You laugh about "Puppy chow". I can remember a boy scout camping trip (I was a tenderfoot at the time) where my patrol leader ate a milk bone on a dare - he said they were pretty tasty, that the "Plain" were fairly good, the liver were yuck, the beef OK - he ate about 1/2 the box - and the dare was for 1

So I guess Milk Bone dog biscuts...

Food is one area I don't worry as much about ultralight. I tried it, and it made the trip less fun.


Breakfast: coffee extract or tea bags, honey packets
granola mixed in the bag with dried milk, brown sugar, raisins, etc. An apple or orange the first morning.

Lunch: tortillas, salami, cheese, wheat thins, peanut butter, soup in cold weather (Knorr brand), green peppers and carrots (keep whole for as long as possible), ranch dressing in packets. SNICKERS bars and Fig Newtons! (can't have too many)

Dinner: freeze-drieds (I stick to a few favorites that are edible). Barilla dried tortellini(!!), Liptons or Zatarain's rice mixes as a base, with retort pouch chicken, tuna or shrimp, or (on the first night) smoked sausage. I also use tomato paste in a tube, olive oil and spices to adjust.

In warm weather I don't always cook, or dinner may be soup with more lunch stuff. In cold weather there will be hot drinks for after dinner, and there is always a small Nalgene of good bourbon. Dinner the first night is often a huge sub from Jimmy John's and Doritos. Possibly a tallboy beer or two, depending upon length of trip and elevation multiplied by distance from car.

For packets of everything, this place is cool: www.minimus.biz

Hi Paul810,

Lightweight food means either de-hydrated, freeze dried or very fatty foods (extra calories for same weight).

Lightweight food may also require additional cooking time, preparation and utensil cleaning. This means you may have to carry additional equipment and fuel to offset the weight savings you have made from carrying lightweight food in the first place.

Lightweight food is essentially only lightweight because the water content of the food has been removed. Therefore carrying lightweight food in hot arid desert conditions for example doesn't really make any sense.

I Generally just use British Army 24hr Operational Ration Packs (can source them very cheaply for about £5) but will supplement them with retort pouch Gourmet meals from

http://www.lookwhatwefound.co.uk/store/i...k7dh4dn7e3tu4i3

The West Highland Venison Sausages with Maris Piper Potatoes in a Ruby Port & Redcurrant Sauce is my favourite. And best of all there is no washing up to do!

There are lots of lightweight meals and food, which can be had from the local supermarket if you are not to bothered about cooking preparation rather than just the re-heating and re-hydrating process. The supermarkets are full of instant sauces and accompaniments to pasta, rice, meat, fish etc

e.g. http://www.schwartz.co.uk/productdetail.cfm?id=5044 excellent accompaniment to a freshly caught wild salmon or brown trout.

An example a very lightweight and very low cost meal which requires little preparation and cooking time would be Stovies.

Ingredients

1 Pkt of Smash instant mashed potato.
1 Tin of Corned beef.
1 Pkt Paxo Sage and Onion stuffing mix.
with Butter (or Gee) salt and pepper to taste.

Other meals can be based around Couscous (Much more preferable to noodles).

Example - Whole grain Wild Mushroom, Garlic & Herb Couscous Salad can be made almost purely from de-hydrated ingredients from the local gourmet and health food shops.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/mushroomandherbcousc_84770.shtml

And yes you can even even get individual Gin and Tonics in a lighweight aluminium beverage can. Just don't forget the slice of lemon.
(which also helps with cleaning your cooking pots and pans as well)

Here you can an example of the modern British polar Arctic explorer with Gin and Tonic in hand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au3lPNc-lGU&feature=related


And not all fruit cake is created the same, home made Dundee cake is hard to beat.

http://www.rampantscotland.com/recipes/blrecipe_dundee.htm

McVities Chocolate Digestive biscuits are pretty much unsurpassable when consumed with a big hot cup of tea.

When I was in Little League, (my son would say "back before electricity" or something), our baseball coach gave us each a Milk Bone before a playoff game... they were supposed to make us mean and nasty... I can't recall if we won or not, just remember that we were all surprised that the dog biscuit was not really that bad.

Hmm, probably not too advisable to be eating dog food. A dog's digestive system can handle things ours cannot, like hair and bones. The nutrient balance is also inappropriate for human consumption. Incidental consumption of stuff like Milk bones is probably not going to have an adverse effect, but I wouldn't make a habit of eating it, and I certainly would not consider eating a lot at one time.

I'm sure you're probably right about that, I just had to respond with that flashback from back in the day. My baseball coach was a little strange with his motivational ideas. As far as I know, we all lived through the occasional playoff milk bone, and only occasionally bark on command these days... but, I wouldn't want to make it a staple food, that's for sure!

Same goes even more for cat food...a cat's digestive system is pretty good at doing a lot with nothing...like generating it's own vitamin C eating nothing but mice.

Cats are disgusting animals, I clean carpets for a living (my own company) and cats can destroy the value of a home. Cat urine is nasty stuff that is extremely difficult to bordering on impossible to get rid of. It amazes me that people with a nice home will let a cat destroy it and think nothing of it. Cats will lick themselves in a very revolting area and then walk across the kitchen counter where people cook & prepare food and sniff & eat whatever smells good to them.


The best thing for a cat to digest is a bullet!

Stovies! from instant mash!!!!!!! AAAAAARGH

Good God man how can you desecrate Scotland's Finest spud based meal.

Do agree with the rest of your post though.

I prefer couscous to noodles. But steer away from ration pack meals like the plague.

Hi Johno,



The Stovies recipe was the 'Survival Version' for the Burt Gummer types who maybe reading and have lots of tins of corned beef and instant mash available in the cellar. The secret ingredient was the Paxo stuffing which makes the whole gooey mess reasonably edible. Perhaps it should have been called 'Barely Stovies'

Now depending on the location and time of year in Scotland 'Neeps and Tatties' can be had for free (of course sneeking up to a cow and milking it requires the deepest of survival skills. Best just having your butter to hand from the local supermarket!)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/neepsandtatties_9033.shtml

Mmmm, Hot Chocolate Pudding in Chocolate Sauce, now whats wrong with that. Now you might find it strange but I also like the friut biscuits. The Soups and Hot chocolate are as good as anything in the Supermarket. The Corned beef Hash is not to good though even compared to the 'Barely Stovies' recipe. The instant tea just gets binned and replaced with some Scottish Blend or PG tips. But I guess if you have been eating them for weeks on end I can understand your point of view.