[pct-l] Food

[Town Food]

I'd recommend against parboiled rice for a different reason than 
digestion:  Unless you plan to sit around in camp for hours before you 
can eat, you have to carry that water with you.  So it's extra weight on 
your back that you would not otherwise need.  If you can boil water, you 
can pick up the water for your rice at camp, so you don't need to carry 
it anywhere.

There are lots of stoves that are a good bit lighter than one meal's 
worth of food-rehydration water.  So you could carry a stove, save some 
weight, and have the added benefit of being able to rehydrate in minutes 
rather than hours (not to mention the enjoyment of hot food).  Or, you 
could just go with no-stove foods that don't need rehydration.  You 
don't need dehydrated food to get good calories per gram.

For part of my 2016 thru-hike, I used a less-than-one-ounce stove (the 
"BRS Titanium" one that Amazon sells for about $15-20), and it was 
reliable and cooked reasonably quickly.  When I tired of cooking, I sent 
the stove home, and did not eat any foods that required rehydration.  I 
enjoyed and would recommend both of these strategies.  My diet was a bit 
more limited with no stove, but I saved time at mealtimes, and cut some 
pack weight (no stove also meant no fuel and no cookpot).

Cheese, tortillas, and foil mayonnaise packets were one of my favorite 
ways to get lots of calories with low pack weight and no cooking. 
Peanut butter as well.  Aside from that, I substituted nut-heavy trail 
mix for some dinners, and had gas-station-style shelf-stable baked goods 
for many breakfasts.  Nuts and cheese in general tend to score high on 
the calories-per-gram scale, while still feeling something like "real 
food" (as opposed to, say, candy).  Plus, they're available at almost 
every resupply point.

This was maybe not an extremely balanced and nutritious diet, but it was 
close enough for someone getting a lot of exercise to not feel 
unhealthy.  Plus, whenever I got into town, I'd make it a point to get 
lots of the things I couldn't have on-trail, like salad, fish, fruit, 
etc.  Most resupplies are not all that far apart, so I was never without 
fresh food for all that long.

Note also that I mostly resupplied in trail towns, and didn't ship many 
resupplies, so my choices had to be available at small convenience 
stores.  This obviously limited my menu, but I found the flexibility to 
be well-worth it.  I can't reliably predict a month in advance how much 
I'll want to eat (e.g. I eat more when I'm doing long days on steep 
trails), or predict what I'll want to eat (e.g. when exactly will I tire 
of cheese-tortilla-mayonnaise wraps for lunch?).  Lots of people I 
talked to tried to plan/mail their meals long in advance, and were sick 
to death of their choices (or were too hungry, or carried too much food) 
-- all because they had tried to guess too far ahead of time what they 
wanted to eat.  Of course, this depends on the person, the length of the 
trip, and whether they've had the time to "dial in" a long-term hiking 
diet via practice.

For me, carrying the stove mostly opened up some extra options for 
dinner, like macaroni and cheese, 5-minute couscous (one of my 
favorites), and instant ramen.  Cooked food also tends to stand up to 
added fat well, so I carried some cooking oil to add to my dinners, 
which helped my calories-per-gram when I was cooking.

Some people really enjoy having hot coffee or oatmeal at breakfast, but 
I would rather be up and moving as soon as possible -- the early morning 
is the coldest part of the day, so I don't want to spend it sitting 
still while waiting for water to boil.  So I really only cooked for dinner.

All in all, I was pretty pleased with my approach to food, both with and 
without a stove.  But, it depends on your goals and schedule -- for me, 
I was trying to spend as much time hiking and as little time camping as 
I could (if I want to sit in a tent, I can do that closer to home... and 
if I want a pleasant evening by the campfire, a PCT thru-hike is the 
wrong time and place for that).

But, if you plan to spend lots of time in camp, much of what I've 
written above is unnecessarily-hurried.  As they say, HYOH.

  -=Town Food

On 5/26/20 7:56 PM, Nathan Dreon wrote:
> Thank you to everyone who helped me with my transportation question earlier.  With your help I think I can make it to the trail.  Once I get there I’m going to have to eat, so I’m looking at food choices.  I plan to go stoveless, I’m not strong and would rather carry water than fuel.
> I found something in the local store that doesn’t seem too bad.  Knorr Rice Medley.  It is Parboiled rice and pasta with traces of vegetables and flavorings.  I soaked it in water for a few hours and it was soft enough to eat and I didn’t gag on it.  My standards are low and it met them.
> My question is, can humans digest this stuff if it isn’t cooked?
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