Can I Eat This? (Backpacking Edition)

September 6, 2023 2:48 PM

I am going backpacking and I'd like to know if it would make sense to have unrefrigerated tofu on, say, day 2 and 3 of my trip. Would you?

I know it's heavy and not-very-calorie-dense for backpacking, but I want it anyway. I would probably remove it from the packaging and the water it's in. I would eat it uncooked, and the weather will be in the 30s overnight but the 60s during the day.

(Putting my tags in CamelCase here in reference to this excellent and helpful MeTa.)

posted by kensington314 to Food & Drink (16 answers total)

Nope, nope, nope.

Why?

Because I have had expired but still refrigerated tofu give me food poisoning, so now I'm extra cautious.
posted by Ms Vegetable at 2:49 PM on September 6, 2023 [14 favorites]

Instead, verisoy makes what we call "soy nuggets" that are shelf-stable textured vegetable protein. I use them in Mr. Meat's backpacking meals (with instant rice, or instant potatoes, or couscous, plus spices and dehydrated veggies). The smaller the "nuggets", the faster they cook.
posted by Ms Vegetable at 2:50 PM on September 6, 2023 [10 favorites]

Best answer: No.
(I find tofu goes off easily and is not very edible when it’s off. May I suggest soy curls - a dehydrated & not very processed soybean product that gets rehydrated before eating - instead?)
posted by needs more cowbell at 2:51 PM on September 6, 2023 [7 favorites]

Best answer: Nooooo tofu is an excellent growth medium for badness. There is shelf-stable tofu, but if you remove it from the package the clock starts ticking, so your drain-it-in-advance plan is an issue.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:54 PM on September 6, 2023 [9 favorites]

Best answer: There is some shelf stable silken tofu, which is the only kind I would bring. My grocery store carries the Mori-Nu brand in the "asian" section. But even the extra firm isn't particularly firm because it is silken tofu. It's also hard to get into the packaging unless you have scissors with you.
posted by misskaz at 2:55 PM on September 6, 2023 [9 favorites]

Best answer: You can get tofu from companies like Morinaga in Tetra Pak containers. This has an unrefrigerated shelf life of at least a few months. It should be fine on a backpacking trip. It's not packed in water like most other tofu (though the tofu itself has the usual amount of water content).
posted by mbrubeck at 2:56 PM on September 6, 2023 [9 favorites]

^ Yes those are the ones you would want. And do not open until you are ready to eat it (within an hour or so)
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:02 PM on September 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

I have made some dubious food safety decisions for backpacking, routinely including hauling fresh foods for longer than recommended and dehydrating things that officially aren't supposed to be dehydrated, and yet I would not bring tofu that's meant to be refrigerated unless I were so committed to the plan that I was also bringing a cooler system for it. Tetra Pak tofu, however: great, fine. If you've already accepted the caloric inefficiency anyway, the carton is a small price to pay.
posted by teremala at 3:06 PM on September 6, 2023 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Really appreciate these answers. You all have really put tofu in the "totally innocuous until it turns on you" category for me.
posted by kensington314 at 3:18 PM on September 6, 2023 [7 favorites]

I have made tofu jerky (a lot of recipes online -- mostly just involve babysitting an oven for a few hours) and took that with me unrefrigerated to an event (a comic con, so ... maybe slightly more climate-controlled). It served me well. Do that.

Do not take regular unrefrigerated tofu with you.

(It's different but I'm a vegetarian who's had terrible food poisoning from dodgy hummus so I don't mess around anymore.)
posted by edencosmic at 4:55 PM on September 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

Have you considered dried tofu skin? It needs to be soaked before cooking but it's very packable.
posted by fiercekitten at 5:10 PM on September 6, 2023 [2 favorites]

If you have an asian grocery nearby, you can also buy tofu snacks. They're dried, seasoned tofu that is stored at room temp and vacuum sealed in individual packets. Here's an example.
posted by extramundane at 6:06 PM on September 6, 2023

I would push the boundaries with meat before I would push it with tofu. Meat seems to go off kind of linearly -- slowly, a bit worse as time goes on. But like people above have said, tofu seems to go off very rapidly, and you don't want to be on the wrong side of that.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:27 PM on September 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

2nding tofu jerky. You can make it or buy it.
posted by amtho at 8:05 PM on September 6, 2023

(Soy curls, as mentioned above.)
posted by needs more cowbell at 2:09 AM on September 7, 2023

After having read this post this morning, I wondered if I should check the fancy tofu I bought a few weeks ago and put in the cupboard with my normal, Tetra-Pak, long-life stuff. I promptly forgot.

The universe reminded me by making the house stink of cat urine, as today was apparently the day that the fancy tofu breached its protective plastic wrapper and stunk out the house. I put it in a bin bag and doing so was enough to make me need a 10pm shower.

Long-life tofu will be 100% the better choice for your trip. You don't want to have that smell through your gear and person if you don't have access to showers or air-fresheners.
posted by nz_kyle at 2:55 PM on September 7, 2023 [1 favorite]