Plastic lined paper bags for rehydrating meals?

Glad to be back here on TLB! I think it was about 10-11 years ago on this forum there was discussion of what to use to replace the no longer produced Glad Stand and Zip plastic hot food bags. The Glad bags could withstand boiling water, had pleated bottoms and could be washed and reused. Glad stopped making these and someone here found a doable replacement. They were plastic lined paper bags with pleated bottoms. I have used these for years now for rehydrating foods using a Reflectix cozy, with very good results. I am down to bout 8 bags and want to buy more! Anyone know what I am talking about and where to find these?

I emailed the person who I bought these from and it was returned. They had bought a bulk quantity (smallest order they could get) of something like 2000 bags and sold smaller lots to folks like me.

I tried both the forum's search feature as well as a few google searches, no luck yet.

UPDATE: I found something similar, though dimensions are not given. These look similar to what I have but have a zip built in. Minimum order is 20,000 pieces!

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/635872530/plastic_lined_kraft_paper_bag.html?s=p

Have you tried looking in a craft store, like Michael's? It looks like a craft type bag.

Hmm-

Who wants to go out on a limb and order 20 thousand (or was it 200 thousand?) bags to split up for a group buy??? Yeah, right!

If you want to look for an alternative, try repurposing cereal/cracker box liners or mylar snack bags. Either type can be sealed with a clothing iron. I wash chip/snack bags, dry, reseal the bottoms, add single precooked and dehydrated meals, and iron shut. Use a soda straw to suck out as much air as possible and keep bag pinched as you iron the last bit. I can't speak to the cereal bags, but I've added boiling water to the mylar ones many times. Also, I have found that I can set these bags back into a pot of simmering water for additional cooking if needed. It is more work to repurpose bags, but they are at least something one can locate cheaply. I've used strips of larger bags to make "pillow packs" of resupply items from peanut butter to hand sanitizer. Seals on these do deteriorate over time, so don't make them up too far in advance.

That's not a bad idea. I had no idea you could put boiling water on the mylar bags. I'll have to give that a try, thanks!

Good idea, but I doubt a craft store would have a food-grade bag like this. Think of very large, pleated bottom, oatmeal packet...same kind of paper and plastic. In a craft bag, there could be any sort of plastic, but in a food bag, the plastic lining would have to be specifically food grade. I'm not a plastic expert, but I'd rather find the ones made for food.

You are welcome. I've been using the repurposed bags for about 15 years. It was easier to get the bags when I worked in an elementary school and had "lunchroom duty." Imagine the looks I'd get along the trail when I stopped for a meal and pulled one snack bag after another from my food bag. Other hikers thought I was living on chips and were so surprised when the bag would have spaghetti, beef stew, etc.

You can find small quantities of little plastic bags of any size at a craft store like Michael's, usually in the bead section. I use little tiny ones for salt and spices.

I don't know what the deal is with hot water and freezer bags. Freezer bags were designed to hold food that has been blanched in boiling water and then placed directly in the bags. By the time you get the pot of boiling water off the stove and pour the water first into a cup and then into the freezer bag, the water is no longer anywhere near 212*F even at sea level. Certainly not at 5,000 feet elevation where I was the last two nights! It will be about the same temperature as the blanched veggies you are preparing for your freezer.