What does the thru hiker eat on the average day on the trail?

[turtle fast]

You can still combine the Mountain house foods with food from stores in town for variety. Use flour tortillas and a Mountain house entree to make "tacos" . On the plus side the Mountain House meals are fairly tasty especially in the outdoors and have a long shelf life so you can use them for another trip. Otherwise, you can send some of them in a mail drop and spread out the meals....so its not like you are eating then for bfast, lunch, and dinner.

[Spokes]

All good info here. By the end of my thru hike I was going through 2 large jars of peanut butter a week. Just spooned it right out. I liked the stuff with a "hint of honey".

[lemon b]

Seafood diet. See it eat it.

[lunchbx]

mountain house meals and they like are way too expensive to be a realistic steady diet to the thru hiker. Lipton noodle sides, tuna in foil packs, peanut butter, and basically any and everything that you can find along your way that you can realistically pack without it turning into a mush of crumbs.

[lunchbx]

One of my personal fav's is fig newton bars with peanut butter on top, tastes like a mini peanut butter and jelly sandwich, try it you'll be surprised how much it tastes like the real thing!

[starr_child]

Ok I bought 14 main packets of the mountain house food (entrees) and a few treats, Is it going to be ridiculous trying to carry that many containers of food? I know they don't weight a lot and I have a good size back pack. That was my main question. I'm not sure where I am starting from as of yet as I think my partner may back out on me. Thanks for your help.

Kelli

[Kookork]

What does the thru hiker eat on the average day on the trail?

On average? Hunger but I dream a lot about gourmet food. Dreaming about food provides about 10 calories per hour of dream...

[JAK]

I try and get most of my hiking food from the baking goods section or bulk food section of grocery stores.
I buy oatmeal in a 1kg to 1.5kg bag, and other stuff in 500g bags...

In U.S. sizes this would be roughly...
Oats = 3 pounds
Skim Milk Powder = 1 pound
Dates, Raisins, or Currants = 1 pound, at home I dry blueberries
Lentils, or Split Peas = 1 pound
Dried Vegetable Mix = 1/4 pound
Herbs and Paprika = 1/4 pound, good for vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, calcium, and surprisingly, protien
Tea, Coffee, Spices = 1/4 pound
Treats = 1/4 pound or more
Some canola oil, but not much until I lose more weight.
I'll buy jerky if it is locally made. At home I make my own.

About 7 pounds for 5-6 days

If I do the AT I would adjust and substitute according to what is available locally.

[Edwardo Rodriguez]

Right now am planing on the John Muir Trail this summer should be out for about 25 days, am taken Mountain House dinner and looking into mixing it up with some store bought food. Last year on the JMT I like all my MH dinners and never got tiered of them but need to off set the cost for next year AT hike that am planning and looking closely in what other are taken on their trip while on the AT

[waasj]

From my experience thru hikers will pretty much eat anything that doesn't put up to much of a fight.