[pct-l] Dehydrating Food

[steve_peterson at sbcglobal.net (Steve Peterson)]

One thing I would mention here is that mashing everything up makes for efficient 
packing and rehydration (and I do a lot of mashing myself), but it *kills* the 
variety of texture that many (most? all?) people eventually miss after a while 
on the trail.

  Professional chefs give a lot of thought to how food feels in the mouth and 
I've found that variety of texture (crunchy, chewey, rough, smooth, etc.) is 
important to me on longer hikes--an unexpected finding. I suspect what many 
hikers miss by the time they get to town is a change in texture of the food as 
much as the calories and nutrients.

Jon Bellmore wrote:
>  
> Yeah smash the food up.  Everytime I have to use a "bear can" I put my food through the blender and then smash it up by using a rollingpin over it.  I can get 14 - 15 quality days of food in my bearvault this way.  Each day ~3000 Cal.  If I go out for only 2 weeks, I will have left overs.  It takes me at least 9 - 10 days before I even come close to wanting 3000 Cal in one day.  
>  
> Joanthon
>  
>