Foods that Afford to Much Water?

[Wallabee]

I was planning to through-hike the AT NOBO in the indefinite future, but was wondering if I should be worried about certain foods requiring too much water to metabolize (i.e. salts and things of the sort?) Or, if in fact this knowledge has zero practical use when hiking the AT and I should just resort to eating whatever is high calorie/low weight.

:banana
P.s. I just really appreciate this Icon,
Wallabee

[garlic08]

I'm not sure why this is in the women's forum and I hope you don't mind a male's response.

On the AT, there's generally plenty of drinking water. Water is rarely a concern. I think about this issue on desert or high tundra hikes, not only to metabolize but also to prepare and clean up.

It may be smart to pack a few meals that do not need water or even fuel to prepare or clean up, just in case you're stuck somewhere without water or your stove breaks or you'd just rather not go out into severe weather. Examples are cereals, dried bean pastes, nuts and nut butters, breads, instant mashed potatoes, even Ramen. As an aside, I generally find dry campsites to be superior to wet ones--fewer bugs, people, or habituated animals, better views--so for me, meals like this are the rule, not the exception.

[Tipi Walter]

I was planning to through-hike the AT NOBO in the indefinite future, but was wondering if I should be worried about certain foods requiring too much water to metabolize (i.e. salts and things of the sort?) Or, if in fact this knowledge has zero practical use when hiking the AT and I should just resort to eating whatever is high calorie/low weight.

:banana
P.s. I just really appreciate this Icon,
Wallabee

You'll probably find VARIETY to be the most important facet of backpacking meals and food---cooked or non-cooked. For cooked meals, plenty of water will be needed for morning tea or coffee and oatmeal breakfasts and dinner rehydration for Mt House or mac and cheese or whatever else.

Or if you just eat nut butters and hummus and probars and pitas and cereals and stuff you'll still need plenty of water to drink cold along with the food. Fortunately the AT is loaded with water sources and even dry camps (like tentsites between shelters) can be easily planned by getting water at the shelters and then moving ahead a mile or so for a private dry campsite. Anyone can lug a gallon of water for a mile.

My next trip is an 18 day affair with no stove as I'm planning on going with non-cook foods only. I plan on drinking as much or more water than I would if I had my stove.

[Spirit Walker]

When you're thruhiking, salt is a good thing. As others said, on the AT, lack of water is not a problem. You'll be able to drink as much as you want. Out west we sometimes had problems with dense carbohydrate foods (pemmican bars for example) because they were dry and needed a lot of water to swallow, but we never had a problem with too much salt. In fact, though I rarely eat salty foods like chips and pretzels in normal life, on the trail I love to eat Fritos and potato sticks and nuts.

[Jedeye]

I don't have any hard data to back it up, but I wouldn't worry too much about how much water it takes to metabolize certain foods. To be honest you will probably need a decent amount of salt as because you are going to be sweating all day. Of course you will need lots of water as well, but it's easy to come by on the AT and you should never need to to carry more than 2-3L.