Pre-Hike Dehydrating and Vacuum Sealing Food

[JHG008]

I am beginning to prepare my food for a Nobo thru hike beginning March 30 2013. What do you think is the best option for food? Picking it up along the way at stores or preparing it before you leave and have someone mail it ahead me? I think it would be a fun experience to dehydrate and vacuum seal my food but is this a reasonable approach? I also want to take cheapest route without eating ramen noodles everyday. Any advice is appreciated!

[TroutknuT]

Your food intake may grow as you move up the trail. Home cooking will help control the quality and the verriaty of meals. Your taste may change and if you must get off the trail you will have some camp food left over. Mail drops locked me into someone's time frame (post office closed till Mon...holiday or did not want to leave the trail at said mail drop town) Postage just adds to the cost of food. Plan a few drops, the AT is never far from a resupply and as your needs change so will your food choices. I love mail drop food from home on a two to four week hike but any longer and to much will have changed.

[Drybones]

I started with dehydrated food from home but would not recommend planning to use it for too long, you do start wanting other stuff. Pinnaple. hamburger, canned salmon work well dehydrated.

[FarmerChef]

One compromise is to create base meals to which you can add store bought food along the way. For instance, you could prepackage macaroni and cheese and wait until you're on the trail to add hamburger, spam, ham, sausage, tuna, etc. One thing to keep in mind is that getting vegetables in your diet outside of a town stop is hard without dehydration. So it's another thing you could add to your pantry to mix into your Knorr or Lipton sides.

On my sections, I prepackage almost everything but even then I still find myself craving a particular item. So I leave room to improvise based on our town resupply schedule. For instance, after a few days I can't stand tortillas/bagel thins and peanut butter. The tortillas and bagels are fine but for some reason the peanut butter just doesn't work for me anymore. So I plan to stop off and buy some tuna and cheese or something else I can stuff in the tortilla. This approach might leave you with less wasted food in your box after you get tired of certain combinations.