Something that has annoyed me for a number of years is that while I can find fruit-flavored sugar water in tetra-pak ‘juice boxes’ or mylar pouches in just about every supermarket I walk into, I can never find that kind of packaging for just water. Invariably, I have to order offa Amazon or some other place on the internet.
Given how everyone is all about walking around with a plastic bottle of water these days, you’d think the more convenient forms of it would be readily available. Nope. (And before you send me a link to ‘beer can’ water, and other forms of the stuff please note that by ‘readily available’ I mean in Aisle Six of most supermarkets.)
I bring this up because this arrived in todays package delivery:
When a 12 ounce plastic bottle of water, in bulk, is around fifteen cents, these pouches are a rather expensive way to carry around some earth sauce. Quite honestly, the little hand-grenade sized plastic bottles are a better choice in almost every way.
But, the qualifier there is ‘almost’.
I think I have a couple pretty good reasons for using the pouches for emergency water to keep in my vehicle. Both reasons are seasonal. For some reason, I just feel that leaving plastic bottles in a hot car in the summer for months on end is going to wind up leeching plastic chemicals into the water. Do I have anything like research to back this up? Nope. The mylar pouches, in my twisted brain, seem less prone to that although you could argue the mylar is lined with a similar plastic.
Where these pouches really shine is in the winter. They don’t burst when frozen and, most importantly, because they have the general profile of a Pop-Tart they are easily and quickly thawed by holding one between your palms, sitting on it, or tucking it under your arm for a few minutes. Try thawing a 20 oz bottle of water using just body heat. Youre gonna be a while.
I usually tuck these things into a plastic ‘ammo can’ to protect them from punctures and they just sit in the storage box in the back of the truck, there if I need them.
If I go on any trip out of town, even if it’s just a couple hours to Kalispell or Bozeman, I throw a five-gallon jug in the back of the truck in one of the gas can racks. Unless you’re drowning, more water is usually a good thing.
I don’t need to tell you anything about how much you need clean water. Every one of us has heard that ‘three days’ thing. But long before Day Three you’re gonna be a hurting unit to the point that your ability to function and operate optimally is going to be severely compromised. So…extra water. And note I said ‘clean’ water. Drinking from an irrigation ditch by the side of the road will keep you alive in the short term, but whatever you picked up from that water won’t do you any favors a few days later. But..even dirty water is better than no water in the short term. But why take chances? Carry water and have some purification options.
The day will come, someday, when you may have to leave in a hurry with whatever you can grab in your two hands as you run out the door. It’d be nice to have one less thing to worry about knowing you’ve got several days of water in your vehicle ‘just in case’…winter or summer. And, not to get judgemental, you really should have a pack with the essentials and a sleeping bag in your vehicle at all times to begin with.
And, finally, when I was a very young survivalist, I bought a bunch of these water pouches from Major Survival (remember them?). This was back in the 90’s for crying out loud. I still have a few in the freezer. I thawed one a year or so ago and drank it. Water was clear, tasted fine, and I’m here today to tell you that water ‘expiration’ is meaningless if the stuff is stored right.
