Food Storage and organization

[cmeier117]

Looking for some advice and corrections to my planned set-up for food organization and storage. I know it is a little thing but just curious if you guys do something different or what you would change with my set-up.

I plan on keeping one days worth of food in a gallon freezer bag. Then putting those bags into a Sea to Summit Nano dry sack for organization. Is this what you guys all do? Or do you keep your Mountain house dinners in a bag. Breakfast stuff in a bag etc...

This is the plan for menu per day-

-a good granola with powder milk/protein powder in a bag for breakfast (just add water)
-2 Peanut butter,bacon, and honey sandwhichs pre made on toasted bread for lunch
-2 person mountain house meal for dinner
-2 cliff bars (snack)
-1 cups of cashews (snack)

I will probably adjust this after some scouting trips this summer based on number of calories I need etc.. But more on the organizing and storing of your food.

 

[BMB]

i usually bag by day, cut as much of the original packaging as i can. then put all of it in one stuff sack and after i setup camp, i pull out one day of food at a time to take with me. i keep one of the MH meal and desert bags and just rinse them out after each meal. i know some of the guys use the ziploc bag to rehydrate their meals, i've never really tried that. may try it a few times to see if it works for me.

 

[dotman]

Looks good to me. I'm with BMB, might try to take just one mh package to heat everything in and put the remaining dinners in ziplocks. I see this more as space savings though since you can get them compressed down really well.

 

[cmeier117]

I looked at getting the vacuum pack MH meals but they are a lot less in calories.

 

[>>>---WW---->]

Looks good! I vacum seal everything. Makes it a little more compact and you can use the bag to rehydrate things in. You can seal a whole days worth up in one bag or do individual meals. It's up to you. Get on youtube and type in homemade MRE. Some of those guys have some pretty good ideas. Then again, some of them are a little WACKO!!!!!!!!!!

 

[les welch]

I buy MH in the bulk cans. Split and vacuum seal in my own bags. This way I get exactly how much I need, shave some weight, save some room. Each days total food allotment is then vaccum sealed in a bigger bag. This also helps reduce odor around camp (cuts down on bear visits).

 

[cmeier117]

I buy MH in the bulk cans. Split and vacuum seal in my own bags. This way I get exactly how much I need, shave some weight, save some room. Each days total food allotment is then vaccum sealed in a bigger bag. This also helps reduce odor around camp (cuts down on bear visits).

You eat out of the vacuum seal bags? Those are a lot thicker than normal freezer bags right?

 

[bowhnter7]

I looked at getting the vacuum pack MH meals but they are a lot less in calories.

Look again, the Pro Pack ones have just as high of cals for the most part. Some of them say 2 servings.

 

[cmeier117]

Look again, the Pro Pack ones have just as high of cals for the most part. Some of them say 2 servings.

I will do that... I only looked at a couple and could have missed something.

 

[BMB]

i always go 2 servings brother. get a 1 serving and you'll be a hungry s.o.b. later.

 

[Gman]

I've found the Kifaru meat baggies at 1oz make a great storage/hang bag as well. Held 10 days worth of food for me last year.

 

[ohhiitznik]

I'll be dehydrating and vac sealing my own meals this year. I'll be making my own cozy for rehydrating the meals as well. vac sealing is the way to go, even if you use mountain house. Vac seal bags are tough as nails and rehydrate easily.

I'll put all my food for a day in a 1 gallon zip lock, and have them in their own packaging if needed. That way I can just grab a zip lock and then hang the bag back up and not have to mess with it digging for food.

My menu this year will look like this

Breakfast: Granola/Protein/Powdered Milk in a ziplock

Snack1: Clif bar, GU energy gel/homemade fruit leather

Lunch: Peanut Butter, bacon, honey, dehydrated banana sandwich on toasted bread vac packed

snack2: Wilderness athlete bar, gu energy gel, homemade fruit leather

Dinner: Dehydrated meal of my choice *stroganoff, Spaghetti, Beef stew, Chili, Stir fry, the list is endless*

I can load tons of calories into my own dinners I make, and I can also watch the salt I put into them. Thats the only downfall of the mountain house is that its chock full of salt. I sometimes carry packs of ramen noodles to add to the mountain house meals when I used them, not the seasoning, just the noodles to add another 500 calories for basically no weight.

 

[Rick Seymour]

I need to go to the store and get some Granola/Powdered milk to try that, sounds so easy. I only have Vanilla protein as a matter of choice. Usually its a protein bar and a package of 2 poptarts and off I go

 

[Becca]

I am typically in charge of food counting and organization for our trips, and I often leave a backpack meal "prep station" (folding table with all the stuff out) up in our house for the duration of our season. We are on the go a lot, often only coming home for a night or two between trips, and this makes it easy to "reload" our food supplies and get back out there. Last year I had food for three ten day trips (for the two of us) per staged around the end of July to get us through August and into September with minimal work.

I do labelled gallon ziplock bags for most everything except the MH meals we have for dinner. For example, I will have a ziploc labelled "breakfast x10" with our alotted number of oatmeals inside (2pkg each x 2 people x 10 days=40 packets). We have a bag of coffee supplies (we use VIAss, as well as a few tea bags and hotcocoa packets too) as well. Same with cliff bars, snickers bars, trail mix packets, GUs etc....I count out the number we will need, and put them into a gallon bag for easy organization once we set up camp. For items like trail mix that might be bought or made in bulk, I will measure individual servings into snack size bags first, and then pack up the correct number of bags. I like having everything separated so it doesn't go everywhere once we set up the tent. The only exception is mountain house...we typically just leave them in their original packaging, and count out the right number and then stuff them wherever they will fit in our packs. Then make a pile in one corner of the tipi once the tent is pitched (or leave them in the bottom of the pack and pull as needed if moving daily). Since we are usually doing breakfast at camp each day it's easy to just grab the "breakfast" and "drink" bags and pull out what we need in the morning. I then pull out a selection of "day snacks" from the other bags and put them someplace easy to access throughout the day. I find we eat more somedays, and less on others so this means I can adjust our daily snacks easier (say we had 2 clif bars and a GU from yeaterday that didnt get eaten, now i can just add to that) than if I had each day's worth of snack already packed.

 

[cmeier117]

I am typically in charge of food counting and organization for our trips, and I often leave a backpack meal "prep station" (folding table with all the stuff out) up in our house for the duration of our season. We are on the go a lot, often only coming home for a night or two between trips, and this makes it easy to "reload" our food supplies and get back out there. Last year I had food for three ten day trips (for the two of us) per staged around the end of July to get us through August and into September with minimal work.

I do labelled gallon ziplock bags for most everything except the MH meals we have for dinner. For example, I will have a ziploc labelled "breakfast x10" with our alotted number of oatmeals inside (2pkg each x 2 people x 10 days=40 packets). We have a bag of coffee supplies (we use VIAss, as well as a few tea bags and hotcocoa packets too) as well. Same with cliff bars, snickers bars, trail mix packets, GUs etc....I count out the number we will need, and put them into a gallon bag for easy organization once we set up camp. For items like trail mix that might be bought or made in bulk, I will measure individual servings into snack size bags first, and then pack up the correct number of bags. I like having everything separated so it doesn't go everywhere once we set up the tent. The only exception is mountain house...we typically just leave them in their original packaging, and count out the right number and then stuff them wherever they will fit in our packs. Then make a pile in one corner of the tipi once the tent is pitched (or leave them in the bottom of the pack and pull as needed if moving daily). Since we are usually doing breakfast at camp each day it's easy to just grab the "breakfast" and "drink" bags and pull out what we need in the morning. I then pull out a selection of "day snacks" from the other bags and put them someplace easy to access throughout the day. I find we eat more somedays, and less on others so this means I can adjust our daily snacks easier (say we had 2 clif bars and a GU from yeaterday that didnt get eaten, now i can just add to that) than if I had each day's worth of snack already packed.

It is nice to have some women on this site! So if I understand you correctly Becca you put Breakfast, Lunch, snacks and dinner meals into their own bags and then you make up a days worth of food before you leave camp for the day to go hunting? Instead of making 7 bags of food for 7 days?

 

[Lawnboi]

I pack mine in day sized bags, i take out day by day. i will be getting a Kifaru meat sac to hang my food. 1 oz is lighter than just about any dry sac. Im going to go with making my own dehydrated meals this year. Already making my own bars ect. My food choice varies greatly depending on the trip though.

Which brings me to another idea, Start a backcountry food topic on here!!!!! Like on the Kifaru forums.

One thing is for sure though, bacon, pre cooked and vac sealed is going to be coming with me at all times! Just dunk it in some warm water in the bag, and its ready to go.

 

[Gman]

I've found the Kifaru meat baggies at 1oz make a great storage/hang bag as well. Held 10 days worth of food for me last year.

To add to this I have a UL rock bag, spectra cord, & mini biner kit I got from gravity gear to hang the food bag. I've also seen similar kits at other sites like bplight. You could make one very easily and that weighs something like an ounce, two at the most. That with the K bag make a great lightweight hang system.

I've found the Kifaru Baggie at 1oz to be one of my most utilized piece of kit. I've stored beer in backcountry streams, hauled out garbage, meat bag, food bag, filled it with sand to improvise a anchor point, etc.

 

[Becca]

It is nice to have some women on this site! So if I understand you correctly Becca you put Breakfast, Lunch, snacks and dinner meals into their own bags and then you make up a days worth of food before you leave camp for the day to go hunting? Instead of making 7 bags of food for 7 days?

Thanks cmeier, its great to be here!
You are Correct. Since we typically eat breakfast and dinner at the tent, it's just easier to separate by meal and then pack the "day snacks" each morning when we head out from the tent. We usually have at least one 2-serving mt house in the packs too, but almost always wait to have dinner until we get back. If we expect to buy out, we bring more food, but as a general rule we just take what we need for the day, plus a little extra when we are away from the tent hunting in the daytime.

 

[Rabbit Ranger]

I found that I can fit a breakfast and lunch, along with the days snacks into quart size ziplocks which are labeled for each day. One trick I learned from a "Huntin Fool" article was to roll my bagels flat, flat , flat, which saves a buch of space. "Justin's Peanut Butter" (or almond butter) are the perfect size individual packets along with the jelly and/or honey condiment packages from restaurants works well for a peanut butter/jelly (or honey)-bagel sandwich. I can also fit two oatmeal packets and a rolled mini bagel for breakfast. I then top it off with a couple cliff bars and dried fruit and trail mix for snacks. My dinners are all in one or two large gallon ziplock, which usually consist of Hawk Vittles; a lot less junk preservatives in the vittles and they are quite tasty.