Food

Food! You can read more about the food prep we did in earlier posts. We used the freezer bag method of cooking for all of our hot meals. Simply put, you put your food in a freezer bag, add hot/boiling water, let the bag sit in an insulated cozy for 5-10 mins and then eat it straight out of the bag. No dishes to clean and no mess.

Here's a quick list of foods we ate on trail. I ate dairy free and gluten free and I had no stomach issues while on trail or at all during the duration of our summer trip. I don't mind eating the same things every day as long as I like what I'm eating. There were only 2 items I struggled with, which in real life I'm not a big fan of: oatmeal and Clif bars. Early on the trail I couldn't choke them down. Midway and later on the trail, I had no issues with them...



What KSue ate:

Breakfast- oatmeal, granola with powdered soy milk, various bars

Lunch- "handful lunch"- I would grab a few handfuls of each of these things to make up my lunch: peanut M&M's, jerky, dried mangos, trail mix, nuts, dried fruit, candy, rice crackers, gf cookies, Jelly Bellies

Dinner- Instant rice, instant mashed potatoes, or a gf freeze dried backpacker's meal (Mountain House, etc).  Lots of rice mainly. I never got sick of it. The only thing I would do differently is add more flavor to the rice bags I made myself. I added a couple tablespoons of dried soup mix and a couple tablespoons of dried veggies to add flavor and nutrients, next time I would add more soup mix or some other source of flavor. The rice was kind of bland to me by the end of the trail. The instant mashed potatoes were absolutely heavenly when it was cold and raining and on days I was super hungry- they do not have to sit and "cook" in the bag. Add hot water, stir and eat immediately. I ate a half serving of instant taters every day it rained when we got in the tent to warm me up. My favorite backpackers meal was Backpacker's Pantry- Pad Thai, yummmm! I always looked forward to the backpacker's meals as they added variety, had more protein and had a lot more flavor than my homemade rice bags.

Snacks- candy bars, various bars, candy, fruit snacks, gf ramen, gf pretzels with nutella




What Daveed ate:

Breakfast- oatmeal, protein granola with full fat powdered milk, various bars, carnation instant breakfast

Lunch- tuna, cheese, tortillas, peanut butter, jerky, summer sausage, cookies, candy, trail mix, nuts, dried fruit, crackers

Dinner- couscous, rice, backpacker's meals, stove top stuffing, mac n cheese, pasta sides, pasta roni, uncle ben's rice, instant potaters, olive oil

Snacks- candy bars, various bars, fruit snacks, candy, cookies