Some years ago I visited Black's Outdoor Store in High Holborn to buy some tent pegs and a few other bits and pieces and noticed in the backpacking section a great selection of dehydrated foods. It is obvious why such things appeal to backpacker fraternity because the heaviest item to carry is water especially in tins of prepared food. One item that struck me as a superb idea were packets of dehydrated water weighing virtually nothing but containing all the necessary salts and minerals to make a good quality drinking water.
The instructions were quite simple: empty contents of packet into a two pint saucepan or billy, add one and three quarter pints of water, bring to the boil stirring occasionally. Let simmer for three minutes and you will have a litre of perfectly good drinking water. Simples!
Later that evening at the weekly TOMCC meet in the depths of Epping Forest I told some clubmates about this new product who were fascinated by the idea, so much so that one intimated that he would visit a local branch of that shop and buy some!
