't be practical for cooking.

Our crew of 12 had prepared to use the "fair share" mug method of rehydration and we were forced to take 2 pots with us on the trail. One large pot to rehydrate the food in and a smaller pot to sterilize our mugs in.

Once our ranger left, we did revert back to our "fair share" mugs for cooking except for the stuffing and canned turkey meal – we made that up in the big pot.

In the end, having the large pot was useful for laundry and other tasks but we had planned on bringing a collapsible bucket for that purpose. Other than the inconvenience of strapping the large pot on the outside of a pack it really wasn't too much of a burden, however.

We used 2 JetBoil Sumo stoves for our crew of 12 and those worked great. Despite the weight penalty of carrying the Sumo pots in addition to our ranger mandated pots, it was pretty quick work to boil water in the Sumos and pour the water in to the large pot for rehydration, when required. Otherwise, we just measure water directly from the Sumos in to out fair share mugs for cooking.

[Sarah Kuhn]

On my previous 2 treks we have reconstituted almost exclusively in the provided packaging – Richmor meals and Santa Fe Chicken this year were the only meals which we didn't reconstitute in the provided packaging and that was simply because there was not enough space to add the necessary water.
Then we had one person eat out of the package while the other person ate out of their bowl – half as many dishes!!! (Or my daughter and I just ate out of the same bag, but I wouldn't ask the rest of the crew to do this.)

[Arnold OSullivan]

Been back two weeks, (802 I 2). The program director very politely asked all to conform to the no turkey bag rule. I do not buy his reasoning (solid waste reduction) as all of the staff camps which served coffee had ample supplies of styrofoam cups and the Trading Post gave out plastic bags with every sale. We only used the bags for the last three meals (a gift from another crew) and honestly I thought the meals were better hydrated in the pot. We carried two whisper-light stoves and burned through three large bottles of fuel (11 man crew). We carried our own aluminum pots and made lots of coffee/coco/tea.
We used the amsteel ropes with a five to one pulley and it was more trouble than it was worth.

[Tony Ronco]

To answer an earlier question: Last summer we had two crews go to Philmont. Both crews re-hydrated in the packaging bag both at Philmont and during training hikes utilizing left over Philmont meals.
Before doing so, I called both Mountain House and Richmoor about use of their packaging bags for dehydration. Was informed by both that the bag itself had the same rated liner as their commercial product bags, but that the bags did not have the folded base which could splay out to facilitate the bag standing up on its own … a feature their commercial bags have. As a consequence they warned us to use caution & not to spill the hot contents by expecting the bags to stand up on its own.
We used the recommended caution and found out that in practice that it was not a big problem.

[Wade Ford]

We got back just over 2 weeks ago (728-I) and were prepared to do freezer bag cooking for our 11 person crew. During the advisors meeting we were told the same thing concerning the freezer bags — not allowed. The boys decided to cook the Philmont way and not worry about it when they figured out that each boy would only have KP once for the trip. We took two 3-liter pots and 2 MSR wind pros stoves with a reflectix cozy for each pot. The cozy's worked great and were able to keep the food very hot even when the advisors were late getting back from advisors coffee.

We used just under three 8oz canisters of gas for our meals plus some extra cooking for birthday cupcakes. Using the ranger's tip of reducing the water by 25% we were able to cook most meals in a single pot. Cleanup was fairly easy. It was the human sumping of the pots that most boys didn't like. They treated sumping like a badge of honor and everyone eventually got their turn. The only thing in our yum yum bag at the end of the trip was a square of scrubby for each day and our pine needle sump bag.

We used some 8oz disposable cups as our dinner ware and these worked well while eating trail meals. Everyone just had 2nds and 3rds. They were horrible for the 2 chuck wagon meals that we had. If using bowls I would recommend a min of 16 oz bowls if you've got chuckwagon meals to deal with.

One other thing that they don't tell you is that tortillas are available at each commissary for the asking. One crew we talked with got a pack of tortillas for each trail meal and used those for bowls – so no washing of bowls.

[Donald Howard]

Tony,
That's interesting that MH said the bags are the same except for the pleat at the bottom which allows the bag to stand up. I email MH a few weeks ago about reports that Philmont was saying that toxins could be released if meals were reheated in the bags. MH told me that the bags were not designed for the heat, but would not release toxins. Guess it just depends on who you talk to there.

I have 20 Philmont dinners and my crew will be practicing with them.

[Tony Ronco]

Donald,
Re: Depends on who you talk to – how true.
Just for clarification: I was told that bag itself had the same rated LINER as their commercial product bags, (But on the outside portion, no glossy treatment or fancy graphics.) The concern expressed on use that was the lack of the folded base to able to stand up properly. With a little care, we found it to be a non-issue … everything worked out fine during our training treks and the Philmont trek itself.

I haven't heard of the toxin angle before (lol) … Good idea to fact check.

[Donald Howard]

I just received a box of 20 Philmont dinners (2 each meal) and the Mountain House dinner I checked had the pleated bottom but the packaging is not as heavy.

It was said that during ranger training they were told toxins would be released if you rehydrated in the food bags.
The comment was made here in the 4th post:

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=43436

[Tony Ronco]

Re: Use of packaging bags to re-hydrate

Called both Mountain House & Richmoor just now. I was curious if the pleat was an indication the Philmont pouches were designed to be utilized for re-hydrating.

MH customer service department at 1-800-547-0244 (M-F, 8 am – 5 pm PST).
RM customer service department at 1-800-322-6325 (M-F, 8 am – 5 pm PST).

Call Results – I was informed by both companies that the Philmont bags have NOT been tested for being utilized as rehydrating bags and are specifically made thinner (less layers) than the normal commercial offerings in order to reduce the purchase cost, and because the intended meal preparation method by the customer (= the traditional Philmont method of re-hydrating in a pot). That's the companies' official recommendation of use: re-hydrate in a pot. They do not recommend using the thinner bag to rehydrate because they have not been tested for that kind of use. There was concern about potential liability as well.

Re: Toxicity (thanks for the link)

For MH & RM, both customer reps did not know exactly what material was being utilized for the liner, but did know that the liner is rated the same the commercial offerings -in terms of preservation of the contents and chemical safety – i.e. NOT having PBAs.

Toxicity and Zip-Locs
(http://www.ziploc.com/pages/TopFAQs.aspx).
Here is a "copy & paste" of the website's answers to the questions related to toxicity:

PBAs –
[start copy & paste]

---

"A recent study conducted and published by the University of Cincinnati found that the estrogen-like chemical BPA (bisphenol A) has been shown to encourage the growth of a specific category of prostate cancer cells. BPA is commonly used in the manufacture of certain plastic products, such as food-can coatings, milk-container liners, food containers, and water-supply pipes. As a result, media have been reporting on this study and the fact that this chemical is commonly found in plastic food storage containers.

SC Johnson [Zip-Loc Bags manufacturer] does not use BPA in its plastic products, Ziploc® Brand Bags and Containers.

SC Johnson is a leader in providing high-quality products. All of its products are extensively evaluated for toxicity and safety and comply with—and often even exceed—applicable quality and safety regulations.

For more information, please visit http://www.scjohnson.com

In 2002, we became aware of an email that was being widely circulated, which warned consumers about the alleged dangers of using plastics in the microwave. This email claimed that the combination of fat, high heat, and plastics releases dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body, thereby increasing the risk of producing cancerous cells. We researched these claims and it is clear that the information is misleading, and unnecessarily alarms consumers.

Ziploc® Brand products are 100% dioxin free. You also should be aware that dioxins can be formed only when chlorine is combined with extremely high temperatures, such as 1,500°F, which even the most powerful consumer microwave ovens are unable to produce.

Our Ziploc® Brand products can be used with confidence when label directions are followed. All Ziploc® Brand Containers and microwaveable Ziploc® Brand Bags meet the safety requirements of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for temperatures associated with defrosting and reheating food in microwave ovens, as well as room, refrigerator, and freezer temperatures.

Like all Ziploc® Brand products, Zip’n Steam® Bags are dioxin free. Additionally, they are specially designed for microwave use and meet the safety requirements of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for temperatures associated with cooking food in the microwave when label directions are followed.

Please help us alleviate consumers' concerns and share these facts with those who forwarded this misleading e-mail to you, and to whom you may have sent it. Thank you for giving us a chance to set the record straight."
_________________________
[end copy & paste]

FWIW, a quick internet search reveals a long list of hits about the concerns about PBAs and Dioxins.

Ok – two years ago at this time, the story was rather different and definitely not as consistent. For rehydrating, we utilized BOTH the factory packaging bag & zip-loc bags, on both our training hikes (for testing out & training to the method) and on our 2011 Philmont trek (which worked out fine) … it sure saved a lot of time & effort … and we were planning to do the same for our 2013 trek, … that is,before this thread.
Back to square one for evaluation.

[Donald Howard]

Tony, other than the fact that Philmont now bans Freezer Bag Cooking is there a reason why you wouldn't do it, say on a troop outing?

[Tony Ronco]

Donald, we do use freezer bag "cooking" all the time on "normal" outings, (I've personally used it for many years). For a more economical approach, a dehydrator will be needed for at home meal prep … also depending on the weather & the meal itself, a reflectix cozy for the bag. The approach is lightweight, fast & simple, with easy clean up (= a lot to like).

[Jacob Phelps]

Hey all! You guys were right, us Philmont Staff do "troll" these forums occasionally. I have attended Philmont twice on trek and most recently spent the summers of 2011 and 2012 on staff as a Ranger. As of July 2012 the use of turkey bags/freezer bags or any other cooking bag is prohibited.

I've had the pleasure of working with about 2 dozen crews. Most of them discussed cooking in bags with me. Here's what I have to say to them, and yourselves:

Going to Philmont is an experience. I appreciate you planning ahead and preparing for you Philmont trek. The truth is that last summer (2012) there were 28,000 people who went to Philmont. Philmont is serving 3 meal for every 2 people. Philmont is a Wilderness area. It is already expensive enough to transport trash from back country camps. If we can prevent any trash, we want to.

Part of the ethics of leave no trace is to minimize your impact. When you choose to generate more trash than you need to, you may not be polluting Philmont, but you will be sending that trash to be stored elsewhere. Plastics take a long time to decompose.

When I was a "young" ranger I gave in to a few crews wanting to use turkey bags. both times the crews broke the bag and still had to clean their pots. Not only that, they could not get all of the food out of their turkey bag.

Every bag that has an ounce left in it is not only extra weight that you will have to carry, but an extra chance of something exploding inside your pack. Now outside of bear country, this is a minor inconvenience. Inside bear country it means everything goes up in the bear bag at night, even if it is your sleeping bag.

For those who don't know One pot cooking is where you place all your freeze dried food into the pot and re-hydrate it all at once. Philmont chooses meals based on a theme, like Mexican Rice and beans… They taste delicious mixed together.

I've spent 2 summers dining with the "horrible" 1 pot cooking method. Here's what I have to say about it:

Get a bowl you can easily lick out. Washing dishes should be more of a formality than a reality. On trek and as a Ranger I used something similar to the REI Campware Serving Bowl. Deep enough to work as a bowl, wide enough to lick clean like a plate.

1) CHOLULA! This complements EVERY meal. Basecamp or freeze dried. When I share with my crews I would run out of a bottle in 2 days on the trail… so Plan accordingly.

2) IGNORE THE HYDRATING DIRECTIONS!!! If you follow them it will be a soupy mess. I usually found 1/2 to 3/4ths the recommended water worked. I would eyeball it, pour a little in until it was slightly soupy and keep adding more. You can always add water on the trail. You can't remove it.

3) Cook all of the food, divide it up evenly. There will always be a hungry teenager in the crew to eat the rest of it. After the quality of food in 2012, the best meals were dinner. Everything else was like eating out of a vending machine, very sugary so it tasted good, but it lacked any sustenance to keep you going on the trail.

4) Invest the best $4 of your life. BUY a GSI Outdoors Compact Scraper and scrape the pot and all the dishes clean.

As for a stove, in 2011 the best stoves I saw had wide bases. I've seen too many pocket rockets fail at Philmont (their prongs bend from too much weight while being heated). Truly the best stove to take to Philmont is a white gas stoves. They are very efficient and VERY sturdy. The most common stove I've seen has been the Whisperlite International. A plus is that the fuel is cheaper, more compact, and available throughout the Philmont back country.

If anyone else has any questions, I am more than happy to help!

[Stephen Everson]

Ranger Jake – thanks for the posting.

Right now, the plan we are looking to go foward with is Ziploc bowls (everyone has the same bowl) and rehydrating and eating out of the same bowl. No freezer bags. The bowl fits into the 2.5L pots for our MSR Reactor stoves. Boils water really fast. We can use the 2.5L pot for cleanup. No need to haul 8 qt pots around. We made cozies for the ziploc bowls. Seems to work well.

How would this be perceived by the rangers at Philmont?

Landing at Philmont on July 1 2013

[Tony Ronco]

+1 on what Stephen's lads are doing.

In an effort to reduce weight, size and time, We're going down a similar path in prepping for our 2013 trek. Our guys are currently mostly utilizing Ziploc rectangular containers (the type lunch meats come in), to rehydrate in the container. The ziploc containers are very light and can be gotten for free (by saving them from their use as lunch meat containers) As Stephen already mentioned, ziplocs beautifully nest, and can be stored in a more reasonable (and much lighter) sized pot. There is no additional trash generation associated with utilizing freezer bags.

Since the lads have a baseline reference of the clean up convenience of the freezer bag method … they are always looking for similar speed & minimized clean up effort. Since the manufacturer's meal bag has 2 meals in it, there has been movement among the meal buddies, that one of them gets to rehydrate in the manufacturer's bag making sure that bag resting in the Scout's ziploc container (so the manufacturer's bag acts as kind of a liner for the container, and the container is there in case of bag leaks). This reduces impact by reducing the number of bowls to be cleaned. A few meal buddies don't bother to split up the meal & just share out of the bag provided (which is still resting in the container). This further minimizes impact by eliminating the need for the bowls to be cleaned (provided of course no leaks, which hasn't happened yet)

Benefit Summary – This approach is a further impact reduction: minimizes cleaning of the wash pot (= boiling pot), and halves the cleaning requirement of the bowls which further reduces grey water generation and campsoap use – all without increasing trash generation. In addition to saving fuel & the stove's fossil fuel emissions from unnecessary boiling.
(For those that shared out of the provided bag, that has the greatest reduction of impact of all – minimal clean up required – No generation of grey water, no use of campsoap, and of course, NO increase in trash generation, … in addition to the benefit of being a big time saver for clean up)

I'm looking forward to see how things progress in our crew as time goes on, and of course, reading about the efforts of other crews posted to this forum.

[Donald Howard]

Jacob, thank you for your insight. You mentioned "Part of the ethics of leave no trace is to minimize your impact.".

I understand advisors were served coffee in styrofoam cups that were provided by Philmont while in the back country.
Where does that fall in the efforts to reduce trash and minimize impact?

Also I have been advised that rehyrdating in individual bowels is also prohibited too.

I would not allow boys sharing food from the same bag. Most illness in the back country is spread by sharing food.

[Tony Ronco]

RE: Philmont LNT-
From what I've seen, Philmont practice of LNT is certainly not as strong or as consistent as it could be. For example, I use pictures (taken during our 2011 trek) of tree damage (phloem damage) from the bear bagging rope practice as examples of what NOT to do (and the LNT need for stand off sticks to protect the bark from rope wrap)… there are many other examples of non-LNT practices that occur at Philmont. I think it is a good thing that they are making efforts to improve. I just hope they realize there are lots of "low hanging fruit" and that strong preachers need to first be strong practitioners. Lead by example.

RE: Bowl re-hydrating –
So, the reasoning behind the move against re-hydrating in a freezer bag, was because of the waste generation and the desire to reduce impact.
Is it true that re-hydrating in a bowl is prohibited too? (… as Donald related in his post) If true, then a natural question arises: how does that contribute to increased waste generation and increased impact? (Because in practice, it actually reduces waste generation and reduces impact.) Jacob, help me understand that.

RE: "Most illness in the back country is spread by sharing food."
Yeah, given the safety first mindset, I also had that concern about permitting the lads (who were meal buddies) to do that. From researching it, I've read that the majority of back country illnesses (which are diarrhea related)are from either drinking untreated water, or from lack of "good hygiene" (defined as routine cleaning of cooking utensils & pots (i.e. disinfecting) and the cleaning hands after bowel movements). As a supplement to the research, I also talked to a parent who is a family physician, who agreed with the above, & thought we should also be aware that there are additional transmission risks to consider … first, from the close quarters of a shared sleeping shelter (for flus, etc. transmission) and that there were also potential risks of "double dipping" (as she phrased it) during food preparation & serving (for flu & hygiene related illnesses). Ok, so that's my answer I thought – not to allow sharing. But then, when I specifically asked about meal buddies (who are shelter buddies)sharing of food, she thought it was ok, PROVIDED that the lads are responsible enough to CONSISTENTLY maintain good hygiene and avoid going on trips when they were feeling or starting to feel sick.

… so, for the boys who wanted to do it, I've allowed it to continue for a few.

In the past, this has already been happening "de-facto" for those "always hungry" Scouts that eat up the left overs.

FYI, from my research I discovered that NCBI has some great research & stats on wilderness illness hazards. Here's two links to abstracts of research studies geared towards backpackers:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12681456
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14769284

Right now, we're still going down the re-hydrate in a bowl path. We'll have a final determination on those that share out of a bag.
I enjoy watching the boy-led creativity on their time & effort improvements, (Hmm, that's worthy of a separate thread being created.)

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