View Full Version : green food
squeezebox
12-04-2013, 05:13
sounds like a lot of folks survive on oatmeal and Ramen. So do you do anything to get some protein and veggies in your diet?
Pizza in town counts a little , but not really enough.
Trail food and town food. What most people end up doing, no matter what the plan was at the start, is to carry and consume on the trail, food that is light weight, easily available, cheap and easy to heat or cook. It's a diet that lacks much in the way of calories and requirements to maintain a healthy body in light of level of physical effort. Then when they get to town they make up for it by eating more food, much more. They (we) will eat all of what ever is placed before us. Fats and carbs will be the craving and no real thought be given to proteins, veggies or any kind of balance. It drives them to get to town and eat. Campfire talks always center on food. Trail Journal photos always contain photo's of town food. It becomes an obsession. That is why they love trail magic in the form of large amounts of greasy "anything" that is free. Like Wolves.
theinfamousj
12-04-2013, 10:34
Multiple vitamins and TVP.
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Starchild
12-04-2013, 10:58
I used protein and fat as my regular thru-hiking food, cured and uncured meats and cold cuts, cheese etc. I only used carbs for the holder (wraps). I also did have some freeze dried meals, so some carbs and greens usually there.
I did try the typical 'thru-hiker' diet, I found that I felt starved, switched quickly to the above, worked great and also did not lose weight on my thru.
perdidochas
12-04-2013, 10:59
I've read an article (probably on this site) that suggested that thru hikers should probably be hitting salad bars or other sources of veggies when in town.
peakbagger
12-04-2013, 16:04
I carried an assortment of dehydrated veggies with me that got added to my liptons to soak up liquid. I also carried as bag of freeze dried chicken to add to lipton meals.
sounds like a lot of folks survive on oatmeal and Ramen. So do you do anything to get some protein and veggies in your diet?
Pizza in town counts a little , but not really enough.
I'm having a really hard time seeing you as an RN or being 60 yrs of age. I think you said you were an RN in another thread. If I'm wrong about this PLEASE correct me! I like to know who I'm addressing.
Let's keep it simple. Plain unfortified (with nothing added to it) cheap oatmeal has about 12% of it's total calories from protein. Ramen Noodles depending on the flavor have 8-10 % of their total calories in the form of protein. Some brands of Ramen have even a greater % of their total calories in the form of protein. Read the food labels! Use the site below that I link to to get a good feel for basic nutitional content of foods/food products.
For you to say, "So do you do anything to get some protein... in your diet?" tells me you aren't reading nutritional labels. Yet, you are seeking nutritional info. This doesn't compute!
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/breakfast-cereals/1597/2
Slo-go'en
12-04-2013, 19:08
Umm, Knorr Cheddar-Broccoli pasta side with a package of Tuna. Does that count? But man, I'm getting really sick of that meal. Peanut butter is another staple and full of protein. How about pepperoni and cheese? That's got some protein content and pleanty of fat. Can't forget the fat, thats what keeps you going.
Peanut butter, Snickers bars and maybe the occasional Rama noodles is really all you need. Oatmeal never did much for me.
fiddlehead
12-04-2013, 19:16
Protein tends to be heavy. (Or take long to cook)
So, steak it up in town.
On the trail, it can be carried but weight means so much.
For veggies, I dry brocolli, tomatoes, onions, cauliflower.
I carry fresh garlic.
You'll find that your body craves what it really needs.
IF you are really concerned, get a dehydrator and start experimenting.
Dehydrate a bunch of red meat, and eat it as jerky or put it in with your noodles/other rehydrating meal. Same for veggies, potatoes (especially sweet potatoes). Make pemmican, made properly with grass fed meat and tallow from grass fed cows, it is fairly nutritionally complete for long term use, and with up to 4400 calories per pound....
Dehydrate a bunch of red meat, and eat it as jerky or put it in with your noodles/other rehydrating meal. Same for veggies, potatoes (especially sweet potatoes). Make pemmican, made properly with grass fed meat and tallow from grass fed cows, it is fairly nutritionally complete for long term use, and with up to 4400 calories per pound....
not sure where you got your 4400 calories per lb number but it is way off. An ounce of pure protein will have about 110 calories per ounce or 1760 calories per lb. it is the same caloric density as carbohydrates and a little less than half of fat. A lb of fat doesn't even have 4400 calories.
Traffic Jam
12-04-2013, 21:12
You'll find that your body craves what it really needs.
IF you are really concerned, get a dehydrator and start experimenting.
Carb cravings aren't necessarily due to being deficient in carbs. They've linked carb cravings to low seratonin levels which causes depression and mood swings. Protein causes the body to feel satiated, or full. If you're starving and craving carbs but they aren't keeping you satisfied, you should probably increase the protein.
Great advice on the dehydrator, I love mine. The veggies and high protein meals are easy to make and weigh very little.
HikerMom58
12-04-2013, 21:18
Carb cravings aren't necessarily due to being deficient in carbs. They've linked carb cravings to low seratonin levels which causes depression and mood swings. Protein causes the body to feel satiated, or full. If you're starving and craving carbs but they aren't keeping you satisfied, you should probably increase the protein.
Great advice on the dehydrator, I love mine. The veggies and high protein meals are easy to make and weigh very little.
Good stuff there ITri.. true dat! :D
...
You'll find that your body craves what it really needs. ditto on that,
My name is Carbo for good reason!
not sure where you got your 4400 calories per lb number but it is way off. An ounce of pure protein will have about 110 calories per ounce or 1760 calories per lb. it is the same caloric density as carbohydrates and a little less than half of fat. A lb of fat doesn't even have 4400 calories.
I have a paper in pdf somewhere. Also, remember, pemmican is 50/50 by weight of dried, pulverized lean meat and rendered fat. That number may have accounted for dried berries which were sometimes added.
I looked, the pdf is called "The Pemmican Manual" by Lex Rooker. I did get it slightly wrong (my bad, I misremembered), the 4400 calories is a pound and a half. If anyone wants the file and can't find it, message me with an email, and I will gladly email it.
ditto on that,
My name is Carbo for good reason!
I also found that I had multiple different cravings on my thru hike. First carbs, then protein then fresh fruit and vegetables. The protein craving came after hiking over 300 miles through the snow in the Sierra. y body was a wreck and told me to rebuild through the protein craving. I ate lbs of flesh at the casino in Tahoe.
garlic08
12-04-2013, 22:23
Whenever people ask me, a vegetarian, where I get my protein, I ask them where do they think elephants, or horses, get their protein. They're both large, muscular mammals that don't eat meat. Generally, if you get enough calories from plant sources, you get enough protein from those sources. That's where TVP comes from, for instance.
My trail diet is primarily tortillas and cheese or peanut butter, loaded with carbs, fat, and protein. I make my own muesli as I hike, with rolled oats, walnuts, and raisins, all easily found in the baking aisle in most grocery stores. Good fat and protein in that mix. As often as I can, I buy tree nuts. I always carry one fresh thing to eat each day, if only an apple, a carrot, or stalk of celery. I like to kid myself that that means I'm eating healthy on the trail.
I spend a good portion of my food budget on expensive salads in town. That's where I get the most greens, and I think it's very important and a very good question. I hate to think of the loads of dressing I poured on those salads, though!
On my vegetarian AT hike, I maintained body weight and muscle tone well enough to easily resume my job as a firefighter when I got home.
I have a paper in pdf somewhere. Also, remember, pemmican is 50/50 by weight of dried, pulverized lean meat and rendered fat. That number may have accounted for dried berries which were sometimes added.
I looked, the pdf is called "The Pemmican Manual" by Lex Rooker. I did get it slightly wrong (my bad, I misremembered), the 4400 calories is a pound and a half. If anyone wants the file and can't find it, message me with an email, and I will gladly email it.
Pemmican, as you stated, is 50% fat and 50% dried meat. The dried meat is nearly all protein (there are still small amounts of moisture and fat, but let's simplify this). So if we are talking 50% fat at 9 calories per gram, and 50% protein at 4 calories per gram, 1 gram of pemmican would be 6.5 calories. At 453.592 grams per pound, one pound of pemmican would be would contain 2,948.348 calories. Pretty ideal for a thru-hike, IMO. Too bad it is such a pain in the arse to make. :)
Heaven help us. We're talking about nutrition again. Uh, ohh, did someone say protein and being a vegetarian? Good luck. Some beliefs don't die easily when it comes to how United States citizens view sources of protein.
Pemmican, as you stated, is 50% fat and 50% dried meat. The dried meat is nearly all protein (there are still small amounts of moisture and fat, but let's simplify this). So if we are talking 50% fat at 9 calories per gram, and 50% protein at 4 calories per gram, 1 gram of pemmican would be 6.5 calories. At 453.592 grams per pound, one pound of pemmican would be would contain 2,948.348 calories. Pretty ideal for a thru-hike, IMO. Too bad it is such a pain in the arse to make. :)
It's not really that hard to make. If you have a dehydrator and an oven. Slice your meat, set it up to dehydrate, let it go good and dry, pulse it in the blender. Take all your fat, put it in a dish, put it in the oven as 225 or so, and let it render for most of the day. You can also render in a crock pot.
If your meat is ready before you render, you can combine when the tallow has rendered.
Most of it is waiting for it all to finish, and you can mostly just set it up and do whatever else.
It's not really that hard to make. If you have a dehydrator and an oven. Slice your meat, set it up to dehydrate, let it go good and dry, pulse it in the blender. Take all your fat, put it in a dish, put it in the oven as 225 or so, and let it render for most of the day. You can also render in a crock pot.
If your meat is ready before you render, you can combine when the tallow has rendered.
Most of it is waiting for it all to finish, and you can mostly just set it up and do whatever else.
Understood. But slicing and drying 12 lbs of beef (about a 4 lb jerky yield), and slicing and rendering 5 lbs of beef suet (about a 4 lb tallow yield), to end up with about 8 lbs of pemmican is a pretty involved process. Smaller batches don't save a great amount of time though. :)
Understood. But slicing and drying 12 lbs of beef (about a 4 lb jerky yield), and slicing and rendering 5 lbs of beef suet (about a 4 lb tallow yield), to end up with about 8 lbs of pemmican is a pretty involved process. Smaller batches don't save a great amount of time though. :)
I can see your point, though there are ways to make it less involved feeling.
Prep your meat while you prep food for at home meals, so it's all in one go is one.
When you buy your meat, as the butcher or meat department to cut it into 1/4-3/8 inch thicknesses for you. Most will do it at no charge, or only a small fee.
If you like to make things, construct a larger solar dehydrator, and give yourself the ability to do very large amounts of meat at a time. Bonus here, drying fresh berries and fruits in season.
Set up a large stock pot double boiler (like one of the really big ones like many do crawdads, shrimp, crabs, lobsters in large amounts in), and render a much larger batch of tallow, put it in containers and store it if you aren't ready to work with it right away.
I carried an assortment of dehydrated veggies with me that got added to my liptons to soak up liquid. I also carried as bag of freeze dried chicken to add to lipton meals.
Do you have a link or a source from where you purchased your freeze dried chicken? I seriously do not like meat as a general rule. However, I will eat white meat chicken, cured sausage, pork sausage and tuna. I am currently searching for a source for chicken that does not need to be refrigerated on the trail or for pork sausage. You also mentioned cheese. What kind of cheese did you use and did it keep on the trail? Thanks.
Carb cravings aren't necessarily due to being deficient in carbs. They've linked carb cravings to low seratonin levels which causes depression and mood swings. Protein causes the body to feel satiated, or full. If you're starving and craving carbs but they aren't keeping you satisfied, you should probably increase the protein.
Great advice on the dehydrator, I love mine. The veggies and high protein meals are easy to make and weigh very little.
What type of dehydrator do you use? Do you dehydrate chicken breast or pork sausage? I am thinking of getting a dehydrator. It's currently just an idea or option at this point. Thanks.
I grew up in the Appalachians of VA almost on the NC border in the Grayson/Carroll county area. As a child, I absolutely despised and hated meat. I didn't like the consistency etc. I don't have a logical explanation for it because vegetables certainly have the consistency of meat at times, such as a crunch or a rubbery texture etc. I don't know what it was but I just didn't like meat. I would tolerate chicken breast, tuna, well cooked pork sausage or even a well well done hamburger patty. But if I bit into gristle, or encountered a chewy piece of fat, it was all over. The eating stopped immediately. Well, being that my ancestors, parents etc is in the mountains and generally being meat eating and potatoes people, my parents were about to send me to a shrink. Because, as we know, no one in their right mind dislikes eating meat. Well, I survived those years and I still despise meat. Generally speaking. But I still hanker for well cooked pork sausage, chicken breast and canned tuna. So any ideas for dehydrating those items would be appreciated. But if you hate meat just because you hate meat and it's not based on a political stance, yer not alone.
Traffic Jam
12-06-2013, 07:16
What type of dehydrator do you use? Do you dehydrate chicken breast or pork sausage? I am thinking of getting a dehydrator. It's currently just an idea or option at this point. Thanks.
I have a Nesco Gardenmaster. I'm just starting to experiment with meat. There are a lot of people on WB who know much more than me about dehydrating. The backpackingchef has great recipes and tips on drying meat on his website.
Do you have a link or a source from where you purchased your freeze dried chicken? I seriously do not like meat as a general rule. However, I will eat white meat chicken, cured sausage, pork sausage and tuna. I am currently searching for a source for chicken that does not need to be refrigerated on the trail or for pork sausage. You also mentioned cheese. What kind of cheese did you use and did it keep on the trail? Thanks.
http://store.honeyvillegrain.com/freezedriedchickencan.aspx?gclid=CIzY5_PMm7sCFa9lO godZF8ABg#.UqHDUsu9KSM
Do you have a link or a source from where you purchased your freeze dried chicken? I seriously do not like meat as a general rule. However, I will eat white meat chicken, cured sausage, pork sausage and tuna. I am currently searching for a source for chicken that does not need to be refrigerated on the trail or for pork sausage. You also mentioned cheese. What kind of cheese did you use and did it keep on the trail? Thanks.
Canned (or foil pack) tuna and chicken dehydrate well, though some complain it takes extra time for them to re-hydrate. Chicken, if working from raw, should be cooked first, many suggest pressure cooking.
Sausage doesn't dehydrate to a stable state well due to the higher fat and grease content, but it can be done, and vacuum sealed, keep it in a freezer till you hit the trail, and I wouldn't want to push it more than a few weeks, and use all of what you open and expose to the air that day.
A better option with pork, or breakfasty type meats, is natural cured/smoked bacon. You can cook and dehydrate, or not, though if not, limit exposure to air and cook well on the trail. Salted ham is also very, very trail stable, and really any well cured meat should be. The trick is to get meat that is actually cured, not bacon and the like available at most grocery stores, as that is chemically treated, most often with nitrate and nitrite injections to give the "flavor" of the product, and are not nearly as stable, let alone tasty nor healthy.
Most aged, solid cheese is fairly stable, for at least a week, perhaps more, especially if it is wax packed. The drier the cheese to start, the better it tolerates the trail. Cheddar is popular, Parmesan works well.