The BIG F!

We all know what the big F is - food. I don’t know too many people that don’t eat food. This is a discourse on what food you can and can’t have on a bus/motorhome/tent. Or rather, not can and can’t but should or shoudn’t.

If you’re one of the people that have jumped in on the motorhome/bus conversion and spent thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars and have solar panels from end to tail of your bus and or a big generator to power apartment sized fridge, freezer, washing machine etc then like as not you’re glamping rather than living in a regular build bus conversion. If that’s the case there’s nothing here for you and you can just mosey along. For the rest of us that haven’t leapt onto the latest fad of bus conversion as a way of being cool but a way of having an inexpensive home that can be ported around to where we can find work or go on holiday, read on.

Some of us have minimal conversions. Some of us have no solar power. Some have generators. Some just charge a battery from their engine using a simple switch to isolate the battery from the driving batteries. The fact is few of us have the money to glamp so we make do with what we have.

Fridges use less power than a microwave but microwaves use plenty power. Not many of us can really afford the luxury of using either with our setups. A typical student fridge such as the one that came with my bus costs $60 at Walmart and uses probably 60W of power. That’s 12 AH of power a day at 120v. Bring that down to 12v and the inverter would have to supply over 120 amp hours. Two batteries at 100AH each to power a fridge for 24 hours!

Even if I got the above calculations wrong, look at the costs...
Generator $100+
2 batteries $200+
Inverter $100
Fridge $60

That’s $460 just so you can have a cold beer! The realist buys a $20 cooler and a $3 bag of ice. The ice lasts several days if the cooler is kept closed and the water drained occasionally. Even if you need constant ice, over a year of buying ice twice a week that’s only $6 a week. Gas for a generator such as the Harbor Freight $80 generator which will run for 4 hours on half a gallon would cost at least $10 a day.

So you go for solar panels to power your fridge. At $100 each they’re not cheap. The 60W fridge uses 60 watts of power. It would take one solar panel at 100W to power that fridge during daylight only. To power it constantly you’d need double or triple the number of panels, possibly even more. Using solar is going to be a one off expense for the panels and recurring expenses for the batteries. That’s a total of $300 in just panels to give you a cold beer. If that $300 panels dedicated to keeping your beer cold was translated into bags of ice then it would be over four years of bags of ice.

Fridges don’t pan out unless you plug into the mains somewhere. I put a small 120v system into my bus. I wouldn’t have bothered had I not had a fridge thrown in with the bus. I put in three sockets - one to power the fridge, one to power a microwave and one to power whatever else - steamer, slow cooker, electric kettle. I didn’t spend a ton on my 120v appliances either as I know campground electricity is expensive. As an example, I’m off on a trip in September. The cost of my site with no electricity is $15 a night. The cost with electricity is $25 a night. That’s $10 for something that just might never get $10 of use!

So, having discussed why we shouldn’t bother with fridges, let’s look at what we can eat without a fridge. Oddly enough I’m well qualified in this because until I was about 16 my parents didnt have a fridge. They didn’t have a phone or a car either. This means I grew up more self-reliant than many others.

So, what can we eat and keep that doesn’t need refrigeration?

Anything dried or canned is usually a very good bet. That’s rice, beans, pulses, spices, grains (such as barley and quinoa), dried mashed potatoes, dried milk and anything canned. Seasonings such as salt and sugar keep well too. Honey is good as honey is a preservative. Dried and salted meats keep well as long as they’re properly dried and salted.

Bread does not keep well. That has a moisture content and can generate mold within hours. If you’re a bread addict then it’s an every day purchase. That means a lot of food waste. Cheese does not keep well either.

Frozen foods won’t stay frozen even in a cooler with ice. The best you can hope for is to keep them cool. Kept cool with ice, meats will last a day or two. I wouldn’t risk it beyond a day or two, not when the interior of my bus can reach 100F.

Eggs will last a good long time as long as they’re soaked in vinegar and kept in vinegar. In fact most veggies, boiled and soaked in a vinegar bath will keep for a very long time.

At this point I’d like to say that unless you hunt small game, it’s probably best to go vegan or vegetarian. Though it restricts your food choices, it means there’s less thats likely to give you food poisoning if it’s not correctly handled.

Canned veggies doesn’t sound too appetizing but they’re not bad. Fresh is better but have to be eaten within a very few days before they become limp, dry and unappetizing. Even though they look limp and unapetising, they’ll still be good for a few days.

Quinoa is a grain that comes from Bolivia which is a complete protein as are beans. There’s also a form of barley that’s a grain loaded with proteins. The biggest issue with a vegan diet is protein. Starches such as potatoes, flour and rice are really easy to access, cook, store and eat. Vegetables can be easy too - dried or canned. Proteins such as meat can be dried and stored too. Proteins are where the worst problems with food poisoning come from. The worst you’ll get from bad veggies is an upset tummy though wheat and bread can get a form of fungus that can be nasty.

The trick with long term camping is to know what can and cannot be kept and how long. That depends entirely upon your personal situation. If your bus is hot and humid inside, things won’t keep for very long. If it’s well ventilated or things are sealed in their original packets things will last a lot longer.

There is no right and wrong. There’s just survival.