Topic
New Backpacking Food Brands: Good, Bad and Ugly
Forum Posting
A Membership is required to post in the forums. Login or become a member to post in the member forums!
Home › Forums › General Forums › Food, Hydration, and Nutrition › New Backpacking Food Brands: Good, Bad and Ugly
- This topic has 75 replies, 16 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 1 month ago by Roger Caffin.
-
AuthorPosts
-
Oct 30, 2020 at 7:18 pm #3681733
I’ve tried a couple of the Peak Refuel meals. They’re good…probably my favorite of the popular brands. They cost a little more, but once again, taste great, and have more ingredients you can pronounce than the other brands. They’re also a little lower in sodium and usually take less water to hydrate. The two Peak Refuel meals I had only required one cup of water. The pork fried rice is actually real good…if I got it served to me in a restaurant I would be OK with it.
Oct 30, 2020 at 7:44 pm #3681737I make a mean Cuban black beans…I make double and dehydrate half. Same with yellow rice. Combine those 2 with freeze dried chicken (never had any luck dehydrating…always ended up tough and chewy) and rehydrate. Add sharp cheddar, olive oil and pickled jalapeños and you have the best camp dinner ever.
If you don’t want to/can’t make your own beans, these are really good.
Oct 30, 2020 at 8:16 pm #3681740JCH, I am starting to think about dehydrating my own food. Do you just stick it into a normal dehydrator? How do you know how much water to use on the trail for rehydration?
Jackie
Oct 30, 2020 at 9:28 pm #3681748Start with too much water. If it comes out soupy, too bad – and after a day’s walking you probably need the fluid intake anyhow.
Cheers
Oct 30, 2020 at 9:54 pm #3681749Jackie-
Roger may be correct about needing the extra water, but try adding hot water equal to the volume of food or to cover it. You can always add more. While many foods may work as soup, after you have hauled that food so far, it may be preferable to have it taste as good as possible. That said, I misread directions once and added twice as much water to a commercially made teriyaki or whatever meal. My son and I DID enjoy it as a soup. :-)
Best-
Rosaleen
Oct 30, 2020 at 9:58 pm #3681750Salt and sugar in commercially made foods help to preserve it. At least, that is one theory. It also became common as we moved more toward pre-made frozen and canned foods as manufactures removed fiber and tried to create storable meals that were palatable months later. We were much better fed and healthier when we ate closer to a farm-to-table style. The good old days also meant fewer choices as to what was available and people did a lot more physical work. I’m not ready to give up my computer and buying on-line.
Oct 30, 2020 at 10:44 pm #3681753Rosaleen’s amount of water may be OK for the ‘extra’; I was perhaps thinking of the amount of water needed for rice and pasta. Many (most) times I cook the lot in together (I only carry one pot).
Cheers
Oct 30, 2020 at 11:38 pm #3681755Maybe for each 2 ounces weight of dried food add 8 ounces of water
At least that would be a first attempt. Then add more or less the next time depending on how that worked
Oct 31, 2020 at 7:39 am #3681765I use this dehydrator. You can spend as little or as much as you want, but they will all do the job. You can also dehydrate in your oven if it has very low settings (125-175 F).
Amount of water: Creating your own dehydrated meals also involves creating your own recipes. Some things work out great and some things don’t…best to find that out in the kitchen and not on the trail. I prototype/refine all my recipes at home before packing then into the woods. As Roger mentioned, and as my Mother taught me…you can always add more, your can never take it back out. A slightly too dry/under hydrated meal is easily remedied by adding a little more boiling water and another 20 min. wait. When I pack for a trip I break out my recipes and build the meals one at a time, writing instructions to the outside of the bag…tired and hungry is not a good time to test your memory.
I suggest investing in a decent vacuum sealer. I also prefer the zippered vacuum bags as they prevent any spillage as you rehydrate. The ones I like best have gone unavailable on Amazon, but these look very similar. I’ve used the roll bags, cut to whatever size you need, but am happy to pay a little more for the zipper. Vacuum sealing controls smell and minimizes bulk better than using ziplock bags, and after the meal the zippered bag holds all of the waste and helps keep your main trash bag cleaner.
Oct 31, 2020 at 10:07 am #3681787I’m glad this thread is still going. Always interested in how people eat on trail. I think the MH and other manufactured, packaged meals are most appealing when I’m not spending time in camp. I just want to get it ready, eat and be done. But they don’t tend to taste very good; I try to find the least nasty if I need food in an hurry. It’s so personal; someone up thread said MH biscuits and gravy was their fav. I tried that and yuck! It was all I could do to finish it and not bury it somewhere, perhaps along with my morning offering. So bland, and so bad. I also find that there’s almost always too much in a packet; I have to split a 1 person serving into 2.
One brand I really like, but which requires more cooking than most, is Cache Lake in Minnesota. I found them after reading a wilderness trip blog from a trip to the Boundary Waters. I ordered a variety of meals and breads and they are all really tasty, so far anyway. But they all do require actual cooking, so you have to be in camp for a bit, and have enough fuel. Looking at the ingredients, I don’t think they’re all that healthy, plenty of preservatives, but they taste better than many of the bland packaged meals I’ve tried. I really liked their bread mixes, super easy and quick to prepare on a camp stove. Plus wild rice; I grew up eating that so it’s home food to me! Many of the meals need some additional spices or hot sauce.
I tend to just assemble my meals from various ingredients including things like dried black beans, dried veg, and instant rice or noodles. I bring spice mixtures along in pill bags, to enhance anything dull. Most people like very bland food; for me it has to have some spice!
Oct 31, 2020 at 10:11 am #3681788Oh – I should have pointed out – Cache Lake meals tend to be much smaller servings than a Mountain House type meal. For larger appetites you might want to double the amount per serving, from what is listed on the package.
Oct 31, 2020 at 2:43 pm #3681815We can get all sorts of freeze-dried vegetables here in Oz, but they are all made in China. Who knows what is in them – melamine maybe? My wife refuses point blank to touch them.
Sun dried tomatoes in olive oil with herbs & spices: very nice, but impossible to keep inside the container. I use Nalge bottles which have a really good seal at the top – against water maybe, but the oil leaks out. At least double plas bags!
Brown rice and Spelt noodles. They have flavour.
Cheers
Oct 31, 2020 at 3:04 pm #3681817Hmmm. I’ve had good luck transporting olive oil in the small 1 to 4 oz HDPE nalgene bottles. 🤷♂️
Oct 31, 2020 at 4:45 pm #3681832Ah yes, probably, but mine are more ‘jars’ than bottles – to get the sun-dried tomatoes in you see.
Typical examples of the jars are 562118-xxxx. Some advertise them as being ‘leakproof’, while others say they are not recommended for liquids. I found they were OK with water but not with oil. I suspect the neck is a bit to big for tight sealing.Incidentally, the old Nalge rectangular bottles of the 0.5 – 2 L size are highly NOT recommended. I still have a few but I do not use them: they shatter rather easily. Poke side with finger – oops. After a web search, I find they are still available, but with a very limited version of ‘leakproof’.
Cheers
Oct 31, 2020 at 5:20 pm #3681838https://www.packitgourmet.com/MarconiOrganicExtraVirginOliveOil.html
$0.45 for 1 tablespoon packets
Oct 31, 2020 at 5:52 pm #3681841I don’t think I really explained what I am talking about. ‘Semi-dried tomatoes with Mediterranian herbs’ is a better description.
‘Semi Dried Tomatoes (77%), Canola Oil, Garlic,Water, Salt, Basil, Vinegar, Oregano’Very messy, but very nice.
Cheers
Nov 1, 2020 at 5:33 am #3681868I think Roger it talking about marinated dried tomatoes. Sound amazing. I can see how they’d be a total mess.
Leaky bottles: yeah, the ones that don’t leak have the small neck as linked. Larger are likely hard if not impossible to seal to the point of being “leak proof”. Interesting thing, Nalgene sells some small bottles with a neck the same diameter as the body…they do NOT claim they are leakproof.
Nov 1, 2020 at 7:17 am #3681875Disclaimer: Untested on oils, yet. I’ve had good luck with placing small amounts of toiletries into pill bags, closing the “zipper seal,” then ironing above that seal. This MIGHT work for oils. Be sure to use the heavier pill bags, sometimes available in pharmacy sections of discount stores. Stock levels vary, so check with clerks to see if the store usually carries pill bags should you not find any during that trip.
In spite of sealing items with a clothes iron, I still pack these bags into another zip bag, maybe lined with a paper towel. Lessons learned during lightweight backpacking can be applied to other parts of our lives, yea!
Nov 1, 2020 at 8:51 am #3681883These bottles I have had NO issues with:
https://www.usplastic.com/catalog/default.aspx?catid=657&parentcatid=647
Nov 1, 2020 at 8:53 am #3681884Foodsaver (vacuum sealer brand) works great for making single serve packets of olive oil, ghee, coconut oil etc. It’s a bit tedious and somewhat wasteful of the bags but fool proof. I gave up on using Nalgene containers after leaks on many trips.
Trader Joe’s carries single serve coconut oil packets from time to time.
Note: I just use the Food saver to seal the small bags. Do NOT try and vacuum seal any liquid especially oil! Unless you want an oily mess.
Nov 1, 2020 at 10:41 am #3681895I used to use the olive oil packets, but they all leak, no matter what brand, same with lemon juice packets. Messy. I bought the little nalgene bottles REI sells and they work great. I still put them into ziplocks though out of caution. Some people like those little flavor enhancer drops for water; I wonder if those bottles would work well too for other liquids?
Nov 1, 2020 at 1:51 pm #3681914flavor enhancer drops for water;
The mind boggles!
What does America have in its drinking water? ? ? ? ? ?
Yeah, I know – toxic chemicals which the EPA struggles to address because of political interference.Cheers
Nov 1, 2020 at 1:57 pm #3681916flavor enhancer drops for water;
The mind boggles!
What does America have in its drinking water? ? ? ? ? ?
Yeah, I know – toxic chemicals which the EPA struggles to address because of political interference.Cheers
Or people just don’t like the “taste” of water to be blunt. Especially if it comes out of an area with high amounts of tannins in it.
But feel free to make it political instead. Snort.
Nov 1, 2020 at 2:03 pm #3681918Hi Sarah
We often have tannin in our water. Can’t say I have ever noticed the taste, and it would not worry me anyhow.
Common Oz bushwalking joke about tannin in the water: heat, add milk and sugar, and you have ‘tea’.Is it political to be concerned about my health and that of my family? When you find lead, arsenic and PFOS in the water because the local authorities won’t do anything about it …
Cheers
Nov 1, 2020 at 3:00 pm #3681924Water is definitely political in the U.S. – Flint Michigan anyone? There is no human right to clean drinking water in this country, so yes, it can be political, no snort about it.
However, I think the flavor enhancer drops are really more about marketing than anything else. You wouldn’t want Flint water with or without flavoring! Also they’re probably developed for people who are so used to the flavor of sugary sodas, that they no longer like the taste of plain water. My parents drank two Pepsis a day for 60+ years. When my mom developed diabetes in her elder years, she had to stop drinking soda, and she couldn’t stand the taste of water any more. We never tried the drops, probably would have helped.
My post was really only about the bottles! I don’t know if they would really work for an oil or not, but people carry them around in their pockets, so maybe?
-
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Forum Posting
A Membership is required to post in the forums. Login or become a member to post in the member forums!
Our Community Posts are Moderated
Backpacking Light community posts are moderated and here to foster helpful and positive discussions about lightweight backpacking. Please be mindful of our values and boundaries and review our Community Guidelines prior to posting.
Get the Newsletter
Gear Research & Discovery Tools
- Browse our curated Gear Shop
- See the latest Gear Deals and Sales
- Our Recommendations
- Search for Gear on Sale with the Gear Finder
- Used Gear Swap
- Member Gear Reviews and BPL Gear Review Articles
- Browse by Gear Type or Brand.