Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Backpacking Food

Howdy folks, I figured you would all know best... my wife and I are picking up backpacking after years of neglect... and looking at all the various brands at the mountaineering stores or REI etc... can be quite confusing... any recommendations on brands to select or brands to avoid?

all input welcome...

thanks

bobj

I've recently started getting Alpine Aire brand dehydrated stuff - they seem to have more flavor than some of the other brands, and I haven't had one yet I don't like. Packit Gourmet is also really good (online orders only to my knowledge) too. They have 'real' dehydrated foods without as many preservatives/chemicals in them.

I've come to detest most of the prepackaged freeze dried meals. I now take simple ingredients, some of which are freeze dried, and then add salt and seasonings to taste. I have found most of the prepacked stuff way to salty for my tastes or overly seasoned. Simple chicken soup and Top Ramen taste real good for dinner and scrambled eggs (crystalized version) for breakfast. Jerky and dried fruit for lunch. I also take powered milk and powedered gatorade. Works for me. There was a pretty good thread last year or the year before on all sorts of foods including Nuttello (my kids love it, but its not for me on the trail). Go with variety. What I like at lower altitudes bares little relationship to what I like above 12,000 feet. Experimenting is fun and reading about what others have tried has been pretty interesting. Good luck on your quest for a better meal.

I agree with JimC. Making your own food up vs packaged is the best. Backpacker magazine recently had recipes for making trail bars which were excellent. That magazine has many, many creative items for the making. Good luck.

I'm sort of partial to MaryJanes Farm Organics. They taste OK (none of them match Doug's fare), don't list any junk in the ingredients, and are way less salty than most others. They're sort of weird in that a package is supposed to serve 3. Maybe three chipmunks, not 3 healthy campers. They're the usual open the package, remove the anti-oxidant, add boiling water, and let sit. REI carries the line.

I also like MaryJane's...especially the three cheese macaroni. And she has single (well 1 1/2) serving bags.

Ditto on Mary Janes and Packit Gourmet!

Also: salmon, tuna, or chicken in foil packets (sold at Target, other big box stores, as well as at supermarkets); salami; Baby Bell cheese; tortillas; soup mixes (E.g., Trader Joe or Kikkoman miso soup mix); powdered hot chocolate or hot cider; instant oatmeal; couscous; instant polenta...

My dinner favorite (for flavor and calories) is HOT Top Ramen with whole cashews added. Coffee and breakfast bar (or two) in the morning. Anything I want during the day (extra sharp cheddar, mini tootsie rolls, nuts, dried fruit, bagels, beef jerky, and whatever else looks good at the grocery store).

I found the Mountain House "Chicken Fajita" to be a meal that I can eat anytime, it only needs a tortilla . Also the Chicken Salad is not bad at all, easy to fix for lunch or cold extra.
My Favorite drink by far is orange Gatorade with vanilla pudding mixed in, tastes just like a fifty -fifty bar.
I also take pork rinds, light weight and high in calories.
Dried Tart Cherries, help take the burn out of your legs at the end of the day.
I've made many meals from Lip-smacking Backpack in, and A fork in the Trail, you really need to look for something that you may like, but both books are good.

How do you spell flavor? F-A-T. It also the most weight efficient energy. 9 c/gm as compared with 5 c/gm for carbs and protein. I have found high energy and flavor in several interesting forms: powdered butter, vacuum packed bacon, pemmican, coconut oil, ghee, whole dried milk, yogurt powder, buttermilk powder, cheese powder, olive oil, mac nuts, pesto. I carry at least 30% of my trail calories, sometimes 40%, as fat. It cuts down on pack weight and adds flavor to whatever else I may be packing. I find I need less protein to make meals interesting, and can fill out most of the remaining calories with carbs without dying of boredom or bankruptcy at meal time. Favorite proteins are jerked chicken and fish, hard salami, country cured ham, dried salad shrimp, all extremely flavorful and keep fine at ambient temp.

this does not answer your question about dehydrated foods, but:

Most expeditions have some story about their food and attitudes to it vary from the haute cuisine of some French expeditions to the blunt assertion of Tilman, the famous eccentric and explorer, that he did not mind as long as there was some.

Joe Tasker, Everest the Cruel Way page 158

I believe John Muir used to toss some dry biscuits into the pocket of his overcoat and head out for a few days in the mountains. But then, I'm not John Muir.

For mainstream dehydrated I detest Backpackers Pantry, I like Mountain House (not so much for their breakfasts).

One meal that has become one of my favorites is Back-country BRC Burritos.
-Reconstituted re-fried beans(they taste the same and are a great source of protein).
-Pack in some tortillas (heavier but calorie dense)
-Quick Rice (this is ooptional for me)
-And the coup de grace are Babybel Cheeses, they are legitimate soft cheeses and they come wax-wrapped and aside from being crushed they will keep for WEEKS.
-Sometimes incorporate cooked summer-sausage or hard salami.
-After you add some hot-sauce (you can get foil-pouches of almost anything online) you have some amazing grub.

The best advice I can offer is to invest in some powdered Gatorade, that was many days the treat that I needed to look forward to.

I also completed the JMT 2 years ago in 18 days total with 15 days actual hiking, I am 6'6" and was around 267 while on trail. I budgeted about 3200 calories per day (way too little, I stepped off the trail weighing about 240).

The one thing that gave me energy to keep going was bringing powdered protein mixed with instant oatmeal I did one shake when I woke up and one before sleeping. I would slug it down cold, lumpy, and gross, but a bodybuilder friend of mine told me that both whey protein and oatmeal have particular carbs and proteins that the other doesn't have so it served as a full-supplement spectrum of carbo-protein. Having one at night would help my muscles repair the damage done that day and the one in the morning would be quick and easy to digest and prime me for the day.

It worked very well, most days I had a lot of energy even though I felt hungry most of the time.

I hope this helps.

Saltydog is correct. I know Calico loads up on candy and olive oil packets which he incorporates liberally into every meal to add an extra layer of caloric intake.

I agree on Mountain House being among the best of the commercial freeze-dried meals. I just had their chicken salad in one of our trail lunches recently and it was surprisingly good. The pasta dishes all taste the same to me so whether it is labeled spaghetti, lasagna or whatever, it's all the same.

I tend to pack a mix of my own stuff (tuna foil packs, sharp cheddar, peanut butter, etc.) and an occasional freeze-dried pre-packed meal for quick fixins at dinnertime. The small cans of chicken supplement Ramen noodles for a good dinner, too. For the peanut butter, take some tortillas instead of bread or crackers. They survive packing a lot better.

Breakfasts and lunches are generally no-cook to save time. I do have a mini (3-cup, really 1-1/2 cup) percolator that I carry so I can make real coffee in the a.m. and use the same pot, sans the percolator "guts" to heat water for dinner. Having "real" coffee in the a.m. is one of my little luxuries and worth it! The little percolator will make my a.m. coffee in 6 or 7 minutes on my MSR "Pocket Rocket" gas stove, so it's not a big time-sink, either.

I don't have much experience with commercial freeze dried food because I was fortunate enough to start backpacking with people who enjoyed cooking. I discovered cooking your own backpacking meals wasn't that difficult. After a hard day on the trail, putting dinner together became something that everybody looked forward to. Eating dinner should be a very enjoyable part of your backpacking experience.

A few useful tips:

1. Self-prepared meals doesn't have to be exotic to be good.
2. Try cooking a meal or two at home using your camp stove and utensils.
3. Couscous is ridiculously fast and easy to cook.
4. Anything with garlic in it tends to taste good at high altitude. We love using garlic mashed potatoes as a carbo base, then adding a pouch of chicken breast and some dehydrated veggies. Add some gravy mix or stuffing and you have Thanksgiving in bowl.
5. Health food stores like TraderJoe’s has all sorts of dried fruits, veggies and sauces that can liven up a meal.

I hope you enjoy getting back into the mountains. Be sure to eat well and enjoy yourself.