Eating on the Trail

In my preparation to take this hike I have read a lot on other people’s experiences with the trail, as well as information that the Appalachian Trail Conservancy has published and information from the www.whiteblaze.net website on which knowledgeable hikers share their experiences.  There are many reasons given for why a person decides to hike the AT.  Never once have I seen anyone say they wanted to hike it “for the food”. 

The good news, as anyone who has spent time exercising and then eating outdoors is that somehow foods that taste marginal in an indoors civilized setting tend to taste much better in the wild.  When hiking the trail, you basically want to down as many calories as you can.  But there is always the weight and volume consideration.  Since you have to carry enough to last three to five days typically, depending on your resupply strategy, you generally carry almost nothing fresh.  It seems to me that most hikers lean towards one of three strategies: 

1)      Simply take the most calories you can per unit weight.  Some modify this approach by adding a cost factor, so that basically you are looking for the lightest, cheapest calories.  The problem with this approach is that it leads you to foods such as Little Debbie’s honey buns.  I don’t think my older body would do well with a diet of such foods over a five to six month period.

2)      The second is to try to get a reasonable balance of foods in, recognizing that you will be woefully short on fruits and vegetables, and eat all the fruits and vegetables you can in restaurants on your town days.  Erik the Black has a backpacking blog with what appears to be very sensible advice on foods to take.  I am starting out using this general philosophy, and the photo I have attached below illustrates the types of food I will be taking.

3)      Likely the healthiest approach, but one that requires a lot of preparation time and a dehydrator, is to start way in advance dehydrating the good quality foods you would eat at home.  Maybe next trip I’ll try this approach!

Some of the ultra light backpackers choose to eat only cold foods on the trail to avoid having to carry a stove.  That is not an acceptable option to me, particularly since I am starting the hike in the winter.  I’ll generally have oatmeal and a cup of coffee (instant – ugh!) in the morning, make do with cold foods during the day, and then make a hot meal in the evening.  The "during the day foods" will be energy bars, trail mix (of course!), peanut butter, cheese and tortillas.  The fuel canister for my stove has about 90 minutes worth of fuel in it, so the name of the hot meal game is find foods that cook quickly.  My rule of thumb: no more than six minutes.  That leaves out most pastas, beans and rice.  Foods that cook quickly include couscous and tabouli.  Pastas that will cook quickly include Ramen noodles – the staple of hikers – and Knorr pasta sides.  Dried hummus can be mixed easily with warm water, and I am excited about a dried black bean mix from Whole Foods that can simply be mixed with boiling water and sit for a few minutes.  There are three foods that generally take a little too long to cook, but hikers have found a trick to make them work: lentils, kasha and freekeh.  I had never heard of the last two until a couple of weeks ago.  The trick is, you put them in one of your water bottles during the afternoon to pre-soak them and then cook them at your dinner site for six minutes and call them done.  I'll often supplement the grains/pastas with the aseptically packaged tuna or chicken.

Many of the foods that I have listed will not be available at the groceries in the smaller towns I will walk through – no Whole Foods J - so much improvisation is yet to come!  I am planning to pick up four mail drops from my support team (thanks, Anne!) during the southern portion of my hike.  That will be a limited opportunity to get more of the “good stuff”.  Most of the resupply will come from what is available in the trail towns.  It will be interesting to see how my food philosophy changes as the hike progresses.  Maybe I will end up being a honey bun fan.