With summer coming (I hope), I've been wondering about the best choice for a small store of emergency food to keep in the trunk of the car...

Any suggestions for what might best survive the fierce heat built up in a car parked in the hot sun all summer long?

Wholewheat biscuits (the ones that don't contain too much sugar) would be a pretty good choice. They last a long time in hot weather, just keep them dry. I always take a few packs on longer treks as a substitute for bread. That and a few cans of tuna or beef, maybe some nuts and dried fruit should cover most of your nutritional requirements.

Be careful on biscuits. The type you just toss in the oven to cook might "explode" if the car gets hot enough (they'd start to 'cook' in the tin, then rupture it). Goo everywhere.

Something like this http://www.redflarekits.com/pc/3020/w/1200Kcal+Survival+Food+Ration+by+Mayday claims to store well in heat. Bad news is that it is thirst provoking so you are going to need water too.

MREs suffer shortened shelf life in heat.

Freeze dried will do ok, but there again, you need water and some way to boil it.

The type you just toss in the oven work well in S. Texas. Pop them out and line them up carefully on the dash of you vehicle and they are ready in about 20 minutes. Oh, do not crack the windows. That lowers the temp to about 200 degrees. Just kidding, I never cook on the dash. The exhaust manifold is quicker!!

MREs are negatively effected by heat, but if you store them in a cooler they will hold up better, and they will last long enough to make it through the summer. But I wouldn't trust them past the summer, nor any canned goods stored in your trunk.

Freeze dried and dehydrated, and canned even if not as short lived, might be your best bet from an economics point of view.

There are some sealed pouches of tuna and spam that seem to store well. Slim Jims or equivilant are quick energy and store well. But, NightHiker and DesertFox have some good choises. Again, water is need to hydrate.

Milestand,

garland posted a review on Horml meals on the long-term preparedness forum 04/12/2007 @ 12:22PM. Check it out. This looks like a good possibility.

There are several brands of lifeboat style rations, like the Mainstay bars mentioned earlier. They are like incredibly dense bars about the dimensions of candy bars. I happen to like the taste of some of them, like the SOS bars, which have some coconut in them I think which gives them some flavor, here's a place you can get them:

http://www7.mailordercentral.com/longlif...1&mitem=180

Another thing that works, and comes in a few flavors are Millenium Bars:

http://www.countycomm.com/BAR.htm

Those are nice to have in the daypack.

Thanks for the suggestion -- I always try to do a search before starting a new topic and glanced at this thread. I haven't seen that product line, but we do have Hormel canned chili, which is good enough to eat in non-emergency situations. Has anyone actually kept a tin can of food in their trunk all summer, then eaten it (and lived to tell about it)? The advantages of Hormel chili are ziptop lids, and since we eat it occasionally, we could rotate it out of active duty to the kitchen.

And to clarify one point mentioned above, in this case I'm planning more for the "unexpected night out" rather than "being stranded in death valley for a couple of weeks". If I were going on any extended trips, I'd take along a more proper B.O.B. in true Equipped fashion.

So, my focus here is readily available, inexpensive, palatable food choices that can take 5 months of periods of intense heat in the trunk of a car. I would definitely eat them by then, or toss them - so it just needs to be safe, not immortal

Thanks again for all the suggestions...

My bif bars seemed to hold up well in the heat, though they do get a little more gooey than normal.

Granola bars that come packed in the aluminum/plastic pouches seem to hold up pretty well to heat.

I used to pack a tin of beer nuts with me a lot in hot weather. They were good, but you had to keep hydrated if you ate a lot of them.

Learning the above fact makes me really wonder about food storage in my car. If MRE's can only handle a month of 120F temperatures will other foods/packaging do any better? Does anyone know if the packaging of MRE's gives them their shelflife and is this shelflife longer than your basic can of Dinty Moore Stew? Or is the main purpose of MRE's just to give grunts a bunch of calories in quick format?

I guess the test will be cans of stew left in the car then taste one each month to see how it goes. That'll test the patability but not their nutritional value...

-Blast, who is in a contemplative mood...and likes stew.

I have eaten canned chili and a few other thing that were in my truck for more than a year thru winter spring summer and fall, and I'm still up right and kickin. I would suggest rotating them more often than every couple of years though.

Blast, do you eat anything besides chili or stew?
kmat

Well...Slim Jims...and occasionally canned curry from World Market.

-Blast

Was not my intention to offend. However, I've been known to cook a pretty mean venison chili(capable of burning out the bottom of a cast iron pot!!). Maybe a Spring Creek chili dinner soon?
kmat

I don’t know about the rest of you, but now I’m hungry. Guess I’ll be going to fix dinner…

Venison chili? Oh yes oh yes oh yes!
I'll bring the beer! One keg or two?

-Blast, who thinks it's time for another Texas ETS meetup.

Hmmm... I carry StarKist Tuna (in pouches) in both my backpack and vehicle as an emergency food source.

Found the information below on the StarKist website:

http://www.starkist.com/faqs.html

----------

Q. What is the shelf-life of StarKist® Canned Tuna?

A. Unopened StarKist® canned tuna has a recommended shelf-life of up to four years, provided the product has been stored under normal conditions and the can is not dented or damaged.

As of January 2004 we have begun printing a “Best By” Date on cans of StarKist® Tuna. However, for cans without a “Best By” Date, you can use the manufacturing code information to tell whether the can is still within the recommended shelf-life. This code is printed or embossed on the lid or bottom of the can and consists of two rows of letters and numbers. Please look at the second, or bottom row of the code. The bottom row ends with a letter of the alphabet, which stands for the year in which the product was packed. The letter “M” means the tuna was packed in 2003, the letter “L” means the tuna was packed in 2002, and the letter "K" means the tuna was packed in 2001.

----------

Q. What is the shelf-life of the StarKist Flavor Fresh Pouch® and StarKist Tuna Creations™?

A. Unopened StarKist® Tuna in a Pouch has a recommended shelf-life of 3 years, provided the pouch is not damaged and the product has been stored under normal conditions.

As of January 2004 we have begun printing a “Best By” Date on StarKist® Tuna Pouches. However, for pouches without a “Best By” Date, you can use the manufacturing code information to tell whether the product is still within the recommended shelf-life. This code is printed on the back of the pouch, near the middle section, and consists of a series of letters and numbers. The last letter in the code stands for the year in which the product was packed. The letter “M” means the tuna was packed in 2003; and the letter “L” means the tuna was packed in 2002.

Keep in mind that those dates are for normal (sic) conditions. I have no idea what they mean by that, but I'm pretty sure it isn't the trunk of your car.

So if I was talk about, say, browning some hashbrowned potatoes with a little onion in some bacon grease in a skillet, smoothing it out as a crust, then putting down a quarter inch layer of thin sliced ham and some just as much chipotle cheddar, sliced, then covered with a couple eggs with a little milk scrambled into it and stuck under the broiler for a few minutes is not somethign you want to hear about?

Nor is fresh baked corn bread with butter and honey served next to it?

*grins* I know I'm horrible.

I'm there! My theory is if it's wrapped in or cooked in bacon, it's got to be good!!!! Now I'm hungry too! I guess I'll just grill some bacon wrapped quail with onion and jalapeno.
kmat

The SOS and Datrex rations are designed to have a shelf life of 5 years under "extreme climatic and storage conditions". (That's from SOS Food Labs.) I had some of the SOS ones in a BOB in the back of a vehicle for a few years, through hot summers and sub zero winters and eventually ate a block of them hiking when they only had a year left and I was cycling them out. I don't think I could tell much of a difference in a side by side test of some fresh ones quite frankly. Of course, when I'm hiking, I'll eat anything, so maybe it's not a valid test...

You know, the next time I'm up in Vermont I may just have to kick your ass for that last post!

-Blast

I may have already eaten? but that post still makes you suck! Enjoy your meal. Let me know if you?re willing to FedEx some over.

[censored] mushrooms, and the sweetest vidalias onions, basted in the drippings and a light vegitable broth. Either way, served next to baked potatoes from a local farm, steamed in the coals sweet corn picked that afternoon served with lime-chili butter, and either coleslaw so fresh it crunches or a green salad with fresh daylily buds and homemade italian dressing.

So, planning a special trip to kick my butt?

I think in past life, I worked as a cook in a lumber camp or something. And no one went hungry.

Buuuuuurrrrrpppppp! Blast, road trip? Pack some short fuses!
kmat

"...normal conditions..."

Words like "normal" and "average" tend to scare me.

What is normal for one may be extreme for another...

How do the US militairy people protect there MRE's in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan,etc?? Some sort of aluminium foil pouch?

At larger facilities, MREs and other stable rations are stores in air conditioned warehouses. In the field and smaller facilities, you just eat them- the logistics faerie brings you more, wether you like it or not.

Blast looks at his can of SlimFast, rereads Ironraven's post, looks at can of SlimFast again...

Checks ticket prices to Vermont...

-Blast the Hungry

Fuse packed. Let's hit the road!

-Blast

Geez, you guys -- get a room!!!

(I recommend a kitchen by the sound of it...)

I'm pretty sure that MRE's would be ok for a summer just about anywhere in the USA, even Death Valley. According to this chart: MRE longevity , they would be good for 5 months at 110*F. I'm betting that it is the average temperature that matters, not the extreme. Same with canned foods like Dinty Moore (one of my favorites) or Spam. What worries me are repeated freeze/thaw cycles. I've noticed that both taste and texture become seriously degraded after a hard freeze.

Oh, oh my. If I'd known that you were on that stuff, I wouldn't have said a thing. I'm so sorry, that was so mean of me.

Job stress/insane hours has added 15 pounds to me in the last two years. If it weren't for SlimFast I would have added double that.

-Blast

I feel for you. I gained 35 pounds in law school and it took forever to get it back off.

We cycled our MREs about every three months in Iraq. KBR must've done the same at the Army Chow hall with their food too.

They had what they called milk in little cardboard containers like individual juice servings come in. I saw a pallet of them out back of the chow hall sitting in the summer sun all day long. Whatever they make that stuff out of, it doesn't taste a whole lot like milk, but it doesn't spoil easily either. I think it had a shelf life of 6 months or more at ambient temps.

I was damned glad the wife kept sending me a regular supply of milkman powdered milk mix. It is better than carnation, and a lot better than what was in those cartons. I bet you could use that carton milk stuff to whitewash a picket fence and it'd keep it in good shape for a decade.

Don't worry Blast, I gained 20 pound in 5 years of college (math kinda kicked me around the block a few times), and about 40 pounds after the bone and joint specialist suggested that if I want to have a shoulder at 60 I should stop lifting. Only lifting and hiking have ever been able to take the weight off of me, and I not allowed to have time for the latter any more it seems.

Probably used irradiation to preserve it. Back at the 1982 Worlds Fair they were giving away boxes of it about the size of AquaBlox. I don't remember how it tasted or what the shelf life was but you were supposed to be able to store it unrefrigerated.

You sound concerned about the exposure of the food to heat, not freezing.

MREs will work fine. So will most canned foods. So pack a few things that you like to eat that don't require cooking away in the trunk of your car and feel good about it.

I would think packing the food in a small/med. cooler could serve two purposed, 1)provide a storage container and 2)prevent any rapid temp. swings up or down during storage.