How do people go about eating healthily on the trail...

[bishbash]

Not a health food fanatic or anything but I like to get my five a day at least(do you have that phrase in usa, comes from a govt recommendation over here that suggests you get five different portions of fruit or veg a day). Unfortunately fruit and veg is generally low cal per weight and you dont wanna be taking water melons and bags of potatoes on the trail. I thought of replacing 1lpint of water when you leave a town with 1pint of orange juice. Maybe take a few bananas to eat before lunch so the weight is gone quick. Other than that I guess I shall just have to eat as much salad and veg with my trail town meals. I can eat as much chocolate, chips and nuts as the next man but it could become tiresome all day every day for three or four days at a time. Juice will have to replace fizzy drinks as my soft drink/alcoholic mixer of choice too. Any tips? I have never been a vitamin supplement person, perhaps time to change.

[English Stu]

Your strategy for getting as much veg and fruit around towns seems fine. trail mix is a staple food on the trail.I did take multi vits and sometimes calcium tabs as I found that in short supply.Keeping weight on will be the issue I took to making pancakes and cheezy tortillas to supplement the Ramen and Porridge.You will be able to Get Emergen C in sachets.

[lonehiker]

Eat the bananas before you leave town. Banana peels are heavy and you will have to carry them until the next garbage can.

[fiddlehead]

Get yourself a dehydrator.
You can eat very healthy.
A bit of advice for fruits: Try to get them when they are tree-ripened, or ready to go bad almost.
Then don't dry them all the way. Leave them a little soft.
They will be like candy.
When others are eating snickers and m&m's, you'll be eating bananas, peaches, strawberries etc.
Same with veggies, although you can dry them a little more because they'll get rehydrated (softer) when cooking in water.
But broccoli, cauliflower, snap peas, onions all work very good
For carrrots, cook them a little first, they'll be softer later.

Not hard to eat healthy, just have to do the preparation beforehand.
have fun.

[Grampie]

Don't worry about eating healthy during a thru-hike. You just can't do it without a lot of effort. Just eat good when you go into town.

[The Old Boot]

Get yourself a dehydrator.
You can eat very healthy.
A bit of advice for fruits: Try to get them when they are tree-ripened, or ready to go bad almost.
Then don't dry them all the way. Leave them a little soft.
They will be like candy.
When others are eating snickers and m&m's, you'll be eating bananas, peaches, strawberries etc.
Same with veggies, although you can dry them a little more because they'll get rehydrated (softer) when cooking in water.
But broccoli, cauliflower, snap peas, onions all work very good
For carrrots, cook them a little first, they'll be softer later.

Not hard to eat healthy, just have to do the preparation beforehand.
have fun.

This would work fine if OP was based in the US. Really, really hard to do when you live outside of the US and are hiking the AT.

Import restrictions and the logistics of it make it impossible to deal with.

If you want to eat healthy WHILE on the trail (as opposed to just when in town), I'd suggest that you find a US based friend that's willing to do mail drops for you and act as a shipping receiver. Order the healthiest bulk freeze dried foods you can from a couple of the suppliers in the states. Have your recipes all ready to go and spend a couple of days before you hit the trail packaging meals and getting them ready for mail drops. If they're not in the Atlanta area that further compounds travel arrangements but will give you time to get over jet lag and a chance to maybe see another part of the country.

I know it sounds like a lot of work to be done at the last minute when you'd much rather be hiking but it's about the only way to do it.

[Slo-go'en]

Don't worry about eating healthy during a thru-hike. You just can't do it without a lot of effort. Just eat good when you go into town.

That's pretty much the size of it. On the trail your reduced to eating mostly suger and pasta. As soon as I hit a town, I down a quart of chocolate milk and get a bottle of some fruit smoothie like drink. I've had trouble with salads giving me the runs for some reason, so I typically stay away from those. Your body will tell you want foods your craving for when you get into the supermarket and look around - everything looks good

[Odd Man Out]

I think a diet of rice, nuts, cheese, dried fruit, beans, lentils, olive oil, tuna, flatbread, spices, etc... while hiking 10 hrs per day is really very healthy lifestyle, even if you don't stop in town to load up on veggies ever few days. There are lots of healthy choices available in most food stores that travel well. Not sure what nutrient you would be deficient in. The one "heavy" food I will carry a jar of strawberry jam to have with PB and tortillas.

[colorado_rob]

For your original question, I definitely do. McDonalds at every opportunity, then Pizza Hut salad bars for the occasional veggies.

Really, my medical doc laughed when I asked him questions along these lines and his response was simply: eat anything you want when you're long distance hiking, just take a regular vitamin supplement to make sure you get what you need there. You'd be wasting time/money trying to eat any "better" on a thru. It really is all about calories.

[Spirit Walker]

Dried fruit can be found easily and you can mail-order or dehydrate many vegetables to add to your pasta/rice. Sun-dried tomatoes can be found in many groceries now. We also dehydrated salsa and spaghetti sauce. Bananas go bad very quickly. I sometimes carried raw carrots out of town, and peppers or scallions are light and easy to carry. Mostly I ate salads, fresh fruit and juices when I got to town. The AT passes near so many towns, you aren't likely to be seriously deprived of healthy foods, though there are times it will feel like it. Sometimes it can be hard to find good vegetables in town (diners often are big on fries and iceberg lettuce), but if you are staying at a hostel with a kitchen you can cook fresh vegetables if you want to.

[Trance]

I met a guy who was a vegetarian at Neels Gap Hostel.... he carried apples, oranges, and peanuts. Seemed healthy.

[lonehiker]

I usually go into towns with the intentions of eating fruit and vegetables, but invariably I end up with a greasy bacon cheeseburger and fries.

[TurboPants]

I usually go into towns with the intentions of eating fruit and vegetables, but invariably I end up with a greasy bacon cheeseburger and fries.

The heart wants what the heart wants! I'd much rather carry the heavy weight of fruits and veggies out of town and indulge in a nice fat greasy bacon cheeseburger. Just make sure you eat the water filled heavy fruit stuff soon after you leave. Packing veggie and fruit peels does kinda stink though, figuratively and literally.

[Starchild]

To me personally and for my body eat healthy = eat meat, I have the blood tests to prove it. This is for me personally, and to me each person needs to discover what is healthy for them. For me there is more then enough options on the trail, though they are not cheap. Many people go for empty calories and usually waste away in the process. I thrived on the trail, and my diet was a key part of that. I think I ate fruit maybe 5 times or so on the AT, almost exclusively due to trail magic and the trail angels not having a side of beef with them at that time. Many times more vegi's due to gathering along the way + what they include in freezedried foods and fast food hamburgers (lettuce).

Thinking about it more, OK more fruit, as berry gathering was part of my thru, in ME blueberries annoyingly slowed me down but they were so darn tasty.

YMMV

[4eyedbuzzard]

Eat the bananas before you leave town. Banana peels are heavy and you will have to carry them until the next garbage can.

I would just burn it (fully) in a camp fire. But, of course, my fire is also disruptive under LNT principles. It's a dilemma. But I'm going to make a fire even though I know it's disruptive, so I might as well burn the banana peel.

[flemdawg1]

I occasionally take this stuff with me. http://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Grass-...reen+drink+mix

Doesn't taste too bad. Definately better for than regular old sugar filled (or HFCS filled) Gatorade.

[Oak88]

Don't worry about eating healthy during a thru-hike. You just can't do it without a lot of effort. Just eat good when you go into town.

amen to the above. Whenever I could I got to town and ate big on the protein (steak) with vegetables and salads. Many times I carried a deli sandwich out of town for my evening meal with a soda.

[rafe]

I met a guy who was a vegetarian at Neels Gap Hostel.... he carried apples, oranges, and peanuts. Seemed healthy.

I suspect lots of vegetarians have hiked thru, but I met at least one couple that was having a hard go of it. I don't think broccoli soup is going to cut it, night after night. And nothing but peanuts gets old real quick.

amen to the above. Whenever I could I got to town and ate big on the protein (steak) with vegetables and salads. Many times I carried a deli sandwich out of town for my evening meal with a soda.

The cheeseburger is a perennial favorite of course. I had to learn to tone down my over-indulgences in town, though. Eating well (vs. pigging out) in town is smart. Not that I never got close to starving, gaunt thru-hiker stage.

[LDog]

I usually go into towns with the intentions of eating fruit and vegetables, but invariably I end up with a greasy bacon cheeseburger and fries.

I usually go into town lusting for a big greasy bacon cheeseburger and fries, and end up ordering a big salad with grilled fish ...

[LDog]

Eating like a Hobbit works for me. It's not terribly difficult to eat well on the trail, and you don't have to choose to subsist on simple carbs. I look for dried/dehydrated fruits and veggies in grocery stores. There really are some things you can find in most larger stores. Dried onions, garlic and parsley on the spice aisle. Sun dried tomatoes can often be found. All kinds of dried fruit these days. In the past, I had small boxes filled with dehydrated veggies, and beans from Harmony House mailed to me. Not sure I'm gonna continue that this year.

An old blog post:
http://www.laughingdog.com/2011/12/f...e-hobitts.html