I’m not too big on dehydrated fruit for a snack, but I hadn’t really thought about it creating problems. It certainly makes sense that it would swell in your stomach and cause distress without tons of H2O.
I found Bear Naked Granola Bites and really like them. 6g protein, 20g carbs in just 11 pieces. The small cubes chew up quickly unlike a lot of energy bars with tootsie roll consistency, don’t make you thirsty and store easily in a PFD pocket. If they get squished it doesn’t matter.
I’m curious, how many days worth of food have you carried? I’ve got a 17’ 10" Necky Tesla with miles of real estate, am packing with just essential gear, have a simple diet (not baking brownies in camp!) and will supplement when I find a town/marina store. Is carrying 3 months of basic dehydrated veg, beans, egg powder, oatmeal, tofu doable? I’ve never packed more than 3 days worth before.
Packing is something I’m learning still. Over thanksgiving I was out (truck camping) and I grabbed a couple cans of spam and various containers of dehydrated potatoes, jalapenos, onions, mushrooms, rice and whatever else. I pretty much scratch cook with those and don’t believe in recipes so I just grabbed the entire bag or container of each. I figured out that doing it that way takes up way to much space both packing and laying things out to cook, so the plan now is to fix various meals with those ingredients at home, weigh the container of say potatoes before and after cooking, then write down exactly how much of each then put them together in individual meal portions in vacuum seal bags. I’ll include the appropriate spices in each meal in a separate bag where my standard mix of all purpose camping spice isn’t sufficient, like for stew or curry. I’m fairly new to home dehydrating and converting that to field use so each trip is a learning experience that I try and build on. It is going to be a game changer though! This winter I’m experimenting with those and winter camping gear to get them down to a low weight, low volume comfortable and reliable trip.
My mode of transportation will vary from a Chesapeake 17 to an Epic 18x sport to a solo canoe to a tandem canoe used solo for hunting so I expect to have different meal preps appropriate for different boats and different times of year. Right now I’m planning on being able to pack ten days worth in any of those boats and with the rest of my gear being light weight backpacking gear I think that should be easy. I also include bag of mix for a simple campfire bread that just needs water added, and when there’s room including pancake mix for breakfast.
You might touch base with Michael Gray at Uncommon Adventures (https://www.mi-paddleadventure.com/) and also pick up a copy of his book " Hey, I’d Eat This At Home!". Also, if you haven’t, ask to join the “Inland Seas, Kayaking the Great Lakes” Facebook group.
Thanks for the suggestions, I happen to really love Tanka bars. They are bison which is low in cholesterol high in omega-3 fatty acid’s and they add dried cranberry for taking care of sugar needs and they also add a tad bit of dried chili pepper flakes to combat pain. I do like to have a myriad of snacks available while I am out and about. During a recent trip to Yellowstone national park I filled up an entire day pack with snacks so that we wouldn’t have to travel back to our condo being that we were there off season. I added a huge variety and boy did that make everybody happy to have crunchy snacks or fruit snacks or meat snacks, And all of those snacks were pretty healthy
I want to share something with you guys I actually found this online through a UK backpacker. Call the fire stand absolutely brilliant, they have a pocket and a mini size, I ordered both you have to wait a bit for it to get manufactured. I love supporting craftsman especially those who make my life a lot easier https://www.tjmmetalworks.co.uk/
Thanks for the info! I actually took a camping class with Michael at the Great Lakes Sea Kayaking Symposium this year. I learned a ton just in the single overnight class but didn’t think to ask about how much food is possible to pack.
Michael gifted each student with a copy of his book, too. I’ve very much enjoy his recipes and the methods are readily transferable to simpler meals. He’s a fabulous cook and baked a cake for us during class, but I’m not that fancy of an eater. I’d rather dedicate the space to carrying more food than bring a cast-iron dutch oven.
I don’t do social media. It’s hard when someone recommends a group such as this but I can’t bring my self to enter the world of Farce, I meant Facebook.
Kodiak Cakes are great! They make a lot of mixes but their pancake mix is just add water and the fact that they are high protein is a bonus for me since I’m vegetarian.
I’ve been leaning toward the NOLS pantry method. They bring all the ingredients and then put the meals together from that. It seems like here would be a lot less plastic waste than heat sealing each meal but I’m wondering if the Foodsaver sealed meals inside an Opsack would bear proof things.
I’m planning on being in camp by 3pm each day so there’s time for me to cook from scratch, which is what I’ve always done. So much to experiment with this winter!
Would mind posting updates about your experiments? I’d really love to follow the journey.
General backpacking rule of thumb is 2 lbs per day plus or minus. That would be 180 lbs for 90 days.
At 4500 kcal per day you might not lose weight. Extreme case is lard at 4000 kcal/lb. Pemmican is 3500, peanut butter is 2700, sugar is 1800. But 90 days without a well balanced diet is not a good idea.
Two pounds a day? I would think that would be about double my load with my home dehydrated ingredients, but like I said, I need to start packaging individual meals worth of ingredients and see what that comes to. Maybe I’ll be surprised. The protein being the biggest weight for me. So far the protein being the only item with any moisture in it, but I’m hoping to get some good dehydrated ground beef which would make most of my protein light and moisture free also.
Aha! I knew there had to be a rule of thumb. NOLS has some formulas/worksheets too that I just ran across in their trail cookbook.
I was figuring 3000 kcal per day - female, 64 and I’m not pushing hard, warm weather and I’m not carrying my gear. That’s double what I eat on any given day but I’ll revisit that based on your info. May have to send a box to general delivery somewhere. Not sure 180 pounds is doable. Can’t even begin to imagine all the work to bear hang that!
Good advice on a balanced diet too - one of my priorities. No way am I living on pretzels and almond butter but lard and pemmican are not options as I’m a vegetarian. I’m looking at veg, rice, lentils, quinoa, TVP, powdered eggs and tofu stuff like that. And definitely pancakes!
I have experience with the NOLS style pantry setup. The real beauty of it lies in its convenience to make use of readily available food. Once you have an idea of what you want for food, and have worked out a fairly concise shopping list, you could spend an hour in any good supermarket and get everything you need. Another hour or so repackaging everything, sorting it into different meal bags, and you could be good to go for a trip from a few days to a few weeks. Thats assuming it’s not your first time packing up, otherwise I’d give yourself a few days at home to pack.
The downside is that many would consider this style of eating heavy, and it does require actual cooking, rather than just dumping boiled water into a bag and consuming ten minutes later. But looking at a copy of the nols cookery might not be a bad idea. Nols also relys heavily on a robust spice kit, so that would be worth sorting out ahead of time.
The nols cook kit is also pretty well dialed in. Check out https://frybake.com/products/ for a really nice pan that works great on single burner stoves for anything from frying to baking bread. It’s kind of like an ultralight dutch oven that works on a camp stove and is easy to clean. The Alpine or deep Alpine would be a good size for one person. I would not recommend cannister top stoves for extended cooking setups. A remote cannister or liquid gas stove, with a good wind screen, will give you much better stability and heating capacity.
I wouldn’t bring all your food in one big ration, would be challenging to move that much weight every morning and afternoon. You might consider two to three week increments, and figure out how to send these rations to yourself at convenient points on your trip.
Forget the pancakes, instead make biscuits, you can cook three or four at a time for every pancake you would make.
Might be useful to check out blogs and videos from, say, PCT or Appalachian Trail thru hikers. In general backpackers are stingier with the pounds they carry than boaters have to be. They resupply along the way.
If you can stick to foods with an average caloric density of 125 kcalories per ounce, you get 3000 kcals in a pound and a half. A Luna bar isn’t quite that dense but a chocolate bar is.
I’ve done a fair number of trips that involved getting from here to there - multi-day with portages where packing light is required. Jet-boil and freeze dried food is the order of the day. They have their place, but there is something to be said for real food cooked over the fire.
Gathering wood, lighting the fire, waiting for the the coals to develop (usually with a coffee or a cocktail in hand), and getting the food on the fire - can’t beat it. Not something you do packing light, but that’s why we paddle big, well loaded canoes… at least some of the time
Our week long trips in canoes are mostly on large western rivers with no portages. We bring a two burner propane stove, a roll up table and a kitchen. I hate dehydrated food except for long trips when the coolers give out. We take turns making dinner for the group. Sometimes we try to out do each other. We have great food and it is always something to look forward to.
I’m with you - I was using a Coleman two-burner gas stove, but it was temperamental if it got wet in the boat. I switched to a Coleman two-burner folding propane stove.
It works great, and folded up it will fit in a big dry bag. A couple of frying pans with folding handles and I am good to go.
I am debating what to do about a cooler. Currently I am using a Polar Bear soft sided cooler - popular among my friends for its ability to hold a case of beer (in cans).
It is the perfect size to fit in my solo boat. It keeps stuff cool (not necessarily cold) for about three days - four if I am careful. I am not a beer drinker, but I sometimes freeze a 6-pack of cans to use as ice and consume along the way. The beer lasts about 3 days as well, so maybe that is my problem. Debating getting something with more insulation like a Yetti.
A couple of tips and tricks from the author of “Hey, I’d Eat This at Home”:
*Utensil kit: I use a rolled wrench bag as a utensil roll
*Woody Dutch Oven: I use this cast aluminum wonder for all frying, sauteeing, stewing and backing over my gas stoves.
*Soft sided cooler: Frost pack coolers from Seattlesports. Robust, sized right and reasonably priced.
Thanks for the feedback on NOLS’ method! I’m streamlining their meal plans (I have all three of their cookbooks) and jettisoning the baking and deserts. I’m good with simple freeze-dried/dehydrated ingredients for fresh-made soups and stews, stir-fry and pasta dishes. Paring down my car-camping spice kit is going to be a challenge though. What spices/seasonings do you use most often?
Doing the Jetboil thing and eating out of bag isn’t my idea of fun. I’m not in a rush so a nice plate and cleaning up a few dishes is OK. Being off the water about 3pm each day will give me enough time to cook. I’ve looked into the frybake but $75 for another pan set, ouch. Nice to hear from someone whose used it and recommends it…I do love bread! Of course there’s always that wrap-the-dough-around-a-stick thing from Girl Scouts…
The benefit to Kodiak Cake pancake mix is the high protein content - 14g in three 4" pancakes and 190 calories. I suppose I could put hemp powder into biscuit mix though or use Kodiak’s general bake mix for what the Welsh call pice ar y maen or Welshcakes, a sort of drop scone if you will. Bet that frybake would work really well with those…hmmmm.
I know the two college women who wrote “Superior Women” split their rations and sent 3 boxes ahead. In talking with Michael Gray, he said the guys who did the paddleboard expedition - Four the Water, I think - had substantial delays with general delivery packages once they got into Canada. It’s one of my biggest logistical issues right now, finding places to post off to.
Never having used white gas, how long does a litre last and how easy it to get if there’s not outfitter around. The denatured alcohol for my Trangia is easy to find at any hardware store or marina.
