The trail food you just can’t stand.

[Paul Magnanti]

I (almost) forgot about these abominations. When they became cold, I always wondered if I would need some emergency dental work. :O

[Bob Gross]

There was one good thing about a Power Bar when it got cold. It was hard enough that you could pound in your tent stakes with it.

–B.G.–

[Mobile Calculator]

…

[David Thomas]

>". . . a Power Bar when it got cold. It was hard enough that you could pound in your tent stakes with it."

+1

Hence, it was the ultimate multi-purpose gear. Slip it into your skivvies to warm it up, form it into a

– tent-peg hammer
– tent pegs
– bowl
– shot glass
– spork
– hair brush (simply insert twigs)
– dust pan
– ice axe
– fastex buckle

and let it cool.

[Bob Gross]

Plus, if you had a cold Power Bar, you would never have to worry about ever running out of food. That is because you could never force yourself to eat it.

–B.G.–

[Jeffs Eleven]

"Simy insert twigs"

Ha ha! David you crack me up man.

Coolest nerd I "know"

[Lori P]

Throw it at the bear trying to get your food.

He'll break a tooth, cry, and leave.

[Diane “Piper” Soini]

For me it's any kind of bars.

I find I can't stand spicy food on hikes as well as I can normally. But if my food is too bland that gets really depressing. At least let it be salty.

I also sometimes have difficulty swallowing. I don't bring anything gooey backpacking. This means peanut butter, clif shot blocks, taffy-like candy (i.e. starburst), power bars, tortillas. Everything must be easy to chew, easy to swallow and not be a choking hazard.

[Roger Caffin]

For us it was Coco-Pops. We bought some in Spain once for breakfast. They were so revolting that we threw the packet out after the first meal.

Cheers

[Nick Gatel]

I can eat just about anything. However, I draw the line at road kill.

[Anonymous]

"I can eat just about anything. However, I draw the line at road kill."

Even if it's fresh?

[M B]

Poptarts
MH Chili Mac (horrible gas I can still remember the smell)
Kraft easy-mac
Spam
any kind of corn nuts

[Cesar Valdez]

Former army brat here. When I was young, back in the late 80s and into the 90s, my father would bring home MREs for me to eat. Like, a lot of em. Because papa was cheap as hell and we're talking free food that does not spoil for a long, long time. I ate countless MREs, from the old school dark brown bags to the "newer" ones in the 90s-00s in the tan bags (not sure what they are like now, have not eaten one in like 10 years).

I actually liked some of them. Mostly the side dishes were my favorite parts of them. The jalapeno cheese on crackers I remember being pretty good. Pork chow main was alright. And did I mention that they were free? So by the time I was a teenager and discovered camping/backpacking/roadtrips, guess what was on the menu?

The worst of the worst MRE, however, was the dreaded HAM SLICE.

I'd rather not eat than have to eat another one of those. I can only hope they don't make them anymore.

Oh, and Spam too. Could never stand that stuff.

I love peanut butter, however. My family burns through roughly a jar a week.

And I am the only one on here that has never had a Cliff Bar? I tried some of the Cliff granola bars recently on my vacation to the USA. They tasted pretty much just like any other American granola bar, e.g. Nature Valley. Not bad but a bit too sweet for my tastes.

[Kevin Buggie]

Powerbars vs. TvP, I vote the latter off the island.

Powerbars are all the plague you guys have described, but the all reedeming fact is that if you could get it into your gut they always gave great energy without too many GI problems later. I say this with full experience sucking on plenty of near frozen PB chunk for 15 minutes before daring to chew it in many a late-90s bike race, drawing blood from the sharp cold corners of bars fresh from a box, and lamenting the tired jaw feeling, always. But they also pack flatter than all other bars/cal and like I said, always worked. Then came the luxury of Cliff bars……

Only have a couple PBs around now in the fak/emergency running kit. Probars have since replaced the sweet cardboard from Cliff, but draw my ire for their $3 price and balloon packaging.

[Ian]

Road kill makes good survival stew if you ever go to Ft Bragg for SERE-C. It adds that extra *something* to round out the earthworms and grubs the instructors have already thrown in.

Cesar,

I was pretty indifferent to Ham Slice but could only gag down Chicken Ala King by adding the included Tobacco and Peanut Butter and then trying to convince myself that I was eating previously chewed Chicken Kung Pao.

Then there was the mystery meat slab.

And the hot dogs and the compromising pictures we'd take of our battle buddies when it was our turn for radio watch on the M113 and they were sleeping.

And the infamous post FTX MRE baby.

Those were indeed the days.

[BlackHatGuy]

"When I was young, back in the late 80s and into the 90s, my father would bring home MREs for me to eat."

Cs were so much better than MREs, IMO. But nothing beat the LRP chili. That was some mighty fine field eating. Took a lot of water to reconstitute, but it was worth it.

Be glad your dad didn't bring home any UGRs. The early UGRs were pretty nasty. I remember one, maple eggs something or other, that still stands as the nastiest military meal I've ever had.

[Jake D]

Flour tortillas as bread. We did this when i was in HS with PB/jelly but they always go stale and get crunched up. they make great quesodillas car camping though. Bagel/sandwich thins are much better.

Thomas/Lenders bagels. Once in a while i'll tolerate them on the trail but not many.

Jerky.. not a big fan anyway. Only jerky I like is only found in Kentucky so unless i'm climbing at RRG I don't have it.

Haven't tried a Mountain house in a long time but not inclined to try.

Knorr Rice sides.. I like the Pasta ones but rice doesn't take well to water measurement mistakes very well either.

Go To's
PB, peanut butter filled pretzels, nutella, pringles, frosted flakes/lucky charms + Nido.

[Cesar Valdez]

Ha! One man's nightmare is another man's indifference. I was indifferent to the Chicken Ala King. I too put the Tabasco on it, but I put that on just about everything.

What I thought was really strange was back around 1999, with the whole Y2K "scare" going on, all of a sudden MREs were a hot item. After my father retired from the army in 1998, I was SOL for free MREs–and like I said, I didn't mind some of them, especially the side stuff. So for a short window before the Y2K BS, I was able to buy MREs for cheap on Ebay. It was a very short window indeed. Soon prices skyrocketed. And when they settled down some after 2000… then 9/11 happened. The prices got worse than ever before in early 00s, so I gave up on trying to buy them. From time to time I would get a few from army buddies of my father, but I had to switch to other camping/backpacking/road trip foods. So in a way it was ultimately a good thing that I left MREs behind, because I was forced to learn about other alternatives to pack food.

[Nick Smolinske]

Clif bars, but only when hiking – I try to save them for actually using on cliffs, because they're so good for that! Really, they are the best bar to eat while belaying on a multipitch climb. They leave no crumbs, they're soft and easy to grab a quick bite out of, they don't melt, and they don't get destroyed in your pocket as you climb. But if I ate them for *anything* else I'd be sick of them super fast. Besides, they are pretty bad from a calories/oz perspective.

Also, I've been on a couple of backpacking trips where I've gotten sick or just had a really poor appetite. Now I make sure that a fair amount of my calories come from liquids, so that I'm a little more versatile.

I did one overnight this summer where I had no appetite, and I wandered around the grocery store looking at everything and saying "nope . . nope . ..no way . . .ugh . . maybe?". Here's what I ended up bringing:

– SmartFood popcorn
– Nido milk and swiss miss – chocolate milk! just shake it well and let it sit for 5-10 minutes.
– apple cider packets (to mix cold)
– a small bag of wasabi almonds (not sure why, but they sounded good and I ate some)

That diet worked out great. The popcorn may be bulky and marketed as a health food, but it has 150 calories/oz and was super easy to eat. A good substitute for the kettle chips I usually bring.

[Larry De La Briandais]

Peanut butter, Jerky, tuna, Cliff Bars and those d*** powerbars! I didn't mind Mountain House until I tried Packit Gourmet. I believe that powerbars don't change under adverse conditions, and food LIKE is the right description. BTW, I will eat most any food. Not fond of food like stuff though. But I have eaten many powerbars and cliff bars before. But now that I have found real food I can take I'm done with those. ;^)

[spelt with a t]

Edit: comment deja vu, sorry

[Justin Baker]

mac and cheese always seems gross on the trail. i've made more than a few meals that I had to dispose of because I literally couldn't get them down.

[Marko Botsaris]

Can be almost anything. I got a bit dehydrated on a long dry stretch (in the mid 90's F) this summer, and was even off my snickers bars for a day or too. Fortunately it came back – I would hate for snickers to end up on the list of things I was sick of for life.

[David Moreno]

Recently, banana chips have become a hatred of mine. Too much of a good thing became a bad thing. Hopefully I'll be able to go there again someday.

Cesar and Ian,

I remember those days too. MRE's were horrible. Chicken al-a-king that was guaranteed to have half an ounce of feathers in it. Blech.

The first and second generation meals were usually horrible, but the worst for me was beef slice in bq sauce / meat balls in bq sauce / ground beef in spice sauce. They were all identical except for the way the beef was cut. Guaranteed heartburn for 2 days.

I've tried most of the name brands of nutrition bars. I agree with the sawdust comments, but after regular forced use of the MRE's mentioned above, I can handle nutrition bars in small quantities no problem.

So for me, the winner is: MRE's. I can't for the life of me, understand why so many people take them backpacking (on purpose)!

This is starting to make me crave roadkill as the better option. Thanks for the nightmares! LOL

[Marc Kokosky]

Most of mine are the same same as others: packaged tuna or chicken, clif bars, freeze dried eggs, mountain house-anything.

Since I don't get to get out for too long at a time, I've just decided to suck up the extra cost and get Hawk Vittles or Packit Gourmet

[Author]

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