Cooking and Nutrition

It’s a sad fact that many of the grocery stores you used to find in small towns along the Appalachian Trail and other hiking trails have been replaced by gas station convenience stores. The quality of food available has suffered and it can be difficult to walk away with anything resembling …

Have you ever looked at the nutrition labels on Mountain House and Harmony House backpacking meals and Knorr Rice and Pasta sides. You’ll be appalled by the amount of sodium included in these meals, especially since the other trail foods (nuts, bars, salty snacks) most people eat during the day, also …

Backpackers are always looking for ways to save pack weight. Some continuously upgrade to the latest lightweight gear, while others remain solely focused on eliminating all but the necessities. Regardless of the motivation, the objective is the same – to lessen the load so that hiking is easier and more …

Milk is the new Gatorade for backpackers. At least dehydrated milk is. What other energy drink weighs so little but packs such a big punch in terms of calories and overall nutrition? With a caloric density of 150 calories per once (dry), drinking a quart of whole milk will add 640 calories …

What’s your cooking style on backpacking trips? Do you prefer to mix up your own freezer bag meals using store ingredients or ingredients you’ve dehydrated at home? Or do you like eating soupy, one-pot meals that easy to heat and clean up? Many hikers like buying commercial dehydrated dinners from …

One of the secrets of successful backpacking is learning how to become extremely organized and to stay organized throughout your trip. That might sound obvious but it’s actually a skill that requires a lot of practice and the development of a set of rituals that you can “do in your …

Have you ever been on a backpacking trip and not had an appetite? Even if you’re hiking 15 to 20 miles a day? It’s frustrating because you know you should be hungry, and you know need energy to hike the next day, but you can’t bring yourself to dig in …

Outdoor Herbivore’s Vegan Cheddar Herb Sauce is a great way to dress up ramen noodles or instant mashed potatoes and turn them into a tasty powerhouse of a meal. Entirely vegan and non-dairy, you’ll swear there’s cheddar cheese  in this sauce even though it’s just a mix of nutritional yeast, …

I had a reader contact me recently asking me how he could cook dinner in the rain, inside a double walled tent with an MSR Whisperlite stove. He wanted to know whether he should get rid of his tent and replace it with a tarp that could be pitched higher …

Ray Jardine once said, “If our journeys degenerate into battles, in terms of lost energy and mental buoyancy, then I think those battles are usually won or lost in the grocery stores, rather than on the trails.” I can further simplify this statement with the following piece of advice: Don’t …

When packing food for a multi-day backpacking trip, I try to keep the space it takes up as small as possible so I can bring a smaller, lighter weight backpack. While bringing highly caloric foods helps (over 100 calories per ounce), it’s taken me several years of trial and error …

A lot of backpackers own multiple pots, stoves, and windscreens, because like other backpacking gear, there’s often no perfect combination of components that will fit all of your needs. Here are some factors that you should weigh when selecting the components of your own stove system. Do you plan to …

If you’re looking to save some money on backpacking food, or just eat better, dehydrating your own backpacking food is a fun way to enhance your hiking diet. Preserving food and getting it to a lighter pack weight is not a new idea, but we have become more and more reliant …

I am not a huge fan of backpacking without a stove, but whether you do it or not should be based on the environmental conditions you’re likely to encounter on your hike, the duration, and location of your trip. Whatever you do, don’t sacrifice your safety margin in order to …