Food Storage from the Grocery to Home

[cat lover]

I was wondering yesterday after I went to the grocery early in the day and 70 miles from home on how others keep their food safe as they travel through the day till they get home. I have purchased some thermal insulated bags for cold products and for the most part with us going into winter it won't be much of a problem right now.
In the summer I usually carry a cooler with me, but for freezer items that doesn't even work real well.... what do you do or do you have a great way maybe I haven't even thought of?

[Bilby]

Cat with our hot weather I also take cold bags for groceries and we only live 10-15 mins away from the shops.
The trick I think is to make sure you have lots of frozen freezer bricks/blocks so that they can be stacked plentifully amongst your frozen foods. I've also found that (depending on your size of cold bag or solid esky) if about an hour or so before you leave that you wet (loosely wring out) a dish towel, or towel of some kind then fold to a size that will fit your cold bag or esky then freeze.
When you leave home, pack your esky with the frozen towel then the freezer bricks on top.
When you've shopped stack your cold and frozen food with bricks amongst your food and put the frozen towel (maybe a bit soft by now) on top then close the lid firmly.
The frozen towel keeps the cold air in better. It may be defrosted by the time you get home but it should still be cold.
I know this sounds weird but it does work, you need 1 frozen towel for each esky or cold bag.

Don't have freezer bricks, don't forget you can use your plastic drink bottles or tupperware or the like containers.

Hope that all made sense LOL

[AnnaInOhio]

Bilby

Well said.. that is exactly what I would have suggested. We do that when we are traveling out of town and take food with us for the first or second day of our trip. Freezer blocks of ice (we used gallon freezer bags) will usually last about 24 hours, for our road trips of course the second day we had to buy bags of ice or use the ice machine at hotels for the last leg of our journey.

Anna

[Jole Blond]

Several years ago for our anniversary I bought a refrigerator for this very purpose. It plugs into the power outlet and is about the same size as a regular cooler. It works for either cold or hot and has an adapter to plug into a regular wall outlet if we are traveling and stay in a motel. It cost about the same as a regular cooler & us about the same size as a medium cooler, but is so much more versatile since I can change it over to keep a dish hot if we are going where we need to carry food a distance from home. I also have insulated bags that I use on occasion and these I carry with me all the time, just in case I find a good bargain when I'm doing my 'in between' shopping.

[cat lover]

Jole Blond, are you talking about a coleman type cooler? I have one of those, but in the summer unless I plug it in at home and get cool first it isn't much help. And I have always wondered about my vehicle battery if I let the thing stay plugged into my car while I'm shopping. If I didn't it would be so hot again by the time we get back out to the car. You see, when we go grocery shopping it is at least 60 miles or more one way so we are gone the entire day taking care of everything we can while we are out. Even with leaving the grocery shopping till last the summer heat just makes it hard for us to figure a good way to keep things cold till we get home. We even use the AC in the vehicle to try to help get homewith things still at least some what cold.

[Bilby]

Slushy ice is the best thing to keep things cold BUT travelling you'd have to make sure everything is air tight and the water can't get in what you want to keep cold or being tossed around in the boot of your car.

..... and of course we can drink that water once it's melted from those drink/tupperware containers

[cat lover]

I freeze bottles of water in the summer and take those along to help with the problem and that turns into out drinking water throughout the day. ALso take slong those individual pkgs, of SF drink mix to flavor them. Much more frugal than buying a drink out somewhere and then we recycle the bottles.