Food

As I discussed in my Resupply Strategy page, I'll be sending myself pretty much all the food I'll be eating along the way. I chose this strategy in stead of buying along the trail because I thought I could eat a bit better, particularly for dinners, if I could put all my food together before hand.

Below you'll find a bit about what I'm planning to eat each day. I plan to generally just heat water for coffee in the morning, then have an actual warm meal in the evening; but I have packed oatmeal for a few breakfasts. I've also packed a wide range of snack stuff to graze on through the day. For planning purposes I've organized the food in to "breakfast", "day time food", and "dinners", but on longer trips I've taken in the past I've ended up not eating my "breakfast" granola until mid morning. I like to get hiking right away in the morning, so I normally just pack up my bed while the coffee water heats, then start walking and have my coffee and a granola bar or something as I walk the first few miles.

For previous trips I've decided how much food to bring by spending quite a bit of time calculating exactly how many calories were in each meal and snack. But for this trip that just seemed like too much work. In stead, for this trip I just made sure that all the food in my pack averages out to at least 120 calories per ounce, and that I have a bit over 2 pounds of food for each day. So on average I should be carrying somewhere in the neighborhood of 3800-4000 calories per day. I'll be burning more than this, but I'll be following the pretty established through-hiker routine of caloric deficit on trail and calorie-loading in town.

Breakfast
Granola 1 c
or
Instant Oatmeal
+ ~0.5 c whole milk powder

Starbucks Via instant coffee + more milk powder

All the milk...

























Day time food
Trail mix
Assorted cookies
Assorted dried fruit
Cheez-its/Doldfish/etc.
Jerkey
Canned sardines/trout in aluminum cans
Larabars/Luna bars
Granola bars
Nut butters (using Justin's single serve packs- I don't like the extra trash, but this allows me to bring just the amount I need for the relatively short resupplies)
Plantain chips
Corn/potato chips
Assorted nuts
Crackers

Possibly bought in towns
Cheese
Salami

Dinners
I've pre-made all my dinners at home by combining about 1/2 cup of starch/grain, with 1/3-2/3 c dried veggies, maybe some freeze dried meat, and assorted extras for flavor. The starch/grains include cous cous, instant mashed potatoes, instant polenta, small pastas, instant rice and beans, and lentils.

Here are a couple example dinners. I only sort of measure out ingredients, so these are approximate amounts. Only a half cup of grain/starch may end up being a bit skimpy, but I really don't want to have to deal with leftovers, so if the dinners are too small I plan to supplement with more snack-type stuff. I also plan to add some olive oil to most meals, especially on the longer sections where I really need to maximize the calories per ounce of the food I'm carrying.

Instant potatoes - 0.5 c
Mixed dried veggies (e.g. veggie soup mix, mushrooms, dried garlic, dried sauteed onion) - 0.33 c
Freeze dried chicken - 0.33 c
Butter powder - 1 Tbsp
Milk powder - 1 Tbsp
Salt and pepper

Instant polenta - 0.5 c
Mixed dried veggies (e.g. veggie soup mix, mushrooms, dried garlic, dried sauteed onion) - 0.33 c

Freeze dried ground beef - 0.33 c

Tomato powder - 2-3 Tbsp

Grated parm

Italian seasoning, salt, pepper

Cous cous - 0.5 c
Mixed dried veggies (e.g. veggie soup mix, mushrooms, dried garlic, dried sauteed onion) - 0.33 c
Freeze dried chicken - 0.33 c
Curry powder
Coconut milk powder
Soy sauce powder

Mixing up a dinner















Ingredient sources
I got a lot of the ingredients for these meals online form the following 2 vendors:

Harmony House Foods - Veggies; their veggie soup mix is in most of my dinners
Packit Gourmet - Freeze dried meats, lots of great flavor add-ins.



Links to other preparation pages
Resupply strategy

Training - coming soon