One of the most asked questions I hear
is: “What do eat on the trail?” I started to write some Tweets
about this yesterday:

Tweets,
by their very nature are brief and can lack refined grammar
structure, but you get the idea. Men and women on the trail eat many
of the same things, but the women do have a strong leaning to things
chocolate.

Deciding
what to bring along for subsistence on a long hike can be
challenging. More often than not, it is dictated by one’s economical
situation. For those with limited funds, the choices are very limited.
First there is the decision around whether to cook meals or just
carry cold foods. Cold foods have distinct advantages on the trail: there is no need to carry a stove and fuel, plus, one can eat quick meals. The
downside of eating cold is obvious, it can prove boring and in cold
weather, the additional heat from warm food can be a real comfort.

In
my own case, I did carry a stove and would often have a warm meal at
night. On a few occasions I even stopped along the way to make hot
tea or cocoa. On some of the colder mornings, I would prepare hot
oatmeal, and I have to admit, really appreciated it.

Most
mornings laziness won out and I would gobble down a Pop Tart (cold)
or bagels and cream cheese or peanut butter. I’d wash it down with
Gatorade. It all really depended on my mood and how rushed I was.

Lunch
was almost always, cold. If I could carry something from an overnight
stay, it would be a deli-prepared sandwich. Otherwise it was usually more
bagels, or tortilla flat bread, and tuna or canned herring. To make
things more interesting, I would also allow myself the luxury of
some good grade cookies for desert.

Snacks
along the way were usually a candy bar, such as Snickers, Milky Way,
or Paydays. In normal, everyday life, I never eat these things, but
on the trail, I had them often. The body just craves calories.

My
evening meal was typically pasta or bean based. Most often, due
to availability and cost, the Knorr/Lipton side dish meals won out.
Even though the packages indicate cooking times of 15-20 minutes for
many of them, I found that if I boiled water and then just let the
meal sit in the water, with the stove turned off, they would still
cook adequately. Instead of the recommended butter or margarine, I used olive oil. Olive oil is high in calories and worked
well as a substitute. The biggest difficulty was finding small enough
quantities of olive oil to carry in the pack. When in town, I would
usually try to find other hikers that were also looking for some
olive oil and then we would split the container. Often, containers of
olive oil could be found in the hostels along the way.

The
evening meal was always the largest meal of the day. Accompanying the
pasta or beans, I would have something bread-based, as well as packaged meat
or fish, such as tuna, sardines, corned beef, or pepperoni. I tried
to have variety. As the hike up the AT progressed, I found myself
cooking more and more couscous and really enjoying it. Best of all,
it takes very little cooking energy and yet offers tremendous
nutritional energy. In my mountain bike racing days, I always had couscous on the day before a race, and it proved a valuable ally. I
preferred the Near East couscous because it came with a flavor
packet. I would remove it from it’s box, since the boxes are half
empty and would take up valuable backpack space, and repackage the
couscous in a plastic zip bag. The bags could be used over and over
again.

Each
hiker finds what works for him or her. I heard of one fellow that hiked the
entire AT eating nothing but peanut butter. It does have most of the
nutrients needed, but I would think it a bit boring. To each, his or her own.

What
I ate on the trail worked for me. I’d love to hear from you readers,
what works for you? Write a comment and let the rest of us know.