When I was probably about 14, a friend, my sister, and I went camping just two or three hundred yards from the house, across a pasture down by the woods. We made the mistake of eating cookies inside the tent. That night, luckily as it would turn out, my friend got a nose bleed, and we had to walk back to the house by moonlight. In the morning, we found the tent completely overrun with fire ants. Not only did it look like a horror movie situation narrowly avoided, they had chewed hundreds of holes into the tent floor. The new tent floor. Needless to say, my dad was pretty disappointed with us. He was incredulous about the fact I hadn’t realized we never brought food into the tent. Since then, I’ve stuck to that simple rule – no food in the tent – religiously.

Now that I’m older, and the internet is a thing, I’ve read several articles about bear safety, and they almost all say not to cook in your camping area. In fact, several suggest cooking at least 200 feet from where you will set up camp, as well as hanging your food 200 feet away. Of course, those of you with experience know this isn’t just because of bears, but raccoons, squirrels, chipmunks, mice, the list goes on.

But then again, I’ve also seen many forum posts, blog entries, advertisements, and gear reviews that mention cooking under a tarp shelter or even in the vestibule of a tent when it’s raining. Is this usually only done in areas where bears aren’t a problem? Do people who do this know they could wake up to a skunk scratching around their door and take a calculated risk anyway? What do you do?