[pct-l] FreezerBag Cooking/ Resupply strategies

[Sean Nordeen]

I guess you guys also will be avoiding all comerical freeze dried food since 
they also come in a plastic bag that you pour hot water into.

Most Freezer bags (we aren't talking about storage bags) can be safely used 
in the microwave.  And no one is talking about actually boiling water or 
even pouring boiling water into one.  Few people using alcohol stoves even 
get their water to a true boil, usually its just bubbles and the water is 
usually cooler then the boiling point by time time its dumped into your 
freezer bag.  And when you open it up 6-10minutes latter to eat, the 
temperature of you food is far lower as you can actually eat it.  So the 
freezer bag isn't exposed to high temperatures for very long like sitting in 
a car or actually boiling water in one (if that were some how possible).

That link http://camping.about.com/od/campingrecipes/a/ziplocbaggies.htm 
that JJ posted earlier isn't even relevant to this discussion.  That link 
refers to the use of ziplock bags being submerged into boiling water which 
is much hotter and its exposed for far longer to those tmperatures then the 
backpacking freezer bag cooking method which just pours hot (not boiling 
water) into a freezer bag where the water temperature is constantly cooling 
to room temperature.

I've actually done testing with a therometer when I was evaluating different 
alchohol stoves to see how hot they got 16oz of water and how long they 
burned.  Most of my stoves (for the amount of fuel that I wanted to use) 
only raise the water temperature betweeen 163 to 187F (212F is boiling point 
of water), but this was more then fine for rehydrating most meals that I 
take backpacking and as I stated the water temperature doesn't remain this 
high very long even in the cozy I use to hold the heat in.

At home, I'm normally someone who buys organic and tries to minimize my 
exposure to chemicals, but I'm not loosing sleep over the issue for the 
1meal/day that I use freezer bag cooking while on the trail.  Its worked 
fine for me the last few years including the PCT this year.  I'm not likely 
to abandon it unil I find someone on the trail who will wash my pot for me 
everynight and who will carry the extra weight needed to have a pot large 
enough to cook in verses one just big enough to boil water in (that >4.5oz 
pot verses my 2oz one, plus the larger windscreen and perhaps a larger 
stove).

If you are worried about plastics, then look at your water bottles/resevoirs 
where your water is sitting in plastic for hours, often in the sun,  rather 
then my food which is only exposed to the freezer bag for a few minutes.

-Sean "Miner" Nordeen