My Personal Safety

Picnics and camping are outdoor activities that I enjoy doing very much. However, there are challenges that come by them mainly on what foods to carry and where to find safe water for drinking especially concerning my personal safety. How to pack the food particularly for camping trips is even a greater problem due to the risk of contamination for the longer duration you’ll be out. Most of my preferred meals are comprised of high risk foods that usually are known to cause food poisoning on poor handling especially when eating outdoors. Nevertheless, there are a few things that I have learnt to always put into consideration when planning a picnic or to go camping to ascertain that my personal safety is maintained.

The first rule is to keep foods cold. I ensure that all cooked foods are cooled completely before I pack them. I then make sure to pack them along with all drinks frozen to serve as icepacks and also add some cold packs around the food. Once at the site, it is important to make sure that all foods are well sealed in their containers and covered that they may not be contaminated by insects, birds and small creeping animals.

For camping, perishable foods are unsuitable to carry since it is difficult to access a fridge. Foods such as chicken, dairy products, fish, cooked rice, fruit salads are high risk foods where bacteria grows rapidly thus it is not advisable to carry them. However, since one cannot do away with the meats totally, I make sure to pack the raw meat frozen in leak proof containers and then into a cooler for just a day. The safer foods to carry are canned products and something like dry powdered milk. If the site is not far from town, I prefer to go eat from the restaurants rather than to carry raw foods and handle them in the open. Finally, I make sure to carry disinfecting tablets for drinking water and a hand sanitizer for generally it is hard to find safe water outdoors. By doing all the above, I am assured of my personal safety.