Food topics, including recipes.
Tue 05 Sep, 2023 9:40 am
On extended trips I pack food into bags of two days, allowing me to see what has to be eaten. If I eat too much or too little on the first day this is balanced by the second day. This applies to bags where I can take varying amounts, such as muesli, milk, dried fruit and scroggin. Whole meals in a packet are eaten in one go.
How do people pack food for extended trips?
Tue 05 Sep, 2023 12:46 pm
For longer walks, daily packs of individual food plus single day quantities of group food. So morning cereal in a bag with required powdered milk: add water and eat from bag. Daily scroggin allowance in a bag. Group lunch (wraps and topping) in original packages, divide when served. Evening meals in cooking quantities (rice, veg, flavour, protein/oil). I'm not a freeze-dried meal person so each meal has ingredients worked out before and packed to go in daily quantities. Same deal if catering for one but would eat the wraps over a few days.
Everything I carry goes in a light dry bag so it can be hung: I've lost too much food to rats over the years. A length of light line for hanging, fishing line if I'm feeling ultralight.
Scroggin and water in chest carry situations: I've always admired Aarn packs but use ex-army ammo pouches as the cheap alternative.
Tue 05 Sep, 2023 5:50 pm
I can 't be bothered sorting out daily servings up front. I just bung it all in. I know what I need per day and as long as there's enough to cover the time I'm out plus two days' extra food, that'll do,
Tue 05 Sep, 2023 8:40 pm
I tend to sort my food into daily bags.
Then put them all into a dry bag like Scrambler.
Wed 06 Sep, 2023 10:10 am
I'm trying to cut down on all the zip loc bags these days, but I'll divvy up certain things like dried fruit across a couple of bags to aid in packing. I generally eat much the same thing each day, so rationing isn't difficult.
Freeze-dried meals get bagged individually as that's how they get rehydrated.
Food for the day gets decanted into a small DCF drawstring bag for convenience, the rest lives in a DCF pod for packing and a bit of waterproofing.
For long trips that may spill into a second dry bag. Though lately for extended in-out trips, I'll do a food drop in the way in, squeezing 3-4 days of food into a screw top plastic container and hanging it in a dry bag. Saving the weight and bulk is always a good thing
Wed 06 Sep, 2023 12:53 pm
I'll have 4 large ziplocks for anything longer than a couple of days. Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Garbage, all labelled with texta. All bags get used again except the garbage ziplock, which I bin at the end of the walk.
The reason I separate the meals is to stay organised. After breakfast, I pack the Breakfast and Dinner bags lower in my pack, and have the Lunch and Garbage bags in the outside pouch, or top of my pack for easy access. When I get to camp, I can easily find the Dinner bag and start rehydrating my meal, when setting up.
The other reason I like this method, as opposed to Day1 bag, Day2 bag... approach is I get to choose what I want to eat on the day. Some days I might be looking forward to smoked mussels, other days I'd rather have the cheese and salami.
Wed 06 Sep, 2023 3:26 pm
crollsurf wrote:The other reason I like this method, as opposed to Day1 bag, Day2 bag... approach is I get to choose what I want to eat on the day. Some days I might be looking forward to smoked mussels, other days I'd rather have the cheese and salami.
+1 .. The other reason I like this method is I can chose to eat the heaviest dinner/breakfast I'm carrying to lighten my load...
Wed 06 Sep, 2023 5:04 pm
crollsurf wrote:I'll have 4 large ziplocks for anything longer than a couple of days. Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Garbage, all labelled with texta. All bags get used again except the garbage ziplock, which I bin at the end of the walk.
The reason I separate the meals is to stay organised. After breakfast, I pack the Breakfast and Dinner bags lower in my pack, and have the Lunch and Garbage bags in the outside pouch, or top of my pack for easy access. When I get to camp, I can easily find the Dinner bag and start rehydrating my meal, when setting up.
The other reason I like this method, as opposed to Day1 bag, Day2 bag... approach is I get to choose what I want to eat on the day. Some days I might be looking forward to smoked mussels, other days I'd rather have the cheese and salami.
Same system for me with the addition of a bag for snacks (fruit, nuts, sweets, chocolate etc).
Sun 29 Oct, 2023 4:12 pm
This coming ramble I'm packing bulk into a big bag, with a small bag for each days prep [ a lot of presoaking if I take dry beans] and a MOLLE pouch on my hipbelt for snacks.
Like Warin I will probably nosh from the heavier side of my rations first but I can't do anything to make the hardtack any lighter.
The Tararua biscuits are in the oven now, 18 of them, which is 8 to 12 days worth depending on how starving I am
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