Backpacking, Featured

Lighweight Backpacking Food

If you want to go backpacking, there are plenty of choices when it comes to food that doesn’t weight much. A lot of people go with the prepackaged meals that are dehydrated. They usually taste good, have a low weight, they’re convenient and give you the right nutrition. The downside is their price.

The dietary needs for a backpacking trip are usually around 60-70% carbohydrates. You can get them from rice, pastas, grains and potatoes. Between 15 and 20% should be composed of fats. Fats can be taken from candy bars, cheese, chocolate or peanut butter. The rest should be made out of proteins (15-20%). You can get proteins from canned or dried meats, peanut butter, tinned fish and textured vegetable proteins (TVP).

You might want to invest in a food dehydrator, as it can be great when planning backpacking meals. You can make with it dried vegetables or fruit, sauces and jerky. Boiled water would be all that you need besides these foods.

Since the normal packages you get from shops are bulky or heavy, the food should be kept in bags that can be resealed or in Ziploc. You can easily eat directly from them, so you don’t need to carry recipients for that.

Drinking water in the wild should be done only after it’s treated properly and sanitized. Using a filter means that you can get 1-3 liters of water each minute. There is a good chance it will taste better as well. The problems of a filter is the sand and silt clogging that appears. Some filters can be cleaned in the field by yourself. If a filter stops working, boil the water to make it safe to drink.

There are also lightweight options when it comes to filters, like the Steri-Pen, which uses Ultraviolet light to get rid of viruses and bacteria.