WhiteBlaze Pages 2024
A Complete Appalachian Trail Guidebook.
AVAILABLE NOW. $4 for interactive PDF(smartphone version)
Read more here WhiteBlaze Pages Store

Results 1 to 12 of 12
  1. #1
    Registered User
    Join Date
    02-28-2016
    Location
    Princeton, NJ
    Age
    30
    Posts
    2

    Default Thru-Hike Food Questions

    I am trying to learn as much as I can before beginning to plan for a thru-huke next year.

    What is the average amount of days between resupply?

    And how do you deal with the trade off of light-weigh /calorie-high food vs more nutritious food and a bit more variety in my diet?

    Any suggestions for staple foods?

  2. #2
    Hiker bigcranky's Avatar
    Join Date
    10-22-2002
    Location
    Winston-Salem, NC
    Age
    61
    Posts
    7,937
    Images
    296

    Default

    4 or 5 days between resupply seems pretty common.

    You can resupply in decent grocery stores most of the time, so variety and quality usually isn't a problem. (When you get stuck resupplying in a gas station, it's a little more difficult )

    We eat okay on the trail, though not as well as real life. Lots of nuts and dried fruit, bars, oatmeal (with nuts and dried fruit, natch), pasta and sauce dinners with dried tomatoes or bags of chicken, plenty of tortillas filled with various things -- tuna, nutella, powdered refried beans, cheese, whatever. Heck, I even eat Pop-Tarts on the trail, in moderation.
    Ken B
    'Big Cranky'
    Our Long Trail journal

  3. #3

    Default

    3 to 5 days depending on how far you walk every day and how often you want to stop for food. I don't like to carry more then 5 days worth of food but sometimes you have to.

    Eat a lot in town to make up for what you lack on the trail.

    Assuming your buying along the way and not making dried stuff at home to send to yourself,

    Honey Buns, Poptarts, oatmeal, grits, breakfast bars, etc.
    Peanut butter, jelly, Bagels, Nutella, GROP (trail mix), Cheese, pepperoni, candy bars, power bars, etc.
    Knorr sides + tuna packet, Instant Mashed potatoes + spam, Rama noodles, Dried Tortellini and my new favorite, Spam burger (Fried Spam on a bagel or English muffin with cheese and Ketchup).

    Or what ever else you like to eat and have the inclination, means and time to prepare.
    Follow slogoen on Instagram.

  4. #4

    Default

    I think you will develop a changing food supply throughout your hike. I have heard people eat lots of food when ion town and "trail food" the rest of the time. The best way to find new trail meals is to watch and talk to other hikers. Some staples you may want to play with which only require boiling water to make are ramen noodles, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, stove top stuffing, etc. I bring a small bottle of olive oil with me to use in the place of butter. You can add to these meals by using dry salami, cheddar cheese, spam, etc. If you want to do more "cooking" there are a lot of other meals you can toy with such as Knorr pasta sides, spaghetti with sauce you can rehydrate, among others. I think you have to calculate 4-5 days between resupply on average. Make use of tortillas with various toppings for quick lunches. Fill in your snacks with peanut butter and cheese crackers, candy, fig newtons, etc. The great thing is you are burning so many calories, you can eat what you want. I try to average 100+ calories per ounce of food that I carry.
    Whether you think you can, or think you can't--you're right--Henry Ford; The Journey Is The Destination

  5. #5
    Registered User
    Join Date
    02-28-2016
    Location
    Princeton, NJ
    Age
    30
    Posts
    2

    Default

    The 100 calories per ounce is some very useful info. Thanks.

    If I am 5'11 and 190 pounds whats a good estimate for calories per day? So far my research says about 4,000 a day. I guess I won't know till I do some test hikes.

  6. #6

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Limp Antelope View Post
    The 100 calories per ounce is some very useful info. Thanks.

    If I am 5'11 and 190 pounds whats a good estimate for calories per day? So far my research says about 4,000 a day. I guess I won't know till I do some test hikes.
    Just eat as much as you can, when ever you can if you make it to Maine you'll still be a stick figure when you get there. It takes a week or two to burn off enough winter fat to start getting a real appetite, so you can't base it on short hikes.
    Follow slogoen on Instagram.

  7. #7

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Limp Antelope View Post
    ...And how do you deal with the trade off of light-weigh /calorie-high food vs more nutritious food and a bit more variety in my diet?

    Any suggestions for staple foods?
    If you are referring to trade offs being defined as you can't have light wt/high cal/oz nutritious tasty meals with infinite variety with certainty I know that does not have to be the case. Over and over again through proven experiences of others and myself I KNOW trail food can be healthy, packed with nutritional density - MUCH beyond just calories!, be delicious, offer great variety, be of reasonable bulk, and adequately address specific dietary desires. Best of all it does not have to be unduly expensive or trail inconvenient.

    Through countless observations and inquiries virtually all hikers who eat highly processed highly packaged nutritionally questionable trail food do so largely out of convenience and ignorance adhering to unhealthy western diet norms as they do off trail or haven't bothered investing the effort to learn what's available in mainstream grocery stores that can be applied to the trail.

    One of the greatest nutritional fallacies in some backpacking communities that attempts to excuse this behavior is the idea that because a LD hiker is desiring/requiring substantial daily caloric intake it is AOK and even promoted that nearly anything with calories even some of the crappiest most nutritionally lacking highly processed food is fine. This mistaken notion ignores a LD hiker's performance NEEDS more than ever to optimize good trail nutrition coming from a wider nutritional perspective than just calories. Succumbing to a trail diet of what amounts to nutritionally dismal junk food and crappy highly processed sugar laden fiber poor nutritionally dismal highly processed food like products of the modern economy food system comes with consequences both on and once off trail.

    It is quite reasonable to obtain 4000 calories, sufficient vitamins, fiber, enzymes, phytonutrients, electrolytes, adequate amounts of good fats, sufficient protein, a few fresh vegetables, etc in 2 lbs of trail food per day that is NOT loaded down with bad fats, highly processed nutritionally dismal sugar, other pro inflammatory ingredients, lack of fiber, crap additives, etc at a reasonable cost buying at larger mainstream grocery stores in the U.S.

    I've extensively posted here on WB many lists of trail staples in umpteen threads.

  8. #8
    Registered User
    Join Date
    10-08-2015
    Location
    Chester, NJ
    Age
    67
    Posts
    36

    Default

    I think food concerns come right after pack, shoes and socks!

    To echo what has already been said here:
    - look for food that delivers 100 calories per once. More is better, less no so good. Foods that have a higher content will typically push beyond the 100 calories per once ratio.
    - 4000 calories a day at a minimum.
    - plan on approximately two pounds of food per day. I've seen some really great posts on this, breaking down by weight of packaging but general rule of thumb is 2 pounds per day.
    - To begin 4 or 5 days between resupply is good. As you get stronger, you could possibly increase that but remembering the two pounds per day rule, you end up carrying significantly more weight.

    Here's a picture of a resupply plan I worked out (keep clicking)
    Resupply 1.JPG

    The basis of this plan was a post on found on wanderingthewild.com I liked to idea of staying as close to the trail as possible. I'm happy to send along the full spreadsheet that has mailing addresses (verified via awol guide) and the ability to recalculate days and mileage between resupply points. In addition, I have another little spreadsheet that could help with food planning. Weight of food, calories delivered, etc. If interested drop me a line.

    Safe and happy hiking!

  9. #9
    Registered User
    Join Date
    04-17-2007
    Location
    Colorado
    Age
    47
    Posts
    299
    Journal Entries
    12

    Default

    I planned out and balanced my food and had it maildropped for me for the first half of the trail. The second half of the trail i ditched the eating plan and ate whatever I could whenever I could. Dollar store fats, carbs and sugar in the form of chocolate, peanuts and caramel became a staple for the last half of the trail. I finished with no issues. I have no health issues as a result. I did have a daily multivitamin for the 4 months on the trail. when in town I did eat fresh made subs and pizza and burgers and beer.

  10. #10
    Registered User
    Join Date
    03-10-2015
    Location
    Denver, CO
    Age
    40
    Posts
    23

    Default

    For staple foods, I'd suggest a package of bagels, two blocks of sharp cheddar cheese, and one or two pre-cooked chicken sausage packages. These things will all last four or five days with no refrigeration, and it's a balance of carbs, protein, and fat. You can also use peanut butter and honey on a bagel. The best part for me was that there was no cooking involved, and it limited my sugar intake.

    Sunflower or olive oil tuna packets with goldfish thrown in are great.

  11. #11
    Registered User
    Join Date
    10-08-2015
    Location
    Chester, NJ
    Age
    67
    Posts
    36

    Default

    For my preparation to get an idea about food needs, I built a small spreadsheet that allowed me to estimate weight of various foods, caloric values of those foods and fat content. Below is a snapshot of the spreadsheet. It's very simple but if anyone is interested, I'm happy to send you the spreadsheet. PM me. What's displayed show what you might carry for a four day stretch. The calories are a bit low, but you can see, doubling up on Snickers or Pop Tarts would put you right around 4k calories per day.
    Calories v Weight.JPG

  12. #12
    Registered User
    Join Date
    06-10-2005
    Location
    Bedford, MA
    Posts
    12,678

    Default

    Good info here. One trick you learn early on is to grab some "town food" and maybe some fresh fruits or veggies for the first night or two after leaving a town stop. There's a temptation to load up on cheeseburgers, fries and pizza in town, and lord knows I've given in to that many times -- but it's not a bad idea to eat a salad, green veggies or something healthy from time to time.

    Unless you start out incredibly fit and lean, you will almost certainly lose weight. For most of us that's a good thing, but after a a thousand miles or more of AT, it turns into a real struggle to get enough calories to keep going. I've seen a lot of gaunt, malnourished thru hikers in New Hampshire and Maine.

++ New Posts ++

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •