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  1. #21

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    More is considered. I choose low glycemic index sweeteners myself, although I am not a diabetic I learn a lot about food from others. I prefer Mahadavi light agave syrup, a low glycemic index sweetener if any.

    If I want something sweet, I think of fruit like dried mango, raisins, or dates and then only very little. I use very little jerky as well, because commercial jerky is far too salty.

    edit: The shelf-stable NoneSuch condensed mincemeat provides sweet taste.

    I like the bacon jerky I mentioned because so little is required for full flavor, same with Jack Links Sriracha beef jerky I also like in small amounts at a time. I especially like the flavor kick it gives other food. I recently found Sriracha packets at DutchWare Gear, and McCormicks brand has Sriracha that is easily brought backpacking.

    I did not intend the lists to be Top 10 what to carry in your backpack. My intention was only to draw attention to looking at food carried as Kcal/oz, protein/oz, and nutrition/oz in terms of weight and volume carried in the backpack. Aaron Owens is a registered dietition in profession and prepared for the PCT iand is hiking the PCT right now doing that, so I invited attention to her. How that goes for her is interesting to me. At one point, she posted her adapted recipe list, and I am eager to see the full recipes of what worked well for her thru hike.

    I posted the thread to draw attention to Aaron Owens effort, and to the Facebook group Backcountry Meal Planning for Thru Hikers.

    There is also Facebook Dehydrating Divas & Dudes, that answers a lot of questions to make your own backpacking convenient food supplies.

    Not everyone has town resupply near their hikes, and more than a few hikers like to stay out longer than a 3-day weekend or 4-5 days.
    Last edited by Connie; 04-12-2017 at 07:42.

  2. #22

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    Cooking with Herbs, Spices and Seasonings is another Facebook group I find helpful in my getting more nutrition into my backpacking food provisions. I thought I could cook before. I am learning so much more simple ingredients excellent food I can, myself, put together.

  3. #23

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    Pinterest has a category: Backpacking and Camping Food

  4. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by Connie View Post
    Thank you or all the links. I really like Aaron's food creativity and tasty sounding trail food.

  5. #25

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    What am I missing here?
    I didn't know what kcal's were, so i looked it up.
    It says: one kcal is equivalant to one calorie.
    Then it says: for example: 6kcals = 6 calories.
    Help?
    what is a kcal please?
    What's the difference between kcals and calories?
    Don't let your fears stand in the way of your dreams

  6. #26
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    1kcal = 1000cal
    Cal is an old unit that basically is defined by the amount of energy necessary to raise the temp of 1g water by 1°C. This always has been a rough definition only, and since the late 40ies the modern and precisely defined Joule is available, its usage mandatory since the late 90ies.

    Its just an old habit that everybody still uses cal or kcal resp. Cal usually is just a sloppy expression for kcal.

    Typical usage of humans is 2000kcal for a normal day, and up to 4000 for high performance activity.

  7. #27
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    Just a few more words on kcal's..... A food "calorie" (a kcal) is a lot of energy actually.... a single food calorie is equivalent to 3085 foot-pounds of energy. So, 100 food calories, a very light snack (one or two cookies) is enough energy, if converted to work, could raise a small car 100 feet in the air. Just sayin'.

    Imagine now how much physical work a big mac could do?

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    This information is fine for a short hike or a section hike but for a thru-hike its not worth the effort. My thru-hike philosophy is to eat well in town stops. Take a few fresh items for the first day after resupplying in town and take a lot of high calorie junk food. Little Debbie stuff is just loaded with calories. You just can't eat right to replenish the calories you burn hiking.
    Grampie-N->2001

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    So, when you'd need 2000kcal for the pure survival, and you'd consume 4000kcal, you had an excess of 2000kcal, which would enable you to lift10 small cars 100ft in the air (estimated efficiency of the human body 50%)?

  10. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by Leo L. View Post
    So, when you'd need 2000kcal for the pure survival, and you'd consume 4000kcal, you had an excess of 2000kcal, which would enable you to lift10 small cars 100ft in the air (estimated efficiency of the human body 50%)?
    Was that a question? I agree on the 50%, good first estimate for our body's efficiency.... but yeah, sounds right, my point is that there is a lot of equivalent work in a simple food calorie.

    Quote Originally Posted by Grampie View Post
    This information is fine for a short hike or a section hike but for a thru-hike its not worth the effort. My thru-hike philosophy is to eat well in town stops. Take a few fresh items for the first day after resupplying in town and take a lot of high calorie junk food. Little Debbie stuff is just loaded with calories. You just can't eat right to replenish the calories you burn hiking.
    That's my modus operandi as well, except not the little-debbie thing... I like candy bars and potato chips better, just personal preference. Junk calories work just fine on the trail, despite all the hype about "proper nutrition".

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    Here is what I do to assess calorie density and nutritional variety. Look at the product label to get serving size (in g), as well as g fat, g carb, and g protein per serving.

    Subtract g fat, g carb, g protein from serving size. This will tell you the grams of water per serving (not on the label). It is sometimes surprising to find how much water is actually in the food that you thought was dehydrated. I know there are other ingredients (fiber, salts, vitamins, minerals), but their effect on calorie density is minimal. WRT pack weight, also consider packaging mass.

    Usually you will find carbs and protein will predominate so I start at 4 cal/g. Any fat (at 9 cal/g) will increase calorie density. Water (at 0 cal/g) lowers it. I Also not all foods are metabolized the same, but again, for a quick estimate, this formula is convenient. Of course you can always just divide cal/serving by g/serving to get cal/g, but breaking down by nutrient helps me balance things.

    Agree with Dogwood about blending your own ingredients. My favorite trail food is simple: red lentils, basmati rice, olive oil, salt, curry powder, extra turmeric (for it's anti-inflammatory properties, but be prepared to have everything turn orange). Optional: supplement with dehydrated vegetables and/or dehydrated meat. Bring to boil, let set 15 min.

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    Quote Originally Posted by colorado_rob View Post
    Was that a question? I agree on the 50%, good first estimate for our body's efficiency.... but yeah, sounds right, my point is that there is a lot of equivalent work in a simple food calorie.

    ...
    I think in your calculation/estimation is a error by factor 1000.

    100kcal (thats 100 food calories) is 418Joule.
    To lift a small car 100feet up you need roughly 400,000Joule, or 400kJ.
    Anybody correct me if I'm wrong please.
    Last edited by Farr Away; 04-13-2017 at 12:38.

  13. #33
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    Quote Originally Posted by Leo L. View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by colorado_rob View Post
    Was that a question? I agree on the 50%, good first estimate for our body's efficiency.... but yeah, sounds right, my point is that there is a lot of equivalent work in a simple food calorie.

    ...
    I think in your calculation/estimation is a error by factor 1000.

    100kcal (thats 100 food calories) is 418Joule.
    To lift a small car 100feet up you need roughly 400,000Joule, or 400kJ.
    Anybody correct me if I'm wrong please.
    Nope, sorry, pretty sure I have it right. I never use Joules, ya know us silly americans, so I don't have a feel for those units.

    Anyway, here's a link:

    https://www.unitjuggler.com/convert-...l-to-ftlb.html

    Foot-pounds are easy and intuitive (again, to us Americans...), raise 1 pound 1 foot, and voila, one foot pound!

    And since 1 KCAL (1 food calorie) = 3088 foot-pounds (see link), 1 food calorie will raise a car 1 foot, hence 100 food calories (KCAL's) will raise said car 100 feet. It really is amazing how much energy a food calorie is.
    Last edited by Farr Away; 04-13-2017 at 12:39.

  14. #34

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    Thank you Connie for the links.

    Really enjoyed having you share Aaron's professional Nutritionist's trail food options.

    Food is more than calories. Energizing is more than calories. Well being is more than calories. This is clearly scientifically evident. It clearly is to those concerned about physical, emotional and mental well being and those excelling as athletes. If food is just calories we would observe more hikers carrying nothing but EVOO, ghee, coconut oil, or some form of just fat. Not pretty witnessing someone routinely vomit, get sick, have stomach pains, constant diarrhea, have low energy levels, and having various body injuries attempting to subsist on squeezable margarine resembling cottage cheese. All calories and all foods are not created equal which I thought Connie's posting of the graph was depicting. "We've all heard the term empty calories and junk foods. It refers to sources of foods/food like substances that bring no real nutrition to the table...Case in point? A can of soda and 4 oz skinned chicken breast have about the same number of calories but one is pure sugar and the other is loaded with protein. Invest in your calories wisely."

  15. #35
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dogwood View Post
    ... A can of soda and 4 oz skinned chicken breast have about the same number of calories but one is pure sugar and the other is loaded with protein. Invest in your calories wisely."
    Yeah, but the thing is you'd be better served saving that yummy chicken for the evening, and eating soft carbs (not soda though, the carbonation is weird during hiking) when hiking. Tons of articles out there basically saying protein is the least desireable energy source to eat DURING exercise, here's one after quick s

    http://www.virtualmedstudent.com/lin...ts_simple.html

    One excerpt:

    "The third and final fuel is protein. The body rarely burns protein as its sole fuel source, and when it does it is usually under conditions of starvation. Interestingly, when no carbohydrate is present in the diet, the body will use the amino acid backbones of protein to form glucose (a carbohydrate) in order to supply the brain with adequate energy.

    It was once thought that protein provided the energy that athletes used during exercise. This was the basis behind the “steak-and-eggs” breakfast prior to an athletic event. This has fallen out of favor as biochemists (and athletes) now realize that the body prefers to burn carbohydrates, then fat, and finally protein if all else fails. "

    My climbing mentor, who is also a professional nutritionist basically coaches his students to go ahead and eat soft/hard carbs (a nice mix) on the trail, saving most of your proteins and fats for dinner. One reason he claims to avoid protein as an immediate energy source is that it creates some formaldehyde-type by-products when burned, basically proteins burn "dirty". I cannot find anything to back that up online, but I take his word for it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by fiddlehead View Post
    What am I missing here?
    I didn't know what kcal's were, so i looked it up.
    It says: one kcal is equivalant to one calorie.
    Then it says: for example: 6kcals = 6 calories.
    Help?
    what is a kcal please?

    What's the difference between kcals and calories?
    Traditionally, a dietary Calorie (which is 1000 calories or 1 kcal) is capitalized and written with an uppercase C whereas a "regular" calorie is written with a lower case c. But as you can see from these posts (including mine ) people don't always follow that convention. You just have to figure it out from the context.

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    Quote Originally Posted by colorado_rob View Post
    Nope, sorry, pretty sure I have it right. I never use Joules, ya know us silly americans, so I don't have a feel for those units.

    Anyway, here's a link:

    https://www.unitjuggler.com/convert-...l-to-ftlb.html

    Foot-pounds are easy and intuitive (again, to us Americans...), raise 1 pound 1 foot, and voila, one foot pound!

    And since 1 KCAL (1 food calorie) = 3088 foot-pounds (see link), 1 food calorie will raise a car 1 foot, hence 100 food calories (KCAL's) will raise said car 100 feet. It really is amazing how much energy a food calorie is.
    US units suck. Here it is in proper units:

    The mass of a Honda Fit is about 1200 kg. Let's lift that a distance of 30 m. The acceleration of gravity is 9.80665 m/s^2. F=ma=11,778 N (i.e. kg-m/s^2). Work=Fd=353039 J (i.e. kg-m^2/s^2) = 353 kJ = 84.4 kcal.

    So to lift 10 cars you need 844 kcal. If you engine is only 50% efficient, you need to feed it twice that or 1688 kcal (or 1688 food Calories).

    Remind me. Why are we lifting cars?

  18. #38
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    Quote Originally Posted by Odd Man Out View Post
    US units suck. Here it is in proper units:

    The mass of a Honda Fit is about 1200 kg. Let's lift that a distance of 30 m. The acceleration of gravity is 9.80665 m/s^2. F=ma=11,778 N (i.e. kg-m/s^2). Work=Fd=353039 J (i.e. kg-m^2/s^2) = 353 kJ = 84.4 kcal.

    So to lift 10 cars you need 844 kcal. If you engine is only 50% efficient, you need to feed it twice that or 1688 kcal (or 1688 food Calories).

    Remind me. Why are we lifting cars?
    Agree on the US units sucking, but alas, we tried to change, too much weird resistance, so we're kinda stuck... thankfully I worked in metric units about half of my engineering career. I still think a "foot-pound" is awfully darn intuitive, no need for gravity or equations, etc.

    We're "lifting cars" just to make a point about the amazing amount of energy in a food calorie.

    But we're not lifting 10 cars, just one, so your result for one car is 168 calories, but it's a lighter car (1200 KG = about 2500 pounds, my example was 3088 pounds). And I agree on the 50% efficiency, so basically, thanks, you confirmed my 200 calories (at 50%) to lift one single 3088 pound car 100 feet. I Was beginning to doubt myself after Leo's post, but he got his KCAL to Joule thing way off (1 KCAL = 4187 joules); his conversion was off by 1000 (he quoted 100 Kcal per 418 joules).

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    Sorry, I was wrong with factor 1000.

    Now we just have to invent a carlift where you can stick in a snickers bar and it will lift the car for changing the tires.

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    ...and the most calorie rich nuts are:
    Macadamia, 204/oz. followed very closely by dry roasted pecans, 201/oz.
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