Paleo breakfast for the trail

I buy quinoa, cook it, and then dehydrate it. I end up with little brown nuggets that are crunchy and have a bit of a nutty flavor.

This won't impress anybody, but my breakfasts for Monday and Tuesday consisted of just a few things:
1. One 1.5 ounce packet of peanut butter (squeezed directly into the mouth)
2. One 1 ounce packet of GU (with caffeine) any flavor
3. 1 ounce of quinoa nuggets, eaten crunchy
4. One Special-K breakfast bar
5. Two cups of hot tea

–B.G.–

What do you eat at home??

For a real Paleo diet:
Before your trip, dry and shred strips of meat. Dry tart berries. Pound shredded meat and berries together. Pour melted fat on the mix, and blend together. Form into patties.

North Americans called it pemmican, and it was used as trip food.

Try home dehydrated mashed sweet potato. Add walnuts, raisins, and flavor with cinnamon…

Very cool to see another paleo-backpacker on the forum. I never tried it backpacking but quite often my paleo hot-cereal breakfast of choice is a mixture of hemp and flax seed powder and almond milk. I heat up the contents over a stove and add more almond milk as needed to get to the desired consistancy. Sometimes I'll chopped nuts or blueberries.

An added benefit to this breakfast is due to the plentiful amounts of fiber in the flax, taking a #2 in the backcountry requires less time and clean-up if you know what I mean. It's also extremely healthy and doesn't weigh you down.

Quinoa flakes are good with grated carrots, something to sweeten and spices added to the mix. Here is a recipe that I think you could easily adjust to suit.

Carrot Cake Quinoa Flakes
from: Another Fork in the Trail

Dehydration Time: 5-7 hours
Makes 2 servings

This hot cereal recipe has the comforting flavor of carrot cake and the gentle flavor of green tea combined with the protein-packed nutrition of quinoa flakes. If you like, you can substitute oats for the quinoa, however, if you lead a gluten-free lifestyle ensure that the oats are packaged in a gluten-free facility. I usually rehydrate the carrots and raisins while I have my first cup of tea.

3 tablespoons carrots, dehydrated measurement
2 teaspoons gunpowder green tea, ground measurement
2/3 cup quinoa flakes
2 to 3 tablespoons powdered soy milk
2 tablespoons sultana raisins
2 teaspoons maple or brown sugar to taste
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 tablespoons walnuts or pecans, coarsely chopped (optional)
1 tablespoon shredded sweetened coconut (optional)
1 1/2 to 2 cups water

At Home
Grate a carrot on the fine side of a box grater and dry on lined dehydrator trays for 5 to 7 hours or until dry and leathery. Grind the green tea to a fine powder in a spice grinder. Place the quinoa flakes in a medium ziplock freezer bag with the green tea and soy milk powder. Put the raisins and dried carrots in a ziplock freezer bag and place that bag in with the quinoa flakes. Mix the spices and sugar together and wrap in a small piece of plastic wrap. Then do the same with the nuts, and coconut if you are using them. Put the bundles in the bag with the quinoa flakes.

At Camp
Remove the bundles from the bag of quinoa flakes and set aside. Add enough boiling water to the carrots and raisins to barely cover them and let rehydrate for 10 to 15 minutes. When the carrots have rehydrated, boil 1 1/2 to 2 cups of water depending on the desired consistency. Add the quinoa flakes, spice and sugar mixture, carrots and the raisins to the pot, cover, and let sit for about 2 minutes. Stir in the nuts and coconut if you are using them. Divide into 2 servings.

Tips
I like to grate several carrots when making this recipe. That way I have extra for this, soup and trail salads.

If you don’t have a spice grinder just use an inexpensive coffee grinder and dedicate it to grinding spices.

To save time in the morning, start rehydrating the carrots and raisins the night before using cool water and a leak proof container.

That recipe for Quinoa flakes sounds really good, Lauri Ann, I'll have to try that. I also found a recipe for sweet potatoe bark and Pumpkin bark, so that may be something else to try.

At home, for breakfast I eat steamed veggies topped with a little vegan butter substitute, and chicken sausage, cooked shrimp, or some other protein. This just seems hard to duplicate on the trail; I suppose I could mix freeze-dried veggies and freeze dried chicken with a bouillon cube and seasonings. It just sounds a little odd. On the trail, I usually have oatmeal, but I'm trying to reduce my grains in my diet, and I'm allergic to eggs, so that makes breakfast hard.

For Pemmican, I have tried the Tanka Bars, really not too bad. They do have sugar in them is the only problem. Haven't tried my own pemmican, if I get any time I may have to try it. I've done ground turkey jerky that's good, and home-dried ground turkey rehydrates well.

Part of my problem is I'm going to be starting a series of seminars in a month, where I have to live in a hotel for 5 days. Having breakfasts that I just have to add water to seemed like a good way to avoid the whole "I can't eat that" problem.

Im not a big breakfast person myself. If I eat anything in the morning its usually a banana or some Greek yogurt.
-But don't forget homefries! sliced fried potatoes. Try it with plantains too!
-puffed rice cereal- find the no- sugar- nothing added generic kind.
-I have dehydrated broccoli in the past and it worked great. You can sometimes find freeze dried veggies.

As a side note "vegan butter substitute" why would you substitute butter? one of the most delicious nutritious foods ever? I would suspect that vegan butter substitute is pure omega 6 trans-fats, empty of nutrients and pro inflammatory?

On vegan "butter" – if it is Earth Balance it is pretty good for you – and tastes pretty good as well. It is the ONLY vegan "butter" I will use when baking. Everything else sucks IMO.

On coconut mentioned by another poster – be very wary if it is sweetened. Sweetened coconut often contains nasty side products to keep it plump and moist. When I use coconut I buy dried organic. It is just coconut, nothing else – and still very tasty!

No butter, because apparently I'm allergic to dairy in any form. Wah.

Sarah's right, the Earth Balance is pretty tasty. Now, if only I could find it in powdered form…

I find that Earth Balance is pretty much the best when it comes to baking as it seems to react similarly to butter.

Diane, my husband had started doing the dehydrated food/just add water thing for when he is in hotels. I found a neat little electric travel kettle that tucks nicely into his suitcase. He's gone about 160 nights a year so he likes having something homey for breakfast and he has grown very tired of restaurant/hotel food. The only problem is that he seems to be sneaking a few things from the camp food stash – lol.

Eggs: There are a few decent freeze dried varieties. Sarah is probably the expert on this.

My fave? – Shredded coconut (comes in various sizes if you look around from big flakes to tiny shreds) + freeze dried blueberries or strawberries (or fresh if you're in the Cascades in September ;) + maybe some Nido whole cream milk or vanilla whey protein. Add a little water and you have a very tasty, very calorically dense cereal-ish breakfast.

Either that or coffee and a couple trout :)

Diane is allergic to eggs… but for those of you who aren't I've found three brands to be excellent. This is my list and it would be interesting to see how Sarah's findings compare…

OvaEasy is the best in my opinion. These egg crystals work out very well and taste good. The texture is good too. My only complaint is the little scoop in the package. While convenient it becomes a little wasteful.

The Egg Mix (not to be confused with the powdered egg) from Walton Feed (it's branded Rainy Day Foods) is a decent enough choice.

Adventure Egg is also quite good.

On eggs….while I have tried many a brand when it comes down to it….OvaEasy wins hands down, miles ahead of the competition. Adventure Eggs is decent, but pricewise and being able to get them easy OE is better even on that.

When I was still eating eggs (it is pretty rare I eat them now) I could choke down Mt House ones (the freeze dried ones) if in a burrito smothered in salsa and cheese ;-) Plain, heck no.

Mmmmm…Huckleberries!!!! Ya know, huckleberries and jerky can make a mean stew. Just saying ;-)

Do the OvaEasy eggs have to be ordered or can they be found locally? Never seen them in a store.

Packitgourmet carries them online but if I remember right some REI's are now carrying them….

Now maybe it's not the best option for multi-day expeditions…but there's always the radical idea of carrying real ones. On easy trips it's not too hard; I leave for an overnight tomorrow and will be carrying 4 or 5 for my son and I. I use a half or third of an old carton, wedged into my cookpot, which stays upright in the pack. Carry some green onion, a hunk of nice hard Parmesan, and a tomato to boot…

One of the few suggestions that works for paleo and/or vegan frameworks… I’d recommend swapping out butter with coconut oil whenever appropriate (in the context of trail food). Nutiva and Tropical Traditions both make pretty goods stuff. Somebody markets a product that’s probably similar called “coconut butter”, but I’ve yet to try it.

Pros:
Coconut oil is comprised of high levels of MCTs (medium-chain triglycerides) which, unlike most fats, do not require metabolism via gallbladder, bile salts, et cetera. MCTs are like the glucose of the fat world in that they’re the easiest to convert to energy by the body.

Cons:
Coconut oil melts at 76F, and can get a bit messy if it’s not bound with other ingredients.

Some of us have a problem with saturated fat. However, we still want to get some high calories. Try monounsaturated fat like olive oil or some nut oils.

–B.G.–

"Saturated fat" and "problem" don't go together in a paleo diet. Unless you are talking about not getting enough!

"Coconut oil melts at 76F, and can get a bit messy if it's not bound with other ingredients."

I either drink it or eat it out of the container with a spoon, depending on whether it's liquid or solid. Yum!

No muss, no fuss, no bother.

Tom, good call.

The liquid/solid thing can go both ways depending on use. Sometimes I wish it remained liquid at lower temps to lower the viscosity of roll-your-own cold weather fuel bars. When the coconut oil is solid and the almond butter is frozen, things can get ugly.

Good paleo(ish) breakfast bar ingredients
*Dates
*Raisins
*Shredded Coconut
*Coconut Oil
*Dried pineapple
*Almonds (cashews, etc.)
*Almond (cashew, sun) butter

Riffing on Larabar ingredients can be a good approach.

Stephen’s suggestion on pemmican is also a great way to go… particularly from an energy density standpoint.

Side-note:A current scientific understanding of saturated fat

If you do eat coconut oil, please get organic raw! Get it as unprocessed as you can – much of what is sold is highly refined and not what you want in your body. Where as virgin raw is the good stuff.

I'd go as far as saying consume organic raw virgin coconut butter – it is oil with pulp so has fiber as well. It spreads like butter and is very tasty.

I recently found the coconut butter at my health food store. I can't wait to try it out. It looks like it will be pretty tasty. I was thinking of using it to make different kind of bars, perhaps also add coconut oil as well. Maybe make a nut bar and a pemmican bar using it instead of suet. My only unknown is how messy it might get on the trail. In which case, maybe it would be better to just eat it with a spoon with the nuts or jerky.