I've had the same problem with Mainstay rations. I thought I was saving money by buying the 3600s. I noticed right away after it happened so I wrapped them in wax paper and put them in the freezer. Now I take them as disposable rations when I go hiking or fishing. If I need them, fine and if I don't they get tossed when I get home.

+1 on canned food. The one emergency food I stash which I'm certain will survive over everything else in the bag are the smoked oysters. Packed in oil so if I'm really down on energy I can drink it for the fat it contains.

(lol) true my friend, so true. Keep in mind though, unlike most people I know I actually USE my gear almost every day.

I don't have a problem with my food spoiling because it gets used fairly quickly and then replaced. If not using my gear for work, then I spend every available second outside in the woods doing something so my gear is constantly being used and inspected. Even for those areas where the storage is more long term(like the stash I keep in my truck) I rotate the food and water every month.

In MHO you should dump your bag out and inspect every single item at least once a month depending on how much it is used. As was noted, things like solid fuel, bic lighters, batteries etc etc will all need periodic checking. For food items I find that I would rather rotate them more frequently than spend money on some expensive storage case to put it in and leave it for two years.

Tupperware (or rubbermaid) containers are great for keeping food un-squished ( first aid kits too) and dry / dust free. Plus they come in a huge variety of sizes and shapes

Teacher

You might consider ditching the trioxane in favor of a less toxic alternative-either a candle-based or a methanol-fueled system. The ultralight folks have developed pot-stove-windscreen combinations that weigh essentially nothing. Switch the edibles to that historic survival staple, nature's perfect food: Vienna sausages. Durable, good hot or cold, and they have enough nitrates on board that you can dry them out and make gunpowder of them. They are made out of parts of the pigs, cows and chickens that would be wasted otherwise, so eating them is an environmentally positive act. The cans make a neat little methanol stove-you can crimp the lip and achieve a snap-in fit on the bottom of a 24 oz heineken can to create a poor man's jetboil.
For way too much stove information, see
http://zenstoves.net/.

For vienna sausage serving hints, see http://www.mountainsoul.net/vienna.html.

For vienna sausage ingredient list, see
http://www.findagrave.com/meatpage/ingredients.html

If you like what you see on the second site, you might should skip the third site.

To help keep the supplies in my BOB in good shape I have taken to wrapping the individual packages in newspaper. I have found that it increases the odds they make it long-term intact and have noticed they also seem to deteriorate a little more slowly simply due to age.

Newspaper is pretty tough stuff in resisting puncture and friction wear in a pack. It is also a fairly good insulator. More even and moderated temperature swings may explain the slower aging process.

The newsprint is light and quite useful in a survival situation as padding, insulation, and tinder.

I also use the Mainstay bars. I just wrap each in a full sheet of newsprint. It puts three or more layer between it and anything that might puncture or wear a hole in the laminate wrapping. Wrapped this way I have never had one come up holed. Each gets the newsprint wrapping and then four go into a large freezer bag. Which rides in a stuff sack.

I have thought about using white butcher's paper, standard brown wrapping paper and/or pink rosin paper but newsprint is free and I always have some around. The white or brown papers would be good for writing field memoirs and I once made a set of functional insoles out of four layers of rosin paper. They were surprisingly comfortable and lasted a long time considering what they were.

I also like to carry a few cans of food. Mostly soup that can be eaten out of the can. Can provide a rich broth or, worked with a spoon, a mash for anyone unable to eat regular food. A quick source of energy. They also are a secondary source of a small amount of water in case everything else falls through. The cans also have many uses. Everything from cooking pot, mug, small hobo stove, makeshift spear or knife.

I always like the look I get when people see a couple of cans in my kit. Everyone assumes they are an extra burden. But the way I see it the food inside and cans themselves are pretty light. The real weight is in the water content. Water you would have to carry anyway. IMO the effective difference in weight is small and the potential benefit fairly large.

MREs, Clif bars between meals, Mainstay bars as a reserve and a couple of cans of soup to fill the gaps covers it for manpacked food and ready-to-go BOB.

And each page of newspaper is dated,,,,which reminds you how old each article wrapped up in a newspaper, actually is.

During WWII, columbia-presbyterian hospital in NYC ran short of cloth wrappers for wrapping sterile surgical supplies-so they used newsprint. Fast forward to 1985: during some renovations, a cache of sterile instruments was uncovered, wrapped in newsprint and dated during the war years. Some of the packs were taken to the bacteriology lab, swabbed, and cultured: still sterile. Nurse midwives delivering babies in rural homes in Appalachia used to establish a clean-nearly-sterile field for their instruments by laying newsprint on the table and work surfaces. Unfortunately, the print news industry is circling the drain, and we will soon lose access to this useful material.

The packaging for Clif bars is essentially bullet proof. Several have spent years wallowing around in the bottoms of my packs; the packaging has never been breeched. The bars themselves are a pretty decent food-like substance.

I hadn't really thought of either of those useful aspects. Both points in favor of newsprint. It isn't a miracle material but it has a lot of uses.

Old time hobos used newsprint, wrapped around the body underneath your clothes, to increase the insulation. the trick is to crumple and then reflatten each piece individually before tucking it in. It softens and fluffs the paper a bit and the resulting wrinkles don't line up between the sheets so you end up with lots of little air pockets that increase the insulation value.

Six or seven layers worked this way and tucked flat into a trash bag,to keep the paper dry, makes a ground pad that goes a long way to keeping you warm even if you have to sleep on snow.

A few layers worked in the same way and cut to size and used as an insole can go a long way to keeping your feet from freezing if your caught in the woods with shoes more adapted for street use.

Related: Sandwich bags put over your socks and just covering the toes can help keep your toes from freezing without causing you to sweat. Which might defeat the purpose.

On the fun side once caught in an extended rainstorm and pretty much confined to tents I tore up the paper finely and mixed in a little rainwater and some pancake mix for binder. We had fun making papermache figures and drying them over the stove while making supper.

I suspect that the same paper mush might make a good base for a poultice. I would use a strong tea of the active ingredient as the liquid and hold it in place with a bandage or cloth.

I would switch to Esbit over Trioxane, it burns a little hotter and doesn’t seem to have the contamination problem you talked about. But it does have a slight smell while burning, but not that bad. An alcohol stove may also be a good choice, I would go with the Trangia, it has a few features other alcohol stoves don’t. it’s very durable (most alcohol stoves are home made and quite fragile) and it can be sealed up and put away with fuel still in it. With all other alcohol stoves you have to wait till it burns out before you put it away.




What are you keeping in your BOB to eat that can handle real every-weekend type carry?

Can food is pretty much bullet proof when it comes to storage and rough use in a pack.


GSI makes some strong, waterproof storage cases. Not small, but very tough. Nalgene bottles work great, I use them for food in a cooler when camping. Shredded cheese in a zip lock, in a cooler always seems to get water logged. Not so when I put it in a Nalgene.

They make smaller Nalgene bottles (14-oz instead of the 32 oz bottles) they are 2/3 the height and ½ as big around. But they cost $6.00 for them. I have 3 or 4 of them and find them handy.