View Full Version : Anybody use MREs?
Are they too heavy, too expensive, or are they just right?
Are they too heavy, too expensive, or are they just right?
JLB: Use them all the time in the Army, but I have a HUMMV to haul them around in. Too heavy for me, don't plan to carry them on my thru hike.
Ramble~On
05-22-2004, 08:07
MRE's NO WAY !!! First, I don't "have" to eat them anymore. Second, they are way too heavy. Third, they would take up way too much space in pack.
BUT, I am a packrat and I started planning my thru hike while I was still in the Marines. I saved as many of the dehydrated fruit packs as I could get my hands on....especially the strawberries...which went into maildrops...
eyahiker
05-22-2004, 08:34
Ooops, I'm not posting to this thead. Cancel.
boulders
05-22-2004, 10:25
Way too heavy for this dude, and too much trash left over.
Is it the packaging that makes them heavy, or just all of the extra stuff inside them?
Kozmic Zian
05-22-2004, 14:50
Yea.....MRE's. Man, what are you, a bonified rookie? A newbie....a neophite....a NRA Gun Advocate.....???????????You don't give a damn about hiking.....only place you ever hiked was to the outhouse. Faget about it! KZ@
Yea.....MRE's. Man, what are you, a bonified rookie? A newbie....a neophite....a NRA Gun Advocate.....???????????You don't give a damn about hiking.....only place you ever hiked was to the outhouse. Faget about it! KZ@
You seem to be the resident troll, as all you have to offer is attacks against the NRA, even when the topic of the thread is something entirely different.
Try anger management. :bse
SGT Rock
05-22-2004, 16:40
It is all of the above. KZ really isn't a troll, he just has that sort of sense of humor. For all you know he is a member of the NRA.
MREs have all the mostiure still in the meal, hence the weight compared to Mac 'n cheese, freeze dried, or other standard hiker fair. Most of the food in them is overpackaged so as to survive in you ruck in case you toss it out of a helicopter at 20' or something. Most of that packaging is foil pack, which survives burning in some form in the fire ring and needs carried out. There are only 24 meals and they get VERY old after a while.
NO MREs for ME!
It is all of the above. KZ really isn't a troll, he just has that sort of sense of humor. For all you know he is a member of the NRA.
MREs have all the mostiure still in the meal, hence the weight compared to Mac 'n cheese, freeze dried, or other standard hiker fair. Most of the food in them is overpackaged so as to survive in you ruck in case you toss it out of a helicopter at 20' or something. Most of that packaging is foil pack, which survives burning in some form in the fire ring and needs carried out. There are only 24 meals and they get VERY old after a while.
NO MREs for ME!
From what I have seen, he has no sense of humor at all.
Thanks for your response. I've been trying out a few Mountain House products, but I haven't found them to be very tasty.
It is all of the above. KZ really isn't a troll, he just has that sort of sense of humor. For all you know he is a member of the NRA.
MREs have all the mostiure still in the meal, hence the weight compared to Mac 'n cheese, freeze dried, or other standard hiker fair. Most of the food in them is overpackaged so as to survive in you ruck in case you toss it out of a helicopter at 20' or something. Most of that packaging is foil pack, which survives burning in some form in the fire ring and needs carried out. There are only 24 meals and they get VERY old after a while.
NO MREs for ME!
Rock, Wonder how many MREs you've consumed? I can't begin to remember how may I've eaten. It doesn't take very long for them to get old!
How did it feel to be back on the trail?
SGT Rock
05-22-2004, 17:40
It ROCKED (parden the double entendre)! I loved every day of it, especially when the sleet was hitting me north of Roan Mountain.
I don't know how many I have eaten, but I have been through evey incarnation of them since they came out back in the 80's. I think they are better in most ways, but I wouldn't eat them on the AT. I gave them up while in Iraq about May of last year I think. Thanks to the hikers that sent the tasty morsels...
I occasionally will take 1 MRE for dinner if I am doing a quick overnight hike. Otherwise they are too heavy. They don't taste bad...but anything don't taste bad if you are hungry enough.
Texas Dreamer
05-24-2004, 11:52
What about the tiny little Tabasco sauce from the MRE's? Does anyone take those? I know they are glass, but so small they probably wouldn't break.
SGT Rock
05-24-2004, 16:31
Get a plastic one ounce bottle and fill it with an ounce of tobasco and it will weigh less than one of those tiny bottles plus last longer.
Are they too heavy, too expensive, or are they just right?
too darn HEAVY for me!
i wuz given 6 MREs just last fall....i gave 'em away...
by-the-way...TABASCO makes everything on the trail taste a little bit better!
hehehehehehe! :D
I've carried MRE's on day hikes but not backpacking. I too have eaten MRE's since their dark brown wrapped days - even miss the corned beef hash because of that compressed oatmeal/brown sugar brick - and am often impressed with the contents. I'll bet I've eaten close to 100 of them and never had to pay for a single one ... and I'm a civilian [employed by the Dept of Army].
Agree: too heavy, too much trash, too bulky, Whisperlite is faster than the chemical heater. [Oh, you can make a cool *boom* device with the heater element and a 20 oz Mountain Dew plastic bottle]
First of all I want to say hello to the backpacking community.
This is my second post here. I am still interested in a hiking partner which was the reason for my first post. I have never done any extensive hiking. My hiking experience has typically consisted of 40 mile weekend hikes along the rivers here in Kansas. I have hiked in the heat and I have hiked in the winter. AS for food, the things we carried on our hikes here in Kansas would be absurd for the Appalachian Trail. We packed steaks, potatos, eggs, and bacon for our dinners. We also packed different concoctions of Gorp which although tasty tended to get sticky, messy, hot and caused a trash nuisance.
I was in the KSARNG for seven years and therefore I am accustomed to eating MRE's, although I admit the first MRE I ate in Boot Camp made me sick to my stomach. There are a couple MRE menus that I didn't want to eat during training because I simply wasn't hungry enough. Lot's of weekend warriors took their MRE's home because they simply weren't hungry enough to eat them. However, on a long distance hiking trip I don' think a hiker has a choice. All in all Most MRE menus are are tasty while there are only a few that I had to force down. With lots of salt and pepper the nastiest tasting MRE can be tolerated without having to pinch your nostrils to cut off the taste to your tongue. :jump ALthought the main menu is might not be so great all MRE's have a variety of tasty snacks and beverages to wash down with. :)
I am planning a southbound thru-hike for 2004, starting date about mid-july, and I am considering packing MRE's for my food requirements. There are several reasons.
First of all, the Calorie issue. 1 MRE supplies 1200 calories which I bet is a helluva lot more calories than any Ramen noodle meal. I visited an outfitter store today. I looked at a pre-packaged dehydrated meal-for-four that cost around $8. The total caloric content of that "meal for four" was only 800 calories, ot 200 calories per person. If I buy enough MRE's to last 5 months the cost per MRE comes out to about $4.20 per 1200 calories. That is alot better than what commerciallly packaged products can offer for the price and calories. I am seriously considering eating two MRE's per day, one each for lunch and dinner, which would provide 2400 calories. I plan on drinking strong instant coffee with lots of sugar for breakfast along with a snack. That gives me roughly 3000 calories per day. :banana
Secondly, there is the time issue I am considering. I think I can rip open an MRE and eat it faster than the time it takes to boil noodles. I could even rip open an MRE, stuff it's contents into my fanny pack, and eat while I continue to hike If I was pressed for time. I avoid having to dig through bags for gorp and stove. All I would have to do is take the MRE off of the top of the pack.:-?
Thirdly there is the water issue. I don't waste any water on an MRE because I don't have anything to boil. This also saves time and fuel. Furthermore If I only have a 3 liter capacity for water then I want to be drinking water instead of heating food in it and pitching it. Also, As Sgt. Rock mentioned the water is already in the food and therefore therefore there is no need to carry extra water to make food.
Next there is the positive side to the trash issue with MRE's. All trash can be stuck back into the tough plastic pouch and stuffed away. There should be no sticky and smelly trash to deal with.:-?
Well now I am getting into the CON side of packing MRE's. Most obviously is the space required to pack MRE's. Mre's are a little bulky. If I resupply at each resupply point for a week of MRE's when I am eating two per day, then I will be packing 14 MRE's at the start of each week. This will take up hopefully no more than approximately half of the space in my Dana K-2 LongBed external pack. Hopefully not more than half, but I don't know yet because I haven't experimented yet.:confused:
The next possible con is the weight issue. The gross shipping weight of a 12-pack unopened box of MRE's is 5 lbs. Is five pounds alot of weight for a week of lunch and dinner? Maybe not. I am tall and sorta muscular and I bought an External pack so that I could carry that extra space and weight. I am not an ultra-weight type of person. I plan on being in good shape half way through the hike.:)
Now for the cost. 5 months of MRE's, at two a day, is 150X2=300 MRE's. 300 MRE's @$4.20 each is $1125.00. Plus I have to add the distrinuitor's freight charges to have the 25 boxes of MRE's shipped to my friends house who will be mailing them to supply points. Then there are the freight cost's to mail each 5 pound box to each supply point.:confused: the costs are getting a little steep here.
To conclude, MRE's at the per-meal cost are expensive, but they pack a caloric punch. The meals are well-rounded providing necessary vitamins and minerals. MRE's fill the belly, and since they don't taste fantastic I don't think anyone will overeat and waste food. I think the added space and possibly added weight is the worth the nutrient value.
I just looked at my pack again and decided that 14 MRE's will take up ATLEAST half of the space in the pack. I will definitely bulge the seams on the pack If I am also packing a tent, sleeping bag, lots of coffee and sugar, clothes, cold weather ajcket, and all the miscellaneous items.
If anyone has any more practical experience I would very much want to hear from you. If anything I would like to hear if GORP, dehydrated food, and noodles supply the caloric needs necessary to fly doen the trail with a smile.
I would not hesitate to give away an MRE if I camp with a hungry hiker.
On my above post, I made a mistake on the Gross shipping weight for a box of 12 MRE's. Instead of 5 pounds it is 20 pounds. Big defference there obviously. That would make a weekload of MRE's, eating two a day, weigh probably 20 pounds. I suppose this averages about 5 pounds more in the backpack than what the rule-of-thumb dictates at 1.5 to 2 pounds per day. I can live with that If I could just get 14 MRE's to fit in the pack!
SGT Rock
06-04-2004, 06:58
LOL, good luck. I have a feeling that after about 3 weeks you may very well give up on the MREs. The average weight of one is actually about 2 pounds per meal (the cases are really 25 pounds), and the latest models actually have less calories (check out Natick's Website) than 1200; 1200 is on the high side and that is only if you eat everything in the meal. Hikers ion a long hike will burn more than 2400 calories a day, so you are going to shoot short. Plus there are only 24 meal combinations, most of the stuff is the same except the main course.
If you consider that you could eat 3200 calories carrying only 2 pounds of daily food weight ad change your menue to suit your particular taste at the time of res-supply while maybe only spending about $25 for a week of chow compared to the 6 pounds it would require in MREs to get the same calories from MREs at a cost of about $13 a day from your supplier, or almost $100 a week to be stuck with the same food because the mail cost on a 25 pound box will be about $12 over and above the food cost per box, and you will have to cary a whole case of MREs to make 4 days of hiking when your hunger kicks in - that is 25 pounds of just food for a four day section. Even if you go short on calories, it would still be 16 pounds of just food.
The Old Fhart
06-04-2004, 08:59
What I have taken on long trips is just some of the MRE entrees (or meal components if you're military). The chicken breast fillet, BBQ flavored, weighs 3.0 oz and tastes pretty good. Adds a little variety to the menu. Surplus stores may have these for about $1 each.
Yea. I see what you are saying SGT Rock. I only looked at one website when I gathered my shipping weight and nutrition data. Also I do recollect reading that the caloric content of an MRE is rated as up to 1200 calories each. However, I usually DO eat everything in an MRE. I even eat the creamer, sugar, and coffee packets that come in each MRE ( I don't eat the paper wrappers though :bse )
I seldom took my MRE's home like the other troops did because I like to keep my system fueled up, even if it is just a weekend thing. I am taking that dietary attitude on the trail with me, i.e. I do not want hunger to affect my pace, Nor do I want my stomach to dictate how far I hike each day.
However, I have been stuck on the cost and volume issue of MRE's, including the freightening shipping costs which I haven't calculated yet. I am desperate to cut my food costs in half even if that means buying a $50 cookset and carrying extra water to boil noodles. I thought I wouldn't need a cookset if I carried MRE's and I would thus save space. I was simply planning on packing my WhisperLite International and a small coffe pot to warm water for the coffee.
I love Lipton noodle pack's, and if I can get the weight/calorie/cost ratio that Topper mentioned above than I am a happy hiker. Topper, with what you illuminated above I think you are right. I can definitely cut my food costs in half.
The Old Fhart (hehe) mentioned that I could consider buying $1 entrees. I might consider them for my protein requirements. I can see myself buying up all the hamsteak and grilled chicken MRE entree's in the state of Kansas. That would be funny.
In case anyone hasn't noticed, I am somewhat of a compulsive detail freak. I am sure that this compulsiveness will fade quickly on the trail. But damnit it is the details that some people get stuck on and worry about and prevents them from enjoying themselves. I thought I could cure that issue by buying MRE's and not having to worry about food once I got on the trail.
Thank's fellas.:clap
Dances with Mice
06-04-2004, 12:41
<...snip...> I am desperate to cut my food costs in half even if that means buying a $50 cookset and carrying extra water to boil noodles. I thought I wouldn't need a cookset if I carried MRE's and I would thus save space. I was simply planning on packing my WhisperLite International and a small coffe pot to warm water for the coffee. <...snip...>
In case anyone hasn't noticed, I am somewhat of a compulsive detail freak.
$50 cookset?! Look, if you need to cross any streams I have a bridge or two for sale. And the Whisperlite is overkill. There are smaller, lighter, cheaper, and easier options available. Check Rock's website, to name one, for other ideas.
Foil packets of chicken, turkey, ham, hamburger, salmon, and I forget how many flavors of tuna combined with a starch du jour (Ramen, noodle or rice mix, grits, potato flakes, many others) are cheap, light, and compact.
On my last trip my two favorite meals were (1) lemon-pepper tuna with Lipton's sweet & sour noodles (2) chicken with 'stuffed potato' flavored potato flakes. Add olive oil, almond slivers or peanuts, powdered milk, and Tobasco as desired. Nothing real imaginative, but cheap, compact, fast and easy.
<insert sexist remark about that last sentence here>
SGT Rock
06-04-2004, 14:20
As to your cookset:
Listen to dances with mice. My pot weigfhs less than four ounces and my stove about 1/2 ounce. It can get by on 1/2 ounce of fuel a meal, so that means my whole stove and fuel is less than an MSR WhisperHEAVY does without fuel. You can do it to, heck, anyone can if they are willing to play with an aluminum can for a few minutes. Sure they are not fast, but if you were in a hurry you wouldn't be walking. They are easy to use and sometimes I even find my meal is cooked before someone with the MSR because the set up and cook proceedures are so much easier than putting the stove together and pumping and priming the thing.
As to food:
Summer sausage has a good calorie to weight ratio and tastes great. Foil packed meals with oil instead of water are great in calorie to weight. They all taste good especially with some Zatarans or Liptons. No need to go bad hungry, just eat light and read the labels.
Thanks for your input Dances with Mice. It makes me laugh to guess as to how you got that name. JUMANI-TATANKA-.............?:)
By the way, do you think $50 is alot for a cookpot set?
5 or so years ago when I began buying hiking equipment at the local hiking outfitters store in Wichita Kansas, the cookpots that I looked at were around $80. These were the "editor's choice" brand-name cookpot's. The only other place to buy camping cook-pots in my town was Wal-Mart.
I bought all of my equipment from "Editor's Choice" lists from the issues of the magazine I subscribed to at the time. I didn't know of a more reliable source to pick gear.
My Dana K-2 Longbed backpack cost $240.
My Peak 1 3-season tent, MSRP of $250 or so, I bought in new condition at a pawn shop for $50. I got lucky there.
My MSR Filtration Device cost $45. The ceramic replacement filter cost me $30.
My 4-Liter MSR Dromedary Bag cost $22.95.
My Marmot Wizard Sleeping Bag, size XL, cost $209
My Thermarest Guidelite self-inflatable Sleeping bag Pad cost $70.00.The darn storage bag for it cost $10.00
I bought 6 high strength Multi-season tent pegs for 5.99 each, and I gave them to a friend who was planning to use them while hiking in Nepal. My friend didn't go to Nepal because some terrorists flew airplanes into the WTC, rendering air-travel to that part of the world a not-so-good idea.
My MSR WhisperLite Internationale 600 multi-fuel stove cost $70.00
My 22 oz. MSR fuel bottle cost 8.95. 1 liter of MSR white gas cost $5
Yes, the Cooking pots were atleast $50 dollars at the time I was buying my gear 5 years ago. I did look at an inexpensive stove that burned paper for fuel but that sounds clumsy.
If the sales clerk at the outfitter store had recommended a portable bridge for crossing water, I would have returned all of the gear I had bought from them and shopped elsewhere.
My WhisperLite was supposed to be the **** 5 years ago when I bought it.
1/2 oz. stove? I can't beleive it!
I am just gonna go to your site, Rock!
Thanks again for the input:clap
smokymtnsteve
06-04-2004, 16:25
I paid fifty dollars just for my Ti coffee press..so fifty for a cook set is cheap.
but Knowing ROCK he probably uses an old cut of beer can for a pot and a stove. :D
Dances with Mice
06-04-2004, 18:20
<...snip...>
By the way, do you think $50 is alot for a cookpot set?
5 or so years ago when I began buying hiking equipment at the local hiking outfitters store in Wichita Kansas, the cookpots that I looked at were around $80. These were the "editor's choice" brand-name cookpot's. The only other place to buy camping cook-pots in my town was Wal-Mart.
<...snip...>
You should have gone to Wal-Mart. Go there anyway. Look in the kitchen utensil aisle, not the pots and pans area but closer to the slotted spoons and toothpick holders and cutting boards and such. Find a Grease Pot, the small cannister designed to store used cooking grease. About $6, or thereabouts. It's black with a silver lid, covered with plastic shrink wrap, usually on a bottom shelf and there might only be one or two per store. Buy it, consider it an experiment. At home throw away the interior pan designed to trap bacon particles. Now you've got a 2 liter pot that weighs around 6 ounces, maybe less. Works perfectly. Your food won't know the difference.
And you've saved $44 to spend on Editor's Choice shoelaces. Remember that the editors of that mag are paid not by the subscribers they inform but by the companies that advertise in the magazine.
I'll have to inventory my pack one day to see what all I've bought at Wal-Mart. Off the top of my head: Most of my hiking clothes, whistle/compass/thermometer, headlamp, radio, water treatment, lighter, spoon, bandanas, first aid supplies and OTC medications, tent pegs, and parachute cord. Probably more. It'd be easier to list the things I didn't buy there.
Dances with Mice
06-04-2004, 18:27
I paid fifty dollars just for my Ti coffee press..so fifty for a cook set is cheap.
but Knowing ROCK he probably uses an old cut of beer can for a pot and a stove. :D
What is luxury to one man is necessity to another.
Rock's raising a family on Army wages. I tried to do that once, it's not easy. It'll affect where you draw the luxury / necessity line.
SGT Rock
06-04-2004, 19:56
I have a Ti pot thank you very much. The beer can pot was even less but it didn't hold up well :D. It is a Snow Peak .72L pot that cam with a frying pan lid and a smaller Ti cup at $35. I only carry the pot now and use an aluminum lid made from oven liner. It weighs a whole 37 grams with a net plastic bag that can also be the pot scrubber (that is 3.1 ounces for you non-gram weenies)
The stove however is another new idea I am playing with as a concept. I took the idea of a one can stove that was posted about here and made it using a 5.5 ounce apple juice can that is 1-1/8" tall. Then I added a windscreen that is up to the pot handels on my SnowPeak Ti pot and a bottom reflector. The total stove weight as I just weighed it came in at 17 grams (.6 ounces for non-gram weenies) an it can boil a pint of water in about 4 minutes (I didn't time it exactly) on 1/2 ounce of alcohol. My fuel bottle is a 9 ounce plastic bottle that weighs 23 grams (.8 ounces for the non-gram weenies) and a that fuel consumption I can go 9 days, or basically a couple of four to five day re-supplies on a bottle because I like two hots a day.
So lets see, a 3.1 ounce pot, a .6 ounce total stove, a .8 ounce fuel bottle, and 7.4 ounced for fuel since alcohol weighs .82 ounces per fluid ounce. Total weight is 11.9 ounces. The MSR WhisperHEAVY weighs what exactly? If you don't want to build it, the Brasslight Turbo IIF (I think that is the one) would add about an extra 1/2 ounce. Of course I don't cook like Steve. If I did, I wuld probably have to bring the other four ounces of frying pans and pots.
Pencil Pusher
06-04-2004, 20:10
For as many of you that post these weights down to the gram, do you also have an excessive amount of small baggies, always wear a beeper, and are partially paranoid/wigged out? Yeah, like I imagine coke dealers would be. Holy cripes, confuse the heck out of me with grams and decimaled liters!:jump
-NGW
For as many of you that post these weights down to the gram, do you also have an excessive amount of small baggies, always wear a beeper, and are partially paranoid/wigged out? Yeah, like I imagine coke dealers would be. Holy cripes, confuse the heck out of me with grams and decimaled liters!:jump
-NGW
Read Trail Journals.com or take a hike with a heavy pack and you won't be confused any more. :D
As to food:
Summer sausage has a good calorie to weight ratio and tastes great. Foil packed meals with oil instead of water are great in calorie to weight. They all taste good especially with some Zatarans or Liptons. No need to go bad hungry, just eat light and read the labels.
How long does a summer sausage keep on the trail for? I was considering that, but was worried it would spoil before I could eat it.
SGT Rock
06-05-2004, 00:30
An 11oz summer sausage lasts me about 5 days on the trail. I haven't gotten sick from eating it yet. I like to chop it up and put it into stuff like red beans and rice, grits, bean burritos, gumbo, etc. Something good to try is a small can of shrimp with some summer sausage and some gumbo mix, I think it was from Zataran. Totally kicks butt.
An 11oz summer sausage lasts me about 5 days on the trail. I haven't gotten sick from eating it yet. I like to chop it up and put it into stuff like red beans and rice, grits, bean burritos, gumbo, etc. Something good to try is a small can of shrimp with some summer sausage and some gumbo mix, I think it was from Zataran. Totally kicks butt.
I guess the smoking of the meat or the salt content kills all of the bacteria. Maybe the fronteirsmen knew something.
That sounds like a good idea to mix up the sausage into the rice.
I think rice is going to be my staple. I don't care much for noodles.
Pencil Pusher
06-05-2004, 15:20
Read Trail Journals.com or take a hike with a heavy pack and you won't be confused any more. :D
I've done both, reading being much more enjoyable. I've got the concept and practice of going light, I just don't count the beans doing so. As for MREs, I've survived six months on them. About the only one I could not tolerate had some potatos-are-rautin and some other nasty meal, though I think there were only 12 or 16 MRE choices then. The number 8 ham slice, yum. The little napkins that came with were our only sources of tp.
I wouldn't take them on this trip, way too much packaging and all the meals are already hydrated. Too much weight and it sounds like they cost an arm and a leg too.
OH MAN!
My brother-in-law hunts every Fall and fills the family freezer with Deer sausage, steaks, and deerburger.
I have never hunted before, but if I had the time I would (1) learn where to hunt (2) buy a gun (3) buy bullets (4) buy a tag...and be off to get meat! Even with the added cost of processing the meat it would be worth it to me if I could eat deer sausage every day on the trail. I could easily go through one log of summer deer sausage a day.Yum! Heck Ya!
The esbit wing stove, with a pot height of 1.25 inches 7 minutes and 2 seconds to 212 degrees, however a rolling boil is seldom required. Small bubbles and steam are often all you need for coffee, for tea, and for one-pot hot meals.
Here is the esbit wing stove:
http://www.thru-hiker.com/detail.asp?PRODUCT_ID=EB101
The refill tabs are here: http://www.nitropak.com/product_info.php/products_id/114
Here is a pot cozy:
http://www.antigravitygear.com/products/all.html
The idea is to get the meal up to heat, turn off the stove, use the cozy 10-20 minutes to finish cooking saving packing more fuel.
Here is a cookset using the "Pepsi can stove" idea: http://www.trailquest.net/dlgcrcookset.html
Here is another:
http://lighten-up.tripod.com/ultralightbackpacking/id5.html
These last two use denatured alcohol.
If you are absolutely determined to have MRE's, consider the entree alternative of MRE Heater Meals:
http://www.safetycentral.com/heatmealselh.html
Maybe bring one or two along, for old time's sake.
The fact is, MRE's are nutritionally designed for 10 - 14 days field use.
The field kitchen is supposed to be made available.
For situations of limited nutrition, like ocean sailing and thru-hiking, true nutritional variety is essential: This means, not varieties of the same plant or meat. For example, many grocery store vegetables are one vegetable, altered by science to emphasize the leaf or the flower. Having several kinds of fish isn't true nutritional variety, either.
Forget obsession, and use all that good healthy concentrated energy to become the most admired camp cook.
Do collect good advice, and good ideas, and good simple recipes for one-pot meals, for example.
Men, I have heard, make great chefs ..when they put their mind to it.
Pencil Pusher
06-28-2004, 01:37
Men, I have heard, make great chefs ..when they put their mind to it.
Just as I have heard, "The quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach.";)
Joking aside, good post and links.