View Full Version : How do people go about eating healthily on the trail...
bishbash
03-06-2014, 02:51
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
03-06-2014, 06:10
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
03-06-2014, 06:39
Eat the bananas before you leave town. Banana peels are heavy and you will have to carry them until the next garbage can.
fiddlehead
03-06-2014, 06:41
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.
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
03-06-2014, 11:15
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
03-06-2014, 12:49
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
03-06-2014, 13:04
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
03-06-2014, 13:12
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
03-06-2014, 13:13
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.
I met a guy who was a vegetarian at Neels Gap Hostel.... he carried apples, oranges, and peanuts. Seemed healthy.
lonehiker
03-06-2014, 13:20
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
03-06-2014, 13:29
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
03-06-2014, 13:59
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
03-06-2014, 15:10
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
03-06-2014, 18:43
I occasionally take this stuff with me. http://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Grass-Superfood-8-5-Ounce-Container/dp/B00112ILZM/ref=sr_1_2?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1394145617&sr=1-2&keywords=green+drink+mix
Doesn't taste too bad. Definately better for than regular old sugar filled (or HFCS filled) Gatorade.
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.
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.
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 ...
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/food-pt-1-eating-like-hobitts.html
Many Moons
03-06-2014, 22:35
Just eat what food you can get. I am not a thru hiker, but all I met eat what they get a chance to eat. Have not seen one turn down trail magic. Had deer jerky with me in 2012 that I shared and every hiker wanted more. HIKE ON!!!
Miller
cabbagehead
03-07-2014, 01:22
whole grains: oats are good
lipids with bends that are unoxidised: Raw nuts are good for this.
dried fruit
protein: If you can modify rice and beans so it cooks fast, this might be great. Fish packets. a little protein concentrate powder in the beginning
I often cook a cabbage when I get to town.
Sites that might help:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed
plos.org
shakey_snake
03-07-2014, 01:41
When you're hiking 20 miles a day, the definition of healthy changes. Most of what we think of as "healthy" is because it's assumed we're underactive.
You can eat all the salad as you want, but you're going to Zonk, because you're not going to be able to eat enough calories.
daddytwosticks
03-07-2014, 08:18
Do you sometimes get the feeling we try to overthink too much stuff with regards to hiking? Like Lone Wolf says, it's just walking. :)
garlic08
03-07-2014, 09:48
I'm an ovo-lacto vegetarian (and stoveless, by the way) and I've done well on my thru hikes. I finished my AT hike just a couple of pounds under my starting weight and was able to immediately resume my duties as a firefighter upon my return home. A few pounds lost in muscle mass came back in a couple of months.
I do not do supplements, either. My diet strategy is to eat as much whole grain as I can (rolled oats), lots of tree nuts, some peanuts, fresh and dried fruit, lots of cheese, and yes, plenty of junk like tortillas (high fat content) and crackers. Big salads in town, along with a steady diet of ice cream (pints of Ben & Jerry's). I carried one fresh veg item per day, at least a carrot, pepper, or stalk of celery. And I did no mail drops, preferring to buy as I hiked. It was a mix of good and bad but it worked fine satisfying the cravings and still somewhat healthy.
If you get enough calories for a hike, you're getting enough protein and if you're somewhat sensible about it, enough micro-nutrients as well. Sure, it's easy enough to eat poorly and harm yourself on a hike attempt. Nutrition is not all about calories (I had an experienced hiker on the AT try to convince me that carrying fresh vegetables was a bad idea). But it sounds like you have a good basis in nutritional health and you'll do fine.
IMHO it's always worthwhile to eat healthy. I eat a plant based diet (vegan) and manage it by having boxes mailed to me. I eat freeze dried suppers, freeze dried veggies, dried fruit and nuts (trail mix), oatmeal, lots of Clif bars. I manage to eat an average amount of calories. I think my food weight is about 2 lbs per day.
I've been eating a basically pesce vegetarian diet both off and on trail since 1997. I do just fine. On trail I eat lots of nuts, seeds(sunflower, pumpkin, sesame, flax, hemp!, chia, quinoa, etc), whole unrefined grains(brown rice, millet, amaranth, etc), pastas(red lentil bean, quinoa, organic corn, black bean, durum wheat, rice, etc), vegetarian meals, dried beans, fish, nutritional bars(not huge protein amount bars aimed at the muscle building crowd or simply high priced granola bars loaded with sugar), EVOO, coconut, nut butters, seed butters, etc. It's easy enough that I always have some fresh produce in my trail bag as an ULer(kale, collard, spinach, swiss chard, broccoli, a small yam, small red/yellow peper, one small carrot, fresh garlic clove, fresh ginger rhizome, fresh sprig of parsley/cilantro/basil, fresh turmeric root, one small beet, sunchokes, one parsnip, one small, one small juicy salad turnip, some chunks of cantaloupe/pineapple/watermelon, blueberries(dried or fresh), etc etc.
Don't let anyone tell you you can't eat a healthy trail diet in the U.S. at a low trail food wt. It's largely easy enough to buy along the way. Expand your sense of nutrition. IMHO, too many hikers, even regular long distance hikers, assume nutrition is all about total calories and every food choice has to maximize cals/oz to be UL. WRONG! I 100% agree what Garlic stated above. Nutrition is also about micronutrients, phytochemicals, vitamins, and other things that are removed when food is highly refined.
I personally know about 20 thru-hikers who thru-hiked U.S. long distance trails on solely or largely a fresh plant based diet most hiking with an UL hiking philosophy.
Here's another idea - convenient, nutritious, inexpensive, and it's as fresh as produce gets:
http://outdoorherbivore.com/trail-sprouting/
http://www.wheatgrasskits.com/sprouting/sprout_sack.htm
http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-71502.html
takethisbread
03-09-2014, 19:34
something I might try. bring dried black beans. in the morning put a handful or two in a ziplock bag (the one with the actual zipper on it) then cover with a bit of water. by the time I get to camp the beans should be reasonably rehydrated. I might use a soda bottle as well. add to brown rice, easy meal add to ramen add to a tortilla. it's all good. I hope
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something I might try. bring dried black beans. in the morning put a handful or two in a ziplock bag (the one with the actual zipper on it) then cover with a bit of water. by the time I get to camp the beans should be reasonably rehydrated. I might use a soda bottle as well. add to brown rice, easy meal add to ramen add to a tortilla. it's all good. I hope
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there are some very "famous" hikers that use this approach. The added benefit, gaseous assistance up hills
I put powdered milk in my oatmeal.
DrRichardCranium
03-09-2014, 20:19
Also, sometimes you can find garlic mustard on the trail. It's nutritious, and it is also an invasive exotic, so it's OK to harvest it. Just slice some leaves up and add it to your ramen or Knorr sides, or use it on your sandwich wraps to get some fresh greens into your diet.
Do you sometimes get the feeling we try to overthink too much stuff with regards to hiking?... :)
Ah, yeah! We think we need to have all the answers up front too.
This reminds me of a talk I heard at the Denver REI a couple of yrs back given by Colorado Tr thru-hiker "SPOT"(his trail name because he carried a SPOT located beacon). I think, up to him thruing the CT, it was his first long distance hike. He had all these spread sheets, daily mileages, campsites, food and water logistics(caloric charts too), way pts he expected to be at at various times, times he would contact his wife, times he would be doing all these things on trail, etc etc figured out in excruciating detail for his CT thru-hike. First day out he meets Lint(Lint is like a double or triple triple crowner) who talks to SPOT and shows SPOT a few things as SPOT inquires. By the end of day 1 all of SPOT's pre hike logistical notions and ideas of controlling his CT thru-hike in excruciating pre hike detail have to be discarded as new knowledge and wisdom is gained.
The lesson to be learned? Some of us seek to control even the minutiae and over analyze; we think we need all the answers going in rather than to some extent letting things unfold. Some of us may be holding on too tight.
This isn't aimed personally at anyone. I'm just generally throwing it out there. Maybe, I'm saying this just to remind myself.
Damn Yankee
03-09-2014, 20:34
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.
Frozen veg. are great to dehydrate right out of the bag because they are par boiled before freezing but, fresh veg. need to be par boiled before dehydrating. Also, canned meats like chicken, tuna, chipped beef will dry well. Between the veggies, meat and pastas you can make awesome meals. There is an AT Cookbook which will give you great recipes.
something I might try. bring dried black beans. in the morning put a handful or two in a ziplock bag (the one with the actual zipper on it) then cover with a bit of water. by the time I get to camp the beans should be reasonably rehydrated. I might use a soda bottle as well. add to brown rice, easy meal add to ramen add to a tortilla. it's all good. I hope
Have small baggies of chili powder, cumin, curry powder, salt, pepper, dried onions, dried garlic, and some Italian seasoning, and you can change some basic ingredients into several different flavor profiles.
Carry quinoa as well as instant brown rice. Look for the fuel saver quinoa process on the trail foods site, add the beans, rice, maybe some turkey jerky at appropriate points in the process. Put a tbl of peanut butter, curry powder, hot sauce peanuts and raisins in it and call it Appalachian curry.
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bishbash
11-25-2015, 12:08
Cheers for all advice. I think I know the answer to this, but Can you not throw banana skins, orange peel, apple cores into the woods then? And if not why not? Don't they just biodegrade? I can understand not throwing them near campsites but when you are walking along why not?
Cheers for all advice. I think I know the answer to this, but Can you not throw banana skins, orange peel, apple cores into the woods then? And if not why not? Don't they just biodegrade? I can understand not throwing them near campsites but when you are walking along why not?
Animals will often move these items and it is disgusting (aesthetically, at least) to come across someone's garbage even if the items eventually biodegrade. It isn't a big deal to pack everything out.
dzierzak
11-25-2015, 13:14
Animals will often move these items and it is disgusting (aesthetically, at least) to come across someone's garbage even if the items eventually biodegrade. It isn't a big deal to pack everything out.
And an additional minor point - habituating animals to find such stuff near the trail.
squeezebox
11-25-2015, 13:44
I'ld like to learn some about greens and such harvestable along the trail.
At home there's time to research different ideas, plan MPD, spreadsheets,and whatever else. Knowledge is power. Then leave all the spreadsheets at home. Bring your knowledge and have a good hike.
Tipi Walter
11-25-2015, 14:20
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).
Reminds me of "getting my five" when I was in the USAF and jogging thru an Army base in Panama and had to weave thru an infantry unit on "patrol". The first sgt yelled out, "He's getting his 5, now let's get our 5!!!!" But I was in shorts and t-shirt and they were in all sorts of crap in the jungle heat. They should've joined the Air Force.
I like what Lawton "Disco" Grinter says about junk food and backpacking:
". . . . 2 pounds of gummy bears per day will get you nowhere on the trail. Nowhere but sick. Junk food is best avoided. We all know what junk food is too. Keep it out of your backpacks as much as possible."
See---
http://sectionhiker.com/trail-food-the-most-important-piece-of-gear-in-your-pack-by-lawton-disco-grinter/
Eat the bananas before you leave town. Banana peels are heavy and you will have to carry them until the next garbage can.
I don't always haul bananas but when I do I always dig a small hole in the dirt and bury the peels. Stay thirsty my friends.
Get yourself a dehydrator.
You can eat very healthy.
Not hard to eat healthy, just have to do the preparation beforehand.
have fun.
It's all I ever do for my backpacking trips---use a dehydrator that is. Won't adequately work for a thruhike unless you kill yourself at home with nonstop drying to make enough food for the next 5 months, and then rely totally on mail drops.
That's pretty much the size of it. On the trail your reduced to eating mostly suger and pasta
Read above Grinter quote. Eating mostly sugar and pasta? It's just not true. When I hiked the AT back in the early 1980's my diet was as healthy as possible considering I resupplied at small local stores. I had to resupply like everyone else and used my Svea 123 stove to cook up oatmeal and lentils and no-cook foods I bought locally, stuff like cream cheese/cheese, peanuts, raisins and dates, corn chips. Oatmeal is an excellent backpacking food as it's healthy and available in all stores and can be augmented with cheese and nuts and peanut butter and dairy butter and wild edibles like violets and lambs quarters and chickweed.
Those were the days when backpackers carried a couple quarts of white gas and thought nothing about sitting down in camp for an afternoon cooking up a pot of raw lentils for an hour or lentils with brown rice. Fuel was cheap and lentils, beans and rice were even cheaper. A 5 lb bag of lentils could last a long time.
I met a guy who was a vegetarian at Neels Gap Hostel.... he carried apples, oranges, and peanuts. Seemed healthy.
I like Garlic08's post as he eats good on the trail and goes no-cook to boot and is a vegetarian like me. And he's right, it's not all about calories---so avoid junk food.
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.
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.
Being a vegetarian on an AT thruhike is easy, esp if you add dairy and eggs. Getting the variety you're used to at home is another story---on a thruhike---unless you take extra effort to visit big grocery stores.
But for normal backpackers going out for 5 days or 10 days or even 21 days, well, they have as much variety as they want and are willing to carry, esp using a home dehydrator.
Eating like a Hobbit works for me.
Problem is, it's very difficult to find Lembas wrapped in silver.
" . . .how could anyone carry this much food for 92 days? Hopefully, the answer lies in the Lembas bread. These cakes are described as being very thin, made of meal and light brown on the outside but the color of cream on the inside."
From---
http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/how-much-lembas-would-you-need-eat-get-mordor
Once long ago I brought one of the Hobbit books out on a backpacking trip and thought alot about the mentioned Lembas "superfood" wrapped in silver.
Cheers for all advice. I think I know the answer to this, but Can you not throw banana skins, orange peel, apple cores into the woods then? And if not why not? Don't they just biodegrade? I can understand not throwing them near campsites but when you are walking along why not?
I just dig a cathole and bury peels and stuff. Don't worry about throwing an apple core into the woods. Heck, you're walking thru old apple orchards anyway. And who knows, maybe you'll grow an apple tree. Or a avocado tree. Or a banana tree. Or some cabbage. A grape vine. Some wild carrots.
Pedaling Fool
11-25-2015, 14:31
Cheers for all advice. I think I know the answer to this, but Can you not throw banana skins, orange peel, apple cores into the woods then? And if not why not? Don't they just biodegrade? I can understand not throwing them near campsites but when you are walking along why not?
Not packing out food.
This is one of them topics that will never be settled, just like so many other issues such as: keeping your food in your tent; not taking a secondary trail out of a shelter area to maintain thru-hiker purity; necessity to pack out TP...and on and on....
All I'll say, is that I do leave my food scrapes in the woods; however, I do NOT leave them in proximity to a shelter and I don't just simply throw it on the ground -- I put it under stuff like heavy leaf litter or logs...
It's not going to habituate any animal, unless everyone puts their food scraps in the same general area. There are tons of soil organisms (and that's why I put the scrapes under heavy leaf litter) those organisms will devour anything. There's just no need to pack it out, I only pack out non-organic stuff, especially plastics and and metals.
I have several compost piles in my yard and have for years and I have all kinds of scraps in there, including apples, pears, bananas (not just the peels) and all other kinds of food scraps. I also have many animals come thru my yard periodically, such as raccoon and opossums and I don't have problems with them tearing up my compost piles, they do go in there once in a while, but mostly what I see is the holes left by them throughout the yard of them digging up worms and other grubs, since my entire yard has very fertile soil, not like your typical sandy Florida soil.
P.S. None of my compost piles are of the hot composting design -- it decomposes things just like the soil organisms in the woods; so you'd think them raiding my compost piles would be a normal occurrence, but they just are not interested.
I never feel pressured to get rid of my trash (like a lot of hikers), but if I did pack out TP or food scrapes I could see that as a problem, that's a big reason not to pack out food and other organic stuff. This is probably why so many hikers complain about road crossings not having trash receptacles. Personally, I don't have one issue with that; I can easily wait for town and I do town stops much less frequently than the typical hiker, usually not less than once every 7-days.
dudeijuststarted
11-25-2015, 14:37
Fats and Omegas. Some tuna comes prepackaged in sunflower oil. Carry an olive oil to add to essentially everything out there, and aim to get healthy fats when you get to town. Your body will be screaming for carbohydrates and starches, aim to get those from everything BUT sugars where and when you can.
I returned from a thru having lost 25 lbs, and foolishly neglected to put the weight back on afterwards. My thyroid gland did not take kindly to the long-term weight loss and I developed an uncomfortable and permanent nodule on it. Now that I am eating fatty foods again my health is being restored.
Maybe a little TMI but certainly some realities of trail food and LDH body mass. The body's organs don't normally give outward warning before they tip over and fail.
I will second Grampie's post. Don't worry about eating healthy on the trail. If you find some food.. any kind of food.. that is eatable you eat it. You burn so many calories that the last thing you want to do is to be stingy with calories. Get all you can get. Now in town you might be a tad more picky (I often wondered why thru hikers really need to bang down a two liter bottle of soda in one single evening!).
Frozen veg. are great to dehydrate right out of the bag because they are par boiled before freezing but, fresh veg. need to be par boiled before dehydrating. Also, canned meats like chicken, tuna, chipped beef will dry well. Between the veggies, meat and pastas you can make awesome meals. There is an AT Cookbook which will give you great recipes.
I can't speak for black beans, but at my house red kidney beans soak for 24 hours and simmer for 3 hours.
Any meals that you can dream up for the trail can be tested before you hit the trail.
Wayne
Sent from somewhere around here.
squeezebox
11-25-2015, 21:58
I can't speak for black beans, but at my house red kidney beans soak for 24 hours and simmer for 3 hours.
Any meals that you can dream up for the trail can be tested before you hit the trail.
Wayne
Sent from somewhere around here.
You might consider getting a pressure for beans, way faster. But also with planning the crock pot works well. Lots of different beans out there.
squeezebox
11-25-2015, 22:00
I can't speak for black beans, but at my house red kidney beans soak for 24 hours and simmer for 3 hours.
Any meals that you can dream up for the trail can be tested before you hit the trail.
Wayne
Sent from somewhere around here.
You might consider getting a pressure for beans, way faster. But also with planning the crock pot works well. Lots of different beans out there.
That's a pressure cooker.
Sorry
You might consider getting a pressure for beans, way faster. But also with planning the crock pot works well. Lots of different beans out there.
That's a pressure cooker.
Sorry
One does not mess with Mrs. Wayne's Red Beans.
Wayne
Sent from somewhere around here.
squeezebox
11-26-2015, 00:30
Oh!! I will spread red beans on my kitchen floor and beat my forehead until it bleeds. Forgive me I did not know. And I threw out a can of refried beans for good measure. Forgive me Sence!! I have sinned!
I will second Grampie's post. Don't worry about eating healthy on the trail. If you find some food.. any kind of food.. that is eatable you eat it. You burn so many calories that the last thing you want to do is to be stingy with calories. Get all you can get. Now in town you might be a tad more picky (I often wondered why thru hikers really need to bang down a two liter bottle of soda in one single evening!).
Getting enough calories and eating healthy don't have to be mutually exclusive. We can get all the calories we need as hikers WHILE ALSO EATING HEALTHY!.