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Planning and Packaging Food for Wilderness Trips

or

How To Make Planning and Packaging Food Easier, Quicker, and More Accurate

TOPICS COVERED

  1. Basic food planning
  2. Sample dinner and breakfast menu
  3. Sample lunch menu
  4. Master shopping list
  5. Repackaging food by weight
  6. Cooking directions for common menu items
  7. Recipes

EQUIPMENT NEEDED

  1. Kitchen or weight watchers scale calibrated to 1/2 oz resolution or better
  2. Simple calculator with add, subtract, multiply and divide functions
  3. Plastic bags (knapsack issue)
  4. Assorted zip lock bags
  5. Empty Tang plastic containers
  6. Several one cup and one pint plastic bottles
  7. Two insulated soft side coolers with zip top
  8. Package of size 16 rubber bands

BASIC FOOD PLANNING

I. OBJECTIVES

  1. Tasty food with eye appeal
  2. Sufficient quantity, but nothing thrown away
  3. Light weight
  4. Low bulk
  5. Does not spoil
  6. Cost is within budget
  7. Easy to prepare
  8. Minimize garbage

II. DIETARY GOALS
A. Carbohydrate caloric intake per day:
Complex carbohydrates and natural sugars: 48%
Sugars, refined and processed: 10%
Total: 58%
B. Protein caloric intake per day: 12%
C. Fat caloric intake per day: 30%

III. SATISFYING MEALS

  1. Meals must approximate the dietary goals to be satisfying

    1. Typical breakfast

      1. Juice
      2. Malt-O-Meal
      3. Scrambled eggs

    2. Typical dinner

      1. Soup - liquid, not gumbo
      2. Green beans-made flavorful with butter
      3. Spaghetti - with tomato pasta sauce
      4. Cheesecake topped with blueberries
  2. Must have variety to be satisfying

    1. Eye appeal
    2. Anticipation

IV. HOW TO ACCOMPLISH THE OBJECTIVES

  1. Tasty meals

    1. Essential condiments

      1. Salt
      2. Pepper
      3. Garlic
      4. Tabasco
      5. Onion
      6. Bell pepper flakes
      7. Celery flakes
      8. Mushrooms-dried
      9. Parsley flakes
      10. Lemon juice in plastic container
      11. Bouillon cubes

    2. Random ideas to improve menus

      1. Jello - add lemon juice to all flavors
      2. Pudding - add coffee powder to butterscotch, chocolate bits to vanilla, and crushed peppermint candies to chocolate
      3. Tang - add lemon juice
      4. Brown gravy - purchase, add garlic and red wine
      5. Chicken gravy - purchase
      6. White sauce - make dry mix at home
      7. Curry sauce - make dry mix at home
      8. Salad dressing - purchased dressing too bland and too sweet. Make at home:
        1. Oil, garlic, & vinegar for mixed vegetables
        2. Mayonnaise, garlic, & vinegar for cabbage dices
        3. Mayonnaise, garlic, catsup, & vinegar for fresh salad
      9. Freeze-dried Corn - cook in as small amount of water as possible. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt per qt. of water. Add .15 oz. butter per person. The corn and its liquid are great.
      10. Freeze-dried Peas and Green Beans - Add 1 teaspoon salt per quart of water while cooking. Drain well, add .15 oz. butter per person. Have garlic power available.
      11. Eggs - stew a small amount of onion, bell pepper, celery & parsley flakes in the water for the egg. Remove from stove. Dump in egg and whip! Back on stove over low heat scraping sides and bottom of pot with spoon while cooking. Add shot of Tabasco. Can add cheese, bacon bar, or ham bits. Can also make a spanish sauce to go over the egg. NOTE: The mixing directions on the Wakefield dried egg package is wrong! The proper proportion of egg to water is 2:3.
      12. Lunch - have social group lunches on moving days. People want bread or plain crackers. Pocket bread is popular. Have egg or tuna salad mix. Peanut Butter and jam is also a winner. Cheese, hold to the plain types.
      13. Meat - purchase good Jerky, not the pressed and formed style. Italian Dry Salami goes well, other spiced meats not so good. Do not purchase cheap salami. Too much fat.
      14. Mixed nuts, .3 oz. per person per day. One zip lock bag at start of trip.
      15. Candy, mixed small trick or treat bars-one every other day.
      16. Hard candy, .3 oz. brilliant mix per day. One zip lock bag at start of trip.

  2. Sufficient quantity, but nothing thrown away

    1. In general, one ounce of dry food equals a serving. This is true for almost all packaged foods such as Jello, Cereal, Pudding, etc. The following quantities have been adjusted by experience.

      1. Meat - freeze dried, .5 oz
      2. Meat - canned, 1.5 oz
      3. Shrimp - freeze dried, .5 oz. max
      4. Carbohydrates, 1 to l.5 oz. Exception, Grapenuts and Granola-2 oz. per person. Why?
      5. Vegetables, .5 to .75 oz
      6. Fruit vacuum dried or freeze-dried: .5 oz. maximum per person
      7. Sauce and gravy for main dish: 1/2 cup per person
      8. Cream sauce for vegetables: 1/4 cup per person
      9. Dressing for salads: 1/8 cup per person

    2. Staples per person per day

      1. Whole milk powder 1.5 oz if used in cocoa mix.
      2. Nestle Quik .4 oz. + .4 oz. of milk.
      3. Tea bags 2 bags, should include Herbal and decaf teas
      4. Coffee .12 oz.
      5. Decaf Coffee .03 oz.
      6. Sugar, white .3 oz. May need more if you serve stewed fruit frequently
      7. Sugar brown .5 oz.
      8. Butter .6 oz.
      9. Salt .15 oz.

  3. Light weight

    By pre-trip planning and having the correct amount of food! We need 3000 calories per person per day. Dry food averages 100 calories per oz. Fat and oil averages 240 calories per oz. We need 4 oz. fat, 3.5 oz. protein, and 17.5 oz. carbohydrate per day. This is about 1.5 lbs. net weight of food per person per day! With proper packaging the gross weight will be about 1.75 lbs. per person per day.

  4. Low bulk

    By pre-trip re-packaging and selecting concentrated foods.

  5. Does not spoil

    Some food is best left in foil or cans: shrimp, fish, ham, etc. (use cans to haul out garbage). Keep food out of the sun. Move to shade and/or cover with food sacks. Keep sensitive items in insulated soft side coolers or insulated bear-resistant containers.

  6. Within budget

    Do not order complete meals from food suppliers. Most often the meals taste poor and they are always expensive. Buy a cookbook and learn to cook. Use expensive items as eye and taste enhancers, not as a main dish. Do most of your shopping at the local Supermarket.

  7. Short Cooking Time

    High altitude greatly lengthens cooking time for common food items; however, today we have available instant potato, rice, pudding, etc. Basically, cooking time should be the time required to heat the water necassary to prepare the food.

  8. H. Minimum Garbage

    All wilderness trips should strive to minimize their garbage thus reducing the disposal problem. The ideal is to pack out all garbage!

CONCLUSION

Proper basic food planning will enable you to avoid the following common complaints trip members have about food.

  1. The food was too heavy
  2. The food was too bulky
  3. We threw too much food away
  4. There was not enough to eat
  5. There was too much food one meal and not enough the next
  6. The food went bad
  7. The meals took too long to prepare. No one seemed to know what to do
  8. The meals were uncooked, burnt, too greasy, too spicy, and tasteless
With proper planning at meal time, you can also avoid the ultimate complaint:

"THE MEALS WERE TOO WELL ORGANIZED. EACH COURSE WAS TOO QUICKLY FOLLOWED BY THE NEXT.
I DID NOT HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO ENJOY THE EXCELLENT FOOD."

SALT - How Much To Use?

When the instructions say salt to taste, too often the cooks will not taste and they will use the amount of salt they are accustomed to when cooking for two or four people. Or worse yet, they will say "let everyone salt their own". This is a disaster for some dishes that require that they be cooked with some salt to be palatable.

How to avoid the above problems.

  1. Add the required amount of salt to the dry ingredients when repackaging.
  2. Specify the amount of salt to be added to the pot.

How much salt?

  1. One teaspoon salt per 8 oz. dry food when the cooking water is absorbed in the food.
  2. One teaspoon salt per quart of water when the food is cooked in an excess of water.

Gordon Peterson
May 1998

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