Mess Kit Buying Guide

For Scout camping purposes, a Mess Kit is an individual's personal eating containers and utensils. While the Troop does have some spare service materials to lend, we expect all camping participants to bring their own gear for eating and to manage cleaning and storing for of the gear themselves while we are camping.

At a minimum, a Mess Kit should include: Plate, Bowl, Cup, Fork and Spoon. Additional sized eating containers and a plastic knife may come in handy, but aren't necessary. To store and hang your Mess Kit, all of your gear should fit into a mesh drawstring bag. These bags are hung on a line in camp to allow the gear to dry in between meals and to keep them safe and out of the way as well. If your kit does not come with one, they can be purchased separately, just be sure that the bag will fit the plate you purchased.

Important Note: Be sure to write your Scout's name on each piece of the kit so we can tell yours apart from the others at camp. Also, as clean as we encourage the Scouts to keep them at camp, the kits should be washed an sanitized once they are home. We've seen some interesting science experiments when the kits are left to ferment between campouts.

Some very commonly used Kits are shown below. These and many other types of kits can be found online or at camping retailers.

Search for Camp Eating Kit online or the caption labels for the products below to evaluate these items and more.