I need your help. For the past couple of years I have been using Mary Jane’s Farm freeze dried foods for hiking. Though they taste pretty good but the caloric density is pretty low. If you average out my current diet it comes out to 84kcals per oz, which is not good enough. I’m trying to get my diet up to 125kcal per oz.

I do have a few preferences for my camp food.

1. Freezer bag cooking or non-cook only. I really don’t want to have to simmer (I use an Esbit stove) or do dishes.

2. I prefer pastas. If you know of any pasta that I can just add boiling water to and let sit for 5 to 10 minutes would be great.

3. I would like to (if possible) have all of the ingredients for a meal put together at home, so when I am on the trail I can just add water (less packaging and pure laziness). This is probably my least important preference.

Thank you for your recipes and your expertise.

Edited by notu on 01/10/2010 11:35:31 MST.

Add oil or butter to EVERYTHING. Add in cheese if you like it.

Both of those will bump up both calories as well as fat. Fat will fill you up at night and help keep you warmer.

Pasta:
Angel hair cooks in minutes and doesn't even need to be boiled - it can be soaked. Barilla tortellini that you find in the pasta aisle - you can soak it in hot water, in a cozy, for 15 to 20 minutes and then chow down. Baked ramen or Chuka Soba noodles work great soaked and then used as pasta.

All of the above are FBC friendly :-) Over the years I have posted a number of FBC recipes here - I would do a search and you should get a number of them (and I love pasta like you do as well!)

I know this is weird, and I know I let my butter sit on my kitchen counter for weeks and never get sick. But hiking with butter, is there anything I should worry about? I hike in pretty hot temps (high 90's low 100's). Are you ever been leery of eating butter on the trail (to many days in, temp got too high, etc)?

Two words:
Clarified butter! (Or also known as Ghee)

Easy to make:
http://www.trailcooking.com/recipes/homemade-ghee-butter

You can also buy it but you will pay way more. It is shelf stable and heat resistant. You can carry it for a year!

Justin,

Sarah is extra careful about staying on the safe side of BPL's rules about commercial promotions. But if you look elsewhere on her website you'll see that she sells a cookbook that is all recipes meeting your preferred prep/cooking methods. There's probably enough pasta recipes there to feed a month long hike with no repeats. It also leads you to sources for single serving ingredients needed for those recipes.

Bon Appétit!

Nuts also make great additions to some meals, although they might be weird in others. There's a lot of fat in nuts (especially macadamia, brazil, walnuts and cashews).

I've also found that single serving salad dressing packets (I got a bunch from packitgourmet.com, but you can probably find them at a grocery store's salad bar) are tasty and add a wallop of fat to the meal.

Couscous with lots of cheese/oil/butter etc. Perfect for FBC, just add boiling water.

Another often over-looked wheat dish IMHO is tabouli. Again, just add boiling water, olive oil and eat.

Alphabet pasta is also quick cooking and fun to eat ;)

One more pasta item!

Those small bags of tiny pastas they sell in the Hispanic section for often 25 to 50 cents a bag. No "cooking" needed, just time in hot water. You will see alphabet and stars and more!

Thank you very much. I just looked at some of your suggestions and got to 125kcal per oz in no time. Thanx again.

If you want snack recommendations let us know.

In any food, a hot drink, soup, side dish, entree or dessert use "calorie-dense" "add-ons".

I have organized a list, by defining "calorie-dense" as 150 calories per ounce.

Here: http://www.ultralightbackpackingonline.info/foodfacts1.html

I have a number of pages about food: look at the "Site Map".

There are great answers in this thread.

Edited by ConnieDodson on 01/10/2010 16:57:10 MST.

Boring Facts about Calories per Ounce

Baseline Point Mary Janes Freeze Dried about 88 Calories per ounce (could be carbohydrates plus dietary fiber)



Macronutrients
Carbohydrates ([dry]sugar, pasta, rice , potatoes ..)have typically 114 Calories per ounce
- Dietary fiber is carbohydrate, but isn't digested so 0 Calories per ounce

Proteins from meat or beans or legumes or...
typically have 114 Calories per ounce

Gristle, collagen indigestible proteins 0 Cal per ounce

Fats/oils typically have 255 Calories per ounce

Water has 0 Calories per ounce

Air has 0 Calories per ounce

Alcohol has typically about 190 Calories per ounce

Gasoline isn't digestible, so those calories don't count

End Macronutrients

Ingredients rich in fats are great calorie boosters, and this includes nuts which include oils and fats. Shortening, lard, fat, are good fats to add. Butter as well. Peanut butter combines proteins and fats, so it too is a good calorie booster.

Without fat, or alcohol, dry digestible food is either carbohydrate of protein maximinzing at about 114 Calories per ounce. Wet digestible food will tend to be less is the wetness is from water, more if the wetness is from oil/fat.