[pct-l] Wheat free, dairy free dinners

[Rebecca Mezoff]

Thanks to Cruz Control for the Picky bar mention! 
I have celiac disease and thus can have no gluten (diagnosed after my Colorado Trail thru which likely triggered the disease). This changed my hiking world, but it got easier fairly quickly. I can't be much help on the dairy thing because I eat a lot of cheese on the trail, but Dicentera has some great ideas for dinners. I resupply from a mailed box due to the GF limitations in little trail stores. Otherwise I'd only be eating snickers bars (and I eat plenty of those). I use instant rice a lot on the trail. Probably not the most nutritious, but it is a good base for lots of sauces and peanut butter. Also those thin rice noodles work pretty well. I dehydrate spaghetti sauce and other sauces and that works quite well. Corn tortillas aren't my favorite, but sometimes I'll bring them. I make granola bars from gluten free oats. It will be harder resupplying from trail stores, so consider eating a lot of peanut butter, perhaps candy bars, nuts, snack foods… I would never do it this way, but I do understand the huge amount of work to prepackage all your food for such a long hike. Dry soup mixes are a great idea, but probably aren't going to be available at the trail stores. Most mainstream packaged food contains gluten.

As for someone's earlier comment about considering not limiting your diet if you don't have to, I suppose that is valid, but if you really are gluten intolerant and especially if you have celiac disease, definitely you should be vigilant and not eat the gluten. You will be healthier and happier if you stick to the GF diet. Labeling is far better than it used to be and your choices may be limited in some places, but there are always Snickers bars.
Good luck!
Rebecca