food suggestions for 7-day hike

I apologize for creating another thread regarding the same trip, but I guess I just have quite a few questions since it will be my first trip of that length.

Anyway, as I'm doing a test-pack of my bag weeks in advance to make sure everything will be orderly, I'm realizing just how much food can weigh - even a week's worth of "light" items - and even worse, how much space it takes up..

Any personal suggestions for food that's light, packs fairly tight, and can be prepared with no more than a standard hiker's stove?

So far, the things I'm considering are:
- 4x MREs (a bit heavy, but I'm going to unpack the contents and scrap most of unneeded the wrapping)
- plain dried noodles
- misc. packets of powdered sauces for the noodles
- Ramen noodle soups
- misc dried hiking food, including powdered mashed potatoes and granola w/ powdered milk
- 7x PowerBars (one for each day), as well as some other snacks, like those cereal bars (not dry) or a few chocolate Rice Krispie Treats
- powdered drink mix (open to suggestions - something like Crystal Light might work fine)


This will all add up considering I will need 2-3 meals per day x 7, plus the few snacks.
The first thing I might do to lighten up and save some space is dump the MREs...but they taste SO GOOD after a day of hiking, especially when you've been eating nothing but noodles! I consider them a nice treat, possibly worth the weight. Any other suggestions on what to bring? Any food-packing tips that have worked for you to save space/weight when carrying so much?

Noodles can be bulky and tend to get crushed over a bunch of days. The chinese egg noodles- the ones that come as flattened balls are great when mixed with some of the better instant miso soups.

The Organic food store on 1st Ave around 10th St. has the instant lentil (and bean) soups in cups. Break out into ziplocs add some couscous, at cook time spice up with cheese, onion or something. A weeks worth of this fits in a small cook pot and was filling, for me. While you're there, get a bagel or two from Davids a bit up 1st. Use early in the trip for breakfast or lunch.

First day in I sometimes bring a hero sandwich or something else ridiculous that doesn't need a stove.

A fellow I met in a lean to treated me to a foil packet stripped from an MRE of some pasta thing. Slightly small portion wise, a bit heavy but it already had it's water added, is pretty compact and would be great where water is scarce. Tasted good enough.

Just find a large grocery store and take a walk down the aisles... you'll be surprised at what you can find. Hard cheese like parmasan (sp?) and romano keep well. There are always dried fruits you can find. There are a zillion diferent types of instant potatos, noodles & sauce mixes, rice & beans, etc. Also if you are carnivorous (I am a vegetarian) there are canned meats, tuna, clams, etc. Some of the freeze dried meals are pretty god, but I tend to stick to the supermarket stuff.

Granola tastes great but tends to be heavy. When I carried granola, I would mix it up with the dry instant milk in a zip loc and then add water to it at breakfast. Other good breakfast alternatives are instant oatmeal, instant creme of wheat, rice etc. You can jazz these up by adding some spices cinnamon, nutmeg etc don't take up much space or weight. I also dump these into zip locks and add the hot water right to the bag and stir. Although they can be expensive, there are mnay decent freeze dried foods out there that will save weight.

I just got back from a 5-day backpack in the Grand Canyon. (Yes, I will be posting a trip report soon, I promise). I like to eat really good meals in the evening when I backpack, so, although it took a little pre-planning, this is what we ate during our trip (dinners, that is):

Night one: Torteloni (SP?) stuffed with porcini mushrooms (bought in grocery store) with alfredo sauce.

Night two: Ginger cashew chicken and rice

Night three: spicy thai peanut sauce over linguini

Night four: Mexican corn pie

All these meals take less than 10 minutes to prepare. I pre-measure everything and put them in ziplock bags, so I just have to mix everything together in camp. The Mexican corn pie is a meal that I baked ahead of time, and then dehydrated to carry on the trail.

I also made some "salads" that I dehydrated to take with us. Carrot-pineapple crunch; apple-zucchini salad; and mex-corn bean salad. Just add a little water (cold) and wait 30 to 60 minutes. Doesn't get any easier and it tastes wonderful. this is the first time I've done "salads" and I will do this everytime I backpack. It's so nice to eat something "fresh". In fact, these salads tasted just as good rehydrated as they did fresh!

I just don't like the freeze-dried stuff you can buy. I guess if I were doing a very last minute trip and didn't have the time to prepare and package everything, I might use them. But there are a lot of alternatives out there if you are willing to take a little time.

If you're interested in any of the recipes, let me know - I'd be happy to share!

Food suggestions

Although we don't go out very often for 7-day trips, we do a lot of weekend or three-day trips.
We've been experimenting with some different dinners the past few years so that we're not always eating the same, boring things.

We've come up with a few good ones that are easy to prepare and don't take long to cook, including:
1. A box of couscous (parmesan or mushroom), some sundried tomatoes, some dried mushrooms if we have them, and a foil packet of chicken (We use Sweet Sue Brand if we can find it, but have also seen Tyson chicken in a foil pack in the supermarket).
2. Instant potatoes, stuffing, some dried veggies like mushrooms, onion flakes or peas/corn, a packet of chicken. Thanksgiving dinner!
3. Any of the Lipton noodles and sauce with some dried veggies and a packet of chicken to make it interesting.
4. Rice and beans.
Numbers 1 and 2 can be measured out before hand, put in ziplock baggies with a note on the side about how much water, how long to cook, etc, and stuffed in the pack. And they all taste great at the end of a day of hiking!
I agree with the post about taking a look through your supermarket. There are tons of options out there for healthy, quick, backpacking meals!
Have fun and good luck!
-Danielle

Like LittleBear, I have started to dehydrate my own meals, I haven't done salads yet, though. I just got sick of the Ramen Noodle, Stove top dinners that I've been doing for years. I wanted to have lightweight dinners that I could just boil water for and eat and that would taste good and give me some calories. (without loading me up with sodium...)

I've only done a couple from Backpacker.com so far, but I'm filling up my dehydrated pantry on a semi-regular basis. I can highly recommend the Black Bean Chili Mac (add extra garlic, never enough...) I've done my wife's awesome slow-cooked chili, and I'm doing a batch of beef stew that my wife made. Tonight when I get home from work I'm putting some kiwi slices in the oven to dehydrate too. Don't spend the money on the dehydrated meals from the store if you can avoid it. Dehydrate left-overs! (But be careful what you try, high fat stuff doesn't dehydrate well and can spoil quickly...)

I've said enough!

good luck

josh

I wish I wasn't so lazy. I admire you folks. LittleBear's post was particularly interesting. But, for now, if you are what you eat, then I am Mountain House freeze-dried, supplemented with cashews, cheese, and Snickers bars.

Steve

Little Bear, can I camp with you? I'll carry if you cook, and I'll even let you share my cofee press & french roast in the AM.

I'll cook for anyone if they carry

My pack weighed in at 45 pounds for our Canyon trip - with 4 1/2 days food and water (4 liters!). My pack carried it well, but I could go for some personal sherpas!

Deal Little Bear! Good food is an important part of a fun trip. I carried a 12" cherry cheescake once into South Branch (Baxter) in the winter, and have been known to bring cannolis, bismarks and an occasional margarita into the back country with me (fresh snow and a 1 liter lexan bottle can make a very impressive frozen drink . ) Depending on the trip (goal & time oriented, or just plain old camping and hiking for fun with no specific goal), I try to carry as much fresh stuff as I can. I also have a food dehydrator that helps a great deal in getting ingrediants together. If I am shooting for time & distance I'll stick with more processed foods.

I agree, bobmak! Good food is important. Especially at the end of a day of hiking. I will do oatmeal in the morning if I'm trying to break camp quickly. But the meal at the end of the day needs to be a good one. Lesson I learned from my daughter who spent 3 weeks in the Wind River Range several years ago. She tells me time and again - you want to have good food at the end of the day.

Those meals I listed above are very easy to prepare. It does take a bit of foresight in getting stuff ready prior to hiking, but well worth it (IMO). I don't think my food weighed any more (or took up any more space) than if I carried the pre-packaged freeze-dried stuff. I will tell you that my hiking partners (for the Canyon trip) were all very happy with the dinners I made!!!

I, too, have been known to carry wine (and even have had Max do a wine run in the middle of a trip once ). I wanted to carry wine (one liter) on this Canyon trip, but after I weighed my pack - I decided against it Next time, though.

Tuna now comes in pouches which is considerably lighter than bringing along a can of it. Mixing it up with a bag of rice is a good combo.

My specialty is to cook up a bag of salt potatoes the day before an overnight hike. I then cut them up in half or quarters, throw a bunch of garlic salt and cajun powder on them, and put them into a big ziplock bag. I then carry along a small bit of olive oil and fry them up the first night at camp.

MD Cuse said:

My specialty is to cook up a bag of salt potatoes...

Click to expand...

Wow. Salt potatoes. Brings back memories. Must be a Syracuse thing, because the last time I had them was at the State Fair in the 60s.

Steve

Ah, Salt Potatoes!

Cuse, I want to hike with you, man! Those salt potatoes sound great!

Yep, salt potatoes are a central NY specialty I guess. If you are ever here or in Rochester try the cajun salt potatoes at the Dinosaur BBQ.

I also frequently carry a full loaf of chocolate chip bananna nut bread. But that doesn't last more than a day or so when everyone in the group gets their hands on it.

I get teased beyond belief when my hiking partners watch me pack up. But later that night when I'm eating they can be worse than Marcy Dam bears trying to get a taste of my stuff.

Wow, excellent suggestions.. thanks everyone!

I'll have time before we leave (still 2.5 weeks away!), so I'll definitely check out that organic food store on 1st and 10th, as well as the local supermarket. Most of the hiking food I've bought isn't very yummy, and I still have bitter memories of having to consume the HORRIBLE pouch of "scrambled eggs" my friend made one morning a couple years ago.. He took a couple bites and couldn't stomache the rest. I yelled at him for wanting to dump it in the brook (I'm quite a snob about keeping the mountains clean for a novice hah), took a deep breath, and ate it all as quickly as I could.. It was NASTY, but I figured we either carried those nasty things for the rest of the trip in our packs or our stomaches, and I chose the one that would be less smelly and messy..

As for the salad suggestion - I will definitely look into that, as well as freeze-drying my own food, though I don't have the equipment right now.. That would be an excellent replacement for the heavy, hydrated MREs.. No use bringing them up to a place like the Adirondacks, with so much available water. Going to check that backpacker.com link that was given as well.. looks to be very useful!

insight, a bottle of Tobasco sauce can make the worse food taste great, something I learned in the Army

brianW said:

insight, a bottle of Tobasco sauce can make the worse food taste great, something I learned in the Army

Click to expand...

I guess that's why they come in each MRE, huh?

I was going to dump them as part of the unnecessary wraping in MREs, but maybe I'll bring a couple small bottles for that very reason heheh..

I forgot to mention I'll probably bring a few bouillon cubes as well. I'll definitely get some Chinese egg noodles, too. I hate how the typical blocks of noodles (Ramen and such) seem to take up so much space.

food/drinks for backpacking

We never hike without Tang. It's great cold and also great in hot tea. It weighs more (lots of sugar) than the Crystal Light but the sugar calories are something I need when hiking.

The tuna packets are great. So are the tuna-sized cans of ham and chicken--wish they came in packets. You can buy cheddar cheese that has been dipped in wax--lasts longer. Wasa bread is good. And I like to bring some fats/oils, including real butter if it is not too hot out--great for flavor and energy.

Pat T