Collins Complete Hiking and Camping Manual: The essential guide to comfortable walking, cooking and sleeping. Rick Curtis
alt="images"/>
TRICKS OF THE TRAIL
Freeze-dried foods Cooked or fresh food is frozen and then the water is allowed to sublimate off. This removes about 99 percent of the water and leaves most of the nutritional value.
Dehydrated foods Dehydration is a process using heat to evaporate water slowly. About 90 percent of the water is removed during the dehydration process. Some nutrients are also lost. Dehydrated foods can take longer to cook, which adds weight back into your pack in terms of extra stove fuel.
Both freeze-dried and dehydrated foods save on weight but require significant amounts of water to rehydrate. In situations where water is limited, these foods may be a problem. Whenever you are thinking of packing prepared freeze-dried or dehydrated foods, try them out at home first. You want to know that you will like the taste and know how much it actually makes. It may say it feeds four, but after a long day of hiking, it might only feed three.
Plan your meals to use the heaviest items first and then move to lighter-weight items at the end. This way you will quickly reduce the amount of weight you will be carrying.
You can feed yourself pretty cheaply on the trail. Dried and freeze-dried foods are lightweight, but you pay more for someone to do the processing. If you have the time, you can dehydrate foods yourself with a food drier.
This is important in terms of weight and minimal impact. (See “Leave No Trace Hiking and Camping.”) Glass, cans, and foils should be avoided as much as possible since they add weight and must be packed out. Glass containers are obviously unwise to carry in a backpack, unless, for example, you want to scrape the honey off the inside of your pack. A simple way to repackage any food is to use sealable plastic bags such as Ziploc or plastic bags tied with loose knots at the top. Double-bagging is important with powders and grains to prevent leakage if one bag tears. Spices often can be purchased in small plastic containers. Whenever possible, bag all the contents of a meal together and label it “Lunch Day 2,” “Dinner Day 3,” etc. Another approach is to put food items in separate stuff sacks—breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Leave No Trace camping begins at the store. The idea is to be environmentally conscious when buying items by evaluating the packaging of different foods and brands.
Reduce the amount of packaging you buy by buying in bulk. Choose items that are bulk packaged rather than individually wrapped. Many local supermarkets and health food stores sell items in bulk, which you can repack on your own. This can also reduce your costs.
Recycle all cardboard, glass, and other original packaging when you repack your food. Look for food brands with recyclable packaging.
Reuse After a trip, plastic bags that have no holes can be washed out and reused. Other containers are reusable, too (e.g., a plastic peanut butter jar). Tupperware or other plastic containers can be reused.
On longer trips, and even short trips in hot weather, it is usually not possible to carry fresh foods or meats for very long because of spoilage. Here are some guidelines for how long different foods will keep:
Fruits and Vegetables
Fruits stay fresh for different lengths of time. Harder fruits like apples, oranges, and tangerines are best. If you buy softer fruits like pears, peaches, or nectarines, buy them before they ripen and let them ripen on the trail. Avoid putting easily smushed fruits like bananas in your pack unless you are very brave. Think about using items that are in season or grown locally over items that are brought in from far away. Reducing the impact of what we buy and where it comes from is another part of the Leave No Trace ethic.
Carrots, potatoes, garlic, onions, and other root vegetables can keep for two to three weeks.
Dried fruits last for months.
Cheeses and Dairy
Note: The ability of cheese to keep unrefrigerated for extended periods of time is primarily based on the moisture content of the cheese. Any cheese can be out for a few hours, but only some cheeses are appropriate for multiday trips.
Grated and grating cheeses (moisture content 34 percent or less) Parmesan and Romano do not need refrigeration.
Hard cheeses (moisture content 36 to 43 percent) Cheddar, Colby, and Swiss can go without refrigeration for up to a week. Over time, high temperatures result in oiling off of liquefied milk fat. Though unsightly, this is not a spoilage problem. Waxed bricks or wheels hold up best.
Semisoft cheeses (moisture content 44 to 52 percent) Brie, Camembert, blue cheese, Monterey Jack, and Muenster should be refrigerated.
Soft cheeses (moisture content greater than 50 percent) Cream cheese, ricotta, and cottage cheese require refrigeration for long-term storage.
Milk Most people take powdered milk to conserve weight. UHT (ultra-high-temperature pasteurized) milk such as Parmalat can be carried for months unopened without refrigeration. Once opened, the UHT milk must be refrigerated, but if you use it up at one meal, it’s fine.
Clarified butter Butter with the milk solids removed. It will last up to three weeks unrefrigerated.
Margarine/oils Famous (or infamous) Squeeze Parkay lasts for several weeks unrefrigerated. Or you can bring olive, sesame, or other oils to cook with instead of butter or margarine.
Meats
Hard salami, pepperoni, smoked meats, and jerky all last for weeks without refrigeration.
Canned meats and fish last “almost” forever.
Eggs
It used to be suggested that eggs could be carried unrefrigerated on trips if kept in water. Because of increases in Salmonella bacteria in chickens and the need for eggs to be cooked completely to kill the bacteria, this is no longer recommended.
TRICKS OF THE TRAIL
Cook before you go A number of delicious meals or add-ons can be made ahead of time and packed with you. Fresh breads, biscuits, muffins, and deserts can add a lot to a trip. Cold salads such as bean salad, houmous, and tabouli can also be made ahead of time.
Pre-cook and freeze For special meals early in the trip you can pre-cook meals and freeze them in a plastic container. Seal the container well with tape. The food will slowly melt, but should be fine for the first 24 hours. Reheat on the stove for a quick dinner.
Everyone has different preferences for mealtimes. When hiking, you are expending energy all the time, so you constantly need to replenish that energy. This typically means eating three meals a day. Some people prefer to get up, have a light breakfast, get an early start, and then stop for a bigger meal at midday. Whatever your preference, you should have an ample supply of water and snacks during the day to keep up your energy level. Remember that more falls and injuries take place on hiking trips around 11:00 A.M. and again at 3:00 P.M. than at any other time because blood sugar is low and people are dehydrated. Plan snacks and rest breaks around these times. (See “Safety and Emergency Procedures.”)
It is also important to take