Food in a cache

[Mushtang]

I've only found 40 caches so far, so I suppose I'm still a newbie, but in those 40 caches I've found 4 with food (homemade molded chocolate, peppermints, Hershey's Kisses, other assorted candy). It's pretty clear that food in caches is a no-no.

 

Any reasonable person wouldn't eat food left in the wilderness by a stranger, so why would someone leave it there? And when I get to caches that have food in them they're almost always covered with ants making the process of logging alone difficult, and trading goodies even worse.

 

I've always removed all the food and thrown it away in the nearest trash can, and have tried to leave a note in the online log that I've done so just in case the person that left the food is checking to see who might have "enjoyed" the snack. Hopefully they'll read my notes and decide not to leave food in the future.

 

I guess I'm just surprised to find food in 4 out of 40 caches so far. Is anyone else finding food this often?

[MilamberDragon]

Sounds like you are doing the right thing.

 

Personally I would just dump the food and leave a note in the logbook and also on the online log. The other thing to do is also send a note off the the cache owner I believe they would want to know this is has happend.

[+Huntnlady]

It would be better to remember who left the food by their log at the cache, and then when they log online, send them a note just to let them know that food in a cache is not a good idea.

On my very first cache I put an arrowhead and a granola bar in the cache. I just didn't know any better. But now that I've done over 150, I'm starting to get the hang of it.

 

______________________________

If an infinite number of rednecks

riding in an infinite number of pickup trucks

fire an infinite number of bullets

at an infinite number of highway signs,

they will eventually produce all the world's

great literary works in Braille.

http://www.geocities.com/cacheinon

[+briansnat]

Food is a bad idea, no matter how well it's sealed. When I started geocaching, I left mini bottles of Tabasco.

 

Peppers are an animal repellent, but I realized that if I tried to rationalize my Tabasco, then the next person would try to rationalize their MRE, their can of beans, or a "sealed" packet of Gatorade, or whatever. So I decided to stop the practice. With so many great, inexpensive items that you can place in a geocache, why even think of leaving any kind of food?

 

One cache I found that was a particularly hard find (took me 3 trips), had a pack of fruit chewing gum in it. The smell was overpowering when I opened the container. It soon went missing. The owner assumed it was stolen, but I think some smart nosed raccoon probably walked away with it.

 

C'mon people, common sense tells ya NO FOOD IN CACHES!

[+Renegade Knight]

Hey, I agree on this one. NO FOOD.

No Tofu or soy either since some people mistakenly eat that for food.

[+ChrisCindy]

Yeah no food in caches...except tuna sandwiches...yeah tuna in summer...mmmmmmm.

[+jollybgood]

Darn. Guess I have to kill my idea of doing a Sponge Cake them cache.

 

Jolly R. Blackburn

http://kenzerco.com

"Never declare war on a man who buys his ink by the gallon."

[+InBrainWeTrust]

Remember, there's only one fruitcake; it just gets passed from cache to cache because no one wants it

[Mushtang]

Right... but is anyone else finding food this often? Or is it just that I've been unlucky enough to find a few more than average? That's what I was curious about when I posted the thread.

 

There are three kinds of people in the world. Those that can count, and those that cannot.

[+Brian - Team A.I.]

Fruitcake would be the Virtual Victor of the legitimate TB scene.

 

Brian

Team A.I.

[+Web-ling]

I don't find food in caches anywhere as frequently as I did when I first started caching (2001). I think this is because most of the cachers in my area remove food when they find it, and there are a lot more veteran cachers than newbies now. Heck, in 2001, we were almost ALL newbies...