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How To Keep Food From Freezing Winter Camping (It’s Working)

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Stay to dehydrate food as much as possible

Having dehydrated food works great. Those who don’t know what are dehydrated foods are then please allow me to you what it is.

Dehydrated foods are also known as dried or freeze-dried food. For this, you intentionally take out water from foods and that’s called ‘dehydration’.

Dehydrating foods can be through many processes, the easiest process is to use a good dehydrator to suck out water from your meals. Dehydrator usually takes about 6-8 hours to completely dehydrate the food.

Now when the food is completely dehydrated pack it in a sealed bag and you’re ready to eat them during camping. But don’t eat them raw as you need to rehydrate them using boiled water.

There are some best boiling water stoves available whose main duty is to boil water fastly and efficiently. You can also check out some best healthy dehydrated meals here. The meals are written mainly for motorcycle camper but if you want you can also try them out. 

Put it in an insulated cooler

Dude, there are some cool ways to prevent food from freezing with the help of a cooler. What cooler can keep food from freezing? I know the word cooler itself contains the word ‘cool’ but who cares if our food doesn’t get trapped inside the layers of ice.

  • A cooler is known to maintain the internal temperature regardless of the outside temperature. A cooler helps you to keep your food cold in summer, similarly, it will keep your food from freezing in winters.
  • You can cover your cooler from ice. We know ice is very cold but in winter snow when you completely cover your cooler from ice (by digging a grave for your cooler in snow) it works as insulation.
  • Just to give an idea of the insulating power of the snow – 12 inches of snow roughly have the same insulation as a 2×4 wall which is filled with fiberglass insulation.
  • For extra insulation, it is better to wrap the food with an insulating layer and then keep it inside the cooler. As you dress in layers to stay warm during winter camping so your food also needs some layers to remain warm.
  • To raise the temperature inside the cooler you can put a hot water bottle. And as you know the cooler works as an insulator then it also does not allow the heat generated from the hot water bottle inside it to escape.
  • You can also use your campfire or stove to generate some extra heat inside the cooler. Just involve your cooler in your circle when you’re shooting the breeze with your friends or family.

Insulated bag

Insulated bags are another great way to keep food from freezing. For keeping them warm for a longer period pack the hot food only as insulated bags are known to keep the temperature inside the same. When you buy such bags please make sure that they

Using the insulators you have

  • Sleeping bag. You can use a sleeping bag as an insulator in 2 places: one when you are heading out of the tent, you can put all these foods inside a sleeping bag packed in an insulated zip lock, and another when you’re inside the sleeping bag. You can sleep with all your food so that your body heat can hinder them from freezing.
  • Winter Socks. First of all, your main duty is to wash your socks and not to use them for your legs. 
  • Spare jacket. Wrap your food with a washed spare jacket.
  • Campfire (If possible). As easy if your campsite allows you to burn a campfire or stove you can put your meals close to this fire and when its time you should pack all of them inside the insulated bags to keep them warm for a long time.

How to choose food for winter camping

A cool thing you can do in cold is to pack the foods that are resist freezing or less likely to freeze.

For example, you can replace your normal bread with freeze resistance options like crackers or rice cakes. Cheese with processed cheese slices.

Fruits with dried fruits and nuts. These are some examples, you can find some alternative for your favorite foods to replace for winter camping.

Use body heat to keep your food warm

We all knew that our bodies generate heat when we involve in some kind of activity. Heat is a sign that the body has enough fuel to keep going for a certain amount of time. 

But it is good to hear that we can benefit this from even more by using the hardly earned heat in winter to keep food from freezing. 

Here are some tips you can use to make use of your body heat to keep foods in their normal state:

  • Pant pocket. Have some on-the-go snacks in your pant pockets. As the pockets are always in contact with legs so the food will at least not freeze.
  • Under your shirt. Make sure the shirt is tucked in perfectly. Now put some of the lightweight foods under the shirt.
  • Your backpack. As your backpack always reamin in contact with your back while you’re hiking, you can make use of it. Pack your food in the back of the backpack such that the food is in contact with your back.

Mylar blanket

Using mylar blankets are one of the best ways to stay warm inside the tent. Here are 2 things you can do with mylar blankets in order to keep food from freezing:

  • First make sure the food is already hot because what a mylar blanket do is it reflects the heat back to where it is coming.
  • Now, cover the already insulated container with a mylar blanket and it will make sure that the heat won’t escape from that food container or insulated food bags.
  • Lastly, you can attach the mylar blanket to the ceiling of the tent so that your body heat and the stove’s heat (If you’re using heat) will reflect back to you and not escape from the tent. For better, you can buy several mylar blankets to attach to the walls of the tent also.

Just make sure that you’re not forgetting to vent your tent. Don’t use the mylar blanket where the tent ventilation is. This will not only keep your food from freezing but also will help you to stay warm inside the tent during winter.

Insulate the tent’s floor

Make sure that the tent floor is properly insulated either sleeping pads or insulated mats. Doing this won’t allow your foods to touch the freezing ground and thus reduce the chance of getting freezed to a great extent.

Conclusion

What you’ve read here are not methods rather they’re tips and don’t mistake to understand that using only one of the above methods you can keep your food from freezing.

So if you really want your food not to freeze then follow all or as many tips you can.

At last, I want to hear from you, what tips do you have? If the tip is really worth mentioning then I will make sure that it will be on this list so that everyone can benefit from that. 

Thanks for tuning in 🙂

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