some low carb foods I used on the trail

[CoconutTree]

Just wanted to share some low carb, high calorie foods I used on my 6 week section hike. Criteria for picking food included flavor, easy to prepare, calories per ounce, easy to buy either from trail towns or Amazon prime, and lastly cost. I got better at finding low carb foods at the trip progressed.

Ideally I like more than 100 calories per ounce. For costs, I target under $10 for a 1000 calorie "serving".

Grass Run Farms Beef Sticks (Amazon). High quality grass fed beef, tasted good, not cheap and not ideal calories per onunce. I used these at first, but switched to alternatives later. 70 calories per ounce, $21 per 1000 calories.

Hillshire Farm Beef Summer Sausage (Walmart). 95 calories per ounce, $3 for 1000 calories.

Jack Links Original Beef Sticks. These tasted good. Noticed different packaging and ingredient lists for different sources. The ones I ordered off amazon had a slightly rancid tasted so I discarded them. Available at small gas stations, some supermarkets, and Walmart. Stats for 9 pack from Walmart: 138 calories per ounce, $6 per 1000 calories.

Jack Links Sasquatch Snack Stick. Not as tasty as Original Beef sticks and long shape was harder to pack, but more calories per ounce. Sometimes found in gas stations when other options were lacking. 150 calories per ounce, $13 per 1000 calories (gas station price).

Sincerly Nuts Coconut Chips (Amazon). No added sugar or salt. Tasty, but simple taste. Nice for snacking, took some time to chew, and has enough fiber that I had to be careful not to over eat. 186 calories per ounce and $2 per 1000 calories.

Block of cheese - Lasted as long as 5 days without going bad, always ate it before it went bad. About 90-100 calories per ounce, but depends on type. $5 to $10 per 1000 calories. Avoid the part-skim cheeses if you want calories.

I would often cook one meal a day, and that was more of a traditional high carb backpacking meal, but I might cook half of a rice side (about 3oz) and the load it up with low carb ingredients, such as butter, whey protein powder (Jarrows formula unflavored from Amazon was good), pouched meat (tuna, or salmon, or spam). The total carbs for the day wasn't that high if that was my only carbs.

Other things I used occasionally:

fresh fruit - I would buy when ever I could and eat it the first day back on the trail. By late June in central Virginia I started finding blackberries and blueberries on the trail.

salami - in shelf stable packaging. Dollar general had these.

cashews - nice for snacking. Even gas stations would carry small packets.

[Zach ADK]

I am not familiar with the reasoning behind a low-carb diet when hiking. I read years ago in a book on bicycle touring that the best way to eat was to eat a lot of carbs during the day with some protein and fat(like peanut butter) but to avoid eating meat or other heavy fat/protein loads until the end of the day because they took more energy to digest and would leave you feeling logey for a while after eating them. I have found this to be true for me, but perhaps it is not universal. It is interesting to hear how others do things and what works for them.
Zach

[Starchild]

The coconut is just beyond words in terms of energy. Thanks for the low cabs tips. My take is salami,salami,salami.

[Starchild]

..but to avoid eating meat or other heavy fat/protein loads until the end of the day because they took more energy to digest and would leave you feeling logey for a while after eating them. I have found this to be true for me, but perhaps it is not universal....
Zach

Not universal, so if you found what works for you great. I have found that low carb, high protein works great. High carb does not work in any respect including bloodwork. I did love the Dr complementing me on my bloodwork stating that I must be eating a diet rich in green veges and low in fat when I told him I have been eating almost exclusively high fat high protein meats and little else.

[Venchka]

Boone Barrs. Made by a local NC company near the trail. Available online and super markets in GA, SC, NC & TN. Not sure if they have ant retailers near the trail. GOOGLE knows the way.

http://www.happymountainfoods.com/

http://www.happymountainfoods.com/products.aspx

Wayne

[CoconutTree]

I looked at the Boone Barrs website but did not see any low carb products. Everything looked like it was very high in carbs! They all have rolled oats or brown rice syrup as the number one ingredient.

[Venchka]

Picky. The dozen I have on hand average ~315 calories, weigh 2.25 ounces, cost $2.00 as I recall. Carbs 11%. Found one at random with 9% carbs.

Wayne


Sent from somewhere around here.

[Dogwood]

Thx Vencha. I virtually always have to make finds like these myself only after much shopping. Boone Barrs, although I couldn't pull up all the ingredient lists and Nutritional info on all the very tasty sounding varieties, from what I see the organic ingredients, sugar and fat contents, AND price pts certainly agree with this PICKY pesce vegetarian for on and off trail eating. I'm going to check out the Dark Chocolate Banana, Coconut Almond, and Ginger Carrot Almond. THX too for posting locations where they are available. Amy's Natural Foods is just a few miles away from me. Although the $2-2.25 retail for the balance of notable attributes, including higher quality ingredients, in these 2.25 oz bars certainly seems reasonable, maybe some case purchases, will lower the price a bit. I'll gnosh mine occasionally dipped in/smeared with a nut butter to raise the nutritional profile even higher for on trail use.

[Dogwood]

Thx for sharing Coconut Tree. Based on your User Name, that you shared your trail food criteria, including beta on Sincerely Nuts Coconut Chips(Flake), I'd like to point out that you can meet all your criteria in a coconut flake product by buying it in bulk out of bulk bins for about half the cost. I routinely see coconut flake(chips, not shredded coconut) in bulk bins for $2.50-4/lb. Buying out of bulk bins allows for buying in just the amount you desire with no potential shipping costs or higher volume packages as might happen when buying online. I'm only aware from my research Sincerely Nuts Coconut Flake being sold online in 3 lb packages. With coconut flakes high fat content, including a very high saturated fat content, it can go rancid. I store safely out of sunlight in an air tight packaging while enclosing a small food grade moisture absorbing packet(I reuse them from vitamin bottle purchases) and still use regularly. It's a staple of my trail food regimen as several other coconut products are: powdered coconut milk, toasted coconut flake, dried coconut wedges, and organic creamed coconut also made by Edwards and Sons(I use in dinners and hot whole grain b'fasts on winter hikes for increasing my fat cals!)

http://www.edwardandsons.com/ldo_shop_coconut.itml

Also, if you're going to pay, from what I can tell based on your beta and what I found online, about $6.30/lb for unsweetened coconut flake you can buy Let's Do Organic Unsweetened Coconut Flake(Chips), both regular or toasted, for about the same $6.30/lb price(maybe a buck more/lb.) but in smaller bags of 7 oz. Organic coconut flake(Chips) does not contain sodium metabisulfite as a preservative either which some folks are allergic to. From all the coconut chips I've eaten toasting/roasting the flakes(chips) intensifies the flavor. Raising the flavor considerably, but also the price per lb, while still staying true to higher quality ingredients are varieties of Navitas, Bare, and Dang.

http://navitasnaturals.com/index.php...=coconut+chips

http://www.baresnacks.com/products/s...-coconut-chips

http://dangfoods.com/coconutchips.php

Heck Dang even has a Savory Bacon variety of Coconut Chips. Personally the Cocao/Chocolate and Caramel varieties of Coconut Chips are pretty dang tasty.

Trader Joes has their tasty variety of Toasted Coconut Chips too. I get them regularly for $1.99 in 2 oz packages as an occasional treat. A few rare occasions I've bought them 2 @ 2 oz packages for $2. BTW, since you might say something about the pinch of sea salt in these or in other varieties I named above, plus admittedly they have added sugar, and since you specifically mentioned Sincerly Nuts Coconut Chips description above as having no salt, which as I said they do in the form of sodium metabisulfite, have you looked at the sodium contents in some of the other products your eating like jerkies and prepared rice dishes in the seasoning?

http://www.whatsgoodattraderjoes.com...nut-chips.html

Also, easy enough to buy your own flake and roast/toast it yourself while tweaking flavors, nutrition,etc. Heres a link https://www.sophreakingood.com/recipes/coconut-chips/ Just put in oven and roast instead!

[CoconutTree]

Thanks for the coconut info. I will try some of those other sources, especially the bulk bins. The Sincerly Nut product is available in 1 or 2 or 3 pound bags off amazon. I have purchased all 3 sizes. I am trying to avoid most sugar, at least for daily consumption, so that does rule out a number of sweetened coconut products. Trader Joes does have a very tasty coconut flakes/shreds without out the added sugar in their west coast stores, in the baking section, but I have never seen it in their east coast stores. I'm not opposed to salt, more commenting on the taste impact of a salt-free product. I think coconut tastes better with a little salt.

The sodium content in the meat products and prepared dishes I mentioned varies from high to exceptionally high. In particular, I can't eat too much salami because it has so much salt. Most everything else seems ok for me.

[CoconutTree]

Picky. The dozen I have on hand average ~315 calories, weigh 2.25 ounces, cost $2.00 as I recall. Carbs 11%. Found one at random with 9% carbs.

Wayne


Sent from somewhere around here.

For comparison, a can of coke has 13% of Daily Recommended Value for carbs. If you call coke a low carb food I would object to that too.

[Wülfgang]

I am not familiar with the reasoning behind a low-carb diet when hiking. I read years ago in a book on bicycle touring that the best way to eat was to eat a lot of carbs during the day with some protein and fat(like peanut butter) but to avoid eating meat or other heavy fat/protein loads until the end of the day because they took more energy to digest and would leave you feeling logey for a while after eating them. I have found this to be true for me, but perhaps it is not universal. It is interesting to hear how others do things and what works for them.
Zach

The reason why is this is actually a more energy-efficient way of eating on trail (but not necessarily more practical), because lipids (fats) yield more energy per gram than carbs or protein (9 vs 4).

A small study was recently done on ultra runners and they found that the ultra runners who ate low-carb, high-fat diets actually burned MORE fat and had the same aerobic capacity as ultra runners who ate low-fat, high-carb diets. (article)

There were no significant differences in the aerobic capacity between the two groups. However, on average, the high-carbohydrate group burned less fat per minute than the low-carbohydrate group (0.67 vs 1.54 g; P < .0001).
In addition, this study showed that the low-carbohydrate group reached maximal fat oxidation at a lower intensity of exercise. This indicates that these runners could rely on their store of fat more quickly than those in the high-carbohydrate group.

"That's really a profound finding because it indicates they are able to run at a higher intensity for a longer time using mostly fat," said Dr Davitt.

The only drawback they found was that the low-carb runners did not have the energy for a big surge, or sprint. Fats burn more slowly from a metabolic standpoint and this can be a problem if you need to kick it into higher gear for a short time.

IMO, most hikers could benefit from a high fat, moderate protein, and low to moderate carb diet. You do need carbohydrates if you are hiking, plain and simple; but I don't think we need as much as we think we do. A typical carby backpacker dinner should be enough. The rest of the day your body can utilize the stored glycogen from your dinner and the remainder of your energy will come from fats you consume throughout the day. Of course, you should eat protein every chance you get to mitigate catabolism of muscle tissue.

It's also worth noting that it takes your body some time to adapt to this diet. If you are a typical American who probably gets >60% of their daily calories from carbs, it will take a couple of weeks for your body to adapt to a lipid-dominant metabolism. But, it will be more efficient and you will effectively need to eat less frequently.

[Wülfgang]

BTW thanks for the post Coconut, good tips.

[ChrisJackson]

The reason why is this is actually a more energy-efficient way of eating on trail (but not necessarily more practical), because lipids (fats) yield more energy per gram than carbs or protein (9 vs 4).

A small study was recently done on ultra runners and they found that the ultra runners who ate low-carb, high-fat diets actually burned MORE fat and had the same aerobic capacity as ultra runners who ate low-fat, high-carb diets. (article)


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The only drawback they found was that the low-carb runners did not have the energy for a big surge, or sprint. Fats burn more slowly from a metabolic standpoint and this can be a problem if you need to kick it into higher gear for a short time.

IMO, most hikers could benefit from a high fat, moderate protein, and low to moderate carb diet. You do need carbohydrates if you are hiking, plain and simple; but I don't think we need as much as we think we do. A typical carby backpacker dinner should be enough. The rest of the day your body can utilize the stored glycogen from your dinner and the remainder of your energy will come from fats you consume throughout the day. Of course, you should eat protein every chance you get to mitigate catabolism of muscle tissue.

It's also worth noting that it takes your body some time to adapt to this diet. If you are a typical American who probably gets >60% of their daily calories from carbs, it will take a couple of weeks for your body to adapt to a lipid-dominant metabolism. But, it will be more efficient and you will effectively need to eat less frequently.

That was so well explained. Thanks Wülfgang. And the tips as well Coconut. Been incorporating fats and proteins and reducing carbs this year and I like the results. Eating nuts and meats and some protein bars during the day, and a cup of couscous at night.

[Venchka]

Thx Vencha. I virtually always have to make finds like these myself only after much shopping. Boone Barrs, although I couldn't pull up all the ingredient lists and Nutritional info on all the very tasty sounding varieties, from what I see the organic ingredients, sugar and fat contents, AND price pts certainly agree with this PICKY pesce vegetarian for on and off trail eating. I'm going to check out the Dark Chocolate Banana, Coconut Almond, and Ginger Carrot Almond. THX too for posting locations where they are available. Amy's Natural Foods is just a few miles away from me. Although the $2-2.25 retail for the balance of notable attributes, including higher quality ingredients, in these 2.25 oz bars certainly seems reasonable, maybe some case purchases, will lower the price a bit. I'll gnosh mine occasionally dipped in/smeared with a nut butter to raise the nutritional profile even higher for on trail use.

Coconut Almond just happens to the Boone Barr that I pulled from my stash at random. 320 calories & only 9% carbs. The Apricot Sunflower is very nice.
I'm glad that you have a retailer handy. They really are good and really fill me up. But then I'm not pounding out 20+ m.p.d. with a pack or longer on the bike. Yet. Soon!
Dipping in crunchy almond butter is very nice.
Enjoy!

Wayne

[Dogwood]

Those on Low Carb high fat diets who lump all carbs together as if they all are the same or react the same in all people or themselves or respond the same despite the duration/nature of different activities/sports or narrowly focus on an individual food nutritional label stat while ignoring the entire matrix of the whole food is without going to arrive at some faulty conclusions. Other diets, or this who follow them, who do likewise are going to arrive at faulty conclusions as well leading to endless what ifs, buts, maybes, greater confusion, etc .

There are more blaring contrasts than anything that remotely resembles any valid similarity to the carbohydrates or carbohydrates breakdown in a Coca Cola and a Almond Coconut Boone Barr or how those carbohydrates react in the human body, for example.

Based on what you said here Wulfgang "IMO, most hikers could benefit from a high fat, moderate protein, and low to moderate carb diet" if we take your opinion to be a valid one could some hikers benefit on trail from a food nutritional profile like these given also their fiber and sugar content while also considering other possible beneficial attributes like vitamin, enzymes, phytonutrients, cal/oz ratios:


http://www.fatsecret.com/Diary.aspx?pa=fjrd&rid=4102716

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/cal...lmond-16652794

Please explain how fresh fruit or vegetables are low carb too as the vast majority of both get almost all their caloric content from carbohydrates? When I pick up a apple, banana, orange, kale, cucumber, leafy greens, etc I certainly am not eating it for its fat or protein calories per say!

[RockDoc]

There are some great LCHF suggestions in this thread, and I think it's a great idea for hiking (also ultrarunning).
The idea is that carbs are a poor fuel in comparison to fats, and the fat energy system goes back a long time (2.5 million years) ancestrally whereas dominantly carb burning goes back only 10000 years to when grains were first cultivated.

The body interprets carbs as sugar and you can only hold about a teaspoon of sugar in your bloodstream, so you have to refuel constantly, and are always hungry--sound familiar, hikers?). Eating more sugary carbs spikes insulin, fosters fat storage and shuts off the fat burning system (and can eventually lead to metabolic syndrome if you have that propensity; more then half of us do, hence the obesity and T2D epidemic).

However, training the body to burn fat by eating less than ~50g carbs develops the burning of ketones for energy. The high fat meals are extremely satisfying and work like putting a huge log on a camp fire (whereas carbs are like kindling). You don't have to eat anytime soon, and you are no longer starved all the time. The energy supply is constant and I've noticed I don't breathe as hard exercising. Yes the top end for sprinting is missing, but who needs that for hiking? Most hiking is in fat burning zone, under 75% max heart rate. This makes fat burning the logical and perfect energy source for long distance hiking.

I would add bacon, jerky, avocado, MCT oil, dark chocolate, and macadamia nuts to the list of great high-fat foods. This is great, satisfying food. Forget bread and cereal, unless you want to hike pudgy, underpowered, and half-starved.

If you want to know more about this, read marksdailyapple.com, or google what Running Doctor Tim Noakes has been up to, since he discovered that his runner's high-carb diet gave him T2D after running 71 marathons--his research has helped a lot of people understand what's going on here. Basically we were mislead by the government regarding saturated fat clogging our arterys; it's the carbs that ruin your body (again, if you are among the people that are carb resistant). Read The Big Fat Surprise by Teicholtz, and Why We Get Fat and What to Do about It by Taubes. There's a huge resource of literature on this, and now there are calls for the FDA to remove the recommendation for a limit on dietary fat intake. Norway and Sweden already did that, and now there's no butter on store shelves.

Yes, you might want to hike with high fat foods, instead of Little Debbie and Snickers unless you are within the minority who can deal with a high carb diet--I know can't (father and brother got T2D; father died at 64 from metabolic disease). You should think about it if you are overweight, or have T2D in your family. It's not mainly about weight loss, it's about health. But you will notice that you lean out rapidly on a LCHF diet.

[Zach ADK]

I eat mainly carbs during the day on 100 mile/day bicycle trips and when hiking and I find that it works quite well for me. I am just over 7 feet tall and 200 pounds and my concern when exercising constantly while on a trip is to not lose weight and go from looking bony to looking starved. It is interesting to me to hear different perspectives on what works for people.
Zach

[misprof]

Do what works for you. There have been several studies done that showed a high carb lunch actually makes workers lethargic and do poorer on thinking tests than those who ate a more protein based lunch. When I worked as a field hand I found I needed the protein for breakfast to keep me going until lunch, otherwise by 9am I was starving. But that is my metabolism.

[Mudsock]

"I am not familiar with the reasoning behind a low-carb diet when hiking."

I was happy to see the information in this thread. Everyone does not process carbohydrates as well as a totally healthy 20 year old hiker. In those 65 and older, 25.9% have diabetes. Medical professionals estimate that seven million people in the US have diabetes and don't know it. Type 1 diabetes occurs in young people - it is an auto-immune disease. They are insulin dependent.

Diabetes alters the body's ability to process carbs without unacceptably high glucose levels. (Blindness, amputations, heart disease, etc. are the long term downside.) Even with heavy exercise, diabetics have to be careful. Five years ago, I was able to eat a nice amount of carbs, do a vigorous half hour on the elliptical machine and see my glucose levels be cut in half. I could go from 260 to 130, for example. It is not like that today. My exercise intensity (judging by the magneto-resistance setting) is higher now, but I don't get the same drop in glucose levels. Type 2 diabetics still produce insulin. Adding drugs that cause additional insulin production is another way to drive glucose down. That has to be balanced with the amount of carbs consumed, or the glucose levels can get too low. Exercise (which lowers glucose) and insulin, or insulin production enhancing drugs in combination, can be especially troublesome. Extremely low glucose results in insulin shock. One episode which requires a visit to an emergency room will raise the potential for later dementia by as much as 50%.

Eating a limited carb diet with exercise allows many diabetics to stay in control only taking Metformin, the preferred drug that addresses the body's resistance to insulin. With that combination, glucose levels never get too low. The problem is that many diabetics won't exercise and many are overweight.

Even for a slender person, carbohydrates, insulin promoting drugs and exercise are a juggling act. It can be a roller coaster. Eat too many carbs and the glucose gets high, so you add drugs and exercise and the glucose may end up too low. That is more dangerous than being high. The worst case short term consequences can be coma or death, if not caught in time. So you have to quickly add carbs to recover. It used to be that I would eat pizza or Mexican food for dinner on occasion. High carb dinners produce glucose for hours as the body digests the food. I would exercise, take a drug and then have to stay up until midnight to make certain that my glucose did not do a nose dive while I slept. Sometimes I did another half hour and a few times even an additional hour on the elliptical at the end of the day to get back in control. It really isn't worth the twenty or thirty minutes of pleasure eating the tasty food.

Things are much more difficult for most diabetics. My semiannual doctor's appointment was today. For the past two years, my A1c has been 5.4. That is a good number for a non-diabetic. I have excellent control; my doctor says top 1%. A low carb diet and plenty of exercise are the keys.

Sugar is a bad thing for most of us. If I had limited my sugar earlier in life and had been exercising consistantly, it would have been beneficial. Sugar intake has recently been shown to be a factor in Altzheimer's, disease. That disease starts decades before there are symptoms in many cases.

Moderation.

Hikers who keep their weight down have a better chance at avoiding both Altzheimer's and diabetes.