I’m going to be camping for 4 days at a location without easy access to fire (hence no boiled water). As such, I’m going to be packing a bunch of canned stuff for my daily meals. The place is in England, where we’re expecting a few hot days this week and maybe some rain over the weekend.
However, I have some free time before the trip to cook food. But I’m not sure if there’s any good foods I could bring along that could keep for 3-4 days without a fridge. I guess that crosses out most meat dishes.
Some ideas I had were: falafel, fritters, bread, calzones, pasties. Have you tried taking such foods camping and if so, did they last a few days without spoiling? Are there any other foods you’d recommend? Thank you so much!
It really depends on whether or not you plan to be pooping during those few days.
Pfft, eat a few MRE’s a day and you won’t poop for two solid weeks. Emphasis on solid because when that shit comes out it will be a brick the size of a baby.
I can’t remember what it’s called, but mixing the brownie with the coffee was the best thing I’ve ever had from an MRE.
It’s called ranger pudding and the recipe is 2 packets coffee, 1 packet creamer, 1 packet chocolate beverage powder, 1 packet sugar. Add a bit of water, stir and enjoy. You can also add peanut butter if you’re feeling frisky.
Edit: I forgot the 1 packet of crackers. Gotta add those bad boys in for substance.
Cup noodles can be made with cold water too. But they will take about 30 mins instead of 2-3 minutes. Tried and tested. They still taste good. They are not very nutritious, though.
I would recommended making Energy Bars/Balls. You can find a lot of recipes online but here’s mine:
- Roasted almonds
- Roasted cashews
- Roasted pistachios
- Roasted hazelnuts
- Roasted walnuts
- Raisins
- Dates
- Dried Cranberries
- Peanut Butter (unsweetened) (mine contains coconut oil)
- Sesame seeds
- Muskmelon seeds
- Flax seeds
- Pumpkin seeds
- Dark Chocolate
- Roast the nuts and grind almonds and walnuts to almost flour consistency, and grind the others coarsly.
- Just put everything in a food processor and let it mix everything. You can also mix it with hand or spoon.
- To make bars, just put the mixture in a baking dish or a tray and put as much pressure as you can on top of it with your hands or spoon to remove all the air pockets. Refrigerate it for 4 hours. Then cut it into bars.
- To make balls, just lightly oil your hands and form a ball shape. Again, press them hard to remove the air pockets.
These can last over a week outside the refrigerator (considering the ambient temperature in your area does not rise above 30° C). And inside the refrigerator they can last for over a month.
You can add different types of seeds, nuts, sweeteners etc, depending on what you like, what your body needs and what’s available.
Hope this helps.
There’s a similar Indian recipe
I’m over here getting nostalgic for BEANS.
Look into backpacking meals. They keep forever practically and simply require heat and water most times to prepare.
a jar of peanut butter with granola and dried fruit and candy mixed in is a solid go to.
granola bars in general are solid, even the ones you make yourself.
fresh fruit like apples and bananas are good.
canned condensed soups are surprisingly good cold if you have access to fresh water to reconstitute them and you aren’t worried about dehydration. that brings me to my next and much, much more important question:
do you have water figured out?
you can easily survive for four days without food, but you can’t make it that long without water. you can’t expect to rely on springs/streams/wells especially if you haven’t been drinking from them for a while already.
you need about a gallon of water a day, more if youre exerting yourself, sick or eating very dry foods (like camping foods). so if you don’t have a supply already figured out, focus on water. If you do have a supply already figured out, pack a gallon or so and some iodine anyway. you literally can’t survive if for whatever reason the supply that was fine last time isn’t running or is spoiled.
if you do end up having access to water, you can use flameless ration heaters to boil it quickly and use that to heat up any sealed foods you have. frhs’ are powdered metals and salt that make a real hot reaction when you pour water on em. so if you had a bag with a frh in it, you had say some food that would taste good hot in another sealed bag, you could put your food bag in the frh bag and pour some water in, fold it closed, prop it up on a rock or something and wait for your food to get hot.
