Special Diet (Gluten Free & Dairy Free)

[oddbird]

Thanks for the clarification John. Sorry about the lingo AG, and as John said, you have to test down to that level. There are now test kits you can use at home, but they are expensive. There are a couple of places you can send food for testing, but as John said, I don't always trust a food company doing their own testing. I am lucky in that my wife can test to that level. Thanks for the suggestion about coconut cream. Coconut is one of my favorite sources of fat.

[oddbird]

Tanka bars are gluten and dairy free, tested to 10 ppm. They are having a sale and Mark's Daily Apple has a coupon code on the regular priced products too.

http://www.tankabar.com/cgi-bin/nanf...800998ecf8427e

-Mrs. Oddbird

[glaux]

I like Lara Bars a lot, especially since the ingredient list is simple and doesn't include any mystery additives. I prefer to just buy them, but I know a lot of people make their own (if it's just dates and cashews, it's not hard to replicate in your kitchen). You can google for recipes.

I'm intolerant of dairy and gluten, too.

[oddbird]

The way I figure it, 120 days of hiking with an average of 4000 calories a day is 480,000 calories.

Fat has 9 calories in a gram so that's where to start. Here's the list of foods with the majority of calories from fat in Oddbird's mail drops:

Ghee (this is clarified, ie casein-free butter)
http://www.pureindianfoods.com to cook with, stir into coffee, spread onto hard tack, mix into dried sweet potatoes

Beef tallow - used in pemmican, more on that later
http://www.grasslandbeef.com/Categor...Broth+Products

Coconut
http://www.tropicaltraditions.com coconut shreds
http://www.artisanafoods.com/ stirred into coffee

http://www.greenpasture.org/public/P...Ghee/index.cfm a blend of coconut oil and ghee, made macaroons with this

http://edwardandsons.com/ldo_info.itml Let's do Brand - flakes, coconut cream bars The flakes are in trail mix mostly; he's eating the bars straight as suggested by Astrogirl.

Chocolate
87% dark chocolate (no casein)
http://shop.dagobachocolate.com/Ecli...Chocolate@Bars

100% dark chocolate
http://shop.dagobachocolate.com/Unsw...ocolate@Baking
Melted, with nut butter and/or coconut shreds to make his own chocolate bars.


Cocoa butter
http://worldwidechocolate.com/shop_c...r_praline.html
added to the home made chocolate bars for more calories

-Mrs. Oddbird

[oddbird]

Protein
These foods have more grams of protein per serving than anything else.

Biltong (South African beef jerky)
http://www.southafricanfood.us/produ...-boerie-winkel

Bacon bits
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product...63*&lang=en-US

jerky
bars
http://www.tankabar.com/cgi-bin/nanf/public/main.cvw
http://www.vtsmokeandcure.com/

homemade
There’s also some smoked sablefish jerky, some jerky from beef heart, chicken hearts, and a little lamb jerky

Canned fish in olive oil, mostly Crown prince and Seasons brand

Country ham and smoked bacon
http://bentonscountryhams2.com/


Homemade Pemmican, more on that later

[oddbird]

Pemmican

This is the recipe we’re using

1. www.traditionaltx.us/images/PEMMICAN.pdfSimilar

We made some of the jerky but are mostly using biltong.
We rendered some of the tallow but are mostly using US Wellness
We’ve made some of the pemmican in muffin tins, but mostly have used silicone molds to make “bricks” weighing about 5 ounces. They have about 600 calories apiece.

It is easy to make, but the drier the jerky or biltong, the better. The biltong supplier allows you to specify if you want lean and dry (perfect for pemmican) or fat and moist (great for snacks). I’ve seen a book on making your own biltong on Amazon.

The hard part is how to eat it; how to make it palatable. So far, the best dish involves gluten free rice pasta, dehydrated pasta sauce (Enrico’s is GF), and then stir in a brick of pemmican. Another option is to stir it into buckwheat noodles with dried kale, or into dried sweet potatoes, particularly the Japanese sweet potatoes.

[oddbird]

more on pemmican

Black sesame seeds and soy sauce are a nice addition to the buckwheat noodles/kale

Pemmican variations:
Beef fat and bacon bits
Coconut oil/cream and biltong - be careful melting the coconut - this is best with the smallest silicone molds because more likely to eat as a snack rather than heated at a meal.

if you can't get tallow and need to render your own, there are several options. The crockpot method seems the best for low stress and large batches. http://paleodietlifestyle.com/rendering-fat/



A traditional variation is to add dried berries. We’ve not done this yet.

[sbhikes]

I ordered some of those US Wellness Beef pemmican bars. I realize they aren't shelf-stable, but I can use them for section hikes. Any experience with them? I'm now afraid that I won't like them. It seems people either love them or hate them.

[Sidewinder]

Gluten Free snack bars
Bumble Bars
Pure Organic bars
Think Thin bars, but not all flavors
Zing bars
Kind bars
some Tiger Milk bars

so far I've had no problems with any of these, good tasting too

[oddbird]

sbhikes, I tried them, but it has been a while. I don't think I was crazy about them, but then again, I make my own. We buy beef tallow from them, and mix it with biltong. Biltong is dried beef from South Africa. I like the biltong because it tastes better than traditional jerky, and has fewer ingredients. I am beginning my thru hike this weekend, and pemmican will be a staple. I will mix it with pasta, ramen, and sweet potatoes.

[sbhikes]

sbhikes, I tried them, but it has been a while. I don't think I was crazy about them, but then again, I make my own. We buy beef tallow from them, and mix it with biltong. Biltong is dried beef from South Africa. I like the biltong because it tastes better than traditional jerky, and has fewer ingredients. I am beginning my thru hike this weekend, and pemmican will be a staple. I will mix it with pasta, ramen, and sweet potatoes.

I looked at making my own with that PDF from Lex Rooker. However the equipment needed was daunting, especially equipment to grind up the dried meat. The US Wellness Pemmican arrived yesterday. I tried it this morning and fortunately I think it's quite good. I got the plain salted kind, figuring I can doctor it up in various ways. If I go backpacking this weekend, I will be bringing it with me. My food bag will be so light. I can probably eat just two or three bars per day.

Do you purchase the biltong or do you make it? Are you able to grind it okay? I do not have any kitchen equipment capable of such a thing and I find it hard to believe some ordinary gadget available in a regular store could handle the job. In the future I might be willing to make my own if I can avoid actually making the jerky and if grinding the jerky can be done easily. Rendering the fat (or finishing rendering it as I've heard the US Wellness tallow still contains moisture) doesn't look like it would be a huge problem.

[oddbird]

We bought biltong and ground it with a Kitchen Aid. This was pretty rough on it but I was making quite a lot of pemmican. I ended up changing over to a MagiMix brand food processor $250 on sale. They also sell grated biltong but it is very pricey; made the MagiMix look cheap.

We made some home made jerky, got it really dry and it ground very well in the KitchenAid. To make all the jerky we needed, I should have started months and months ago.

What do you suppose the calorie count is on 3 bars from US Wellness? One way he's doctored is with rosemary - very nice flavor!

I did notice the US Wellness being damp on top for one tub; I used a paper towel to dry it off and was careful to let it render fully. It did not take long.

-Mrs. Oddbird

[sbhikes]

I suppose maybe I was a little generous in my estimate. I would probably need 3-4 bars to get through the day. They are about 400 calories a bar. For dinner I could probably make a coconut curry with one of the bars and add wild, foraged greens and rice noodles. I usually am not very hungry on short backpack trips. Rosemary sounds like it would go great with the pemmican.

[Prada]

A year ago, doctor recommended that I remove two things from my diet--due to suspected sensitivities to those items: gluten (which would include wheat, rye, barley, oats) and milk products (including casein and whey).

I was just getting ready to pack my food and noticed that one of my favorite energy snacks, GU Chomps, says on the package it is Dairy and Gluten FREE!!! Might be something good to try. I get the boxes on Amazon. Best prices I've found.

Each individual snack packet is 2.1oz and contains 2 servings, 90 cal per serving. (blueberry pomegranate rocks!) They're kind of like gummy candy but not so tough. They also have amino acids, vit C + E, and electrolytes. I use them when mountain biking also. Love the portability.

[oddbird]

I went back thru the foods and tried to get the items with the highest # of calories per ounce. Anything close to 100 calories per ounce is great. bacon bits do really well.

[oddbird]

Finally getting back to finishing up these notes on how to thru-hike gluten and casein free.

I've already posted notes about fats and protein sources. The rest of the nearly half a million calories will come from carbohydrates (ie sugar) both complex and simple.

Dried sweet potatoes and Japanese sweet potatoes (peel, chop, boil in salted water, mash and dehydrate)
Buckwheat noodles and ramen King Soba brand (Eden brand is also GF but made in a shared facility)
Rice pasta - Tinkyada brown rice GF noodles
Cornmeal or grits - Kinnikinnick brand is certified


Gluten free hardtack - more on this later


Sweets
King Leo peppermints - GF!
Altoid mints
Prince of Peace ginger candies
jennies macaroons
danielle roasted coconut chips
home made coconut chips (Let's Do brand, soaked in sugar water over night and then dried. Much cheaper than Danielle brand)

Epic xylitol mints (these are not caloric; but the xylitol is good for your teeth)


Variety
still working on this!
Dried green beans
plan to try drying some chard

drinks:
rum

starbucks via french roast
Tazo green tip tea

[jeffmeh]

sbhikes, your name is coming up frequently searching for methods to do primal or paleo on a long thru-hike. The BPL thread is pretty interesting. It looks possible, but logistically challenging, lol. Home-made pemmican seems like a necessary staple. My kid is on the AT now, I would love to do it after he and his sister are out of college, so unfortunately I have lots of time to figure this out.

[oddbird]

finally, the hardtack notes

various blends of GF flours, mostly non-grains. You can experiment to your hearts content.

1c oat flour (certified GF)
½ c tapioca flour
¼ rice flour
2t salt
5/8 cup water

Approx 700 calories


1 c chufa aka tigernuts
½ c tapioca flour
¼ c rice flour
2t salt
½ c water plus 1 Tablespoon


Nutrition info from LaTienda: (cheaper to buy tigernuts from Cabellas or Bass Pro shops)
Serving size 1oz (28g). Servings per container 3. Calories 120. Calories from fat 60. Total fat 7g 11%, Saturated fat 1g (5%), Monounsaturated fat 5g , Sodium 10 mg (1%), Cholesterol 0mg (0%), Potassium 170mg (5%), Total carbohydrates 16g (5%), Dietary fiber 3g (12%), Sugars 4g, Protein 3g. Vitamin A 0%, Vitamin C 15%, Calcium 0%, Iron 0%, Phosphorus 8%. * Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.


1c chuno flour (Peruvian Dried potato)
1t salt
¾ cup water



Mostly, I mixed these with as little water as possible, rolled them out on a silicone sheet with a 2nd sheet on top (the sheets used in the dehydrator)
and baked at 350 for at least 30 minutes. It definitely varied, but don't let them get too brow or it all starts to taste scorched. Then I turn the oven off and let them in the oven overnight.

I still have a few flours left to try - teff and sorghum.

[Hitchin' Post]

I'll throw in a plug for Mary Jane's Outpost. I think you'll find some organic, gluten- and dairy-free dinners there.
http://www.backcountryfood.org/shop/default.asp

[TD55]

Discover Buckwheat. It is deliiiisious.