I am in the ‘not liking hexi for DofE’ camp, much preferring gas trangias.
My main reason is that it is easy for a group working together to use the Trangia, it takes less space than 4 hexis, is more controllable and more flexible in its use.
I wouldn’t, however, refuse to let someone who really wanted to to use hexi, we are not there to dictate, merely guide. I do draw the line at non resealable gas canisters and wont use meths anymore.
Cheers all
That’s fair, and I think is primarily key during the training aspect. If the team choose to cook up something they can all eat together, a nice big pot of chilli or something, then certainly one larger cooking pot makes more sense.
Whereas, if they’re going to go for individual meals then several smaller cookers gets it done concurrently rather than all waiting for their turn on the one trangia.
I would though debate the point that 1 trangia takes up less space than 4 hexi cookers.
I don’t have a problem with Boil in the Bag but draw the line at Ration Packs as just getting a box out of the stores is not imho “planning an appropriate menu”. I would also expect a group to be able to explain/justify their menu choices as part of a discussion. As others have mentioned it comes down to training, if you give Cadets decent training in Expedition Skills they won’t want to do Boil in the Bag anyway.
As far as Navigation goes, I wouldn’t expect perfection, you learn by making mistakes, but at the same time I would expect them to be right more often than they are wrong. If they genuinely can’t navigate are they “adequately trained to safely undertake a remotely supervised expedition” and also do they “possess the necessary Expedition skills to complete their expedition safely”
Agreed - that would largely be my issue with it too.
TBH the biggest problems with hexi is it has to be handled and the combustion products. A look at the SDS, if it was suggested now would not get used, but it is/was a cheap concoction of flammable nasties, so obviously good for the armed forcrs. The tins of fuel are slightly better and a bit better than meths because of the tin, although they are in effect the same thing, as per the SDS. The best fuel is gas as with the event of screw fixing it has become more practical and the heat is reliable in all but the coldest conditions, but it is more expensive for the burners.
As for food the majority of cadets I know use BitB meals for DofE and usually raid old rat packs. Personally I have an issue with not knowing if BitB is hot enough and the cost of the things if you haven’t got rat packs, although rat packs are not that cheap, given you are never too sure which ones you’ll get. There is also the fallacy that BitB is lighter than tinned foods, but xg weighs the same whether it is in a bag or tin, which I pointed out to a Wing DofE Officer, who wasn’t very happy, as they were telling cadets not to take tinned food and tried using the package weight argument, which is negligible in the bigger picture.
If I have to cook I’d sooner cook rice or pasta from one of the popular dry packs and sling in some cooked meats. My advice to cadets has been for over 30 years, take something you like that you can cook, and, try it at home as this means as said planning. I’ve watched cadets take something on a weekend that is either impractical or they cook it and don’t like it, which invariably means breaking out some the emergency bits we take. The latter seems to happen in my experience most with rat packs.
It isn’t, as they are on the recommended list from DofE. As long as they plan their meals and have purchased appropriate food, that is the main thing. People have been using boil in the bag meals for years. I did when I did my DofE 16 years ago.
I don’t see why it shouldn’t be permitted. The rest of us use it.
If that’s the biggest problem then I say “crack on”. Don’t cook in a confined area - like a tent or half-sized telephone box and it’ll be fine.
“Handled”!?! Hells bells fella… You don’t half worry about some inconsequential toss. You’d have to handle a metric F-Ton of hexi a day without gloves to have a problem.
You needn’t worry about that. It’s not raw; one could eat it cold if desired and it’d be just as good.
The BIB stuff is deliberately bought by the MOD because it can be eaten without heating it first.
I would hazard that three quarters of the ones I ate during several years in the desert hadn’t been heated, and most of the heated ones had just been left out in the sun for a bit. Cold chicken tikka with rice at 3am in a wet forestry block is surprisingly good…
Tucked on the head of a landy engine for a while just about does it too.
I always found rice to be one of the least palatable things to have cold - seems to be not quite fully cooked when bagged such as to make the heating the final cooking stage.
Still perfectly safe to eat cold, but rather crunchier than rice really should be.
And if your in a Farm on the trg Area with power, take a Berko or Kettle and you can heat the BiB in those too 
We’ve recently had a Cdt try to do Boil in the bag with the Museli sachet btw 
Bury head in hands 
What I try to get over to Cdts when we do a “Camp Cooking” night at the Sqn, is they really need to learn how to cook basic food in the kitchen at home, before trying to do this at a Campsite or on a Fieldcraft Ex (though they should have Rat Pack issued for this, but making a brew is beyond the experiance of some Cdts) - eg how to boil at egg! some bring eggs but dont have the first clue on how to boil them 
It seems that Cdts today lack more basic life skills than we did when we were Cdts?
Yeah… There’s a certain washing machine incident that springs to my mind…
Had to teach cadets how to make tea and coffee, and even had one ask me if I wanted the kettle filled with hot or cold water…
Surely they still do “Food Technology” at School? When I was their it wasn’t amazing but I at knew how to make a Shepherds Pie and a Victoria Sponge Cake. (At least one of my Cadets can Bake but don’t know if she learned at home!)
To be fair i’ve often wondered at the efficiency difference between filling a kettle or saucepan from the cold tap and boiling it, and filling it from the hot tap and boiling it. It definitely saves time to use warmer water to boil up. But I wonder which is cheapest.
I guess your cadet wasn’t thinking that far ahead mind.
Didn’t do it when I was at school (left in 04). One of the main reasons I needed to find a girlfriend PDQ at uni as neither parent could cook anything other than ready meals or fish fingers, waffles and beans. I got all my cooking experience through DofE so had a very limited repertoire.
Before the now ex-OC binned it, we did cooking as an activity - they all had to make a lasagne and bake a bara brith.
We did sewing as well.
i was in school 20 years ago and can say i did NOT to “food tech” so cannot see why there should be the assumption they would today.
some might, but i’m certain the school i went to hasn’t reintroduced it since…
Schools now are cutting back in our area on home economics (cooking and sewing) and technical classes like wood and metal work.
Most apprentices have no idea how to use a screwdriver or tape measure when they start now.
When I was at school they cancelled the higher technical class (25 students) so they could have higher Latin (3 students) as it was considered more prestigious to have Latin 
The local council now run summer cooking classes for parents in the school kitchens as they have found a great number can’t cook
You spelled “pointless” incorrectly there!
That comment got me sent home and suspended for 1 day!!!
I was one of the ones affected