Food
The food you take in your pack will need to be more than you need. Take extra food, providing for having to remain out overnight unplanned.
If hiking, take sufficient food. Next, start to think about the weight and number of trail meals. How many extra meals might you need, worst case? Overnight? Enough for a thunderstorm to clear? Or snowstorm?
Now, are you backpacking, yet? If you plan for overnight, a weekend, or more, you are a backpacker.
What food items are carried by backpackers? I have several web pages to answer that question.
The lightweight and ultralightweight backpacking enthusiasts have already proven methods of backpacking food preparation. These methods are not like at home because we do not want to carry a modern kitchen.
We manage by using techniques developed by backpackers, for backpackers.
I have listed some things possibly new to you: e.g. Freezer Bag Cooking, the Caldera Cone stove system, efficient alcohol stoves made by experienced backpackers, a white gas stove made by a backpacker, the Outback Oven Ultralight and the Banks Fry-Bake.
Each involves a different approach.
Methods of Food Preparation
Do these things before an ambitious trip. Start with a day-trip, a weekend hike, and 4-5 days up to 10 days before attempting an ambitious long trek.
Freezer Bag Cooking involves adding hot water to a 1 qt. freezer bag, or equivalent. The ingredients for the meal are packed before you leave in 1 qt. freezer bags. The method is to minimize food preparation time and cleanup, while on your hike.
There are many ultralightweight stoves in the backpacking "cottage industry" including the Super Stove that burns alcohol, I have, or the famous Hobo Stove, like that illustrated at Small World Treks, or the Little Dandy by Nimblewell Nomad and very easily made at home.
The Trail Designs Caldera Cone combines stove, pot and windscreen.
Outdoor industry manufacturers have picked up on this idea, producing excellent lightweight and fuel efficient backpacking stoves and cooking systems.
The lightweight choices include the reasonably lightweight JetBoil, the MSR Reactor and the Primus EtaPackLite or the Primus EtaPower EF Stove.
The Outback Oven Ultralight is for baking. To use it successfully, you will need a stove that will simmer. The canister stoves that will simmer well are Primus EtaPower MF, Primus EtaPower Easy Fuel Stove, Primus EtaPower EF Trail Stove, Primus EtaPackLite, Vargo Jet-ti Titanium Stove, Brunton Flex Foldable Canister Stove, Brunton Vapor All-Fuel Stove, Soto OD-1R Micro Regulator Stove, (list incomplete).
The Banks Fry-Bake is a frying pan or a baking oven for anything you can bake: the difference is you use it over an open fire and a backpackers "dutch oven" if you put hot coals of the fire on top as well as have hot coals of the fire on the bottom.
The cooking fire may also be a small "twiggy fire" using the "fire pan" of a Caldera Ti-Tri Cone, a TiGoat F Keg, Clickstand T-2 (Titanium) and Windscreen T-2, or Makaira Metalworks Stainless Pack Stove (SPS2), for example.
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copyright © 2010 Connie Dodson. All Rights Reserved.
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