Provisioning plan for long cruise non stop

[hellosailor]

The New Settlement Cookbook (still published but revised) and other classic 100+ year old cookbooks, aimed at teaching new housewives and immigrants how to survive and make noroushing meals 100 years ago, can be found online as PDF files. And those go into the details of how to keep food, without an icebox. How to cook it and prepare it and how long staples can be kept. Butter and cheese keep in oil, no cold needed. Holland cheeses can be found, softball sized, sealed in wax. They keep. Salted and cured aged hams keep, the little mold can be trimmed off.

And of course there's nut butter. We used to keep peanut butter and jams unrefrigerated for long times, before any risk was documented. Still just a small risk, none before they are opened.

[CaptJamesCook]

Thanks hellosailor
Working on how much of each item to take. I did find some crackers 6 in a mylar wrapper. Also some preseasoned rice broccoli freeze dried dinners by Korrs. I bought few different ones and am going to try them,
Two hundred+ days of food will be taking up some room. I will be figuring out how/where to store it dry and secure.

[chris mac]

One thing to keep in mind is a lot of these items are plastic wrapped. If you aren't touching land for 200 days, that's a lot of garbage to collect.
I assume you have no intention of throwing plastic in the ocean.

[Tx J]

OK, maybe barely germane to the topic, this might be a really dumb .
Can't remember ever reading of it either.

Here goes: Most food discussions involve seasoning, salting, use of sauces, bullions, etc.
Then there is the matter of water for cooking purposes...
Is it feasible to use seawater for cooking purposes, even just sometimes? Would seawater just be too salt-laden?
From Wiki:
"On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5% (35 g/L, 599 mM) This means that every kilogram (roughly one litre by volume) of seawater has approximately 35 grams (1.2 oz) of dissolved salts"

Since I try to go lower-salt with my food, it's hard to judge, maybe the quoted salt content above is way too much? Should go look at some food labels, eh? And scale it up/down per serving.

I tend to go minimal, simple, for food much of the time. Especially don't care for overly salted foods, as found in most restaurants and many prepared foods, but do use all of the above except bullion. A lot of commercial food tastes at least as salty to me as seawater (which I've gulped enough of).

Would seawater just be too salt-laden for cooking purposes? Even just a portion of the cooking water? Never tried it, maybe will next time in some clean bluewater.

Just throwing it out here as a possible way to save fresh water, so don't bust a gut y'all.

OK, hysterical spell over? Is it worth considering? Might be OK for those who like salty food (not me)?

[mogulskibum]

Originally Posted by Tx J

Is it feasible to use seawater for cooking purposes, even just sometimes? Would seawater just be too salt-laden?

The short answer is no you can't use it, it's too salty.

The long answer is that some folks have done experiments and you can replace 1/5 to 1/3 of your cooking water with sea water, depending on the salinity of your ocean, but it's not enough fresh water savings to be worth the hassle - especially because apparently it's easy to get wrong, and other minerals can change flavors in not so tasty ways.

If you get it wrong once, you have to get it right 4-5 more times just to get your freshwater "savings" back to zero.

[hellosailor]

If you didn't mind a little plankton and tiny critters in your rice or pasta, I suppose you could look up how much salt is in a liter of seawater, compare that to how much salt you use in your cooking water, and mix the salt and fresh water to make it "salted" right. But then again, I don't salt cooking water at all. A cylinder of salt can last five years for me.

Knorr-Swiss is about as good as powdered foods come, but still...if you want to open that can of worms, I think it is Hormel who produce six or eight "shelf stable" meals in packets, just drop them in boiling water and you've got dinner. One cut above Chef Boy-Ar-Dee, aka "Purina Batchelor Chow" but certainly shelf-stable.

Finding staples that will last 200 days will be a good trick. If you take a real slow wander around the biggest supermarket in town, you may be shocked at how many "Twinkies" there are on the market these days. Although I don't think those are "Freshest if used by" for that long either any more.(G)

Snickers, various nuts, tins of sardines...And there's that Ecuadorian treat, fresh guinea pig, roasted on a spit. Honest. Less cleanup than most livestock.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Snickers, various nuts, tins of sardines...And there's that Ecuadorian treat, fresh guinea pig, roasted on a spit. Honest. Less cleanup than most livestock.

Great idea, start with a breeding pair and have fresh meat for the whole voyage.

Only problem is carrying all the fresh vegetable matter they will need to eat

[hellosailor]

"fresh vegetable matter"
OK, I'm a barbarian and I'd never felt the need to order sprouts on my food. One day on a boat, they were on the sandwich and I found out they won't kill you.(G)
Sprouts are said to be easy enough to germinate and grow, even down below in a boat. Speaking of which, yes, they also count as a food that won't need refrigeration.

[CaptJamesCook]

Originally Posted by chris mac

One thing to keep in mind is a lot of these items are plastic wrapped. If you aren't touching land for 200 days, that's a lot of garbage to collect.
I assume you have no intention of throwing plastic in the ocean.

Thanks for pointing that out.
I am not a big disposable water bottle person.
Plastic and mylar will compact down smaller than when they had contents. Thus each day that goes by I will actually have more room on boat than when I left. A 5"x7"x.75" dried food packet can be condensed down to smaller than a pencil.
Paper, buck of water and potato masher and you create a slurry that can be dumped over board. Environmental friendly. Old paper making method.
Heat plastic using the sun (or BBQ) and you can hand mould fishing lures and using some mylar for glit..

[CaptJamesCook]

sailor
I will have to try the Hormel..Thanks

[El Pinguino]

For the storage of plastic waste we use empty juice bottles. You would be surprised how much you can get into a 1.5 litre bottle. Ones with a wide mouth ( 1") are best ( empty Coke bottles aren't much good... cut up milk cartons, dried soup packets, etc into strips and compact everything as you go with the handle of a wooden spoon or similar. Keep a separate 'sanitary' one for non biodegradable wipes and stuff .

Space neutral .. in fact space positive as several dozen empty UHT milk cartons frinstance will fit into one bottle .... pong free .... what not to like

[StuM]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

"fresh vegetable matter"
OK, I'm a barbarian and I'd never felt the need to order sprouts on my food. One day on a boat, they were on the sandwich and I found out they won't kill you.(G)
Sprouts are said to be easy enough to germinate and grow, even down below in a boat. Speaking of which, yes, they also count as a food that won't need refrigeration.

Good point that I don't think I've seen mentioned in this thread. A supply of assorted sprouting beans/seeds should definitely be in the OPs provisioning plan.

[CaptJamesCook]

Stu not sure plant growing would be good for me, my thumbs are brown.
I have a hard time keeping ivy growing around the house.

[Copacabana]

Sprouts are very easy to grow. You can sprout all kinds of things- alfalfa, lentils, chick peas, mung beans etc. After your veggies run out, you'll appreciate something fresh, green and crunchy!

[hellosailor]

James-
Sprout growing has nothing to do with green thumbs or plant growing, really. More like a grade school science experiment where you stick some "seeds" in between a paper towel and the wall of a peanut butter jar, add some water and come back in a couple of days.
Or like buying a ChiaPet.
Fast options on the web.