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What sort of food to take on a long distance walk?

What sort of food to take on a long distance walk?


Postby Poocini » Sun Jan 23, 2022 3:57 pm

Will be doing a couple of long distance walks this year - with the Pennine Way and Great Glen Way being the favourites at the moment.
Just curious about what meals people take with them when camping?
Was looking at Go Outdoors, and they have the rehydrated stuff that looks quite good, but seem a little expensive at £4.50/£5 a shot.
Was thinking I could maybe go with the supermarket dried stuff like noodles/batchelors pasta etc. but just a bit worried these wouldn't have the required nutritional/calorie content for a 20+ míle day.
What's your thoughts/experiences?
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Re: What sort of food to take on a long distance walk?

Postby jacob » Sun Jan 23, 2022 6:14 pm

Calories are easy, but not nescessarily healthy. Take loads of Snickers-bars and you're allright from the energy perspective. But will your general health appreciate this input? I don't think so.

So usually I eat the overpriced freezedried meals, but every other day. In between I might well eat stuff you're referring to.
To "boost" the calories on supermarket food, you can easily add calorie-rich flavours and textures, that are lightweight.
Think rasped/flaked coconut for example, sesame seeds, etc. For breakfast this might be powdered milk and dried bananachips.
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Re: What sort of food to take on a long distance walk?

Postby cruachan06 » Sun Jan 23, 2022 6:44 pm

Make your own porridge sachets using this recipe

https://www.elizabethskitchendiary.co.uk/diy-porridge-sachets/

Freeze dried food isn't cheap, and varies wildly in price. £5 is the low end of the scale, the Real Turmat meals are over £10 a go, but you can sometimes find multibuy deals. Summit to Eat sell festival packs at a reasonable price for example. I'd avoid military rations as sold on ebay, as they are very heavy compared to freeze dried and also more awkward to prepare - they need a large pot or mug to boil in the bag or you need to heat them out of the bag or with an FRH (which is yet more weight).
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Re: What sort of food to take on a long distance walk?

Postby Poocini » Mon Jan 24, 2022 12:11 am

jacob wrote:So usually I eat the overpriced freezedried meals, but every other day. In between I might well eat stuff you're referring to.
To "boost" the calories on supermarket food, you can easily add calorie-rich flavours and textures, that are lightweight.
Think rasped/flaked coconut for example, sesame seeds, etc. For breakfast this might be powdered milk and dried bananachips.


I was sort of thinking along similar lines - have the majority Batchelors pasta etc ., but add some dried meat (like pepperami or similar) or cheese to it.

cruachan06 wrote:Make your own porridge sachets using this recipe

https://www.elizabethskitchendiary.co.uk/diy-porridge-sachets/
.


That is a brilliant idea. Was thinking porridge oats with water, as it would be light, but the idea of just having wallpaper paste every morning of the walk was off-putting.
Sound advice about the ration packs as well. The boil in the bag stuff does seem to weigh 3 or 4 times the weight of dehydrated stuff.
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Re: What sort of food to take on a long distance walk?

Postby cruachan06 » Mon Jan 24, 2022 12:16 am

Sound advice about the ration packs as well. The boil in the bag stuff does seem to weigh 3 or 4 times the weight of dehydrated stuff.


To be fair the ration packs are good value at around £15 delivered, and you get a lot of useful stuff like purification tablets, tissues, wipes, little bottles of chilli sauce or tabasco that you can refill (rations and freeze-dried meals are often a bit bland as they have to cater to all palates), tea and coffee and hot chocoloate but the weight means I only use them on an overnighter or in the car, they're too heavy IMO for multi-day trips.
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Re: What sort of food to take on a long distance walk?

Postby WalkWithWallace » Mon Jan 24, 2022 8:58 am

I usually take stuff like:

- Porridge decanted into the microwave safe bags (add raisins and flaxseed).
- Chocolate bars
- Cereal/protein bars
- YFood powder and shaker
- Salted peanuts
- Jelly Babies
- Trail Mix
- Soreen fruit loaf
- Oatcakes
- Cheese (Babybel)
- Primula
- Tomato Puree
- Cuppa Soup
- Freeze dried meal (Usually Summit to Eat)
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Re: What sort of food to take on a long distance walk?

Postby jacob » Mon Jan 24, 2022 9:02 am

Also try out YT-channel Paul the Backpacker

https://www.youtube.com/c/PaultheBackpacker/videos

Loads of videos on creating your own backpacking food, I believe mostly vegan.
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Re: What sort of food to take on a long distance walk?

Postby AyrshireAlps » Mon Jan 24, 2022 9:40 am

For one nighters, I'm alright with taking the likes of a couple of pasta n sauce packets, as I'm not having to wash the pot out as much after cooking them, and not as bothered about the extra weight for one days food.

For multi day, definitely freeze dried stuff, lighter and less hassle. I could actually eat summit to eat macaroni cheese at home, it's so good!. :D

Quakers porridge bars are good for breakfast, couple of those washed down with a decent coffee - Used to use sachet coffee, but tbh it's pretty rank, bought a wee GSI filter and take some decent cafetiere ground coffee.
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Re: What sort of food to take on a long distance walk?

Postby simon-b » Mon Jan 24, 2022 4:14 pm

jacob wrote:Calories are easy, but not nescessarily healthy. Take loads of Snickers-bars and you're allright from the energy perspective. But will your general health appreciate this input? I don't think so.

I'd agree where the key word here is general, regarding health. But there are specialist benefits to high sugar foods such as chocolate, eg. treatment or prevention of hypothermia, as recommended by the NHS and the Red Cross. Therefore worth carrying in your rucksack for outdoor activities, if only as emergency back up in case things go wrong. Even in summer conditions on British hills.
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Re: What sort of food to take on a long distance walk?

Postby AspiringHiker » Mon Jan 24, 2022 5:10 pm

It's actually not that expensive to get good food on hikes.

We normally use two sets - high calorie stuff to eat as snacks and low calorie staples to have at lunch and dinner.

Go to supermarket and check the calories on nuts and dried fruit. Nuts are usually the highest at 500-700 calories per 100g - probably the most energy dense food you can get. Bakery section often has nuts cheaper. Be careful not to overdose on nuts such as, for example, Brazil nuts .

With fruit, we normally avoid anything which is very sugary such as mango or dates, but that's personal taste. Bananas and apples work really well. They also provide fiber. Snack bars are good with morning coffee or tea, but expensive.

For the hot meals, we normally make portions at home using couscous, quick cook rice and quick cook pasta which we then cook for lunch or dinner. These are not main energy source because staples have low calorie density. Mix this with shop bought dried mushrooms, dried tomatoes, raisins, dry curry mix, etc and you have a variety of dishes which are cheap and actually taste good. Try cooking your mixes at home to get the seasoning just right. Also, if you plan to hike for over a week, you can take extra seasoning which is very light and is a pain to find in small villages, and restock on dry pasta, rice, etc. which are usually easy to source.

We normally list the days we are going to be hiking, the calorie content required each day and get the right amount of food to meet that. Pain the first time you do it, but it's worth it.
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Re: What sort of food to take on a long distance walk?

Postby weaselmaster » Tue Jan 25, 2022 9:51 pm

Huel Hot and Savoury. 8 different flavours now, just needs 250ml boiling water to make up (leave 5 mins, or in the case of the pasta ones, a bit longer 😅) Weighs little, takes up little space and works out at about £2.50 per meal.

https://uk.huel.com/products/huel-hot-savoury
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Re: What sort of food to take on a long distance walk?

Postby Arthurs Eat » Wed Jan 26, 2022 10:55 am

I actually did most of the Pennine Way last spring (before twisting my ankle coming over a style near Alston ). I would not worry too much about carrying loads of grub. I carried two to three days worth at most. I used flavoured porridge sachets for breakfast each day which was fine and light. The issue then was lunch and dinners. These were readily available as you pass through loads of places where you can pick up a meal and sandwich etc and restock for camping. Just see whats available in the local shops and take it from there. Keep any eye on your burner fuel as it replacement can be a bit limited. I found the whole thing great except for the shop in Yorkshire that would not accept Scottish banknotes (!) and it has to mentioned, the Tan Hill Inn which I rate as the worst place I have ever visited in my life.

I intend finishing the last bit in late May and am really looking forward to it. I hope you enjoy the trail as much as I did.
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Re: What sort of food to take on a long distance walk?

Postby AyrshireAlps » Wed Jan 26, 2022 10:59 am

weaselmaster wrote:Huel Hot and Savoury. 8 different flavours now, just needs 250ml boiling water to make up (leave 5 mins, or in the case of the pasta ones, a bit longer 😅) Weighs little, takes up little space and works out at about £2.50 per meal.

https://uk.huel.com/products/huel-hot-savoury


I'd love to try their stuff out, but 60 quid minimum order is a bit much tbh! I did contact them to ask if they sold samples, but they weren't interested.
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Re: What sort of food to take on a long distance walk?

Postby Veryhappybunny » Wed Jan 26, 2022 7:33 pm

We have taken heavier, better food for the first night, as you aren't carrying it for so long and it is a lovely start to a trip. I am a veggie now but remember a lovely meal, cooking pork chops, as the sun got lower above the Glyders. Possibly with smash potatoes.

For breakfast, pancakes are wonderful! Especially with a little maple syrup Some mixes (e.g. Betty Crocker) just need water, but watch out as some need eggs which could end badly.
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Re: What sort of food to take on a long distance walk?

Postby AyrshireAlps » Thu Jan 27, 2022 9:41 am

Veryhappybunny wrote:We have taken heavier, better food for the first night, as you aren't carrying it for so long and it is a lovely start to a trip. I am a veggie now but remember a lovely meal, cooking pork chops, as the sun got lower above the Glyders. Possibly with smash potatoes.

For breakfast, pancakes are wonderful! Especially with a little maple syrup Some mixes (e.g. Betty Crocker) just need water, but watch out as some need eggs which could end badly.


I've thought about this recently, the possibility of making up pancake batter and keeping it in a bottle, as it would be really easy to make then.
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