What do you do for Lunch?

Red Vines if I can get away with it.

+1

– Tortilla or pita
– Summer sausage
– Grey Pouon mustard packet
– Nice hard cheese
– Dried apricots & nuts
– snacking throughout the day

Thanks for all the suggestions. Gonna try the tortilla wrap setup.

For an overnight i will usually take sandwich thins or wraps with prepackaged tuna and make a sandwich on the trail. Sometimes i will throw in some cheese and pepperoni.

For extended trips I will take a small jar of peanut butter and packets of honey and spread them on sandwich thins, cake frosting also works well for a mid afternoon boost.

Another vote for the snacking method. For my 'snacking', I used Hammer Nutrition Perpetuem powder for most of my daytime calorie intake during my TRT hike last fall, so I never had to stop for lunch. I had a Snickers bar for a solid snack if I felt like, but there wasn't a day that I didn't just save the Snickers to add to my dinner. I don't like 'needing' to stop when I'm hiking in order to eat. I stop plenty enough to take in views and take pictures. My system wasn't sophisticated, as I'd just been turned onto the idea of a liquid diet by a BPL thread not too long before I left. I filled a 20oz water bottle with 2 scoops of Perepetuem and sipped that at a rate that would last me about 1.5-1.75hrs, taking in ~150 calories/hr between breakfast and dinner. Then I'd stop and make another bottle, which gave me a 5 minute break. I really felt like that constant caloric intake helped me the longest miles I'd ever made, avoiding things like sore legs that have plagued me in the past, though it was hardly a controlled test.

I agree!

Hammer Nutrition all the way! Liquid fuel is easy, allow consistent hiking tempo, with quick breaks for water refills (Steripen Opti).

IF! I feel the need for something solid, it is either a Hammer bar, or a Cliff bar.

O.K., so I HAVE occasionally use "normal" hikers' fuel, like dried turkey/buffalo/beef jerkey, hard "Laughing Cow" cheese, wraps, dried fruits, etc. And I DO! like these items.

But, for pure 15-25 mi-per-day, it's Hammer fuel!

What are "sandwich thins" by the way? Link or pic would be cool.

Thanks

+1 on the sandwich thins and now the new bagel things. It's like they invented them for hikers. I usually did tortilla sandwiches but now, mmmmmmm real bread again.

And they make Bagel Thins as well!!

They are full o' fiber as well – a real bonus for hikers ;-)

i hugged my wife and gave her a high five when she tossed a bag of sandwich thins at me before a trip. i was impressed she thought they would be good for my trip. she also got the cinnamon bagel thins. man do i love her!

I read this thread and thought wow…how come I did not think of using these!!!!!!!!!! I have bought these before but for some strange reason, it just did not click. Real bread with lunch??? YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Steven your wife is awesome!

My favorite at the moment is Santa Fe dehydrated re-fried beans. I carry about a 1/2 cup in a zip lock, add some water when I start hiking in the morning and the beans are ready when I am. I add cheese, salami, pepperoni and tortillas if I have them (they don't last long in my experience).

Generally just some nuts (usually a mix of organic cashews and pistachios) munched while I hike, with either a mini clif bar or an 18 Rabbits bar if I get really hungry. If it's an extraordinarily long day, two of the bars. I'll also occasionally take some homemade protein balls in place of the bars.

Cold thin-crust spelt pizza or cheese, crackers and dried fruit. They are more or less the same thing.

Just Perpetuem.

This is my daily lunch/snack ration. I always take the same stuff pretty much, and I have been keeping track of how much I bring and how much gets eaten for several years to whittle it down to the amounts I really eat. When traveling solo I tend to eat two small lunches – one about 11:00 and the other around 1:00 or so. Seems to keep me going better. I just multiply these amounts by the number of lunches I need and that's how much I take.

M&M’s/peanuts – 1 ¾ oz
Dried bananas – 2 each
Raisins – 2/3 oz
Dried apricots – ¾ oz
Fruit leathers – 2 each
Jerky – ½ oz
Various bars ( Tigers milk, clif, etc) 1 per day
Salami – 1/3 oz
Sesame sticks – 2/3 oz
Whole wheat berry bars ( like a hearty fig newton) 1 each

Ken-"I read this thread and thought wow…how come I did not think of using these!!!!!!!!!! I have bought these before but for some strange reason, it just did not click. Real bread with lunch??? YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Same thing for me. Mi wife has been buying them for god-knows-how-long and I never thought of it. Thanks again BPL.

I love a foil pack of tuna in olive oil with some sunflower seeds thrown in. A guy I hiked with on the JMT this summer did it one step better. He had a bag of crushed triscuits mixed with macadamia nuts that he'd pour into his tuna foil pouch each day. I was seriously jealous.

what, no spam?

Been a huge fan of wraps. Pepperjack Cheese, hummus, sprouts, and turkey/chicken if you please. Good stuff in makes for a good hike, and they wrap up easy in some tin foil that you can reuse day after day.

I don't really think of the food that I eat in between breakfast and dinner as "lunch". More as just a collection of snack breaks, typically 2 or 3. What I do is to aim for a certain per-day ration (in oz's), made of an assortment of:

– dried fruit
– almonds
– trail mix
– wasabi peas
– salami
– hard cheese (gouda is great)
– almond M&Ms
– jerky
– Primal Strips (a yummy meatless jerky)

Of course, these do not all have the same caloric density, but it seems to work out, since the relative proportions of the various things tends to be similar.

As far as what that specific daily weight is, through trial and error I've arrived at a figure of about 13oz per day when solo, and about 21oz per day for me and my girlfriend. I weigh about 170lb and she weighs about 110lb. I don't count the hike-in and hike-out days separately; IOW, I multiply the daily ration by the number of nights on the trail, to come up with the total to bring on a given trip.

Lunch time we like to stop for a quick rest somewhere sheltered from wind, and have a cup of warm tea with a sweet snack, sometimes a piece of cheese also (the tea we prepare in the morning and wrap in cosy). Relax, chat, enjoy the surroundings, and go.

I love wraps/sandwiches but found them too heavy for lunch. For me it has something to do with it being an afternoon I guess, as I eat big breakfasts and hike fine. But anything substantial for lunch and I feel like sleeping, not hiking!