Do you have a food kit in your vehicle(s) or looked at it lately?

Went through all the stuff in my car (a periodic habit that reacquaints me with what's in there, where exactly it is, and what could be added or subtracted) and removed some MoJo bars past their sell-by date. Also took out the old soup and put it in my kitchen cabinet to be consumed this winter.

Now have in the car (Honda Element) a Lock & Lock container filled with Lipton Cup 'o Noodles packets, energy bars, small jar of crunchy peanut butter, peanut butter-cheese crackers, Earl Grey (double bergamot) tea bags and honey sticks. And a few morale-lifting mini-Milky Ways....

My pup has in there a mini-bag of quality kibble (Orijen) and a couple cans of her daily food (Merrick's).

98% of my time is spent inside the Beltway, but this past January an epic snowjam on the GW Parkway (stranded thousands of motorists for 13 hours or more) was a vivid illustration of how you could find yourself in a serious situation smack in the middle of civilization.

That was just a few miles from my home but while I was cozy and warm during the modest snowstorm, thousands were stuck on that road wishing they'd gassed up and had something, anything, to eat and drink.

The situation would obviously be exponentially more serious if you were stranded by yourself for days out in the boonies.

Nice to have something to cook over the cookstoves many of us have in our vehicles. That Lipton Cup 'o Noodles would be some delightful comfort food in a cold crisis.

car bag has a Swiss Ranger stove and sterno...couple packs each of
ramen
foil packs tuna
boullion cubes
cocoa powder
tea bags
GatorAid mix
Crystal lite tub
lift ring mixed fruit
18 pack 1L water
toilet paper

mini-Trangia stove set and separate fuel containers; lighter and matches
Constant Comment tea
canned beef stew
canned fruit
water
Tanka bars

I am not real worried about going without food for a few hours. I do have a jar of peanuts in the Jeep though.

It would be nice to have some hot beverage available if one is forced to wait along a road side for some extended period of time.

I have some Mainstay bars in my BOB and some beef jerkey for those days where I can't stop for lunch. The Mainstay bars are good for five years and I eat the beef jerkey often enough that it doesn't have time to go bad.

I keep a bag of trail mix and a couple of bars in the cabin of the car. I've got 2 or 3 days worth of food in my GHB, and some snacks in each of the hiking packs that also live in the truck. There's also plenty of water and fixings for hot drinks in there too.

We always repack the snacks before and replenish immediately after a hike, so they're good and fresh.

I've got a cooler that I use for storing all sorts of goodies that shouldn't get too warm: D/AA/AAA batteries, water, MRE's, free dried entree's, snack bars -- all good.

I think the time required for beef jerkey to go bad must be geological in nature. I recently found a pack with an expiration date of 2005 - it was just fine....

Some granola bars and bottle of water, space is already tight enough in a jeep tj.

3-day pack Datrex
2 Ramen
several cocoa packs
one MRE
Esbit stove and cubes
small cooking pot etc
water container(empty in winter)
peanuts
Constant Comment green tea

It depends on the jerkey -- I buy stuff that's made locally and seems like it would last long enough to give to my grandchildren, if unopened.

Some brands go bad pretty quick, especially after being opened in a hot car. When it does go bad it's horrifying.

I've gone through different versions of things, but right now in our Honda Odyssey (I have a wife and three kids):

--A jar of peanut butter
--a small loaf of some German rye bread that's vacuum-bagged
--a few cans of Italian wedding soup
--about 10 Clif bars
--tea bags and hot chocolate packets
--Some loose hard candies (Jolly Ranchers, Werthers, etc.)
--6 1-liter Nalgene bottles
--an old mess kit with utensils
--an Optimus 8R or a 2-burner Coleman propane suitcase stove.

After a 9+ hour stint locked on unmoving interstate traffic last year, the only thing we used was the water and the Clif bars. I also usually keep a Lock and Lock container in the front stocked with random trail mix/granola bars to keep the kids going if they grumble about being hungry between meals.

I have never heard of "Italian wedding soup," perhaps because I have never married an Italian. Could you elucidate? Sounds interesting......

"Wedding soup" is a mistranslation of minestra maritata, "married soup" -- in which green veggies join meat in a harmonious combination, hence "married." It's pretty yummy. You don't have to get married yourself.

I am going through certain health transitions, and I'm not sure what I can/cannot eat. But it looks like for now I have to rule out the usual survival stuff, including much of what you guys pack. It would be bad to get a reaction from the food in a survival situation. If things go the way they're going, eventually I'll probably have to pack certain dehydrated foods, along with water and stove.

DB

I wonder if it would be worthwhile to include a 12v hot pot or immersion heater, that way don't have to get out of the car to heat liquids.

An excellent point. A number of books mention that you should pack the food your family already eats, but they don't seem to emphasize the potential downside of not doing so sufficiently.

Bingley's got it on the soup...I never knew what it was until several years ago...now it seems to be on all the grocery store shelves. It's got meatballs, chicken, tiny round pasta, a thick chicken broth and spinach. My kids will all eat it, unlike a couple of the other things I'd thought they might. At one time I had stored canned stew, or Spaghettios, or chicken and dumplings...but when I test-drove the meals, there was always someone who wouldn't eat it.

So, Italian Wedding soup seems to please everyone, and it's a lot heartier than chicken noodle soup.

I do Clif bars, the Clif crunch and Clif Mojo are much more tasty than then traditional ones. Single serving bags of peanuts, mixed nuts, trail mix. Rasins seem to keep well too.
I'm trying to make a good variety of food that needs no cooking and keep it rotated through all the gear before I add in food that needs to be cooked.

I've thought of this, too. In fact, this is one of the reasons I bought an immersion heater. This does mean we are assuming the car is functional enough to power the heater. I think it's a good idea to have a backup, so that's why I'm looking at the camping stove thread carefully.

The stuff I put away for emergencies are all items I have at least sampled before and that I find I can eat with gusto and pleasure. Life is tough enough without having to eat lousy food.

You all inspired me to look at Amazon for a 12v option, but none get great reviews.

So for now will continue to rely on a JetBoil for quick hot water. Highly recommend, I've used JetBoils for a few years on camping trips.

It makes a lot of sense to have a heating system that is completely separate from your vehicular systems. If weight is not really important, it is hard to beat a JetBoil.

Or you can have redundant batteries like I do.
/too many years of working on servers with redundant power and network connections.

I know this is a 'food stash' thread but also a Car Prep thread. My son (now 8) was born with an auto immune issue that often presents an immediate and painful bowel evacuation, (think constant state of having eaten bad Mexican the night before). And now we have a little girl.

In our van stash, along with food/water, body temp regulation, we have a little folding travel potty training toilet. It has come in handy waiting 3-4 hours at the border coming back from Mexico over holidays or stuck in bumper to bumper freeway traffic, not moving. But we have a van, it would be different if we had a sedan

I had a similar arrangement back in the day. When you gotta go, you gotta go....

If you have the space, a Luggable Loo type bucket toilet pre-packed with toilet paper, peat moss, trash bags, and hand sanitizer is a good idea.

and a poncho for a little privacy if you have to use it roadside

I keep a complete change of clothes in the car too. Many times I'm in a suit and tie, and neither the suit nor the shoes are what I'd like to be wearing in an emergency. Its nice to have in case I need to do car repairs too.

Probably even more imporant for yound kids with bowel issues.

I like to stash a jump suit in the vehicle; nice to climb into for grubby work and it will also serve to keep you nice and warm.

I'm in one of those situations where it's really hot in car in the summer and pretty darn cold in the winter too... does anybody know if a basic unpowered cooler (with no ice in it) would insulate enough to be a sufficient buffer for the extremes in temperature, or if it's better to schlep the food to and from the vehicle every day?

It depends on the food. I wouldn't try to store anything that wasn't reasonably shelf-stable to begin with. With a good cooler and cold packs you could expect eight hours or more of reasonable temperatures inside a car trunk.

Temp range where I live is -30F to +100F. In winter, I keep only dry food in the car. I bring water with me in the morning, and take it out when I get home at night. In summer I leave emergency water in the trunk in metal bottles.

A cooler will help dampen the peaks and valleys of temperature. IMO it's worth doing. But extreme heat will generally reduce shelf life.

My always-in-car food stash is pretty barbaric: about 2 kg (4.5 lb) of cheapo peanut butter. Fat, protein, salt, and simple carbs. I can usually get water and fuel from the places I go to, but ready calories are hard to come by.

I think the current batch of PB is the wally-world house brand. I keep it factory sealed and under temperature-reducing cover, but I don't baby it. Nobody will break into that stuff unless they're really hungry. I get about 2 years' trunk (shelf) life, based on tests. After that it turns into dog treats.

When I'm on a long drive, I add stuff that's a little more edible, jerky+crackers+cheese+gorp, if only to avoid the obscene price hike in mountain resorts.

Thanks for the replies, that's about what I thought. I think I will invest in a cooler

I generally have various canned items rattling around in the vehicle, along with a good supply of water bottles. I pull them out and consume them every six months or so, stocking with fresh items. I don't bother with a cooler.

Gotta love the morale boosting of a nice Earl Grey tea.. My prefernce is Tazo Earl grey and comes right under air on my priority list..

I keep about 30 gallons of water, a fe Mountain House meals, misc dry snacks, peanut butter, and a few cans of Tuna (plus paper plates and can opener) in the tote box in the back of the CRV. The tote also carries other car prep item like Tarp shelter, fire kits flare, et.........

Must be a big tote box.

I keep a 3 gal jug of water in the back of my truck.

I will re-confirm quanities might be more like 20-25 gallons. Some containers are in the large tote box and some are secured strung thru their handles with bungies to tie down points.


These are all thoroughly cleaned 3 liter Ocean Spray containers with very beefy handles. The conatainers are very thick walled and high quality. I'll post a picture...

That's over 200 pounds (100 kilos) of water. It will be while before you are thirsty. How's your gas mileage?

Pretty good actually, avg 27-32 mpg. Varies a lot as we are in a pretty urban area. And the gas mileage isnt affected to much by an extra couple of hundred pounds of cargo. sorry didn't want to derail the thread as topic indicates car FOOD prep.

Just a note of caution for everyone. Hauling too much weight in your car/SUV may change your tire's camber angle, which can cause excessive wear on the tires. You can buy aftermarket adjustable kits to correct this, but its not cheap. Ask me how I know.

Thanks for that info but I'll take the chance on the increased tire wear and the very insignificant reduction in fuel mileage to ensure we have 72 hours of water in the vehicle for my family.

Found this nice article on car food on backwoodsman which you guys might interesting

http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/yago104.html

I tripped over it while looking at Massada Ayoob's blog.

Canned heat, gelled alcohol, is a very poor cooking fuel -perhaps the worst alternative around. Food is simple - just get decent stuff that appeals to you and rotate out the stock so that it doesn't get yucky. I am surprised that he hasn't heard of Bic lighters or various sparking outfits.

But anyone following the advice in this article will be more prepared than most.

The list is not too bad, but Hikermore is right about the matches. A mini-Bic and a ferro rod should be in every kit.

My concern is that anything containing water like the canned Spam and Vienna sausages would freeze solid in winter, even in a cooler. A better choice would be those mylar packed tuna, single slice Spam, salmon, and chicken chunk packs. They are thin, and could be quickly thawed in a pocket, in a canteen cup of water as it is heating, or crumbled frozen into Ramen noodle soup while heating.

Water itself is more problematic in winter. A cooler will not prevent it from freezing and, in fact, may insure that it stays frozen until June. Water does little good if it is a frozen solid block.