Cooking and Nutrition

Many canister-style backpacking stoves, including Jetboils, have a built-in sparker to light the gas so you don’t have to carry matches or a disposable butane lighter with you to ignite them. It’s usually an orange button along the base of the burner connected to a wire over the burner head. …

Many of us shy away from eating dried pasta on backpacking trips because it takes so long to cook and uses too much stove fuel. But did you know that you don’t have boil dried pasta using the amount of water recommended on the package or for the entire boil time? Simply …

Cooking in a camping tent or ultralight shelter can be quite hazardous, but sometimes you don’t have an option because bad weather prevents you from cooking outside. What are the hazards you have to watch out for and how can you cook inside a tent safely? What’s the best camping …

Esbit cubes are solid fuel cubes used for cooking backpacking meals. Weighing just 0.5 ounces (14 g) each, they’re ultralight, you don’t need a container to carry them like an isobutane gas canister or alcohol bottle, and you can even ship them via ground transportation (in the USA), making them …

Freeze-dried or dehydrated? That is the question. When making your own backpacking meals, is it nobler to buy freeze-dried ingredients or dehydrate them yourself in a food dehydrator? I think it really comes down to how you want to spend your time and how complicated your meals are. I spent one …

In cold weather, the temperature of white gas, or liquid fuel as it is also known, can dip below freezing (0 centigrade) but still remain in liquid form. If it touches your skin, it will evaporate immediately, causing frostnip or frostbite. In fact, simply touching a full but uninsulated MSR …

Many people like to eat freeze-dried backpacking meals on overnight trips or dehydrate their own food and make freezer-bag dinners because you just add hot water to them and they don’t require any cleanup. But I don’t mind cooking a hot dinner after a hard day of hiking, although I …

The Backpacking Chef’s backpacking and camping cookbook called Recipes for Adventure is chock full of healthy, hearty, and homemade backpacking recipes. I know this first-hand because I’ve made many of them, like this Ratatoille. But while the meals and snack recipes in Recipes for Adventure are excellent, the real value of …

“Oh crap. I forgot to bring my spoon,” said a backpacker I’d just met at the campsite. I know that exact feeling. I’ve left my big plastic backpacking spoon at home on the drying rack next to the kitchen sink too many times to count. After a long day of …

How would you like to eliminate the weight of your backpacking stove and the fuel container (canister, liquid fuel bottle, or alcohol bottle) that you use to carry your cooking fuel on backpacking trips while still being able to boil water and cook meals? What would that save you? Anywhere …

Simple one pot backpacking meals are a great option if you want more variety in your backpacking diet, you want to eat real food with less preservatives, or you want to adapt your meals to seasonal or locally available ingredients that you encounter on your hike. But if your existing stove …

Have you even opened your backpacking food bag and lost your appetite at the prospect of eating the same boring meal again? Do yourself a favor and increase the variety of food you bring on backpacking trips. Develop a menu that keeps you interested in eating, so you can refuel with …

The best ultralight backpacking foods are high in calories, compact, and fast to prepare. In order to keep your food load as lightweight as possible, you want to carry foods that have 100 calories per ounce or more. One ounce is 28.3 grams, a fact that will help you compare food …

As a rule of thumb, you can figure on using 2 lbs of food per person per day on a 3 season backpacking trip. Depending on your body weight and exertion level, you may need more or less food, but that’s a pretty reliable estimation to begin with. When I …