I was wondering what you guys carry for light weight hiking food? I'm looking to try some new things, but it's tough to find foods that have good nutritional value, can stand up to abuse of the outdoors, and don't weigh a ton. I was thinking it would be good to get some kind of big list made up, as I know I'm not the only one who might die if they eat another handful of GORP.

I just went hiking this weekend with four college buddies. Nothing like four guys walking into the woods, with two of them totally unprepared (no water, no food, no golves, not bupkiss, although each was dressed warm enough and had knives of some type). Then you bite off much more than you can chew, picking a path that requires you to climb and descend small mountains and cliffs, and walk over more fist-sized rocks than you could imagine, so your legs and ankles are just beat. One of the unprepared individuals found his way to a parking lot and called for a cab, and that is a story in itself. DW made a chocolate chip cookie recipe and baked it like a batch of brownies. I had no choice but to take them. They were not light, could not really stand much abuse, they were not very nutritious, but someone loves me. Enough of my digression.

Provided you have sufficient water, I like dried fruits; sugar; some nutrition, very little weight. For packing in some calories and not weighing much, I like dried fruits (raisins, berries and bananas work for me, but not banana chips). Make sure they don't wreck your digetive system or anything else. My system tolerates them well. I will take a couple bars too, and I'll admit they help, but they also seem to by the thing I dread eating.

Taking enough water is one of my bigger issues. After all, the more you take, the more you carry.

Lots of threads in the past about trail food, not just survival rations either.

When I am backpack camping, I usually bring along a quickbread mix where I can just add water and make pancakes, biscuits, etc. Trail mix containing nuts, raisins, coconut, and chocolate are a real pick-me-up for on the trail. I also have a recipe for a bif bar that tastes great and is packed full of goodness.

Rice (either instant or parboiled) goes a long way toward filling the hollow after a good hike, mixed with some seasonings like boullion or onion soup. I don't worry about the higher salt consumption because I am usually working hard enough on the trail that I need it. Noodles will work good too, as does instant mashed potatoes. Chipped beef, jerky, or even a good salami or pepperoni roll can make a huge difference. Baby bel gouda snacks also seem to pack nicely, so long as it doesn't get too hot.

Occasionally I will grab a dehydrated or freeze dried food pack, though they aren't all that economical. They are pretty darned convenient.

Of course my constant fall back is to make pemmican balls and coon balls. They hold up quite well on the trail, pack a whole lot of calories and taste, and are convenient as well.

Breakfast: instant grits or oatmeal, pre-boiled eggs, granola bars, coffee or tea,

Lunch: Picnic style (beef jerky, crackers, cheese, MRE's, water, )

Supper: 1 C-Rat (canned-> beef stew, chicken & dumplings, chili, ravioli's, tamales, spaghettios, water or tea, )

If traveling light, I want a minimum mess to clean up after breakfast, no mess to clean up after lunch, and minimum mess to clean up after supper.

I do want breakfast and supper to be "hot".

I want to minimize the amount of trash I have to walk out with.

I'm not sure how well this link will work, but I like reading the Backpacker "Backcountry Cooking" Forum:

http://www.backpacker.com/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.cgi?act=SF;f=512107219

For the little bit of backpacking I've done we just go through the store and search out any & all dry - just add water - stuff. We eat pretty simply.

Ken

Moose Goo!

Just ask Hacksaw ...he converted me.

You may check out that web site for other philosophies on ultralight gear and food as well.

Good luck!

~Nemo

Breakfasts: Packets of instant oatmeal, instant hot chocolate (often added to oatmeal), poptarts, "Mountain House Dehydrated Eggs & Bacon" (which is barely edible).

Lunch: jerky, pepperoni, tortias or pita bread, an avacado the first day or two, dried fruit after that.

Supper: Uncle Ben's heat-n-serve bagged rice dishes mixed with chicken breast chunks (pouch, not canned) or vienna sausages. The rice meals can be heated in their original packaging in boiling water.

Snacks: GORP, granola bars, fig newtons, "Payday" candybars

I've tried a bunch of Mountain House and Backpacker's Pantry dehydrated/freeze-dried foods and I think they all suck. The eggs/bacon one is barely edible with the addition of Tobasco sauce. I don't like doing dishes in the woods so I stick to things that can either be heated in hot water then ate from their packaging, cooked in a freezer bag, or don't require any dishes at all.

I reccomend wandering through the prepared foods aisle of your grocery store and seeing what they have in pouches/bags. Buy a bunch of different types then try them out at home. Figure out which are good/bad or edible with extra seasonings.

-Blast

Ultralight Joe's Moose goo is awesome. I've taken to eating it with watercrackers because they're tough as crackers go and have a 6 month shelf life. I've had a tube of the stuff sitting for 4 months (just to see) and it didn't go bad. There's something about the corn flour/corn starch and honey that just won't let anything grow. I must say that it did dry out and is now unsqueezable...it's almost like crumbly fudge now.

I love freeze dried for the convenience but hate all the salt. I'm just not active enough when I hike/camp/etc. The taste isn't bad depending on brand but I'm not picky when it comes to stuff I didn't prepare myself. Home made jerky is the best snack ever and less salty than the store bought stuff.

I've started experimenting with dehydrating all sorts of stuff. Last week I dehydrated back bacon, shrimp, and chicken lunch meat like jerky (It's the only meat I had on hand). The Back bacon was awesome and way less fatty than beef would have been...the shrimp and chicken would have needed to be rehydrated to be usable as they didn't make very good snacks (though I ate it all so it couldn't have been that bad).

Trail mix is another favorite of mine. Lately I've started to suppliment mine with milled flax seed and any breakfast cereal which has cylium (sp?) fiber. The All Bran Buds have worked the best so far. The Fiber on overnight trips really helps...if you know what I mean.

The best food by far quality wise is fresh food. Best hiking meal I ever had was venison. It was near freezing when we went so my friend tossed a couple of venison steaks in his pack. They (and the beer he brought) stayed fresh until we got there. We dipped it all in the lake in zip top bags until we were ready to eat (and to seperate us from the bear bait) and then cooked them straight over the fire...if I ever eat like that again I'll be a lucky man.

Not counting all the food made for camping like Mountain House and other freeze dried food. The local grocery store has so much good easily prepared and even already cooked or no need to cook food, I can’t see how a person can not find an almost unlimited choice of light weight food to take camping or backpacking.


Grocery store food is very low cost compared to freeze dried food. You can feed yourself for 3-days on what Mountain House meals would cost for 1-day.

Also don’t forget can food, yea it’s a little heaver but a few cans of pre-cooked food that has to only be heated is nice after a day of hiking. To me it’s worth the weight to have a quick meal that I did not have to work to cook. You can even warm it up in the can to save cleaning up cookware after the meal.

Hacksaw, you said you dehydrated “Back Bacon” what’s back bacon?

And how did it work dehydrating it and how was the taste?

I love bacon, (it comes from this magical place, a gift from GOD) but it’s a pain to make camping and the pre-cooked stuff I have tried was not real good. It was OK at best.

I use to buy Celebrity brand of caned bacon, but they quit making it several years ago.

Hmmm...how would you 'mericans know Back Bacon...

I guess it's sometimes called Canadian Bacon down there. Peameal bacon is basically back bacon but around here it doesn't always have the peameal crust. I think Irish Bacon is technically the same thing too...or very similar at least. Some info here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon

But I'm not sure where they get their figures from. The back bacon I buy has less than 3 grams of fat per serving raw.

Anyhow...I have a convection oven with a dehydration setting (full fan, 140 degrees F). Dries just about anything to leather in 4 to 8 hours depending on how thick it is.

I just put the marinated meat (or whatever) on wire drying racks in cookie tins and load the oven up. Check on it every 2-3 hours.

I make the marinade myself by eye...there's so many jerky recipes out there I do my own thing and it always turns out. It's hard to go wrong with that much Worchestershire sauce

The real trick is not leaving it in too long. If it's over dry it's VERY well preserved but almost unchewable...turns to dust when you grind on it. If you're drying food only to use as an additive (and jerky can be used to flavor dishes with amazing results), this is an option. Dried veggies for soups say. You need to be careful with some foods because even at 140 degrees you'll cook some stuff before it dries.

I once asked a Swedish guy what they called "Swedish Meatballs" in Sweden. He said... "Meatballs."

I have 2 dehydrators. One of those round ones with a heating element and no control. And one that looks like a microwave that allows me to set the moisture level and heat range (up to 140 deg F)

I also have a Fiberware (sp?) Convection oven, but I only use it for cooking.

I bought both the dehydrators at garage sales (at different times) the round one was $5.00, the microwave looking one I bought 2 of them for $30.00 and sold one to my brother for $20.00. I was going to go $15.00 but he offered me $20.00, so I took it. Me Bad…..

Spam.
You can get spam in a pouch these days. It's not the most economical but it's a lot easier to carry and prepare than canned spam.

lunch = tuna in a pouch - lightweight, light trash - mixed with either hot dog relish or mayo from a tube packet - like from your favorite mini-mart.

pringles or other chips in a mini-pringles can. body needs salt.

apples, bananas - if kept on the top of the pack.

I love tuna in a pouch for backpacking.
I love smoked oysters packed in oil...all that protien and fat makes good energy in a really small package...the cans pack out easier too.

One more note about jerky. If you want to make REAL jerky without the heat (heat is bad) put your marinated meat on furnace filters (the paper kind, not the fiberglass kind!), sandwich them all together and strap them to a box fan. Let it run for 24 hours and you'll have perfect jerky.

correction - hot dog relish w/o the mustard! a.k.a. sweet pickle relish.

tuna w/mustard? what was i thinking?

A true minimalist would simply take a tub of Margarine or Butter. Fat has 9.4Kcal per Gram while Protein and Carbohydrates have 4KCal per Gram. Now I know that the real problem would be sitting beside your nice fire with a spoon and a tub of Butter each night! Although after three days you would stop carrying and just dig in.

A little along the idea of "Moose Goo" my daughter and I made a snack food last month that would make a decent outdoor trail food.

Last Christmas my 10 year old daughter's teacher gave each student a bag of what she called "Puppy Chow" the kids really liked it and my daughter asked for the recipe, it is:

Puppy Chow

1 - In the microwave, melt: 1/2 a cup of butter, 1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup chocolate chips

2 - Add a small box of Crispix cereal to the mixture and mix well

3 - In a bag or bowl with a tight lid add 2 cups of icing sugar and shake like crazy.

This stuff tastes good even though it looks like dog kibble (the icing sugar kind of dries out the wetter ingredents).

When my daughter and I made this over March Break we decided to double the amount, while cleaning out the cupboards of other open products, without straying too far from the recipe. To the original ingredients we added honey, nuts, multi-grain cheerios, maple/nut cereal and raisins, but did not put in the Crispix cereal (we did not have any).

We pressed the mixture firmly into a glass baking dish and let it set for a while. The end result was quite good, I said it needed more raisins, my daughter said it needed more chocolate!

We cut the product into bars and it was a little messy. It was very filling (and very fattening I would guess), I ate it a couple of mornings while rushing off to work and it got me through to lunch time, no problem.

I think this would be fun/easy camp food to make with your kids that they will actually eat while in the bush; ever try to convince a teenage girl to eat an MRE?

Mike

Interesting tip, we will have to give it a try...

I do about the same as Blast. I try to carry some Hickory Farms Beef Stick, especially the little bite sized party links. I also like cheese for lunch but when the weather is hot it is tougher to carry.
Nuts are excellent, dried fruits, raisins, Wheat Thins anything edible, won't spoil quickly and good for me!
I sure agree about the freeze-dried meals, a few are acceptable but most are tough for me to choke down.
I have taken pre-cooked bacon, fresh eggs and orange juice for breakfast before, first day only deal.
A great surprise dinner is a nearly fully cooked filet mignon, some boil in the bag rice, a vegtable and store it in a soft cooler with some blue ice. You need a fire and small grill to finish cooking the steak and warming the other things, but it sure tastes good! I freeze all that before the trip, carry it in the soft cooler and by evening it is ready for the fire.
Cheers!

I'm shocked/surprised/dismayed that no one has mentioned my old standby, the Lipton Sides. Add water (and maybe butter/margarine/oil), boil for 10 min or so (that is their main downside, hard to do on a Pepsi can stove), and a super meal for one. Probably my favorite is chicken and rice, maybe bulked up with a little bit of dehydrated chicken...

I didn’t mention Lipton by name but I do use them (and other brands.)

A modern grocery store is packed with lots of light-weight, easily cooked and tasty food that was not in them 30-years ago. It makes it easy to stay out for 5-days or more without having to buy expensive freeze dried food, or heavy MREs.

I do have some Mountain House food put away, But it’s too expensive to use as 100% of your hiking diet. That and I find it not filling enough, one meal needs to be supplemented with other food or another Mountain House meal to fill you up.

For day hikes we don't eat much on the trail. Our hikes are typically 8-13 miles, entail 2400 feet or so elevation gain and loss, and start in the morning after breakfast. Those take 5 or 6 hours, usually.

I always have a couple of Clif MoJo Bars in my pack. On humid summer days when salt is sweating out, I pack a ziplock of chips: Doritos or Fritos. And a ziplock of some kind of salted nuts -- cashews, almonds or mixed.

And some kibble for my pup, of course. :-)

I've never backpacked overnight so have no guidance to offer in that regard.

Breakfast: Folger's® Coffee Singles, Quaker® Instant Oatmeal, Backpacker's Pantry® Spicy Cheese or Denver Omelet, Bisquick® Shake 'n Pour Buttermilk Pancakes

Lunch: Pepperidge Farms® Mini Bagels, Ritz® Crackers, Hormel® Pepperoni, Hickory Farms® Beef Stick® Summer Sausage, Kraft® Cheese, Italian Dressing. I also enjoy the various “pouch” foods -- Starkist® Tuna, Tyson® Chicken Breast Chunks, Chicken Of The Sea® Pink Salmon, Chicken Of The Sea® Crab, Spam® Singles

Dinner: Backpacker's Pantry Beef Stroganoff, Mountain House Beef Teriyaki with Rice, Zatarain's® New Orleans Style Jambalaya w/ Ham & Sausage, Spaghetti, Lipton® Pasta Sides™ (I like most of the varieties), Stove Top® Turkey Stuffing, Idahoan® Loaded Baked Potatoes

Snacks: Beef Jerky, Slim Jim® Smoked Snacks, Various Snack-Size Chocolate Bars, Quaker® Chewy Granola Bars, Emerald® Barbeque Oven Roasted Peanuts, Stretch Island Fruit Co. Fruit Leather, Assorted Hard Candy

Other: I generally have an assortment of various spices and sauces to add some additional flavor to the freeze dried and pouch foods. My favorites are Arby's® Signature Barbeque Sauce, Old Bay® Seasoning, and Texas Pete® Hot Sauce. I generally will have a cup of Bigelow® Spiced Apple Cider Herb Tea or Nestle® Hot Cocoa Mix (both caffeine free) just before turning in for the night.


Have you tried using an insulated cozy? A good cozy will retain the heat allowing the pasta to continue to cook long after you take it off the stove saving you a bunch of fuel.



Jim

Tried one of those in college, along with just a couple of wool watchcaps on a long, skinny pot.

It turned every kind of pasta I tried it with, and most varities of rice, into book paste. Nasty. And as the quality of pasta goes down, the more like eating... I have no idea what it is like, actually.

Granola bars, dried fruit, pouch/dried meat (chicken, ham, beef, sausages, spam, slim jims), instant potatoes, harder cheese (a good, dense chedder) or waxed, rice if I'm using more than a alcohal or sterno stove. Dried corn, mushrooms, peppers. Bacon bits. Nuts. A good selection of small containers of spices.

Peanut butter.

I would love to get small retort pouches of things like marinated mushrooms.

I once packed a bottle of Chateau-Laffite '48 and a fresh cooked three course meal including cornbread, stew and cobbler. Of course, I had 3 Dutch Ovens, a coffeepot and a string of mules to help. A friend got into the ultralight hiking cult. He brought a six pack of Bud light. I packed a six pack of glass bottled Warsteiner- and knapped a survival tool kit out of the empties. With the aluminum Bud Light cans he just wasted his chocolate polishing the bases for a signal mirror and fabricated a mini stove.I ate my chocolate, swiss not german and I think on my pannier scales the Bud light wieghed pretty much the same as my german beer once decanted.Unless you indeed dehydrate the stuff, food simply isn't going to be 'light.' This is the same argument as lighter sleeping bags. You need x amount of loft for warmth and x amount of calories. My personal favourite, and very traditonal survival food is Fruitcake. I've even taken to fabricating custom cooking pans out of aluminum to fit the funny pockets on my ( again) german flektharn parka shell.You'd think one at least would be dedicated for my ESBIT stove, but nooooo. So at day's end I've settled for; fruitcake, chocolate, jerky, hard cheese and a lesser wine and finished with coffee or tea. I open it with my ( again) swiss army knife corkscrew all these outdoor Pundits( Pundit being a specially trained british spy trained to calculate long distances via measured and counted steps in India.)decry as useless while promoting guthooks and sawbacks.

Light Trail Food
http://www.geocities.com/lighttrailfood/

SCANDINAVIAN HARDTACK
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/1973-05-01/A-Scandinavian-Treat-Hardtack.aspx
http://www.recipecottage.com/breads-quick/hardtack06.html
http://www.fooddownunder.com/cgi-bin/recipe.cgi?r=226014
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.food.recipes/msg/fa2835433524e395

Pioneer Pocket Food
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/1981-09-01/Camping-Pocket-Food.aspx
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/rohdenburg81a.html

Sailors Biscuits
http://www.hungrybrowser.com/phaedrus/m082501.htm

How To Dry Sweet Corn
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Natural-Health/1971-05-01/How-To-Dry-Sweet-Corn.aspx

Parched Corn
http://woodfolks.com/corn.htm
http://www.esnips.com/doc/084f0a96-853a-4e36-b305-a33dcc2bd025/How%20to%20Make%20Your%20Own%20Parched%20Corn:%20Trail%20Foods%20@%20HistoricalTrekking.com
http://www.kurtsaxon.com/foods011.htm
http://www.kurtsaxon.com/foods009.htm

Trail Mixes
http://www.ivu.org/recipes/northam/dianne-j.html
http://gorp.away.com/gorp/food/foo_gorp.htm

Ganola
http://www.post-gazette.com/food/20001012one7.asp
http://www.bbonline.com/recipe/occidental_ca_recipe1.html
http://www.recipesource.com/munchies/snacks/granola/granola6.html
http://www.biggsuperstore.com/tbsrecipes/breakfastandbrunch/homemadegranola.htm

Logan Bread
http://pweb.jps.net/~prichins/loganbrd.htm
http://recipecircus.com/recipes/Debbie_Seale/BREAD/LOGAN_BREAD.html

Other
http://www.thecampingsource.com/great_snack_ideas.html

ZWIEBACK
http://kitchenbee.com/crackers/55918.html
http://babyparenting.about.com/cs/formulafeeding/ht/zwieback.htm
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Sugar-Zwieback/Detail.aspx

My sister's kids came over with that once on a visit. I got a taste of it and thought it was a pretty good snack, thanks for the recipe.


-JRJ

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.

Most living creatures generate their own vitamin C. Humans still have the mechanism in their cells, but it got switched off somewhere far back along the common ancestral line.

Kinda depends:
If your on a pleasure trip, cherry pick the grocery store, and clean them out of the light stuff..then pick out some small-heavy stuff....(Cavir for example)
+1 on the smoked oysters, packed in oil, also +1 on "C Rat" canned dinner, 1/day= pretty civilised, and weight be damed (2-3 days)

If you'r going "lite, fast &long" different rules apply, ( hoofing 15- 35 miles a day, with a purpose).....recipie for that is: 1/2LB peanut butter 1/8 lb jerkey, 1/8 lb dog food ( my personal favoret is gravey tran), and about a 1/4 pound of dog biscits-to scoop up the peanut buter,per day,,,, (as memory serves, ymmv.These are old estimates ,and thats going rough & fast, not for a fun walk, and by the way, I'm a small guy and I don't eat much),

I've made it on no more than 1/2 lb of peanut butter & crackers in a pinch, wasn't that bad;, Peanut butter is your friend, if you've got it

BOB S, " God created cats so people could pet lions." Ritter and Kavanaugh both have cats. My cat, Piewacket saved my life, literally. I kept trying to walk out into a heavy storm and he kept biting and scratching my thigh ( Montana Hi Top riding boots and jeans)I had to untangle his claws from my jeans, put him down and start for the door 8 times. I was turning the doornknob when a huge native oaktree came crashing down and took out my apt stairwell. I don't have 9 lives.

I just pick on cats because at least 2 times a month I see homes that smell real bad because of cats. Some of them are so bad you can smell it before you open the door. And it amazes me that the owners can’t seem to smell it. Or they want me to spray some deodorizer on it thinking it will fix it when the only fix it to throw away the carpet and pad and then seal the wood floor with polyurethane and then get rid of the cat before you put new carpet down. Or else it will destroy the new carpet in a short time.

Cat urine is some really nasty stuff.

Cleaning carpet in homes gives me a different view of cats then most people have. That and I’m allergic to them.

off topic.

it's the owners that allow the cats their behavior.

imho, cats train faster than dogs.

cat urine never dries.

wood floors can be sealed with kilz, cheaper than polyurethane and just as effective.

in my job i deal with these issues on a regular basis, too.

i live with four cats - never sealed my floors. we don't have odors.

we now return you to your regularly scheduled topic.

Hi Gunsmith



Sure beats MREs, I guess!!

Not to sure about the Gravy Train dog food though

Gravy Train contains corn, soybean meal, beef and bone meal, animal fat, animal digest, Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 2, and BHA

Perhaps you should find out what animal digest, red 40, Blue 2, BHA actually consists of (considering some may potentially be human carcinogens)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravy_Train_(dog_food)

before consuming any more, unless of course you're looking for a nice shiny coat and a wet nose.

http://www.doberdogs.com/foodcht2.html

Animal Digest - A powder or liquid made by taking clean under-composed animal tissue and breaking it down using chemical and or emblematic hydrolysis. It does not contain horn, teeth, hair, hooves, or feathers except in trace amounts which are unavoidable, Digest names must be descriptive of their contents....that is, chicken digest must be made from chicken and beef digest made from beef.

Hi Hacksaw,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_digest

Animal Digest is a common ingredient used in pet foods. It is material which results from chemical and/or enzymatic hydrolysis of clean and undecomposed animal tissue. The animal tissues used shall be exclusive of hair, horns, teeth, hooves and feathers, except in such trace amounts as might occur unavoidably in good factory practice and shall be suitable for animal feed.[1]

As defined by the AAFCO, it is produced by chemically or enzymatically treating animal tissue (such as flesh, bone, organs, etc.) from slaughterhouses and other sources, in a process akin to rendering.

Yet another expert defines this as "a cooked-down broth" which can be made from unspecified parts of unspecified animals. The animals used can be obtained from almost any source and no control is in place over quality or contamination. Any kind of animal can be included: "4-D animals" (dead, diseased, disabled, or dying prior to slaughter), goats, pigs, horses, rats, euthanized at animal shelters, restaurant and supermarket refuse and so on."[2]

Yummy.

I'll stick to people food

Hi Hacksaw,



I've found it pretty weird how 'Food for the Trail' has turned into the discussion about the nutritional upsides and downsides of cat and dog food. What would be useful would be some good wholesome homemade recipes that we can all try out the next time we find ourselves in the wilderness. Doggy food and treats won't be finding there way into my pack anytime soon either.

I used to take the guys in our church youth group camping several times a year, and eating a milk bone was a mild yet hilarious initiation. Surprised how many would gag down just one bite of it.

If I were trapped in my house and Spot had already been bbq'd, the left over kibble would be fair game...but I'm not going to start buying specifically to eat on the trail.

It's bad enough I've taken a liking to some of the freeze dried stuff.

For solo and small group hiking of like minded folks, I'm a devotee of freezer-bag cooking, see the book and website at http://www.freezerbagcooking.com/. Boil and add water. Lots of tasty recipes, light weight, super simple to prepare, very little if any waste, all that's required at times is the forethought to run your dehydrator for ingredients and bag them into meals. The Freezer Bag Cooking book is first rate, the ongoing discussion on BackPacker forums is very good too. http://www.backpacker.com/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.cgi?act=SF;f=512107219.

For first meals on the trail, car camping, and hikes where I'm not so weight conscious, I like to splurge and eat old style, by which I mean old recipes for fry bread, biscuits, and other meals prepped over open fire (where permitted) as opposed to boiling water. One really good source for recipes is something called the Lookout Cookbook, compiled years ago by the Forest Service from the folks manning their fire lookouts. They tended to eat very well, if alone. Lo and behold, there's a free online version of Lookout now - http://www.foresthistory.org/Research/usfscoll/publications/Cookbook/Lookout_Cookbook.html.

The freezer bag cooking is great, but as mentioned previously it's not so light weight when you consider that you have to give up some of your water to rehydrate the bag.

I'm biased, I live and hike mostly in the Pacific Northwest, home of abundant, clean flowing water, most of it coming out of the sky all the time. Arizona, maybe a different story.

Nice site Lono. It's nice to know people are doing this worry free...makes me feel more comfy doing it. I've always avoided boiling in zip top freezer bags because the manufacturers almost always tell you no to...but don't say why. I figured I'd play it safe. Now the sky is the limit

I tried freezerbag cooking, made my own insulator out of reflexite, etc. The main problems for me where the plastic smell and the awkwardness of eating out of a floppy bag. Didn't taste any different so those are just minor annoyances. Still, I swithced to a wide mouthed plastic thermos. Same concept obviously, just pour and let sit. Yeah it weighs more than a freezer bag + cozy but the pluses are that its way easier to eat out of (its got a handle) and it insulates far better than a cozy. Plus its got a handle. Then again when backpacking I've never been an ultralighter so YMMV.

Peanut butter and honey mixed in a squeezeable tube with soft taco sized tortillas.

the pb is a little heavy but it goes a long way.

The only problem I had with it on my last camping trip is when it gets cold you need dynamite to get it out of the tube so I'm going to experiment with wrapping up some hot hands in with it when I store my foodbag overnight.

Show off.

Three weeks of Lancashire hotpot sort of does that to you. Still the ethnic and veggie packs are very good.

Take a look at dried sausages. Dried Italian salami, German landjaeger or dry summer sausage. They require no refrigeration and they're tough enough to throw anywhere in your pack with out being destroyed. They also taste incredible (landjaeger if you can find it is my favorite, and it comes as a smaller individual sized sausage) and they're full of energy. They're not exactly light, but they're very energy and flavor dense so you don't have to carry much. You can eat them just out of the package of course, but you can also cut them up and make soup with them.

Then what about eggs, they're really not that heavy, say two ounces and egg and two eggs is a meal, three if you're really hungry. Scrambled, made into omelets or egg drop soup. Get a strong plastic container to carry them from any camping store (including Walmart). As long as you don't throw your bag around too much they'll never break.

Oats are another great food, oatmeal (which I'm not a huge fan of my self) or granola (which I am) make great camping or hiking food. Filled with nutrients and energy but not as heavy as the other two.

Hard cheeses, nuts, dried fruit and dense breads (like pita and little cocktail loafs of rye) also get the nod from me. I like to mix granola with nuts and dried, chopped fruit and eat it instead of GORP.

And finally, consider carrying things like Nutella (chocolate hazel nut spread), pate or tapenade (usually an olive based spread). Again, dense with flavor and energy. Pate usually comes in cans, which are pretty light. But tapenade usually comes in a glass jar, but you can put it in a light plastic container for less weight and more durability.

As you can tell, the watch word for hiking food for me is dense. As long as the weight isn't water (the only thing I've mentioned that carries much water are the eggs), heavier foods just mean more energy per pound. You don't have to eat or carry as much and they consume less volume in your pack. Plus, they're usually delicious. They're more expensive, but compared to freeze-dried or other "traditional" camp foods, not really. Besides, how often are you able to get out and enjoy the outdoors.

It's hard to find but powdered eggs are available. Sometimes called Dessicated or Baker's eggs. 1 lb. (about 3"x3"X6") is the equivalent of 4 dozen eggs and they keep for damn near ever.

Powdered eggs:
http://store.honeyvillegrain.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=631&HS=1

Does anyone know how they taste compared to fresh eggs?

Depends on how you use them. If you want scrambled eggs you'll notice...if you want pancakes you might not.

Unfortunately I've only had them a few times as I've never been able to find the big tins of commercial storage grade egg.

Ive eaten my share of them in the Military. You can compare them to powdered vs fresh milk, instant vs fresh mashed potatoes etc. Honestly I think they taste like crap unless you add lots of salt,pepper and butter. They are great to store around the house for an emergency but better food can be had on the trail for sure. Ive taken them on hunting trips and added dehydrated onions, mushrooms, cheese etc to make a semi-editable omelet "thing" that I managed to choke down but I wont be carting them along again any time soon.

So I'm probably better off sucking up the weight and bringing real eggs. At least for short trips (say a night or two). Afterall, for four ounces you can have one of the great dishes of the world, a real omelet.

A trick I learned many years ago when I was in the scouts. I would take a steak or 2, maybe some hamburger or some stewing beef. I also did the same with bacon or a slice of ham. The meat was frozen in the freezer. Then just before leaving it would be wrapped in foil and a couple of sheets of newspaper. These packets would then be wrapped in spare cloths and stuffed into the middle of the pack. I would also crack some eggs into an ice cube tray and freeze. Then pop the desired number of these egg cubes into a baggie. These would be wrapped the same way as the meat. The foil and the newspaper are for insulation and to keep the clothing clean and dry.

Then for supper the first night, have a steak dinner with a baked potato wrapped in the foil that was around the meat cooked in the coals. Or then again maybe a stew. Depending upon my mood. The next morning, finish thawing the eggs. Then either fry them up or use them to make pancakes or French toast. A small bottle of maple syrup will top the pancakes with some butter. Add a side of ham or bacon starts the day off right. Then for lunch maybe a hamburger or cold snack, depending upon the schedule for the day. The second night there is a steak or stew. Perhaps a hamburger or maybe one of those foil packet meals scouts are noted for. Two days of fresh food before starting in on typical trail fare. Believe it or not the foods handled that way were still cold and often partially frozen for the two days. I never pushed it longer.

I would advise against drinking uprocessed water, even in the PNW. I've seen too many critters and people doing their business upstream to ever trust a raw water source again. Having been through one bout of giardia, I will take every precaution to avoid it in the future.

As for powdered eggs, I always found them to taste a little chalky and distinctively processed. If you reconsitute them for scrambled eggs or an omlette, realize that they will have a greater tendency to leak moisture as they cook than normal eggs will. To help overcome the off-taste, I use the Lurpa trick, and add a suitable amount of hot sauce to the mix, salsa if I can get it, but tabasco-style is okay. Not all powdered eggs are the same, and the cheaper OEM type will taste more processed than what you get in the foil pouches from Mountain house for $5 a bag.

We missed an Un-Rep one time out on an IO cruise and ended up eating a fair amount of powdered eggs, powdered milk and crackers. Thank God we didn't run out of real coffee. Fortunately I had a stash of sardine tins packed in mustard sauce. Opening one of those, I would eventually get the whole berthing compartment to myself. You can only eat so much powdered reconstituted scrambled eggs, you know.

I've heard that Egg Beaters can be frozen and carried in a similar manner. Might be nice because of less chance of a leak. I usually buy a package of Egg Beaters that has 3 small cups, each cup containing the equivalent of 2 eggs. The cup has a foil peel back lid. These might be real nice.

I've got a 5 day trip this summer to climb the tallest peak in Utah and I think I may take fresh food for the first couple days! Omlet for breakfast on day one and steak for dinner that night.

I just put the eggs in a Nalgene bottle.


0 % chance of leakage.