Amount of food?

[Little Otter]

Hi all if you read my thread about planning help you will know why i'm asking this, how much food, what kind of food, where to get food for a circum navigation? Where would I store food that would not fit into the frige or the freezer?

[Pblais]

Going back to my mountaineering days where the bulk and weight was important it takes about one large grocery sack per person per week of food assuming mostly freeze dried and a very few can goods with nothing refrigerated. That also assumes you repackage everything as anything you buy has more packing materials than food.

I think it would be a mistake to assume you would do the whole trip non stop. I don't see it as practical unless you can arrange all sorts of support and other extraordinary crew / transport. Without multi million dollar sponsors you won't be beating any time records. You will clearly want to have a few check points if for no other reason than to re-certify the equipment. You still have fresh water to deal with and while you can eat about anything you can swallow sea water is not included. A gallon per person per day would be probably be too minimal and you sure would not be washing much.

Fitting is mostly a process of where you can. Assuming spare parts and even moderate supplies you'll need about 2 tons of stuff that includes anything not attached to the boat and all fuel and water too. I would assume you'll fill the boat solid with a small place to sleep since you won't be doing it a lot. This won't get you all the way but between your check points. This is based on folks that have done major ocean crossings. You don;t want to come up short of supplies on the long sections.

[Little Otter]

Thanks are there any certain types of food I need to get I do like the freeze dried food youcan get for camping and hiking it tastes prety good and I hope to have a water maker for the fresh water supply and if it's a manta it comes with (4) 90 watt solar panels for power so I shouldn't need that much Fuel.

[hellosailor]

Don't they teach the Scouts camping any more? Rice, peanut butter, jelly, hard cheeses, there are many foods that campers and travelers have used without refrigeration for many years. You'll find articles on foods that keep well on every sailing web site, and somewhere on the USDA web site there should also be information on safe food keeping and storage. Some of it goes back 100 years to stuff they printed for "pioneers" and farmers that long ago. Hasn't changed since.

[jaga]

I'd check out Beth Leonard's site (Beth & Evans.com). In the 'articles' section they have a downloadable provisioning list that they've used. I believe it's for six months, and they don't use refrigeration. You need to adapt any such list to your personal tastes. I found it quite helpful for both estimating quantities and to help me identify things I might have otherwise forgotten.

Scot

[ssullivan]

We have a greatly different approach to this problem:

Learning how to cook. Seriously.

We learned this technique aboard megayachts. Often the owner will fly in and want some American dish with his favorite ingredients.

What we do (and did then) was this:

Get everything dry. Rice, flour, baking powder, yeast, etc.. etc... etc...

What you can't get dry, get frozen or canned. If we provision up, we can last about 3 months, without even provisioning up to a high degree.

Like milk? Get Parmalat (and learn to like it)
Like pizzas? Bring flour, yeast, sauce cans, frozen mozzerella blocks, dried oregano and dried garlic powder. There's nothing else in a pizza except your topping. Like pepperoni? Great. Buy jerky or freeze some pepperoni.

See where I'm going?

If you learn to cook (as most Americans have no clue how to), you can buy things like 50lbs of flour, 5lbs of yeast, 30lbs of sugar, etc... etc...

Using just maybe 20-30 of these bulk ingredients, we routinely make:

Blueberry muffins
Pancakes
Chocolate chip cookies
bread
Pizza
various fish meals (try and catch some)
fajita burritos
lasagna
pasta meals
chicken parmesan heros (grinders, hoagies)
meatball parmesan heros (grinders, hoagies)
tasty, authentic NY everything bagels
hamburgers on the grill - homemade buns
pudding
chocolate chip brownies
the list goes on and on and on and on... there are no limits.

If you buy the basic ingredients of food and spend a little time learning how to cook, you can have better food than any restaurant serves and barely ever have to visit the grocery store.

We're writing some articles this winter for my website.

A detailed account of this type of provisioning will be up there then.

[Pblais]

Don't they teach the Scouts camping any more? Rice, peanut butter, jelly, hard cheeses, there are many foods that campers and travelers have used without refrigeration for many years.

Actually, I did it 40 years ago and we did better than that.

[rexposeidon]

Bring fishing gear! You can only bring so much meat with you and TVP is the worst thing (well almost) I have ever had the fortune to eat. But TVP can be found in many forms and you can also make Satan out of wheat berry. Check out the survivalist websites for other suggestions of "alternative" cuisine. I agree with Pblais and Ssullivan, learn to cook (a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook saved me from myself as a younger bachelor), and consider re-supplying along the way.

[Little Otter]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Don't they teach the Scouts camping any more? Rice, peanut butter, jelly, hard cheeses, there are many foods that campers and travelers have used without refrigeration for many years. You'll find articles on foods that keep well on every sailing web site, and somewhere on the USDA web site there should also be information on safe food keeping and storage. Some of it goes back 100 years to stuff they printed for "pioneers" and farmers that long ago. Hasn't changed since.

We usually eat better than that in my troop even on backpacking trips.
My ROTC unit usually does a security thing for relay for life and we have MRE's hotdogs hamburgers and free RED BULL.
I was just asking if there was any thing special to get also I plan on taking fruit wih me such as oranges apples and grapefruits as they are a major part of my normal meals , is there any special way to store these fruits so they last longer?

[hellosailor]

Hot dogs, hamburgers, all mean refrigeration or else tinned meats. Red Bull is an interesting concept but one I've never felt I needed to explore. The older cookbooks, that are still in publication and available used, like "The New Settlement Cookbook" were addressed to immigrants and new housewives and cover real basics (like what the cuts of meat are, and how to stoke a coal or wood stove) along with all the basic recipes, like how to make your own mayonaisse. "Learn to cook" really can be an eye-opener, in terms of learning how to make your own basics. Baking bread can be the only practical way to get it fresh, although tortillas keep forever.

Fresh fruits and veggies are problematic, there is only so far that you can store/preserve them--and the USDA should be able to advise you on that. At a certain point, tinned or jarred fruit, or learning to use a canner properly, can be the only alternatives. Canning takes some faith, if it is done properly it works. If it is done improperly...very bad thing. Which is probably why it went out of fashion as opposed to buying tinned things.

But perhaps you can convince Paul to share what "better than that" means.<G> Deciding how fancy you want to eat, and how much you are willing to spend on that lifetstyle, is a big personal choice. Twenty pound bag of rice, $12, will keep you feed for a month. Two freeze dried dinners, same $12, will keep you fed for two days. Somewhere in between, you and your wallet have to vote.

[Little Otter]

Yeah I was thinking I would need to stop and resupply somewhwere along the way.

[hellosailor]

On a circumnavigation, stopping to resupply along the way (unless that's a problem vs the records) would be a good idea. After all, there is food, and people do eat, all the way around the globe.<G> Unless you are planning to race, in which case I'd suggest looking up the records and stories of previous solo-global race boats, you will need water more than food. A watermaker is something to consider.

Or you could ask yourself, why pursue a record (which someone else will try to break in a couple of years at best) when you could instead stop to smell the roses, and enjoy the journey in itself.

[Active Transport]

My experience with crossing oceans is that you need to be ready for a variety of conditions. The mainstay of my provisioning has always been granola and parmalat HT milk. You can live on that for days if you have to. Throw in some of those little cans of fruit (peaches, mixed fruit, etc) to dump on your granola are also good to have handy. Get the sizes made for kids lunches.

Learn to can your down food. You can have what you like and not be dependent on your fridge to stay well fed. Beth Leonard's web site has a lot of useful info on canning. We have canned bacon, canned carbonara mix, canned corned beef (not the stuff from Argentina), canned indian curries, canned butter, canned pot roast, canned chicken (only needs noodles to be a great meal).

Another tip regardng nutrition at sea is to have some dog food bowls. I kid you not. I learned about this one from an article about a passage a reporter made with Robin Knox Johnson. Dog food bowls are great for serving sloppy food at sea. Get the plastic kind that have a wide base. The lip gives you something to hang onto, the bowls are deep enough (get Labrador size,not minature poodle size).to keep food from slopping out and they are cheap enough that you can have a few and not have to do the dishes between every meal.

My experience with the freeze dried stuff is that it generates enough gas that I would not worry about being becalmed. I keep some freeze dried stuff on board as a fall back but would not depend on it for day to day nutrition unless you have a lot of third grades on board that you wish to amuse.

Don't forget the junk food. It can keep you fed when you need one hand on the wheel for hours on end. Crackers, chips, cookies, canned bean dip, etc. All provide calories when you might not feel like cooking.

Also, find lots of places to stow bottled water. You can survive a lot longer without food than you can without water.

[Little Otter]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

On a circumnavigation, stopping to resupply along the way (unless that's a problem vs the records) would be a good idea. After all, there is food, and people do eat, all the way around the globe.<G> Unless you are planning to race, in which case I'd suggest looking up the records and stories of previous solo-global race boats, you will need water more than food. A watermaker is something to consider.

Or you could ask yourself, why pursue a record (which someone else will try to break in a couple of years at best) when you could instead stop to smell the roses, and enjoy the journey in itself.

I'm not trying to break a speed record just an age record if I can get all the money I need I can get a Manta which comes witha lot of stuff such as water maker solar pannes and stuff, everything but a dinghy.

[waterworldly]

You mention your ROTC unit. If you are in one, the age thing has already been broken by someone already younger.