WINTER: Trunk foods?

For those of you who carry foods in the trunks of your cars....whatcha got?

I'm not as keen to carry water (a.k.a. ice this time of year), and several mostly water items make the food nearly inedible in a pinch.

Still have a mess of bars of various types and some other stuff, but looking for some ideas. I eat out of mine on a regular basis and replace immediately.

Long ago I used to keep a few cans of high energy roasted spanish peanuts in my rig. A few years back I switched to Pemmican balls which don't freeze. Now that I am here in Florida, I keep a couple snack bars in the glove box.

For drinks, I always just carried water with me, up to a couple gallons at one time, but now only a couple 20 oz bottles unless I am on a sojourn (work is less than 5 miles from the house, 3 miles as the crow flies).

In harsh cold environments, I would stick with the pemmican balls, and pack water adulterated with sugar, salt, potassium chloride, and a few other ingredients to get the eutectic temp way down. I've made concoctions that weren't excessively salted (I'd consider them as healthy nutrient supplements in fact)that wouldn't freeze above 0 degrees.

I live in NW Pennsylvania, the other night it was 15 degrees, I keep 12 bottles of water in a soft sided cooler under the back seat of my pickup, it gets pretty cold but never freezes. As far as food,peanut butter, peanuts, jerkey,crackers and granola bars and 3 MRE's.

I have Mainstay food bars and the water pouches. I also keep several MRE's as well. I don't keep the MRE's in the car during the summer though, heat decreases the shelf life. I like the water pouches because even if there frozen you can still peel of the foil and melt the ice.

You might try this: http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/yago104.html
It works for me, A Trangia alcohole stove and any available water.

Beef jerky, cheese and crackers, granola bars, raw nuts, tea bags, cocoa pkts. I usually carry liquids out with me when I leave. Since winter usually produces precipitation, I carry stuff to collect rainwater (emergency blanket, cord, clothespins, quart enamel metal cup).

Sue

Only slightly related to the topic but a fun thing to do/see. I leave a case of 20 oz. water bottles in the car. On occasion, when the bottles have spent the night in the cold, I can pick one up and it will still be in the liquid state even though the water temp is definitely below freezing. If I jar the bottle the entire contents will crystalize into ice in a flash. Just a neat thing to watch. Conditions have to be perfect but I have done it more than once.

Someone will remember the name of the SciFi novel where all the water changes to a solid crystal...

Sorry for hijacking the thread.

I do keep a number of foil packets of water in the car and have never noticed them freezing and it can get quite cold here in SE PA.

For the car trunk or the truck bed, I keep a box of saltine crackers and a jar of peanut butter. We always take water bottles in the truck cab with us, so I don't stock those separately (they would freeze here in Colorado). Then of course the shovel, kitty litter, recovery strap, etc. to get unstuck from the snow. If the trip will take us outside of the urban area (open highway, etc.), then sleeping bags, wool balaclavas, and heavy rag wool mittens go along in addition to our normal winter wear. I've been meaning to buy me a few of those Nuwick candles to take along, but it always seems the online S&H charges to buy those are higher than the cost of the candles themselves, so I've been putting it off searching for a local supplier or some online place with reasonable S&H charges.

I kinda lost interest when I got to the part about boiling water over Sterno...

We try to avoid the really cold places, but just in case, we have PB, crackers, granola bars, and some canned stuff. Frozen chili, thawed and heated, is still chili...

Right now I've got granola bars, ramen, peanut butter and graham crackers for solid food; tea bag, sugar packets, lemon packets and instant cocoa to add to water. I always have a pair of quart bottles in my pack, which goes in and out of the car with me most places.

It freezes solid here, I keep 40-granola bars, power gel, and a means to boil water because there is always plenty of that item here in these mountains, no need to carry it.

OBG
That is why I use the Trangia. More heat, less stink.

Yup. Or a simple soda can stove with Heat fuel. Whatever works. And Sterno doesn't...

At one time I packed a supply of commercial survival food and water commonly used for reserves in life rafts. I have bought Mainstay bars, 3600 calories each, and the long-term foil packed water pouches previously and they last a long time and are entirely acceptable.

Problem is they are pretty expensive for what your getting. The expense is reasonable for a stash that is inaccessible or unlikely to get looked at every few months but for a 'trunk' supply, really it rides behind the seat in the truck,

I have found a supply of 'energy', 'sports' or 'breakfast' bars, and a store-brand eight-pack of bottled water, I like the half-liter bottles, to be an acceptable alternative. Even after over a year of unprotected storage in the Florida heat neither of these items have degraded enough IMHO to worry about. I also use portions of both so there is some turnover.

I have a stuff-sack of replacement and warm clothes, many of them poly fleece so they are still warm if they get soaked, rain suits and a small pack.

Also at least one tarp, ropes and lines, flares, quite a few flashlights and a load of tools, including a Pulaski, machete and shovel, and various assorted materials in the cross-bed tool box.

Florida is settled territory. It would be pretty hard to find a spot where you couldn't choose a random direction and walk out in a day or two by just walking a straight line. Given I have maps, compass and a pretty good idea of the lay of the land I suspect, assuming I was ambulatory, it wouldn't take that long.

I figure I have a good four day supply for one and carry more as I take passengers. Of course, as long as everyone is relatively healthy, any good supply can be stretched to twice as long. So four days for one would be acceptable as four days starvation ration for two. I also carry a water filter and know quite a few of the edible plants common to the area so there is some chance of picking something up along the way.

Of course most all of Floria is in cell phone service and I have a spare battery, a charger that will work off of the truck battery and a hand-crank cell charger if that fails.

If that falls through my thought is that if I was seriously injured I would set a fire along any of the logging roads that grid the forest every quarter mile or so. If the truck won't drive the spare tire, fuel, glycol and foam rubber in the seats become fodder for a large sooty-smoky fire. As long as I have at least one good arm and can crawl I have confidence I could get it going without having to resort expend the energy to chop brush.

I figure that if I was spending my time in the remote areas of the amazon basin I would carry more food and water and less equipment intended to keep the cell phone working. For semi-rural Florida I think I have it pretty well covered but am perfectly willing to listen to any criticism or suggestions. There is always room for improvement.

I have a quart of H2O that hasn't frozen yet in my trunk, in the store bottle. It's kind of wedged between my FAK and jacket in the trunk, with temps in the low teens (and the last week essentially below freezing). If you're really worried, remember that alcohol and salts lower the freezing point. So... either a gin and tonic, or a bottle of gatorade, would probably freeze after a bottle of water.

As for food: 2 3600-cal Mainstay bars, a few power bars, 1 bar of Hershey chocolate, a few small boxes of raisons, some of the Jambalaya "instant" packages, a few foil packets of tuna and spam, and a Esbit stove with 6 tablets. Also have 2 empty quart canteens, 1 of those has a steel/tin? cup with it. Figure I have enough food for a week if I ration well, and a week with 2 people if I REALLY ration well.

I like dry roasted unsalted Soy Nuts for survival storage foods, and for water, I use these 1 liter Canteens.



Each of the front seats of my car, have mesh storage pockets on the backs. Canteens ride in each one, and even if they do freeze, I have yet to have one of these rupture.

I'm in similar climate and while I used to carry bottled water, a weeklong hard freeze a couple of years ago taught me not to do that. Plus, when I needed it, it would have to be melted in-bottle. I waited for some to thaw, but the bottles were never sealable again...they were always fairly open. Anone else have this experience?

Once in a while our temps dip to 15 then factor in the wind chill, I carry bottled water in a soft sided cooler and have never had it freeze.

A few days ago a friend revealed that he carried a large jar of peanut butter and a tin of soda crackers. Claims it has gotten out of a lot of tight spots.

We used to keep bottled water in a garage at work over the winter and it would all freze solid. The problem was that in the spring after it thawed there was "stuff" in the bottom of the bottle. We did not know if it was sediment or plastic from the bottle, so now we move it all into heated storage for the winter months.

Mike