About & Access Info
Live Event Info: How to Plan Food for a Backpacking Trip (Member Live Q&A) – November 18, 2021 6:00 PM US Mountain Time
Backpacking Light Q&A Sessions are Hour-Long Members-Only Live Events – they are recorded and the recorded session will be made available below after the live event has ended.
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Event Agenda
Scope
Planning your food for a backpacking trip can be a little overwhelming, and we hope to identify the tasks and simplify the process a bit for you. In this Member Q&A, you’ll learn about calorie planning, nutritional considerations, and food packaging and storage strategies.
1. Keynote: AN OVERVIEW OF BACKCOUNTRY FOOD PLANNING (~45 minutes, by Ryan Jordan)
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- caloric density
- nutritional diversity
- the role of macronutrients
- energy-mile theory & calorie planning
- weight loss expectations
- food packaging and storage
- fuel planning, simmering, hot-soaking, and cold-soaking
- featured recipe!
2. Backcountry Food Planning Q&A (~15 minutes)
- micronutrients: from food or supplements?
- when to take nutrient supplements
- what’s really changed in trail cooking during the past 40 years?
- options for DIY meal packaging for small cook-in-bag meals
- dehydration impacts when using constant-temperature ovens/dehydrators
- what about calorie-to-food volume ratio of dry foods – how to improve?
- how to keep fresh ground coffee fresh on a long trip
Members-Only: Attend the Live Event/Watch the Recorded Video & Access Additional Resources
Member Exclusive
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Discussion
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Companion forum thread to: How to Plan Food for a Backpacking Trip (Member Q&A)
Considerations for backcountry food planning, caloric density, packaging, and more for hiking and backpacking.
Feel free to submit questions as per the instructions in the above-referenced event page, or in this forum thread.
Thanks, Ryan. A good summery of stuff. However, I was wondering about fat, both from body sources and dietary sources. Since glucose is needed for fatty acid metabolism, this can also decrease available glucose in you blood stream and lead to ketone production. I found about 3/4pound per day was the max I could process. What is your take on this?
*ack – at around 7 min, I spoke that the Cal/g of fats were 7 – correction – it’s 9!
James: yep, there’s an upper limit of what feels good because of ketosis. I’m not a fan, especially on a backpacking trip. The goal here isn’t weight loss, it’s energy, recovery, repeat. Ketosis isn’t awesome for contributing to that. I try to shoot for 0.5 to 0.7 lb of fat loss per day. More than that, and I feel crummy too.
Ryan,
The only problem with the Packit Gourmet mylar bags–and most similar such bags–is that the zip is usually on the WRONG dimension. The bags found are rectangular with the zip on the shorter side making the bag tall and slender. It’s maddening. I’ve even had this same discussion with Packit Gourmet’s marketing director as we are both members of the Austin Backpacker’s MeetUp group. I’d like to find bags that have the zip on the longer dimension–like ZipLock Freezer–or better, yet, the PINT Bags.
~Mart from Texas
The other problem I’ve had with mylar bags is that the closure breaks fairly quickly, rendering the bag useless. I’ve had this happen on dozens of mylar bags.
Pint freezer bags are readily available on Amazon.
I tried to post this earlier… hope it doesn’t post twice!
I wonder how people determine whether or not a supplement/vitamin has the contents described on the label or not. Since they’re not regulated, a pill that states it has multiple nutrients could be 100% sugar.
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