Olive oil, how to absorb

[Jim Sweeney]

I'm leaving on a 12 day cookless trip in the high Sierras this Tuesday, and welcome any suggestions. In particular, ideas on how to incorporate olive oil, as I don't think I can drink it straight, but it's wonderfully dense calorically. (One idea in the excellent 8/12 post by Sarah re tomato couscous).

Don't have time to figure out dehydration. Will be taking Mike Clelland!'s "no-bake groovy-riffic bars".

Any other ideas or references much appreciated.

[Bob Gross]

Either purchase instant Quinoa flakes, or else dehydrate your own cooked Quinoa. There isn't much to figure out, and you can do it in an oven if you choose.

Once you have instant Quinoa, you can rehydrate it on the trail with either cool or warm water. Maybe add in a little olive oil, and maybe a little soup base. Actually, some pieces of turkey summer sausage would help, also.

Take along about twelve squares of Logan Bread.

–B.G.–

[Jim Sweeney]

Thanks for a great idea, Bob. Will be bringing salami, sun dried tomatoes, parmesan, which sound like they'd go great with the quinoa and olive oil.

Logan bread is a new one to me, but I'll look it up.

[Bob Gross]

I treat Quinoa like instant rice, but it is more nurishing than rice.

I've left the old recipe for Logan Bread here previously.

–B.G.–

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

Well…I add EVOO to nearly anything :-) You like hummus? Buy the ready to use dried mix that you can find ant many grocery stores – Fantastic Foods makes it. Add curry powder and oil, spread on tortillas!

Make "pasta salads" with ramen blocks (toss the spice packets). It rehydrates in cold water in 10-15 minutes. Add in whatever sounds good. Even topped with EVOO, Parmesan cheese and herbs/spices is good enough.

And yep, couscous can be made cold easily. Any dry soup mix by Knorr works well added as well! Unlimited ideas….

[Jim Sweeney]

Thanks, Sarah. So, do tortillas not need to be cooked or heated? Are there advantages to corn over flour, or vice versa?

[Bob Gross]

Corn tortillas tend to be way too brittle for me. Multigrain flour tortillas are OK. They are soft enough when fresh. Once they are a week old, they are not so soft, so heating or steaming them couldn't hurt. OTOH, I eat them cold when they are two weeks old without any prep. You will need a squeeze packet of peanut butter, though.

–B.G.–

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

Buy flour tortillas from the shelf, like Mission brand or similar, the bigger the brand name the better for hiking. Many have 1 month of freshness. For best storage though put the bag into a gallon freezer bag, it will keep fresher. If in a humid area you can re-pack them with pieces of parchment paper between each tortilla.
Having said that you will find raw flour tortillas that you have to cook but those are usually sold in the cold case!

PS: They are great for no cook chicken and tuna wraps as well, using the pouched meats!

[Laurie Ann March]

you can add it to any pasta, couscous or rice based dish…. another great oil for this is avocado oil… yummy

[Jim Sweeney]

Thanks for all the great ideas. I wish I'd known this was possible years sooner (when I think of all the space-hogging, 4 year old freeze dried food I've choked down, struggling to finish every wretched little bit, endlessly lugging around its abysmal packaging…)

The quinoa flakes are incredible, very delicate, quickly soft with no cooking, and delicious with golden raisins. Am sure they'll be good in a savory direction also, with olive oil, salami chunks and herbs.

The avocado oil sounds like a good idea. How stable is that if the weather is warm, compared to olive oil?

[Bob Gross]

"The avocado oil sounds like a good idea. How stable is that if the weather is warm, compared to olive oil?"

James, the advantage of avocado and olive oils is that they are healthy fats, but they have the calorie density of bad ol' saturated fats. But I can take only a little bit per day.

I did have to use a few drops of olive oil on my last trip. I used it as a lubricant on some plastic parts of my camera tripod. I'm not sure about the calories on that one.

–B.G.–

[Laurie Ann March]

Like olive oil you have to make sure it doesn't go rancid by keeping it out of the light and the extreme heat. I usually just put it in the centre of my pack and have had good luck with it in higher temps. Keep in mind high temps for me are 30-35°C.

[Jim Sweeney]

Still, there is the increase in skin-out weight to think about.

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

Unless one is thru hiking or in very hot/humid temps I would not worry about oil spoiling. A week or two out is just fine – although some oils are less stable (say Walnut and others) even they are stored in less than preferable often before it is purchased.

On olive oil I am the biggest fan of oil packets – you can get organic EVOO of course this way. Your oil is tightly sealed, in a a nice mylar pouch and fresh when opened – and it is the perfect serving amount for one person. Hit up http://www.minimus.biz or packitgourmet for those!

PS: With the toddler I carry avocados fresh. Even before he came around I carried them. They pack better than one would think (wrap in paper towels and put in your mug or pot. Sure you have to hump out the pit and peel but it is sooooo worth it!

[Monty Montana]

Sarah, A good way to keep avocados from geeting smushed in my pack is to put them in one of those large plastic easter eggs that can be found in the stores around Easter time. They're cheap, light and sturdy and guarantee that you won't open your pack to discover green goo all over your stuff.

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

Monty, I LOVE that!!!!

[Tim Zen]

Do you pack out the pit and peel?

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

Timothy, Yes I do. For me the heart healthy fats is well worth the weight of any carry out.

[Tim Zen]

Sorry about that. It was meant to be an exclamation, not a question.

[Jim Sweeney]

Thanks for everyone's ideas and comments. The trip went well, with the following observations:

Living at sea level, and hiking on the first day from 5000' to 11000', there were some altitude effects–

1) It took several days before I "felt" like drinking or eating as much as I should be. Most appealing, to eat/drink, and which I'd brought almost none of, were sugary drinks, like powdered lemonade or Gatorade. I think now that if I'd had more of those, I would also have eaten more than I wound up eating. For several days I wasn't eating more than a 1100 calories a day, and wound up losing about 10 lbs. (Starting weight ~170). (This was measured after drinking several bottles of various drinks as soon as I got back to civilization, so couldn't have been all water loss)

2) Salami always tasted good. A little more hassle, but also good, were crunched up corn chips, followed by wheat thins. For a prepared meal, reconstituted hummus powder with dried parsley and as much olive and/or avocado oil as it could absorb, on a tortilla, was appealing. Not very appealing, for some reason, were the myriad kinds of nuts I'd brought along, though I eat/enjoy a lot of nuts at home. The most successful nuts were pistachios and cashews, followed by almonds, pecans, and very distantly, walnuts. Of dried fruits, Trader Joe's "Just Mango" was a favorite, with, surprising to me, dried cherries and and Sultana raisins less so. Though I'd had a good trial experience with quinoa flakes at home, it was a bit of an effort to eat them on the trail, whether sweet as a cereal (with Sultana raisins and powdered milk) or savory (with olive oil and dried parsley). Chocolate was appealing, but in small doses.

3) Things I wish I'd taken: sugary drinks, powdered tomato to flavor the hummus and supply vitamin C, more tortillas, marmalade, pine nuts.

I think in summary that for several days my body wanted the simplest carbohydrates possible, though surprisingly it seemed to appreciate the salt and fat of the salami.

[Laurie Ann March]

James… I find nuts aren't always so appealing especially when I hike in hotter weather. The one exception to that are maple sugared walnuts. For some reason I can't get enough of those.

Altitude can really have an effect. I'm curious to see how it will affect us when we finally make it to Nepal to hike the Annapurna Circuit. That's going to be a whole new experience in so many ways.

[Bob Gross]

When traveling at high altitude, you really need to watch out for your body. It is so easy to go just a little too high and it sets your whole system into a problem condition. For some people, it hits them at 8000 feet. For others, it is 12,000 feet. I've seen lots of walkers get into trouble at 18,000 feet. Too many walkers will let their appetite die, and then they have trouble forcing themselves to eat anything at all, so you really want some favorite snack that is so good that you can eat it under any conditions. It is really bad when you get too tired to eat.

Every prudent walker must have some snacks hidden about their person. For some, it is all stored in the backpack. I generally keep 200-400 calories worth of snacks in a cargo pocket. It may be nuts, dried fruit, or combination thereof. I also carry a tiny plastic bag of Gatorade powder. I've been known to eat a spoonful of the powder when I am feeling low on power, and then I wash it down with a sip of water.

I was ascending a big peak one time, and half of the others were feeling poorly. Dried pear chips, aspirin, and some water was distributed, and almost everybody felt decent again within minutes.

–B.G.–

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