Backpacking Food: Some Tips

photo credit: papalars

A thermos bottle is a practical accessory, even on on strenuous hiking trips. Boiling water poured into a vaccum bottle that is not used for beverages may be useful as hot dishwater later. It will save the running stove (using precious gas) to heat dishwater.

Prepackaging saves time:

Prepack everything you need to prepare a given meal in a zipper-lock plastic bag. Everything should be pre-measured and mixed so that you don’t have to fuss on the trail. For added simplicity, I traditionally pack my plastic-bagged breakfasts in green nylon bags, my lunches in blue and my suppers in red. This saves considerable groping at mealtimes and provides abrasion resistance for the tear-prone zipper bags.

Adhesive tape labels identify the specific contents of each nylon bag.

A few more tips:

• Place fresh vegetables, crackers, cookies and other breakables in your tea-kettle to keep them from being crushed on a strenuous backpacking or canoe trip.
• A stainless-steel Sierra cup is a lousy drinking cup but is a great ladle for soup and stew.
• An empty cardboard milk carton makes a handy container for crushable foods like cookies and eggs. Use the wax-coated milk carton to mix powdered soft drinks and as emergency fire starter on a rainy day.
• Dried foods are generally bland unless they’re heavily spiced. I carry oregano, garlic powder, seasoned salt, black pepper, cayenne, thyme and cumin inside small film containers, which are kept in a nylon “spice bag”.
• Farm-fresh eggs will keep for weeks without refrigeration. Small and medium sized eggs have thicker shells that large eggs, so they’re less likely to break on a hiking or canoe trip. You can check the freshness of eggs by floating them in a bowl of water. The deeper they sink, the fresher they are. Discard any eggs that float to the top.

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