I Have Seen The Light!

My gf has shown me the folly of my ways.
I used to pack an ice chest for my milk. What's better than a bowl of Apple Jacks in the morning on top of a hill?
Now it looks like Cream of Wheat for breakfast.
I had always been the bullheaded one bringing everything I could possibly want/need.
Once I ran out of steam and literally stashed some gear along the trail. But I had all of my stuff (half I didn't even use no doubt)!
Now I'm looking over all of the camping gear trying to either cut it down, put it in the car camping box, or replace it with something better.
Is there a help line for this? I think I may end up needing it.

Start with the articles on the home page of this site. They are listed in the left hand column.

Girlfriends and wives take great delight in showing us the folly of our ways. All our ways.

The articles here are a good idea; so is a read of pages 29 - 36 of Colin Fletcher's Complete Walker IV.

There is also a 12-step program available to help when (not if) you become a raging gear junkie. I made it all the way to step 3 once.

Do a bit of reading, then start asking questions here. We can mislead you with the best of them.

You can still have milk on the trail. Just get Nido. It actually tastes like milk! The nonfat powdered milk stuff usually tasted like white water.

Wow Lori! Really? It tastes at least like 2% (whole being better)? Is it a powdered milk? My gf thinks she may know what you are talking about.
Thanks very much for that! I love my milk!

Glenn, you should see the look in her eye and the grin on her face when I have to admit she is right! It's actually very much like my 2 yr old daughter's look when she sees a dog or cat.

I'm taking U'r advice with the NIDO Lori, The kids and I get up in a better mood when we have Milk 2 start our day! a Thanx

I second the Nido. In fact, I'll add the dry Nido to my granola at home in a freezer bag and just add cold water at breakfast time. Instant cereal and cold milk. You might find Nido in the Mexican foods section of your grocery store. Unfortunately with this economy and the local grocery stores trying to cut down their inventory (Safeway and Albertsons) to save costs, I can only find Nido in the specialty Mexican grocery stores.

I get my Nido in the Hispanic foods section of the local Walmart. I have been told that not all Walmart stores carry Hispanic foods but the ones around here sure do.

Ours has a hispanic food section but recently stopped carrying Nido - except for the baby milk. Could be they recently changed the container look to focus on babies and just confused me

+1 on the Nido - I get it on visits to the states in the mexican section at wal-mart.

My favorite use? non-cook breakfasts - 3 tablespoons of nido in a ziplock with full fat Quaker Harvest Crunch cereal.. add a cup of water, shake up, and cereal.. yum.

Also good to keep my very Geordie friend from England happy on the trail because real milk can be had with Tea. (teaching him to take a dump on the rocks and burn his toilet paper in the alpine is fine, but no milk in the tea would be roughing it..)

I also can't stand cream of wheat

I will tolerate good instant oatmeal.

I make many a breakfast out of half a pouch of mountain house pre-cooked dehydrated egg and bacon (or egg ham and peppers), combined with half a package of idahoan flavoured instant mashed potatoes (such as four cheese or loaded baked). put in a ziploc freezer bag, add a cup and a half of hot water, stir thoroughly, and wait 5 minutes or so... Beats the Oatmeal monotony

I have a packet of oatmeal that has become rather battered - I keep insisting I will eat it this trip! and it keeps riding home. Once it gets to that last breakfast... I am digging for stray peanuts or raisins in the bottom of the bear can, anything but that oatmeal!! BLECH. I am so done with oatmeal.

Grits and cheddar are my new fave. And I do your eggs/bacon/taters at least once per trip. Have even had lentil soup for breakfast, just for something different! Granola and Nido for a quick hot breakfast cereal in a bag, too.

Nido and Instant Breakfast for a trail shake - just add water in a 16 oz nalgene and shake the !!!! out of it. Wakes you up with some cardio, gives you some protein and calories to go with the breakfast.

Unfortunately I'm one of those super particular kinda guys. Eating twigs and seeds doesn't sound so great to me.
I hear dehydrated eggs just don't taste all that good.
My gf had bought a dehydrator some time back, but just has too many projects. Hopefully she'll find things I like.
I'm thinking I'll need to learn to make snares and bring some fishing tackle!
We are actually interested in learning edible/helpful plants, finding/filtering water, etc. We bought a small SAS survival guide by John Wiseman.

Check out Sarbar's website, www.trailcooking.com Lots of recipes using ordinary ingredients from the supermarket.

Nestle has two other products. One is KLIM. It is the same thing as NIDO. I find it in Asian grocery stores. I am not sure why they have two of basically the same product. They also produce a dry formula "Good Start", this is NOT the same thing. (In fact Nestle's big break into the food industry was dry formula.)

The eggs in the mountain house pouch aren't dehydrated. They are freeze dried, which for some foods makes a huge difference.

The powdered eggs you can get at packitgourmet.com are also not the typical egg product.

Rest assured that I am definitely not a twigs sort of gal... I don't ever get the prepackaged meals, all mine are made at home by me, using recipes from trailcooking.com with real food. The eggs are the exception. You don't mess around with eggs - I have taken boiled eggs for the first couple of days, and made boil-in-bag scrambled eggs using a foodsaver vac seal bag (which are nylon lined with food grade plastic and resistant to melting) then frozen them so they last a day or two. The only way to have eggs that last more than a day or two is the freeze dried. I wouldn't trust home dehydrated eggs.

The only way to have eggs that last more than a day or two is the freeze dried.

I suppose this is the only 100% safe and reliable way.

However, eggs in their unbroken and uncracked shells are remarkably resistant to spoilage and can easily last more than a couple of days. I would trust them up to four days, unless it was ungodly hot weather.

Where you roll the dice with fresh eggs is with salmonella, which can infect an egg before it is laid and will make you extremely ill if the egg is not thoroughly cooked to kill the bacteria.

Add in the characteristic of "unwashed" and they will last much longer, counted in weeks. When an egg is laid it has a protective coating (called the bloom) which inhibits spoilage. In many countries eggs are not even stored in the refrigerator, this is a U.S. phenomena. I get my eggs from a local boy who has his own "chicken farm". I ask for them unwashed. Best eggs ever.

My grandma used to get the brown eggs from the neighbor and keep them in the pantry. Best eggs ever!
My gf is totally into twigs n such! She is always making things with stuff I've never heard of such as couscous (spl?). Some is OK and others not so much. But I always have to give her a hard time!
I have given her the link to the recipes.
Thanks again for the link!

Couscous is actually a fine-grain pasta--same as spaghetti but a lot more compact. I always use it as a substitute for noodles or spaghetti. Unlike spaghetti, it doesn't poke holes in the freezer bag! It's especially good when you're trying to pack a lot of meals into a bear canister!

I actually Love cream of wheat,but not the instant so much! Oatmeal i put in a Vacume seal bag with powdered milk and dried blueberries or bannanas. Try it as it makes oat meal very palateable!

phat said, "I make many a breakfast out of half a pouch of mountain house pre-cooked dehydrated egg and bacon (or egg ham and peppers), combined with half a package of idahoan flavoured instant mashed potatoes (such as four cheese or loaded baked). put in a ziploc freezer bag, add a cup and a half of hot water, stir thoroughly, and wait 5 minutes or so"

A long time ago and far far away I carried a package of instant mashed potatoes and an instant brown gravy mix whenever I went on an extended trip, like over a week. Its was my emergency rations in case I spent an extra day out, and it was intended to be so horrible that I would hurry along rather than face eating it.

however I will look for Nido, as I normally use non-dairy coffee mate as my milk substitue. Its pretty good in instant oat meal with a dash extra hot water. Instant oatmeal is about the lowest I wish to go on the food-chain.
Jim

lori:

I like the sound of that. What are u using and how do u do it?

couple packets of Quaker instant grits and a cheese stick broken into small bits... cheap and hearty.