Okay I am going to say a bit about how I eat on the trail.
First I have to clarify that I have a couple of peculiarities.
I was full grown before I felt what I now recognise as hunger pains. Might sound a bit far fetched but my mother used to complain that I had to be woken up to be fed. As a boy I would sometimes get up early on a Sunday and meet my mates and spend the day with them, hanging around while they had lunch and then go home and refuse to eat my dinner. I can assure you that I do now feel hunger, particularly a few weeks into a hike, but I rarely have an acute need to eat to satisfy my hunger. I tend more to recognise my need for food from a feeling of listlessness.
Now for my second peculiarity. I gag on many food types. I have a wide range of foods I won't eat. Eggs, most sea foods,creamy sauces and many other common foods can cause me to "chunder". Needles to say meat from cows do not fit this category, although I dislike rare meat.
So when hiking I find it simple to adopt a minimalist approach to food. I can quite literally hike for 24 hours without eating with no more than a noticeable drop in energy but not with any real discomfort.
As a result my basic diet on trail is ramen noodles or Mountain House type meals.
Due to expense I tend to carry only one or two dehydrated meals. I am fond of spaghetti bolognaise and usually have one packet of this at the bottom of my food bag. When calculating my food needs for a leg between resupplies I do not count this one packet. It is my "extra" for safety. It is also my meal for when even I am sick of the other options I have on hand.
With the ramen when in Australia, I also carry a dehydrated bag of mince and another of mixed vegetables. I also try to carry a bit of soy sauce. (I'm fond of soy sauce). When cooking the ramen I add some of the mince and vegetables (one bag of each lasts about 4 to 6 ramen meals) and a swig of soy to give some measure of taste to the mix.
But this is my staple carry for a succession of days for evening meals.
To supplement this I generally carry significant quantities of cashews (salted), sultanas (don't know why but ours are much nicer than yours), currants, M&M's and chocolate bars. These constitute my idea of GORP. I also carried numerous SlimJims in the USA. A knob of pepperoni here.
I like coffee but only with real milk, on the trail I carry chocolate (swiss miss) and cup of soup packets instead except for a bit of coffee for the periods I have milk.
I do NOT carry powdered or longlife milk. I will leave a resupply with a litre(quart) of real milk for use for the first day or so with coffee and my preferred breakfast - ordinary commercial brand muesli mix. Even in warm weather, my milk bottle wrapped in TP with water poured over it and carried in a plastic bag in my pack's side pocket keeps well enough to be good for 24-48 hours without going off.
Leaving town I will carry sausages (franks in the USA) and/or a variety of other meats (bacon, steak) to cook that night if I know I have access to a fire or grill.
I also carry several types of fruit. Mostly mandarins here but apples and oranges more in the USA as your clementines aren't as nice. Bananas are another favourite.
The look on the faces of ones fellow hikers when you pull two oranges out of your pack 3 days from town is worth the weight you carried.
I am also fond of bread products. Bread products I find give me a full feeling quicker than most other foods.
I do not do all of the above at every resupply. What I carry is based on what is available and my whim at the time I shop.
And of course, when in town I gorge on high protein meals.
So while my pack without food is probably down there in those low 20lb type figures that everyone gets so paranoid about, I rarely hike with less than 30lbs. I can quite often leave a town resupply with something approaching 40lbs. If I have an urge for fruit for example, I might have 7 or 8 lbs of it alone. When I have also been known to carry small frozen water bottles wrapped tightly with cola cans to have a cold coke at days end, my "what the hecks" in my pack can add up.
So there. That's what I do. I don't recommend it, but it works for me. I eat what I can get on the way. I don't spend endless hours dehydrating (although Annie is getting into that), I don't have resupply boxes with numerous vacuum sealed bags of strange powders that look like a drugbust display.
And yes, I welcome weight loss as a side benefit of a long hike.
First I have to clarify that I have a couple of peculiarities.
I was full grown before I felt what I now recognise as hunger pains. Might sound a bit far fetched but my mother used to complain that I had to be woken up to be fed. As a boy I would sometimes get up early on a Sunday and meet my mates and spend the day with them, hanging around while they had lunch and then go home and refuse to eat my dinner. I can assure you that I do now feel hunger, particularly a few weeks into a hike, but I rarely have an acute need to eat to satisfy my hunger. I tend more to recognise my need for food from a feeling of listlessness.
Now for my second peculiarity. I gag on many food types. I have a wide range of foods I won't eat. Eggs, most sea foods,creamy sauces and many other common foods can cause me to "chunder". Needles to say meat from cows do not fit this category, although I dislike rare meat.
So when hiking I find it simple to adopt a minimalist approach to food. I can quite literally hike for 24 hours without eating with no more than a noticeable drop in energy but not with any real discomfort.
As a result my basic diet on trail is ramen noodles or Mountain House type meals.
Due to expense I tend to carry only one or two dehydrated meals. I am fond of spaghetti bolognaise and usually have one packet of this at the bottom of my food bag. When calculating my food needs for a leg between resupplies I do not count this one packet. It is my "extra" for safety. It is also my meal for when even I am sick of the other options I have on hand.
With the ramen when in Australia, I also carry a dehydrated bag of mince and another of mixed vegetables. I also try to carry a bit of soy sauce. (I'm fond of soy sauce). When cooking the ramen I add some of the mince and vegetables (one bag of each lasts about 4 to 6 ramen meals) and a swig of soy to give some measure of taste to the mix.
But this is my staple carry for a succession of days for evening meals.
To supplement this I generally carry significant quantities of cashews (salted), sultanas (don't know why but ours are much nicer than yours), currants, M&M's and chocolate bars. These constitute my idea of GORP. I also carried numerous SlimJims in the USA. A knob of pepperoni here.
I like coffee but only with real milk, on the trail I carry chocolate (swiss miss) and cup of soup packets instead except for a bit of coffee for the periods I have milk.
I do NOT carry powdered or longlife milk. I will leave a resupply with a litre(quart) of real milk for use for the first day or so with coffee and my preferred breakfast - ordinary commercial brand muesli mix. Even in warm weather, my milk bottle wrapped in TP with water poured over it and carried in a plastic bag in my pack's side pocket keeps well enough to be good for 24-48 hours without going off.
Leaving town I will carry sausages (franks in the USA) and/or a variety of other meats (bacon, steak) to cook that night if I know I have access to a fire or grill.
I also carry several types of fruit. Mostly mandarins here but apples and oranges more in the USA as your clementines aren't as nice. Bananas are another favourite.
The look on the faces of ones fellow hikers when you pull two oranges out of your pack 3 days from town is worth the weight you carried.
I am also fond of bread products. Bread products I find give me a full feeling quicker than most other foods.
I do not do all of the above at every resupply. What I carry is based on what is available and my whim at the time I shop.
And of course, when in town I gorge on high protein meals.
So while my pack without food is probably down there in those low 20lb type figures that everyone gets so paranoid about, I rarely hike with less than 30lbs. I can quite often leave a town resupply with something approaching 40lbs. If I have an urge for fruit for example, I might have 7 or 8 lbs of it alone. When I have also been known to carry small frozen water bottles wrapped tightly with cola cans to have a cold coke at days end, my "what the hecks" in my pack can add up.
So there. That's what I do. I don't recommend it, but it works for me. I eat what I can get on the way. I don't spend endless hours dehydrating (although Annie is getting into that), I don't have resupply boxes with numerous vacuum sealed bags of strange powders that look like a drugbust display.
And yes, I welcome weight loss as a side benefit of a long hike.
Resident Australian, proving being a grumpy old man is not just an American trait.
