No refrigeration...your advice?

[mikereed100]

Among other surprises, you will find that almost anything grown in the ground can contain botulism spores. Cooking won't neutralize them.

Don't believe that cooking for 10-15 minutes is going to prevent food poisoning. Most common forms of food poisoning are a reaction to the toxin created by the pathogen, *not* the pathogen itself. And many of the toxins are not especially altered by cooking.

Hellosailor and Amgine make important points here. Boiling will kill many bacteria but there are others that "sporulate". These include Clostridium species (botulism and tetanus) and Bacillus species (which can be responsible for food poisoning, notably in reheated rice). The only way to be assured that these spores are killed is to boil them in a pressure cooker for 15 min and then repeat the process after a period of time. This is, in essence, poor man's pasteurization and will kill spores and heat resistant bacteria and is the reason why home canning is safe.

As Amgine points out many bacteria produce toxins which can cause food poisoning even if the bacteria is not present. Staph produces a toxin that is responsible for food poisoning associated with mayonaisse. Many of these toxins, including the staph toxin, are "heat labile", meaning they are denatured by heat, but some are not.

Another thing to consider is that much, if not most, of food poisoning isn't. The most common cause of acute gastroenteritis is viral infection which can be passed simply by shaking hands or touching the wrong doornob. The symptoms, including nausea, vomitting, diarrhea, fever and malaise, are indistinguishable from bacterial infection. The incubation period is up to 48hrs so one can become infected on Friday, get sick on Sunday and place the entirely undeserved blame on the taco bar Saturday night. If others ate what you ate and did not become sick then suspect a viral etiology. If, a day or 2 after you become sick your family starts to get sick then this points to a viral infection as well. That said, viral infections can also be food-borne just to confuse matters.

The most common bacterial infection, Salmonella, also has an incubation period of up to 48 hrs so, while you may have food poisoning, it is not likely to be the last thing you ate but rather what you had 2 days ago.

Food poisoning caused by toxins, such as staph in mayonnaise and Bacillus cereus in reheated rice, can occur as soon as 6-8hrs but fortunately tends to be over with more quickly.

Mike

[Mahana]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

...And then there are campers and hikers and traditional camping foods. Pasta, tinned beans and sauce, peanut butter and jelly, hard cheeses, salami type cured meats and wursts...It ain't gourmet, but they are readily available and safe. For a week? Butter and eggs should be OK too. Don't forget fruits and vegetables, oranges and grapefruit and tomatoes and lots more will keep for the week without any trouble, unless you're someplace really hot and humid.

Thanks Hellosailor,

Greenwald in the Crusing Chef Cookbook makes frequent mention of using lightly chlorinated water (his "vegetable dip") to extend the life of vegetables and fruit.

Does anyone have experience with this or similar techniques to keep perishables longer without refrigeration?

[GordMay]

You raise a great question: How can you keep perishable food from going bad without refrigeration? The answer: You might not be able to; at least, not beyond a few days.

Fresh fruits and vegetables, in our experience, tend to keep fairly well without refrigeration. In fact, some fruits (citrus, apples, and others), and cabbage require no chilling at all. Grapes will store for quite some time if their stems are placed in wet sand.

Lettuce leaves remain fresh when their stems are submerged in a little water at the bottom of a jar or container. Even whole heads of lettuce can be kept this way (a head is set on top of a water-filled glass so that its stem just touches the water). Okra, carrots, greens—in fact, most anything with a stem—will keep well in water much the same way that flowers stay fresh when arranged in a filled vase. Once again, for what it's worth, we allowed only the tips of the stems to touch the liquid.

For most vegetables, maintaining cool temperatures and high humidity are the most effective means of preserving quality. In general, a vegetable that has a storage life of 30 days at 32°F, will have a storage life of about one to three days at 90°F, or three to six days at 70°F.

Bacteria grow rapidly in the range of temperatures between 41° and 140°F, often called the "danger zone.", doubling in number in as little as 20 minutes.

It's sometimes recommended (but I DON’t, tho' a great believer & user of chlorine for sanitizing) that produce be washed in chlorinated water before storage or shipping. The wash temperature should be about 10°F warmer than the produce temperature to ensure that decay organisms are not sucked into the tissue. For a 25 parts per million (ppm) solution, use one tablespoon household bleach (5.25% sodium hypochlorite) per eight gallons of water. This doesn’t preclude proper cooling & ventillaring.

[Mahana]

Originally Posted by GordMay

...The wash temperature should be about 10°F warmer than the produce temperature to ensure that decay organisms are not sucked into the tissue.

Thanks, GordMay. However, this seems somewhat counterintuitive. At least I recall being told to shower and wash in cold water after contact with poison oak because hot water would open my pores and let in the oil.

I'm not asking for a lesson in plant physiology (and I certainly don't behave like a stick of celery when I get into cold water), but I never would have thought of this.

David

[GordMay]

Our pores open up, in response to hot water, to increase the skin’s rate of expiration, thus cooling us. As you note, a stick of celery is not a person, and doesn’t exhibit this physiological reaction.

A pressure gradient may form, if there's a big difference in temperature between the fruit or vegetable and the water being used to wash it.
Cold water can be pulled inside warmer produce - along with potentially harmful bacteria. Hence the recommendation to use warmer water.

[ozskip]

Now stop this talk of no refrigeration, fridgies need lots of refrigeration so i can aford to retire and go cruising.Greg

[hellosailor]

I've seen a produce spray (Debbie Meyer? brand? ) touted on a shopping channel, but all the company would say is that it is made from natural ingredients and there's no response to a request for an MSDS. Supposedly spray on and chomp away, although drinking it outright is not recommended.<G>

Heck, turpentine is a natural plant extract too...I think I'd rather use chlorine on foods like melons that may have been grown with contaminated manure.

[Mahana]

When I lived in SE Asia it was recommended that vegetables be washed in dishwashing detergent to clean them before eating. However, my host pointed out, as did GordMay above, that vegetables will absorb things like detergents and whatever they they take off the surface of the vegetables.

I've read that commercial produce sprays are no more effective than water at removing bacteria and pesticides residues.

It is the smell of the chlorine that would bother me (imagine dipping a celery stick in a swimming pool). Greenwald says the smell of his vegetable dip goes away with produce drying and exposure to sunlight. I think I'll experiment with it on something like a melon, first.

[cantxsailor]

I swore I would never have a marine fridge in my boat. They are small inefficient and way too much money and take up too much space.

I have a friend who spends a lot of time in the back country with his job and has an Engel fridge/freezer in his truck that is now about 20yrs old. It looks like hell but it still works very well.

I decided after having upgraded my electrics with a wind generator, a solar panel and 2 new 160ah AGM batteries I needed to use up some of that extra power potential(and some extra money too). I purchased an Engel 35qt. Its about the same size as my old 5day(ya right)40qt icebox and it works. Not just works but works amazingly well. On its lowest setting 1 (1 to 5, 5 being freeze rock hard) it keeps the beer at 29f with a power use of .7 to 2.5amps.

I am not yet cruising but have left the unit running on 12vdc for several days at the dock without seeing any loss to the batteries as would be expected as I have a(potential) power generation of 480watts. The wind generator has a(potential) output of 400watts and the solar panel a(potential) of 80watts. The rest of my power use is the usual lights and radios. No radar or a/c for this (ex)ludite.

I am really impressed with the Engel, cold beer does that to me, and would highly recommend them to anyone willing to listen. Don't waste your time/money on the Coleman junk. They work at about 30degrees below ambient temp. Engels cost a bit less than "marine" setups but may be a bit cumbersome in smaller boats but they are transportable for say a camping trip or tailgateing. They will run on either 110vac or 12vdc and can be plugged into both at the same time and will switch to 12vdc automatically if the 110 is interupted and back again.

Mine, with the locking base plate(handy during sailing heeled), an insulated cover and an internal/external thermometer was $929.00 delivered.

I have no connection to the company other than as a happy customer.....martin

[witzgall]

Originally Posted by cantxsailor

Don't waste your time/money on the Coleman junk. They work at about 30degrees below ambient temp.

This is true for any of the refrigerators using a Peltier cooler, and I think that is what you are referring to when you write "Coleman Junk". Coleman does, however, sell a FPSC, or Free Piston Stirling cooler - powered cold box, that is 25 liters, and a good alternative to the Engel units. We got ours for $360.00 delivered. They ariginally sold for $600.00, and I think Coleman found that to be a tough price point, so they may be limited to stock out there.

They are rebadged units manfactured by a company called Twinbird, and made in Japan. They also make one with Vacuum Insulated panels instead of the foam insulation, that look to be twice as efficient. I would be very interested in one of these as a freezer, as they can pull down an empty unit to freezing in about 1/2 of an hour, and ulimately to -40C (Labratory, empty unit, so take that into consideration). It could save on battery power if you had one of these, and drew it down to deep freeze when the engine was running, or before leaving the dock.

In other words, use excess power and store it as "Cold".

Chris


Chris

[Robertcateran]

Originally Posted by Alan Wheeler

Hmmm, I see major advantages in Liguid nitrogen. Things stay colder longer. When it evaporates, it goes up, not down, so will not fill the boat. And it has the one big advantage of, when you want just a half of a vegy or something, just drop the item and it will shater into bit size portions. Even if it was still in the tin

The atmospher is mostly nitrogen. It is approximately the same density of air. SUblimated ( from gas to solid or reverse) It will probably go down to the bottom as it is a bit cooler than the cabin air,
Robert

[Robertcateran]

My 2c
I eat a lot of wild greens and fruit. Nettles are one of my favorite greens. Put them on top of some brown rice, and when the rice is cooked , the nettles are. They lose their sting once steamed. They can also be eaten raw if beaten first to trigger the stings. There are a lot of other ones out there which are a little bit more difficult to describe , that are pretty tasty as well as some fruits such as those of pigface and grains such as fruit of the Lomandra.
Many of the seaweeds are edible. I use the red algae porphyra (also known as Nori), the brown algae eklonia. I dry the young leaves of eklonia and the break them up into small pieces and sprinkle them over a green salad.
Fresh mussels and oysters can be kept fresh if kept with frequent exchange of seawater
wild asparagus and samphire grow in salt marshes
I like to pickle fish in vinegar and dill or fennel. They can often be found growing wild around the shore.
Drying fruit and veges is fairly easy in some climates and salting, smoking and drying ae time honoured way of preserving meat and fish. Unfortunately it also knocks out the vitamin C hence scurvy after long periods without fresh food.
Robert
I love pickled fish and often pickle fish in a bit of vinegar and onion

[GordMay]

Robertcateran:
It seems you may be fully qualified to add to the “Sailing away for a Dollar a day???!!” discussion at:
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...day-12419.html

Nitrogen Density = 0.9673, where Air = 1.0

[imagine2frolic]

I have sailed without a fridge with, and with one. I will stick with the fridge with a small freezer, and all of it's luxuries. It is a small KISS, and freezes 6 ice trays in several hours. The fridge part keeps things near freezing it desired.

I also carry a household 2.1 cubicft. freezer. I repackage the meat to save space, and freeze it with sheets of wax paper between the layers. By the time we leave shore it is a block of ice, and will take minimum electricity to keep it that way.

I am kind of like Magellan. I want to leave with all the technology I can!!!!

[cantxsailor]

Unfortunately the good ones no longer seem to be available. The $99 one from the local "outdoor" store are the ones I was refering to, a complete waste of money. The Stirling engine ones worked very well from what I've read but as they can't be found I went with the Engel........martin