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piezoelectron @sopuli.xyz

What foods can last 3-4 days without refrigeration?

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!

178 comments

  • 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.

  • First of all, depending on the area you're going to be camping in, is a camp stove out of the question? I don't know what's readily available to you in England, but there's quite a range of different options out there from little folding metal things that fit in your pocket that use solid fuel tablets up to briefcase sized ones that are basically like a regular kitchen stove that use 1lb propane tanks (or larger tanks with an adapter) and basically every form factor in between using just about any kind of fuel imaginable. You can even make a small stove out of some soda cans that burns denatured alcohol. You can probably have most of them delivered to you from Amazon before you leave for your trip, and assuming prices are similar in the UK to the US, there's options out there that will only cost you about £10-£20 plus a couple more bucks for fuel

    Some of them are practically like cooking on a blowtorch so the flame is too concentrated and intense to do much besides boiling water, but even that opens up your cooking options a lot. Being able to heat up your food or make some coffee/tea/hot cocoa can be a huge quality of life improvement. And having a method to boil water to sterilize it in an emergency is always a good idea.

    Usually, at least in the US, camp stoves are exempted from fire bans if that's what you're up against, look into your local laws about that.

    Beyond that, your options depend a bit on how comfortable you are ignoring "refrigerate after opening" warnings on labels. A lot of things will say they should be refrigerated but would probably be fine for a few days as long as they're stored with a little care (container with a tight lid, wrapped up careful in some plastic wrap, foil, wax paper, etc. kept clean, dry, kept in a shady place out of the heat of the sun, etc) and depending on the type of camping you're doing, if you can bring a cooler full of ice you can bring just about anything you would normally keep in a fridge, some things can be kept cool by submersing them in a cool stream. Anything that's very sugary, salty, packed in brine or oil will probably last at least a day or two after opening. Many of those types of foods originated as ways to preserve stuff anyway.

    But assuming you for whatever reason absolutely cannot have any type of cooking appliance and no access to any way to keep your food cool- Most fruits and veggies will last fine for a couple days unrefrigerated. Breads should be fine. Jams, and jellies, pickles, and other types of preserves are probably fine. A lot of smoked/dried/cured meats should be fine (jerky is a classic choice, salamis, summer sausage, etc. should also work but try to get a whole one, not pre-sliced, country ham if that's available across the pond would probably do the trick, maybe prosciutto) Dried fruits, nuts, harder cheeses. In general you can take a lot of inspiration from a charcuterie board. A lot of "just boil water" kinds of foods don't necessarilyneed the water to be boiled, it just makes it go a lot faster, you could do some overnight oats, instant noodles, etc.

    As for your ideas, falafel and fritters are probably fine, but will depend on the exact ingredients and recipe you use. Calzones are probably fine, but I'd keep away from using too many wet ingredients in them, keep a separate jar/can of sauce to serve them with, don't load them up with too many veggies and such, stick to cheese and maybe cured meats like pepperoni for the filling. I had to look up pasties because we don't really have them in the US, but I'd say largely the same as the calzones, probably fine but be smart about what you put in them. At any rate, if you don't have a plan to keep them cool, I'd say you probably want to plan on eating them the first or second day, they might start getting a bit questionable after a couple days.

  • Can you bring a canister cook stove? something like a Jetboil? that way no need for a whole fire etc. you can boil water etc, cook basic stuff like ramen etc. make coffee...Hardy veggies should be good, beef jerky, cured meats like salami etc. dried fruits and nuts, bread, crackers etc. regular fruit, granola bars...i would just bring a little burner thing if you can it will be so much nicer than only eating cold foods etc.

  • You can easily make overnight oats with dry ingredients (oats, fruit, nuts/seeds, some syrup) and some water each evening and then have them for breakfast/lunch.

  • Get some mason jars and do oldschool canning. Food will stay preserved well as there's no bacteria at the temperature you put it in there, and no air will get in.

    Toss in some macaroni and pasta sauce, goulash, tomato soup, premade cup-o-noodles with your favourite veg and protein. Your imagination is the limit.

  • What I found to be quite interresting and working well are the solid fuel stoves from esbit. You should be able to bring them on a flight and one small tablet lasts long enough to boil enough water for some instant ramen, soup or a cup of instant coffee.

  • You can get either canned or dried fruits and veggies that last longer un-refrigerated and have some nutrition to them. Obviously there's power bars as well. Dry cereal if you don't mind eating it dry, makes a decent snack too, or bring powdered milk if you do want to eat it with milk. I've heard freeze dried foods are popular with backpackers. Bananas last long enough if you get them fresh enough. I think there are other fruits and veggies that you don't need to refrigerate for them to last long enough, like tomatoes, cucumbers, oranges, pears, kiwis, apples, etc, just as long as you eat the whole thing in one go cause they don't last as long once they're cut or bit into. Oh and fruit cups are also an option. And of course there's bread, but if you want some variety there you can make/buy some banana bread to take with you as well. Popcorn also lasts quite a while if kept in a sealed bag. You can also eat ichidan or other dry packaged noodles dry, just break them up into smaller pieces in the bag, take out the flavour packet, and either pour the packet into the bag, or pour the noodles and flavouring into a bowl, and mix it up. Tastes pretty good, and makes for a good snack. Not very nutritious, but cheap and easy. There's also pop tarts, which can be eaten cold.

    Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. You don't need to take all of them for just 4 days, but it's nice to have options.

  • Why no boiled water? A small backpacking stove, something like a Pocket Rocket from MSR, is lightweight and can give you a very small, controlled flame that's hot enough to boil a liter of water in less than two minutes. And if you look around on Amazon, you can find them even cheaper than MSR, usually for less than $20. They connect to an isopropane canister which runs about $5.

  • You can dehydrate literally anything, and re-hydrate it on the trail with a little water and heat. Meats, Fruits, Vegetables, Soups, the works.

178 comments