Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Food Suggestions?

Ok so im off to yosemite in a week and I was thinking i always bring the same stuff...what do other people bring with them on long trips?

Theres only so much food you can fit in a bear canister for 5-6 days.... So what do you bring?

**lasagna or alfredo pasta freeze dried food from rei are the only good ones worth buying but besides costing alot they take up too much space*****

I found that I like Mary Jane's freeze dried organic meals, which REI sells, but which you can also by direct from MJ at cheaper prices (particularly if purchased in bulk). http://shop.maryjanesfarm.org/store/c/40-Meals.aspx. The individual meals are packaged flat in paper, so they fit easily in a bear cannister. These meals actually have seasoning and texture, and a lot of fiber. But, they are veggie, and maybe not to everyone's liking.

On the complete opposite side of the spectrum, I sure love some salami when on the trail....

Any freeze dried meal can be repackaged. If I am using Mountain House or similar (or making my own), I repackage in 1 quart ziploc freezer bags, and then reheat in a psychedelic cozy that I bought here: http://www.trailcooking.com/store/cozies-and-accessories. I do store my cozy, after use, in the bear cannister because it presumably picks up food smells from use....

Here's what I like:

For breakfast, always my homemade backpacking granola. Yum!

Lunches: peanut butter and jelly on pita bread
canned sardines and pita bread or crackers
salami and cheese with crackers.

Dinner: Mountain House freeze dried. Always repackaged.

Pita bread is great because it doesn't take up much space, and you can cram it in tight without messing it up like regular bread or crackers.

Most expeditions have some story about their food and attitudes to it vary from the haute cuisine
of some French expeditions to the blunt assertion of Tilman, the famous eccentric and explorer, that he did not mind as long as there was some.
Joe Tasker, Everest the Cruel Way page 158

CHeck out a food a discussion over

here

You can increase the no. of person/food/days that fit in a bear canister in a number of ways:

1. Increase fat. It carries 225% of the energy of carbs by weight, even more by volume. As Colin Fletcher advises, backcountry Zone calls for 30 percent calories in fat. While this is easy to do at home (too easy), most prepared and popular backcountry fare is light on the fat, heavy on fiber, and not energy dense enough, maybe 3.8-4 calories per gram. With the right amount of fat I increase that to almost 6 c/g over all. Olive oil, coconut oil, powdered butter, powdered WHOLE milk, powdered eggs, powdered cheese, pemmican.

2. Repackage. I vacuum pack everything and then pin prick at the trail head. Minimizes volume of powders, optimizes everything else. Lots of other packaging tricks, such as mixing powders with chunks, like chili sauce w/ rice/beans. See this. Dont leave air spaces in anything. No ramen, e.g.

3. Forget meat. I never miss it. Or if I do, makes the Portal Burger all the better. Probably the most useless thing I have ever packed was a freeze dried pork chop. Popcorn shrimp, salt cod, rice/corn/beans, eggs, cheese, milk, maybe diced chicken, jerky, definitely wild trout, all more than enough protein.

If you could get everything as compact as granulated sugar, you could carry 25 lbs in a BearKeg 914. At half of that, you can feast for 6 days, get by for 10.

Thanks everyone for the great advice although ill stay away from those sardines!! a bear might smell my fishy fart and bite mt A@@ while im sleeping..lol..

definately more fat and salt (top ramen packets for soup yum).

keep the suggestions coming.

Is it just me but i tend not really to be hungry for lunch while backpacking (maybe a protien bar for lunch).

if only i could get a airdrop of carne asada nachos ...or breakfast burrito with chorizo....mmmmm i think i know what im eating the day before!!

My all time favorite breakfast while backpacking, since you mentioned it.

1. Use the freezer bag method to cook up a repackaged serving of Mountain House scrambled eggs with ham and peppers, http://www.rei.com/product/693933/mountain-house-scrambled-eggs-with-ham-and-green-peppers. Just add hot water, and let sit!

2. When eggs are done, wrap in a tortilla.

3. Eat. Yummy! (You can even bring a little packet of hot sauce if you want more flavor.)

Tortillas fit wonderfully in a bear cannister. So you can have your egg burrito, and eat it too!

you either have a mini canister, or you eat much more than I do, or you are packing rice cakes. I have fit 11 days into my canister in the past.

A little late to go looking for food now if you have a week left. The food logistics usually take me 3-4 weeks (3 people on the team) to get all sorted - sure hope you have nothing else to do.

freeze dried food rarely goes into my can, although I do buy bulk freeze dried chicken to add to meals I buy locally. There are endless discussion threads about hiking food on other forums - go have a look here for starters:

http://www.highsierratopix.com/community/viewforum.php?f=26

speed hikers generally don't bother much with cooking - they pack a pile of Clif bars and Hammer Gel, eat while they go. That's probably the most extreme. Then there are the outdoor gourmet cooks who dehydrate their own stuff for half a year before they hit the trail.

I fall into the category of those who buy $1.29 entrees at the super market, add a few noodles or rice, a little freeze dried chicken or beef, and put it in a zip lock. Done. On a fancy day we make tacos with a filling mix from the vegetarian organic shelf, on tortillas that last a few months without refrigeration. Add some heavy Landjaeger saussage, LAughing cow cheese, Nido whole milk, etc - and you have good food for low cost in your can and most of it will cook in 2 minutes plus some stand time.

bulk freeze dried stuff can be bought at places like this one:

http://beprepared.com/category.asp_Q_c_E_66_A_name_E_Freeze%20Dried%20Meats

Recently found a distance hiker/nutritionist who seems to share my approach. Has me rethinking protein, too.

Check this out, with surrounding articles, including this . Nutritionist/distance hiker recommends higher carbs, lower protein (for ethical reasons) and 35-40% fat. Likes fat as fuel for moderate exercise, says body will burn fat no matter what (maybe I should put on weight!) and has lots of recipes and other practical advice

My recommendation is to look for real food to eat such as Lipton rice and pasta dishes, Cup A Soup, mini bagels, sliced cheeses, salami, cream cheese packets, and maybe a, couple of ramen noodles (I tend to get tired of these rather quickly) , jerky, salted nuts, and other items from the grocery store. Everything can ne repackaged in Ziploc bags to save space. I have discovered freeze dried foods get real old real fast and can cause gastrointestinal problems if eaten day after day and most taste downright horrible IMO. Maybe reserve them for a meal or two if you have some that taste good to you. For breakfast I like cold cereal with Nido whole powdered milk mixed separately with some sugar in a Ziploc or Cream of Wheat with Nido and sugar which you can add hot water to and let cook in your eating bowl.
Bottom line here is to take food that will be something to look forward to after a hard days hiking or on rest breaks. You can certainly save some weight by going with freeze dried meals, cliff bars, etc day after day but mealtimes will become drudgery and not as enjoyable.

detailed 2009 Muir Trail yoyo food list - this was for 3 hikers, over a month, split by resupply points

http://didnt.doit.wisc.edu/outdoor/Muir2009/faq/Food_caches_2009.htm

and here's a good list to get the freeze dried stuff contained in the above list in bulk (a lot of stuff there you probably didn't know you could get)

http://beprepared.com/quickshoplist.asp_Q_c_E_950_A_name_E_Freeze%20Dried%20Foods%20In%20#10%20Cans

- never buy the small packs at REI or other places, as they don't pack well and are totally overpriced, plus they don't sell just feeze dried chicken or saussage or whatever you may need to make a proper meal out of a $1.29 taco Rice Entree from the super market.

Also intersting are these things, not marketed to hikers, but these things are perfect for backcountry use

http://www.mexgrocer.com/brand-mi-viejita.html
http://fantasticfoods.elsstore.com/
http://www.hungryjackpotatoes.com/products/hashbrown-potatoes.html

and don't forget those mashed potato bags in the super market. $0.99 for a meal that will feed 3, especially once you drop in a few bacon bits (the real thing, also lasts forever in your bear can), or dried saussage.

Doesn't have to be beef jerky and granola and couscous every day (I met a PCT hiker in 2009 who had absolutley nothing but couscous and oil in his pack... trying to add the other food groups off the people and hiker barrels he came across)

Well i like all those Suggestions! It helped open up some ideas so I'm not eating the same stuff.

I like the burrito idea maybe add some bacon bites mmmmmmm yum!

Fishmonger thanks for those links , thanks everybody for your help and if you have more keep it coming

I have to confess I havnt planed my food and I leave Thursday!

Where are you going for your 5-6 day trip?

out to yosemite again. originally i was planning on going from T. meadows up to glen aulin then down to valley but talking to the ranger , due to so much snow and the upper yosemite being flooded and other issues we had to change plans.

So were going to show up early and hope they have a opening(40% reserved for walk ins) to start at happy isles going up past clouds rest, then to sunrise lakes , then to JMT heading back down to valley. but we might continue from valley up to T. Meadows instead of stoping at sunrise lakes and take the JMT back down.

if that fails i made a reservation starting at yosemite falls exiting happy isles(sice thats what was left for reservations) but the problem is crossing the outlet of tenya lake so were going to decide when we get there.

im adding all the different hikes into my gps , so whatever way we decide top go i have it.

So I am keeping my food simple this time too.

Instead of pita, i am using good ole tortillas for my PB&J.

I put the ingredients together for my fresh chicken soup/stew. Going to go out and bbq my chicken breasts in a couple of minutes (yes, this late).

Here's a question for anybody.....fresh cooked chicken breasts. How long are they safe without refrigeration? I figure that I'll cook them tonight and ice pack them for the drive up. They'll definitely be safe for tomorrow night, but what about saturday night? It should be below freezing at outpost at night, so I'm thinking that's as good as a refrigerator right there.

I'll probably find out the hard way. If I'm puking on Sunday morning, probably a bad idea. If I'm chipper and happy, I'll be doing it again. (and yes Bee, I remember those packaged chicken morsels, but they just didn't taste right to me...too much salt I think).

Besides keeping them on ice on the way up, I'd freeze them solid before the trip.

You'd probably get into trouble if they warmed up to 60+ for a more than a day.

Salt them a lot. Didn't the early explorers use lots of salt as a preservative?

...I wonder... might there be some air-tight plastic bags, something like zip-locks, that you could put your bbq chicken into, then put bag and all into boiling water for some number of minutes. You would have home-preserved bbq chicken.

Or you could just go to the grocery store and buy those foil pouches of ready-to-eat chicken.

they sure did...(use salt).

Good idea on freezing them tonight. I'll throw a half liter bottle of frozen water in the bear can to keep it cool for the hike up. I'm pretty sure I'll find some snow to bury the bear can in for tomorrow night, so that shouldn't be a problem.

I tried those foil pouch chicken morsels.....didn't work for me.

If I get squeamish about the chicken, I'll have enough tortillas, and PB&J....so I'll be good.

Once again, great minds -- this time Steve and Zip-loc -- think alike. ZL does indeed have a vacuum pack system. Right there on the shelf with the regular bags, you can get a starter kit, including the pump and a few bags for about 12 bucks. Little hand pump and quart/gallon bags. Work great with a little practice.

ZIp-loc Starter Kit

Dont now about boiling the zip-locs. Works with my Food-Saver, but that's a heat sealed deal.