Laurie Ann -- I have your book and enjoy the recipes.

Getting back on topic. Eating out of a bag is no way to enjoy a meal.

I don't have a problem eating out of the bag. Its easy to eat out of because I use the long handled spoon which is very convenient, nothing to clean up and no wasting my water or using bad LNT principles to clean up and I just roll it up like toothpaste to get every last bit and then seal it up and in my trash bag it goes. I can reuse the bag to hold other trash such as wrappers from bars or other things instead of bringing a designated bag and I can hold about 5 empties in one.

Its not for everyone but, I find it convenient, easy and conducive to my after dinner laziness! :)

Peter... actually LNT principles state... "To wash yourself or your dishes, carry water 200 feet away from streams or lakes and use small amounts of biodegradable soap. Scatter strained dishwater."

www.lnt.org

Do you bathe and brush your teeth on a trip? Are you packing your fecal matter out? (Don't answer that as I was just making a point). Everything you do out there leaves an impact. I won't even get into the fact that those baggies are a petroleum product - so while you are presuming to save the environment you are still creating an impact by using so many freezer bags - just in a different way. Laziness I totally get but touting the environmental bit about dishes in the backcountry isn't exactly as cut and dry as people make it.

Edited by Laurie_Ann on 01/06/2011 06:45:41 MST.

thanks Timothy... and for those who choose to - many of my recipes convert to fbc decently. I tried to keep that in mind because not everyone is like me and wanting for a bowl/plate in the backcountry.

as many know I have an ongoing gig here in Idaho where I do recreational articles for a local paper. I also have been starting to do a weekly blog for them as well. Most of the stuff will have some kind of local or outdoor recreational slant to it. This past week I did a quick blog that mentioned our friends Sara and Teresa's books along with some meal stuff... here's the link. Laurie, I apologize for not getting your's in. I wasn't in a spot to access it, but I had the books in hand. I'll make sure to get it in in an upcoming spot!

http://www.boiseweekly.com/Cobweb/archives/2011/01/03/when-kitchen-appliances-become-outdoor-gear


its fun to get the word out on UL hiking. It seems to almost always promote some very interesting conversations!

As for the bag or the pot... I'm still undecided... :)

Edited by idahosteve on 01/06/2011 09:23:48 MST.

Steve,

Teresa and I enjoyed your mention - thanks a lot again!

I love FBC and have no objections whatsoever to eating out of the freezer bag. On the other hand, I have an abiding hatred of washing dishes (due to many years of washing dishes for a family of 6 and not being able to afford a dishwasher).

While freezer bags are not supposed to be for cooking, remember that with FBC you are _not_ cooking the food but simply reconstituting it. By the time you get the pot off the stove and are ready to pour the hot water into the freezer bag, the water is already well below the boiling point (especially if you're at altitudes where the boiling point is under 200*F and you are using a thin Ti pot which cools really fast). Since part of the process of freezing veggies is blanching them just before you put them in the freezer bag, freezer bags are already designed to be stable at temps under 200*. The chances of their leaching anything into the hot water are, therefore, basically non-existent.

I use freezer bags only for dinner (one bag per dinner because my meals are all one-dish). My breakfast is cold cereal and is in a sandwich bag (much thinner plastic). My snacks/lunch (indistinguishable) are also in a sandwich bag, and most of those are re-used for several trips. Due to a couple of medical conditions, I generate enough garbage to need most of a quart freezer bag for that purpose each day, so each freezer bag does get used twice.

To me, the convenience of not washing dishes and of having pre-measured portions is well worth the use of a few more freezer bags. I rarely use plastic at home and try to walk for my errands as much as possible to make up for the few ounces of extra plastic I use when backpacking.

I don't use soap because, biodegradable or not, if it gets in the water (which it will during next spring's snow melt!) even a minute amount can kill aquatic life. That's another reason for not washing dishes. I don't use toothpaste, either--baking soda is lighter, dentist-recommended, leaves no residue on the ground and basically ends up as salt. I bathe by cleaning "strategic" areas with a damp cloth every night--I don't like the idea of jumping into lakes (again, any sunscreen and bug repellent residue on your skin are harmful to aquatic life, especially amphibians). Plus I am too "chicken" to jump into water that's close to freezing!

YMMV!

Edited by hikinggranny on 01/06/2011 14:35:01 MST.

I don't consider wiping down a .5L titanium pot " doing dishes"; nor do I use soap. After i am done eating, what is left is little more than the residue of hot cocoa in a mug. I also prefer my hot cocoa and coffee in something other than a bag ;)

I have to tell you - I bring a mug for tea. A light less than 1 ounce model. FBC doesn't mean you give up everything. I use the mug to measure my water for my meal and then I make a drink. Most people I know bring a mug of some sort even when going light.

I have never been a fan of Ti or steel cups so I don't drink out of pots (I don't like hot metal that is).

This is a funny thread.

FBC is a great idea. My only hurdle was getting a long handle spoon, I use an envelope cozy and by the time my meal is ready I've had a mug of coffee, or melted my second batch of snow/water. There is something about molding that hot plastic bag around my frozen fingers and bringing them back to life.

What I can't stand are people who scrape their ti-spoon against their ti-pot to get the last bit of oatmeal out....can you say fingernails on the chalkboard.

I'm sure I will soon die from all of the chemicals leaching out of the plastic, but I will be happy. Just like the end of the trail cheeseburger with fries cooked in trans-fats. (not available in New York and soon California)

:)

Dave

P.S. This is all in fun..please don't call the food police

Or worse....getting done with an awesome hike here in King County, Wa and heading out to eat...where upon the nutritional stats are posted by law in larger chains.

It's enough to make you cry and go back hiking ;-)

Nothing like seeing the trans-fat count in large black letters to take the fun out of a vat o' french fries!!

I wasn't trying to make myself out to be LNT guru or that cleaning a pot is not LNT. what I was saying is that I use one bag at dinner time and for me it just makes since to eat out of the bag because I use those bags anyway to collect trash from wrappers and what nots. As far as eating or using a petroleum based product, I do not waste many bags and the ones i use have probably been used 3 times before from it holding my lunch from the last week at work. For people worried about eating whatever might seep out of the bag when its warm, I don't worry about it. Everything gives you cancer these days so why worry.....

thanks Steve

about the bag vs pot vs bowl... that decision is as varied as the personality of each hiker and the trip. it can change from time-to-time

ps if anyone is looking for a great alternative and a friendlier product when it comes to re-usability of freezer bags you might want to check out loksak.com. While a little pricier they last much better and in the long run it can actually be more cost-effective.

Buy freezer bags at Costco. Gets them down to pennies each - literally. Hard to beat that. Costco sells Ziploc brand in both quart and gallon.

I use long chopsticks for FB cooking. And Snowpeak (unscrews in half), chopsticks for cups, bowls, cook-wear eating.

I package a lot of our food up in per-dinner bags too, but cook in the pot. The bags go home, are washed, and re-used on the next trip. They would last at least a dozen trips each one, and after that are often used for other things as well.

If something is really greasy so that washing is not an option, we reuse a bread bag for it instead, and then recycle that. Xmas pudding comes to mind ...

As for the 'hassle' of washing up: one pot, two plastic bowls, and two spoons, warm water and a few drops of bio-degradable detergent. Hardly a problem. I wash, Sue dries. The water is poured into the grass, where it simply becomes fertiliser.

Cheers

That's how we do it too Roger. I wash, Bryan dries and packs away. I deal with the water dispersement. It takes all of about 5 minutes and that is with 3 of us (4 this summer with the baby).

What product are you using? I've had good luck with Sierra Dawn Campsuds and it's good for washing bodies and hair too.

Hi Laurie

> What product are you using?
About 5 drops of whatever biodegradable dishwashing detergent my wife has under the kitchen sink at the time.

I may be biased ... but I have severe doubts about any claims that some of the more expensive biodegradable versions sold in gear shops are any different from what is sold in a supermarket as biodegradable.

Given the total lack of significant regulation in this area, I can just see someone getting 10,000 small bottles done up with fancy 'eco-friendly' labels and then filled from a large tanker, and flogged off to the gullible. As PT Barnum said, "there's one born every minute". Call me cynical, but ...

Cheers

While I am not sure if it is any more biodegradable than anything else on the market (although I'd be curious to learn if it is or not seeing as it was developed in the sixties I think) there are other reasons I use it. It is highly concentrated however judging by the reaction of my hands it seems less harsh than some other soaps. Also it works brilliantly in cold water where I find my household variety doesn't hold up so well. Oh and it's pretty cheap.

Edited by Laurie_Ann on 01/13/2011 14:45:02 MST.

Hmmmm.....99% of the time I carry no soap with me when hiking. Then again, I don't carry deodorant, bug spray and rarely wear sunblock (only on snow do I).
You can get a pot clean with no soap - you just have to remove the oils and food beforehand (paper towels work well) and then boil water in the pot. If a person doesn't let the pot sit and get dried on before cleaning soap isn't an issue.
It is a personal decision though. Some folks do, others don't. I prefer to not be the one who risks leaving soap suds behind.....