backpackers..food. not Mountain house.

[vash]

anyone try these two?

hawk vittles

or

Cache Lake

????? really trying to get away from Mountain house. i find MH diminishes in deliciousness from the first meal to the last.

[notmytarga]

Sierra Nevada - Introducing Cans!

Saves weight. Less filling.

[Superman]

Get a dehydrator. Got mine at a garage sale. Gourmet meals in the Wild.

[id10t]

By pre-bagging w/ ziplocks, etc. breakfast is easy to package. Lunch can be some sort of jerky w/ crackers, and cheese (depending on weather). Don't over look the MRE entries for dinner, or you can do pastas, etc. Yeah, having some freeze dried stuff or equivalent is nice, but not required...

[RWebb]

Ramen

[9dreizig]

BACON!!! fry it up and take it with you..

[nynor]

i won't buy any of that prepackaged crap for hiking/camping. i ate that on a 50 mile hike and it was worthless.

hiking/camping, especially at altitude, it is all about calorie content.

[look 171]

when I use to backpack into the Sierras, there were not enough food in the pack by the end of the day. We use to get so hungry, nothing mattered as long as it was warm, it was damn great. Ramen was light to carry and filling. A Salame and a little pocket knife kept the sprite up.

[Superman]

Exactly. You CAN'T eat enough food to maintain weight. So.....high-value, high-calorie, high-protein-and-fat, is what you want. Italian dry salame is nice, since it needs no refrigeration. Cheese and sardines and as much pasta as you can shovel.

[emcon5]

MREs.

[vash]

Originally Posted by emcon5

MREs.

Way too heavy. Way too much crap to pack out.

[Superman]

Whaddya want, Vash? It's pretty simple. Protein and fat. Bring a pepper shaker if you want spices. Noodles, perhaps some rice, and as much animal fat and flesh as you can carry.

I'm like "look 171." There's not enough food in the pack to replace what you burn. Everything looks edible. Those Mountain House things are supposed to provide two serving? Yeah, right. I can gobble those two servings in about a minute. Okay, two minutes.

[look 171]

Nothing like chilli and beans in some old fashion steam rice or Ramen. That's what I always ate the first night. That first night is the hungriest. Anything warm will taste good. Get rid of the heaviest food in your pack since the first day is your strongest day. What do you pack out beside the stuff you can't burn? I have the habit of bringing two Salamis. One where I can get at when walking another in the pack for emergency. I often cook a few slices with my Remen or what ever is in that pot over a couple of rocks. We do not bring fuel. We burn branches between two rocks. Heck yeah, I bring a little old tin pot with a lid, boil my water and eat off that thing. An old steel cup, a fork and a spoon is all I need. Can't wait for my boys to get bigger, so I can do this stuff again.

Jeff

[look 171]

Hey, do you guys drink that water in the stream? I have many, many times. It gets boil or I cook with it. That dirty animal piss water makes an awesome steam rice. You gotta watch it, or else it will burn the hell out of the pot. Actually the burn taste isn't bad with what ever you are having for the next few days.

Vash,

If you get the Ramen, go to your local Chinese or Asian markets. They are usually larger then the ones in Vons or Safeway. I usually woof down two in a heartbeat when camping. I normally do not eat those things.

[VincentVega]

Calorie dense with minimal packaging was my priority. When I've been really tired in the woods I hate to admit but flavor wasnt that important. Salt or dried pork or jerky in Ramen was a standby. Sounds pretty gross right now though.

I've had some pretty strange combinations work really well. Handful of noodles, tomato paste (from a tube), whatever spice/herbs I had with me and some dried meat.

I run all water through a cheaper MSR filter. It takes a few minutes to pump a gallon or two but I feel a lot more comfortable drinking it.

[vash]

where i am going, there isnt much wood for a fire.

last time we gathered up a feeble pile and started a fire to burn trash. ironically, i think the mylar MH food comes in is toxic burned..i had to run from the black smoke and i almost hurled.

now i bring out the garbage.

[Drisump]

I have a tendency to go to a normal supermarket to pick up food for a backpacking trip. I used to by Mountain House but found it too salty and really...not very good. I've done several seven day trips and I have found that I'd rather carry a little extra weight than relegate myself to freeze dried food. Like what was said earlier, breakfast is simple, some kind of cereal (me I usually eat instant porridge, not exactly gourmet but doesn't require much fuel to cook). For lunch, cheese and crackers (consider the crackers quite carefully , I've been on trips where you practically needed a spoon to eat them, since they were so pulverized), jerky, granola bar and you're good to go. Supper, pasta or quinoa usually forms the basis of the meal, with tuna and or cheese, olive oil (or anything else that you can think of). Usually the first night, I bring some thing like frozen spaghetti sauce for a treat. Anyway, I usually look at the trip itself to determine how drastic I have to be in weight reduction. Length, difficulty and elevation gains (and loses) usually figure into the equation. Have a good trip. BTW I usually bring along some dehydrated soup (Knorr or something similar) to make when we first get into camp as a little pick me up before camp set up and dinner.

[9dreizig]

for breakfast,, instant oatmeal packs and bacon pre fried)
for lunch we take a salmi stick, bagels and cheese
for dinner, we often will fry up some chicken thighs before hand and add them to a MH type meal.
a jar of peanut butter goes a long way too..

[VINMAN]

Breakfast: instant oatmeal has always been my mainstay. Cheap, light good carbs.

Lunch/dinner: Got away from the freeze dried crap a long time ago. Expensive, taste like crap. Like previously stated, salami/cheese has been the backpackers staple for as long as i can remember. But now i stick with protein bars, energy bars. Stuff like that. I pack some protein powder also to mix with water. Ramen soup is good( although im not a fan of the high salt content in most of them. I like using MREs ( even though I got tired of them in the Army...) Very nutritious, not too costly, excellent energy source. As far as the weight, I strip all the unnecessary garbage and packaging out of them and that lightens them up allot.

[Evans, Marv]

When you are on the trail, you don't have the luxury of gormet eating every day. I've eaten so much salami over the years I can't stand to look at one. Oatmeal doesn't get it for me either beause I'm starving ten minutes later. I take a lot of cheese & crakers a small bag of Bisquick (bisquits, pancakes, etc. made in a pan with a lid w/ maybe some peanut butter & sugar), powdered milk, nuts, and energy bars with lots of fiber (plus maybe some additional fiber tablets) in them. For treats, I might take a few eggs, some precooked bacon (Costco?) for breakfast or whenever (you can make pancakes from Bisquick and powdered milk & roll cheese & bacon in it), & if you are camping you can mak bisquits. I also usually throw in a couple of tins of sardines (with oil). +1 on taking something to munch on when you stop at the end of the day. I like my MSR Firefly stove (don't know if they still make them but there should be similar ones) because you get the most bang for your buck (& weight) from white gas. Don't take a lot of things you have to boil especially if you're going to be above tree line, the boiling temperature goes down with the increase in altitude. I don't know where you are going but you might have to be aware of giardia in the water. I picked that up in 1987, and it wasn't fun. If you are only going for a week, you can take a few treats. If it's 2 weeks plus, then you really need to start paying attention to weight.