Fresh Veg on Remote Trips

The first problem is that you can not take fresh fruit and vegetables across borders easily.
We tend to have large "cook-ups" where Margaret prepares meals with lots of vegies and then freezes them in zip top bags in meal size portions.

Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 motorhome

Dont forget you can't take fruit and vegies across state borders either. Thats always our biggest problem. We chop ours up which makes it legal but we tend to buy on the trip. Surprising how much you can get from even the smallest towns

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Certainly, Peter has identified a problem greater than the keeping or carrying qualities of vegetables..... State Quarantine! The Interstate Quarantine, a Traveller's Guide may be of help. There are tables to define what can and cannot be taken into the various States.

We travel remote for several weeks at a time and avoid trying for the "Gourmet Camp Cooking". But we care still able to enjoy tasty and nutritious meals. We pre-prepare some meat & veg meals and either dehydrate and vacuum pack them and/or freeze them. Supplement that with solid vegetables such as potato, onion, carrot, etc. Sweet potato carries and lasts well and is very versatile in recipes. Pumpkin carries and lasts well until cut. Apples, oranges, nuts are OK. Sweetcorn on the cob is good. Eggs good but need to be packed carefully. Meat lasts for many weeks if properly vacuum packed then refrigerated. Some commercially dried vegetables such as peas work well and canned vegetables such as potato, peas, baked beans, and sweetcorn are good. Commercial dried mash potato has improved over the years but don't expect too much of it.... good on a shepherd's pie. Canned tuna features largely on our menu. Pasta forms a good base for many meals. Some pre-packed dried 'camping meals' are OK, some not so. Try them at home first. Same with canned meat meals.
Roz seems to conjure up surprisingly delicious meals from some pretty basic ingredients.

Connie Sue Beadell and Mick Hutton conduct 'Beadell Tours' and are out in the deserts for five months of every year. They need to be particularly thoughtful of their catering needs. Amazingly, they carry no refrigeration. On their website Connie has published "Food and Self Catering Tips" which you may find useful. In particular, they advocate wrapping each vegetable item separately in newspaper. We have followed this recommendation and it certainly seems to prolong the freshness. Alas, fresh salads are not on the menu. Lettuce is certainly out of the question.

We have very simple and quick lunches. Usually a couple of large 'Salada' dry biscuits with a topping. Here is where we learned a vey good idea from Connie Beadell..... Plain cheese on a biscuit or in a sandwich can be difficult to swallow, literally. Put a slice of canned beetroot on it and it slides down without trouble. Tuna also goes well. We encountered one family where the young mother handed each kid a 95g tin of tuna and some dry biscuits for lunch. She had hundreds of tuna cans onboard!

There's an extensive article with regard to the transport of fruits and vegetables in the link below - and the last page gives a very extensive chart of all the fruits and vegetables, showing maximum lifespan in transport, and best temperatures and humidity levels, to extract the maximum lifespan.

Research Gate - Fruit and Vegetable Transportation

In essence, it's difficult to transport fresh produce - particularly the delicate leafy vegetables - for long periods without some form of cooling well below ambient temperatures.

Vehicles are not the ideal vehicle for fruit and vegie transportation because they are always hot inside - or they heat up quickly once they're moving.

It's important to understand which fruits or vegetables generate a lot of ethylene gas, which gas plays a big part in ripening and also ruining a lot of the more delicate vegetables.
By keeping the biggest ethylene-gas-generating fruits and vegetables separate from other fruits and vegetables, you prolong the life of your other, more delicate F&V.

You can buy a product from Coles or Woolies which is a sachet that you install in your vegetable cooler cabinet, and this sachet claims to extend the life of F&V in the cabinet by absorbing ripening and destructive odours.

It's called Keep Fresh - and Choice did a controlled test on the product, and it does work.
However, it also has its limitations, and it is designed to work with refrigerated F&V's.

Choice - Keep Fresh test

By far the greatest factor in F&V transportation and use is to ensure that the F&V products that you're acquiring, are as fresh as you can get them.

That is why we prefer farmers markets where possible. The big stores utilise extensive distribution networks and major storage centres - and the F&V's are often 10 days old, when you get them! - yet they claim they are "the Fresh Food people"! What a load of hogwash!!

Cheers, Ron.

Anthony

We have found the following packing methods useful to prolonging the life of some vegetables.

Cauliflower, Broccoli, Lettuce - wrap up first with one layer of paper towel, then wrap up in 2-3 layers of newspaper.

Cut Pumpkin - wrap in one layer of grease proof paper making sure the cut section is covered. Then wrap in 2-3 layers of newspaper.

If there is no room in the fridge then put them in the coolest place you can find. Obviously the lettuce won’t last too long outside the fridge. We have had it last more than a week when wrapped as above and refrigerated.

Cheers John

Anthony
I find carrots last well and when grated they add a freshness to your lunches when lettuce etc is long gone.
Cucumbers (Apple or Lebanese) also have a reasonable life outside of refridgeration (when it's not hot), just don't squash them
Neither I expect would last a month, but they will get you well past the Lettuce gone stage.
Take a stroll through your nearest Asian food store, they have lots of dried foods which add variety to meat and 3 veg when fresh food is,limited
Mark

on our first remote trip we used a foam container that the vegetables came in, we wrapped them in news paper etc but sweated so had to leave lid off occasionally.A few years ago I was lucky enough to win a waeco 41l esky, have installed an old computer fan in the side of esky for air circulation, we then put a freezer block inside which lasts the day then swap it the next morning with another. This works heaps better, will send some pictures of this mod next week.

No one has mentioned cabbage. It keeps very well and can be made into Coleslaw to have with main meal or as a snack on it's own.

My cook always cooks up a big tureen of Ratatouille and rides it into meal size portions for freezing. Ready made accompaniment for fish, or any meats, even snags. Helps if you love the stuff as we do.

I find the vacuum sealing of meat and vegies (carrots, cabbage, celery, tomatoes ) works well with just the Engel on Ref. Not frozen!
And when I crossed into SA I had all my veggies chopped up fine and in the fridge, The OFFICER of the day took them! Said we had fruit fly in WA and he could not take the risk of letting my "salad" go into SA. Could not be bothered arguing. I reckon the Pri-- was being just that. A Pri--!

I've been on the road, fulltime now, for almost 9 years and have found these to work well for me

https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/productdetails/2824/fresh-crisp-bags-medium

I have only done 3 weeks max with zero supply top up, no freezer, no premade meals, no dehydration and only a 40L fridge but i have fed a health-conscious family of 4 with fresh food daily.

Longevity varies of course depending on conditions. Driving vibrations bruise food so lots of padding required and choose areas in vehicle with low centre of gravity that remain cool and dark...eg. roller drawers. Use the newspaper method - it works!

I stack fridge with crovac single meal sizes of meat, sliced deli meats, and loads yoghurt cheese etc. I carry tin fruit, and loads of jars of pickled and marinated vegies and gourmet things to spice up the grated raw vegies. Plus loads of raw nuts dried fruits and seeds.

Carry a good grater and use it to prepare raw vegies in salads. Eg raw grated beetroot, carrot, cucumber etc.

Stock up on miso soup paste, cruskits and tin tuna, tin legumes. A few squeezee tubes of aoili, etc

My selection of recommended veg for out of fridge storage is: beetroot, sweet potato, cabbage (red and white), hard avocadoes, firm tomatoes, baby eggplant, baby zucchini, yellow button squash, onions, potatoes, ginger, garlic. However food deteriorates quickly once cut so plan appropriately.

I find Mission brand wraps have months of shelf life. Other brands only weeks.

I have also had success growing sprouts on road...start from seed and once the fresh stuff youve bought is running low the sprouts will be ready ...3 weeks. Mung bean and alfalfa work best.

Hope this helps.