Backpacking Food- Ideas

[renodesertfox]

Howdy,
Backpacking food can be difficult to pack. You generally have a limited amount of space, plus not very many cooking options. Carefully consider what cooking tools you’ll have as well as your available food storage when packing your backpacking food. Be smart about the type of food that you bring. Your meals when backpacking should be well-balanced. These will sustain you, giving you enough energy for the physical demands that backpacking puts on your body. Stay away from junk food, which will zap your energy and dehydrate you.

Examples of good food to bring backpacking include protein bars, Gorp (which ranges in contents but may include peanuts, raisins, dried fruit and M&M’s), jerky, crackers, bagels and peanut butter and cereal (with or without milk). Rice and pasta are great for dinner because they’re light but tasty.

Some companies make freeze dried dinners, which are okay, but not ideal. They are generally expensive and high in sodium.
Bring non-perishable items that don’t have to be heated, in addition to any food that you may need to cook. The Mountaineers, a group credited with coming up with the “Ten Essentials” of backpacking, suggest bringing a full day’s worth of chow as emergency food. This food should not have to be cooked.

You can bring a grill with you if you have the room. A grill makes it easier to cook meals, plus it expands the options of what food you can bring. A grill may be difficult to carry, depending on its size, weight and the distance you are traveling to your campsite. For these reasons, grills tend to be more practical when driving to a campsite.

Water is the most important thing you’ll bring with you. Bring enough water for your entire trip, plus extra. If you know you’ll be near a water source such as a river, bring a water purifier.

[Bigdog57]

There are "Ready-To-Eat Rice Meals" available from several manufacturers - Uncle Ben's, Zatarains and Rice-a-Roni all make them in a variety of flavors. Zatarains is cheapest and to me best tasting. They can be eaten cold from the pouch, but are best heated - add a bit of water and stir often when heating on a stove, to prevent burning in the pot. Foil-packed meat can be added to fill it out and add protein. Both together make a very filling meal, and are fairly light-weight without using much precious water. Pouches can be burned in the campfire.

[Estigue09]

Backpacking Food Ideas

LKAJSAKJS. I love so many of them. Haha. Food Network is probably my favorite TV station.

I love Guy. Honestly, Id try anything he made. Plus, in some weird way, I think hes cute? I really like Giada, as well, because I love Italian food

[Eaglebait Ranch]

When it comes to backpacking food, and food preparation on the trail, I carry about an 6"x8" rectangle pie/cake cooling rack as a grill, two seperate water tight pill bottles containing "strike anywhere" matches, and cook pots which I will describe later (if I remember). On each of the bottles of matches, I have wrapped around the outside of the pill bottles "strike sandpaper" stuff that is on the side of the box of matches they came in from the store. I carry two bottles, one stored in a very safe/dry place, just in case one gets lots.

I carry a cone coffee filter, and filter papers. After making coffee, the filter papers are cleaned of grounds and used to start cook fires for the "next" hot meal.

I carry a Tupperware 1 cup size contain, will sealable lid, which I use to reconstitute dried food, which you will read about later.

I carry a water filter, but I also carry purification tablets - again tucked away in an "emergency" pouch, in case the water filter crashes/whatever.

I'll discuss cooking pots now, so's I don't forget. I take a "squeeze" pot gripper to handle hot pots. I typically take a small coffee can, which I store inside of a larger canned tomato/vegetable can. The reason for the larger can is because when cooking, soot/crud/whatever adheres to the bottom and sides of the cook pot. So, I store the cook pot inside the larger can so the crud doesn't get on my other gear. When I get home, I trash the larger can...........

If I remember to take a "spork", I have it. If I forget, there are many themes and variations of chopsticks that serve to get the meal from the pot/bowl into my mouth......

Breakfast Ingredients: Instant cereal/s, granola, dried peaches, dried apricots, dried blueberries, dried orange rind, coffee, powdered apple cider, and herb tea/s.

Before I go to bed:
1. Heat/boil enough water for last cup of hot drink, plus one extra cup - tea/cider.
2. Add about 1/4 cup of one of the dried fruits to the tupperware cup.
3. Add extra cup hot/boiled water to tupperware cup, seal w/ cap, put aside.

In the morning: After coffee;
Option A: pour contents of tupperware cup (which now contains reconstituted fruit and nice tasting "juice") into bowl of granola. Eat!
Option B: Save enough hot water from coffee water to mix w/ instant hot cereal. Cut up fruit, mix in with hot instant cereal. Eat....... Drink "juice" to top off breakfast, or with a cracker/biscuit/whatever.

Prepare for dinner meal: Figure out what is for dinner. Put dried veggies/whatever in tupperware cup, fill with water, seal w/ cap, store.

Dinner ingredients: Angle hair pasta (cooks really, really quick), variety of home dried veggies pre-packaged in zip lok bags for individual meals, home dried "pasta sauce" leather (cut into strips and stored in zip lok bags), home made/dried soup (cut into strips and stored in zip lok bags), coffee, tea, and a variety of "dessert" things (cookies, chocolate, whatever).

So, back to after breakfast, preparing for dinner, part:

1. Let's say I want spaghetti for dinner:
1A. In tupperware cup, put in 4-5 strips of pasta sauce leather, fill cup with water, seal.
1B. At dinner, heat enough water for coffee/tea. When that made, add angle hair pasta, cook 2-3 minutes. Drain off water (or save to soak breakfast fruit in if you want the vitamins/minerals). Mix re-constituted sauce, add to angle hair spaghetti, eat.

Do the same thing with the soup leather for a different flavor/taste. We dry various creamed bean soups we make over the winter so even the bean soup sauces don't taste the same - lots of variety.

I/we don't take Top Ramen kinds of soups. It is more nutritious to do the same process above with mixed/single varieties of vegetables, cook the angel hair noodles, and eat. We can also add a strip of any sauce leather to add variety.

Lunch ingredients: cheese varieties, cracker varieties, home made/dried varieties of humus, roasted/shelled nuts (cashews are the healthiest, but whatever), cookies, chocolate.

Lunch basically is a buffet of finger food. Mix the humus w/equal part water, let sit for a few minutes, spread it on crackers/whatever.

With the varieties of things, in this case 3-4 varieties of humus, lunch/s don't become the same flavor/s all the time.

I hope this helps. Don't hesitate to ask questions as I am sure I didn't cover everything, or how to do stuff.

[Eaglebait Ranch]

OMG........... I forgot to put the following on the foods to take:

P/butter

Powdered cinnamon (mix w/peanut butter or add to cereal)

Individual sugar, salt, pepper packets....... The paper packaging used to start fires.

[Eaglebait Ranch]

If you are into ultri-light indea, here is one my wife does. When she is preparing meals at home, prior to leaving, she will put dried veggies, broken pieces of angle hair noodles in one part of the zip lok bag, while storing the seasonings to add to the meal in a bottom corner of the zip lok bag. She seperates the two by making sure all the seasons are in a corner of the bag, then tieing that off by winding several inches of dental floss around the outside of the bag, securing it with a knot. Then, she puts the dried veggies and noodles in the bag, zips it shut.........

Susan is really into flossing. So, when she prepares the meal, she can re-hydrate the veggies, cook the noodles, then cut the knot in the dental floss, put the dental floss in her pocket, and then add the spices as needed.

At the end of the meal, she doesn't have to go looking for dental floss, she has it right there in her pocket. Also, this way she doesn't have to carry extra dental floss.

Like I said, we are ultra-light packers. We do anything, within reason to cut down on that weight. :-)

[Eaglebait Ranch]

Flour/whole wheat Tortillas for making wraps. Wraps can have anything you want in them. They make a simple meal, no fuss.

[Eaglebait Ranch]

Instead of "crackers" I often take a raw yam, cut a few slices off of it, and use them as crackers. There isn't a better total food than yams, they are healthier than crackers, and a9by volume) they take up less room in the "supplies" than crackers.

Yes, with the llama carrying my gear, I do take crackers, but I also take a yam or two. A yam will last me 3-4 days.

Yam slices can easily be a good food to eat when it is impossible/difficult to have a fire to cook a meal.

NOTICE: I said YAM, not sweet potato.

[Eaglebait Ranch]

Susan made humus today, adding finely diced red pepper and shredded carrot to it. 1/3 of it we are eating today, 2/3 of it she is drying for backpacking this spring/summer.

If i hadn't mentioned it: after breakfast on the trail, mix equal parts dried humus and water. By lunch time, it is a paste ready as a dip or to be spread on:

crackers
yams
burrito/s
whatever.........

[Eaglebait Ranch]

I carry powdered honey and powered vinegar with me on the trail - powdered "anything" is lighter to carry. I add a smidgen of both to a cup of water I might have during a snack or lunch break.

[angler57]

Am sure most or all of you folks know what bannock bread is and how to prepare it. Came across this the other day and am preparing to give it a try.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GsstzwCWTU

[Eaglebait Ranch]

Already working on new foods to add to this year's (2010) menu. I have been drying, then turning into powder, Johnagold apples. A dried/powdered apple comes in at 1/3 C, and I can get 2.5 Cups in a sandwich ziploc bag. Have already "tested" 1/8 C apple powder in instant oatmeal: Very good! I detest those "instant oatmeal" packets because I don't know what is in them. Instant oatmeal with home dried fruit added makes the cereal sweet, tasty, and don't have to take sugar.

I also take dried blueberries, apricots, and peach halves.

At night, bring 1C of water to a boil, pour into a sealible container. Add 1/8C blueberries, 4-5 halved apricots, or 3-4 halved peaches. By morning the fruit has re-hydrated, the water has turned to a medium sweet syrup, and all that gets added to the instant oatmeal. Great breakfast on the trail.