Food for a backpacking trip?

Question

Does anyone know where I can buy dehydrated food cheaply, or how I could make my own? I'll be on a 4 day trip in Yosemite this September. Thank you!

Answer 1

Go to Walmart and buy an American Harvest brand food dehydrator.  They work very well!!!  

I've been dehydrating food for 3 years and it's saved me a fortune.  Better yet, the food tastes so much better.

My favorites:

- bananas (sprinkle with cinnamon before dehydrating)

- pineapple (choose one that's fully ripe and cut very thin)

- tomatoes (sprinkle cut tomatoes with Italian seasoning before dehydrating - the tomatoe will absorb the spice and it will taste really good)

- apples

- lemon or lime slices - goes well with the flask of rum

- mushrooms, peppers, onions

- beans, chick peas, etc. - cook them fully before dehydrating

- raspberries and strawberries - they don't lose any flavour

Answer 2

You should bring all MREs, buy a whole case, and a case of bear canisters to carry them in, and wear two backpacks, one with MREs inside bear canisters, and one with MREs inside bear canisters, because they're just that great! YAY! In fact, my brother joined the Marines because he heard from his father who heard from his father, who was a Kamikaze pilot in WWII that the real reason for Pearl Harbor was a massive effort to acquire MREs, which are known to float, from the sunken ships. In fact, my father emigrated to the USA solely to acquire MREs and eventually became owner of his own Army Surplus store just for the discount! I'm eating one right now, with the little tiny bottle of Tabasco sauce, nom, nom, nom!!! Watch out for what's known in the industry as "the five fingers of death" (hot dog meal)! Banzai!

Answer 3

You could check your local outdoor store for it. As for freezedrying it, it requires a machine to lower the temp to -40C. So I don't know how you would go about that.  You might want to try REI.  They are an extremely popular store and they carry some good equipment and food.

Answer 4

REI's pretty good - if you buy less exotic dehyds like spaghetti or lasagna, they can be around $6 per meal (hint, since you are a guy, get the 2 serving meals; the one serving is just not enough food).

Of course, there are substitutes that you can get at the grocery store:  Cup a soups, cup a noodles, ramen noodles, pasta meals, instant mashed potatoes.

I'd avoid MREs - they are bulky, heavy, and have a lot of packaging that you have to pack out.

Answer 5

It is amazing what you can get at a regular grocery store. For instance, top ramen is great. Just add anything to it. Powdered milk and cocoa is a must and those packaged seasoning mixes including spaghetti sauce mix is real handy. The of course Mac and cheese in a box is great. I take it out of the box and put it in a baggie so it takes up less room. So I hope I gave you some ideas of what to buy right from your grocery store. Also surplus stores carry MRE's which are really good to eat and require no cooking. They are a lot better then what you think, so give them a try.

Answer 6

I have my own food dehydrator, which I used this year to successfully dehydrate things I can't usually buy in the grocery store, such as peas, corn, peppers, refried beans, and spaghetti sauce.

I even bought the supposedly super nutritious "corn spaghetti", cooked it and then dehydrated it, so that it's almost the consistency of ramen noodles, so that it requires minimal soaking and cooking to be edible, but in oh so much better for you. You could do that with regular spaghetti noodles if you prefer.

Anything else you want can be obtained at the grocery store, but I'm sure you know that in Yosemite everything must fit inside a bear canister so packability is just as important as weight.

On our most recent three day hike, our menu consisted of a box of Curry Couscous which we mixed with a tuna packet (foil wrapped tuna available at the grocery store near canned tuna), and we had another dinner of instant brown rice, dehydrated corn, peas, and peppers, mixed with a chicken packet and soy sauce (in a 1 oz turret top bottle) for mountain fried rice. And another meal was of course the corn spaghetti and dehydrated spaghetti sauce, without meat, but with olive oil, which we also bring in a 1 oz. turret top bottle.

Snacks included chocolate chip cookies, dehydrated mangoes, and peanut M&MS. Lunches were peanut butter, honey and crackers. (Honey in small bottles as well), crackers and cheese, dehydrated refried beans (unheated) mixed with cheese, slightly crushed tortilla chips and hot sauce. Breakfast was cereal and dried milk and instant oatmeal with dried fruit and honey.

The "secret" I read about recently was to add olive oil to your food for extra calories, but also it provides some essential nutrition after hard exercise. Another secret was not to load up on proteins in the evening, but instead have more carbs for dinner and save the proteins for breakfast. Supposedly that will prevent you from waking up with muscle aches. Furthermore, you only actually have to stuff into your bear canister what you'll have to store overnight. On the first day you can carry your lunch and even dinner in another sack at the top of your pack. Just be sure not to leave you pack unattended for a second, nor to leave it behind if a bear approaches you or charges you (Ha! I camped at the beariest place in Yosemite, Hetch Hetchy's Rancheria Falls campground this summer and didn't see a single bear).

Answer 7

stay away from the outdoor sports stores, they are overpriced.  You can go to you local grocery store and find alot of dry food.  ck out the stuff for microwaves.  remember you have to pack out your trash, so stay away from cans.  also buy stuff like trail mix or dried fruit.  slim jims or jerky is good to munch on while hiking along too.  you may have to go to the outdoor spors stores for carb boosters though.  like Carboom is one brand, they can help u out with them.  they are like 1 or 2 tablespoons of thick stuff you squeeze in your mouth, full of stuff ya need to keep your energy up, well worth any price.  just keep everything light, because ya gotta carry water. lots of it

Answer 8

You can usually find cheap dehydrated food at larger Asian markets.  In all honesty, though, you should be able to get by on a 4-day trip with things available at the local grocery store.  Here are a few things I usually get at the store and how I use them:

- Foil packs of chicken and/or tuna.  Great in salads (I usually find edible plants for the greens) and pretty much anything else.

- Rice, Barilla Plus pasta, dense whole-grain bread, pitas, whole-grain tortillas.

- Peanut butter and Nutella mixed 50/50 in a squeeze tube is great on bread, graham crackers, and alone.

- Dried milk.  For coffee.

- Granola.  Pre-mix with dried milk.  Add hot or cold water for a killer breakfast.

- Just-add-water pancake mix.  Take it out of the jar and put it into a bag to save space.

- Trail mix.

- Snickers.  Gets you over the hump.

- Clif Bars, Powerbars, Probars, etc.  These are usually lunch, plus whatever I could stuff in my pockets from the snack supplies.

- Instant oatmeal.

- Tang.

- Pre-packaged salami or summer sausage.  Great with mustard as a sandwich or with eggs for breakfast.

- Jello.  Mix with hot water to warm you up at night.

- Bisquick.  Makes everything.

- Spam.  Mmm.  Spam.

- Powdered eggs.  Not as good as regular eggs, but much lighter.

- Eggs.  They don't really need to be refrigerated.  Really.  Just put unblemished eggs in an egg case and pack it in a big ziplok in the middle of your pack.  Just in case.

Be creative.  Just walk the aisles of your local supermarket and look for powdered, dried, or durable foods.  You'll be surprised.

Answer 9

most of the sporting good stores like d**k's or Bass Pro Shop sell dehydrated meals where you just add boiling water. The grocery stores sell a lot of single serving meals that require hot water only, like single serving cups of soup, hot cereal, etc. Other light weight foods you can bring are regular or instant oatmeal or other  hot cereals, dry cereal, energy bars or granola bars, dried fruit or trail mix, powdered milk. Just remember you need calories not necessarily quantity. You will be exerting a lot of energy while back packing & hiking. And plenty of water, either carried in or have a way to purify water yourself such as boiling, tablets, etc. And if you can keep from squashing them, peanut butter & jelly sandwiches always hit the spot after hiking a long ways.