Tuna Fridays

By: Will

A common question Katie and I get when discussing backpacking is "what will you eat?" This question is posed in a more strained voice when we discuss the idea of a long trail. In this case, we're hiking for two months. While I've spent plenty of time backpacking before, I've only ever been out for 4-8 day hitches. So this 2-month idea made me nervous, as well. That was until Katie reminded me that we would pass through towns every 3-8 days and never carry more food than we needed for those stretches. This is also how I reassure concerned friends and family. 

With that said, there's a careful calculus to meal planning that soon becomes second nature for backpackers. Perhaps it's less like calculus and more like algebra. I'll try to lay out the considerations before I get in to what we've been eating lately.

1. Weight, esp. water weight: First and foremost, backpackers want to reduce the weight of their bags. The pressure to shop light grows in direct relation to the length of time between "resupplies". Most importantly, food should have as little water weight as possible. Water is typically the densest material in a person's pack and can usually be filtered whenever needed. It is not to be carried for longer than necesaary. This consideration, then, is close to being sacred writ. "Thou shalt not carry bags of soup." As you bend the following considerations, other hikers may simply smile or smirk. But carrying food with water weight is likely to earn you scorn. Best to stick to the dry goods or risk public ridicule. 

2. Shelf stability: A distant second consideration is shelf stability. The distance between these two seems to be the aspect of my meal planning which most disturbs those who do not backpack. Dry goods tend to be highly shelf stable, but there are some luxury items which are desirable enough for their calories so as to be worth their weight and expiration date. Cheese is a great example. I must admit I cannot count the number of meals I have enjoyed with cheese that has been unrefrigerated for a week. Parmesan does particularly well, but most semi-hard or hard cheeses are fine. Put simply, I consider shelf stability to be an important characteristics, but I take expiration dates with a grain of salt.

3. Calories and macronutrients: why do we eat anyways? I often find feeding myself to be a necessary chore--no, I suppose I can't be called a foodie after all. Caloric density, macro- and micronutrient content is therefore critical when planning meals. This becomes even more critical after the first few weeks of backpacking when "hiker hunger" begins to set in. Much like im my past summer seasons of trail work, I find that my appetite lags only a few days behind my metabolism. Neither Katie nor I bother to precisely count calories, but I feel confident that we're each pushing 3500 or more per day. Possibly much more. On town days, given the choice between skim and whole milk, we always choose full fat.

4. Joy: Every hiker has their luxury items, and every hiker has foods that that they just can't do without. When the kilometers are wearing on you, your legs are burning and your wet feet are aching, that favorite food beckons to you from your bag. You coax yourself up the climb with a promise of a sweet treat or a savory morsel. When you find yourself wallowing in self pity amidst this self-inflicted sojourn, you dig your grubby paw into your food bag for THAT food. For some foods, you'll disregard every other consideration. And aside from luxury items, there is a lot to be said for seasoning mixes. Cheap, flavorful, and lightweight, they don't add many calories, but they certainly add joy.

5. Cost: Until we can monetize our little travel blog (and thus turn our passions into work), we will be beholden to a budget based on what we've saved for the trail. Other hikers have other budgets, and our diets vary accordingly. Beyond total cost, though, Katie and I spend considerable time in the aisles of kiwi supermarkets comparing cost per 100g or kilo. Better yet, we focus on grams of protein, fiber, carbs, etc. If you're careful with you cracked choices, you'll find that not all flavors are created equal: whole grain or sesame seed may be cheaper per gram of macronutrients than rosemary & garlic. This cost meets with consideration #3.

6. Complexity and fuel consumption: On trail, we carry one single source of artificial heat. Our MSR pocket rocket stove burns iso-butane/propane fuel out of a small aluminum canister. On top of this tiny stove, we set one of our 2 lightweight pots to boil water. Our cutlery collection consists of one short-handled spork (mine), one long-handled spork (Katie's), and a Swiss army knife (Katie's). Given the simplicity of this set-up, we aim to keep our meals similarly uncomplicated. Foods that can be rehydrated with warm water use less fuel than those which need to be boiled or simmered for several minutes. This translates into a reduced need for fuel, and thus a lighter bags. Bonus points if you can keep the clean up to a minimum, as filtering water just to use for dishes quickly starts to feel like a waste of effort. With all of this, our preference is for meals where we can simply rehydrated food with boiling water or otherwise simmer it for a short period of time. While we sometimes carry raw garlic for the joy of it, we've never bothered to sauté the stuff.

7. Packaging: Now here's a funny one. I have found myself standing in grocery store aisles considering my options and choosing a certain brand of wraps based (in part) on the quality of it's plastic bag. There's one brand here with particularly durable resealable bags which make exemplary trash bags. We pack out all of our trash from the woods, and week-old food trash can generate some truly foul juices. It is critical to keep that quarantined from the rest of your pack, so packaging is important. We've found some oatmeal packets that are not way and make great fire starter in the hut's wood stoves, and some peanut butter jars make great reusable containers. I've even reused empty milk bottles to carry couscous.

Of course, other hikers weight these considerations differently. One pair we met recently carries a very different set of cookware specifically so they can make more complex meals, including quesadillas. So while the following listing of our favorite foods is not likely unique, you can imagine other backpackers will be dining differently.

Breakfast has varied throughout our time on trail, but convenience is generally paramount for us. We like breakfasts that border on snackable, so we can start hiking quickly in the morning and eat frequently in small amounts. We started with fistfuls of dry granola and spoonfuls of peanut butter. When that lost its luster, Katie began making "power balls" (photo below), which have been my favorite trail breakfast yet. If you've ever read the "Our Story" off of a box of fancy protein bars, you can picture Katie in the early stages of an enterprise:

Trying to fuel her thru-hike adventures with convenient, clean nutrition that doesn't taste like cardboard, PowerBall(TM) founder Katie realized she would have to take matters into her own hands. Working in shared hostel kitchens on her 0 days, she honed the recipes that would become modern can favorites...

All jokes aside, though, those things are delicious. She makes them a little differently every time, but they usually contain peanut butter, oats, dates (run through a food processor or diced finely), chocolate chips, and lots of seeds and nuts. They're filling, delicious, clean, and convenient.

Recently, though, we've had some trail towns where it's too expensive to resupply. In St. Arnaud, the only groceries are from the pricey gas station, so we shipped ourselves 10 days of food from the bulk discount store in Christchurch 2 weeks ago. As such, we've traded powerballs for good old fashioned instant oatmeal.

Breakfast also includes one of our main luxuries: coffee. With a French press adapter for her cook pot, Katie a can make coffee out of real grounds, so we don't have to suffer through the Nescafé instant coffee experience. It is a true luxury for me to start my day with a steaming cup of black coffee.

Lunch has been fairly consistent for us on the trail. Whole wheat wraps with couscous and tuna have yet to get old. Tuna comes in cans and--better yet--packets, and is a great source of flavor and protein. When the flavor selection is poor, we'll add a bit of Cajun seasoning. Couscous is shockingly high in protein for how cheap, dry, light, and packable it is. It can even be cold soaked in just about 5 minutes, meaning it doesn't require fuel (although it's better warm). We will usually buy a bag of spinach in town to add to our wraps and dinners until we run out. Greens also feel luxurious for the first few days out of town.

Dinner is when we try to add variety to our day, and when we're willing to spend time cooking. It's good to have something to look forward to after the hiking is done with for the day and you're settling in to a hut or campsite. We steer toward the "ready meals" in the supermarket, with common options including pasta sides (4 servings per person per meal, macaroni, carbonara, Alfredo, etc.); Kraft Mac n cheese (a box per person per meal); ramen instant noodles (2 per person) with dried peas and sometimes peanut butter; and the occasional dehydrated meal. Those last are maximally convenient, with minimal cleanup and great resealable bags. They're also as expensive a dinner as we ever make and often not as good as you'd hope. So they are not a go-to. Our favorite dinner lately has been spaghetti noodles with carbonara or meatball seasoning mix, fresh minced raw garlic cloves, and lots of sharp cheddar cheese (called "tasty cheese" in NZ). 

To round things out, we have snacks and desert. 

Breakfast never has me full for long, so I start hitting the protein bars by 10am. These are usually a compromise between what's on sale and what offers the best nutrition and joy. Pure joy is derived from tasty little fruit strips of various flavors and one bag of chips per day. We started off eating more chocolate than we do now, but I found that salty chips actually offer me more enjoyment per 100 grams than chocolate does, so I refused to budge on their necessity. That said, we also like to carry enough chocolate to have a few squares each evening for dessert. We also tend to carry a little peppermint tea for the late evenings when we want to sip a hot drink after dinner and read or start gaze.

As I mentioned earlier, we have just picked up a box meant for a 10 day stretch in the woods. Commonly referred to as "bounce boxes" or "resupply boxes", these add cost and a little complexity to feeding oneself during a thru-hike. However, they can be necessary if you want to avoid carrying 15 or 20 days worth of food. Some hikers ship several boxes for the TA, but we decided to only ship this single box.

All told, it weighed about 34lbs cost $30 dollars in shipping. But when push comes to shove, food is our fuel. So we do what we have to in order to keep marching forward, and we throw in some treats to make it more enjoyable.