I'm a person who goes on long outdoor expeditions and there are many canned foods that I would like to bring with me but the weight of the can is just too much. I would like to be able to open a can such as this:
and then pour the contents into an aluminum bag such as this:
Will this work? how long will this stay good?
What is a way I can keep canned food to last a couple weeks or more when opened and put into a light weight bag?
Thank you.
Cans, pouches and jars are sterilized once they are closed to kill any pathogens, which is why they store as long as they do. Once you open them the magic is lost as they'll be exposed to bacteria and other organisms that cause food to spoil - without refrigeration they will go bad very quickly. So no, you can't transfer the food from one package to another and keep them from spoiling without reprocessing them, which is a lot of trouble.
Bottom line is you'll need to buy hiking food which is already in foil packets. Fortunately there's plenty of choice.
You can’t.
The moment you open the can, the safe contents get exposed to the environment, and the same food safety rules apply as for freshly cooked food, which means no longer safe (not necessarily spoiled but certainly full of bacteria and fungi soon) after just a few hours.
To achieve a comparable long shelf life, the food in the cans would need to be treated the same way as it was previously during canning, i.e. heated up to a specific temperature for a certain amount of time. This is almost certainly not possible with the bags you are considering. They need to be food safe, withstand temperatures of around 120°C (and you need a pressure canner too) and keep their seal safely and reliably over time. I would expect them to mange neither.
Of course you could consider other methods like pasteurization, but that would probably require refrigeration and still not solve the issue of a safe seal.
If weight is that much of an issue, either buy the kind of food in ready-made pouches or carry the dry ingredients and cook them at your campsite.
