Food Storage & Precautions
Given Hong Kong’s predominantly warm or even hot climate with high humidity, proper food storage is crucial when selecting your backpacking food. If you enjoy the food you’ve chosen, chances are, local wildlife will too. Therefore, precautions for storing your food in the wilderness are necessary.
PACK IT TIGHT, HANG IT RIGHT
The wildlife that might be attracted to your food isn’t limited to insects; it includes small mammals, birds, and large mammals as well. Their ability to search for food often surpasses our expectations. Most campsites have hanging posts, which you can use for hanging food. Before you hang the food bag, ensure it’s sealed air-tight and that there’s no residual food trace or waste outside of the bag.
NEVER PLACE YOUR FOOD INSIDE YOUR TENT!
There are several reasons for this. Ants, for instance, are small but persistent intruders with powerful mandibles. They’ll follow the scent of food anywhere, and they can cut through almost anything in their path. A friend of mine once found hundreds of ants inside her tent because some food residuals were left inside. The ants smelled it and cut their way through from the groundsheet to the inner tent.
In another instance, a friend’s brother placed food inside the tent, thinking it would be safer. In the middle of the night, a wild boar sniffed it out and used its sharp tusk to tear the tent apart. Thankfully, the people inside managed to get out safely, but the tent was completely ruined. It was a hard lesson learned.
KEEP YOUR PERISHABLES DRY
For perishables like vegetables, keeping them dry is key to preserving them. Anything that gets wet won’t last long in such weather conditions. Even in wintertime, any fresh food without refrigeration won’t last for more than a day. If you’d love to have some fresh food on your backpacking trip, I’ll provide some advice in later chapters.
TAKE AWAY YOUR OWN FOOD WASTE
No matter how many times we tell people, either tourists or locals, it just never stresses the point enough. This is basically a Leave No Trace principle. The reason why you must bring the food waste with you is that whatever food you love, the other animals will love too. The food we bring in is surplus for the environment. If there are more food sources, the animals will have a higher ability to reproduce; then they will come back to the same location and look for more, causing more disturbance while camping.
Eco Adventure Hong Kong 