7 Day Food Supply

Posted by: FlAcK_JaCkEt

7 Day Food Supply - 08/24/11 06:12 PM

Hello, It's been some time since I've been on here. I am going on a 7 day trip to Isle Royale, and I pretty much have all my food. I went and weighed my food supply and it comes in at an astonishing 13 lbs. Is that too much or too heavy for 7 days. I would like to reduce the weight some, but not sure what to take out. My total pack weight as of now is 41 lbs. Here is a list of what I have in my food supply.

8- packs of tuna
2- packs spam
4- packs raman noodles
1- Coleman Southwest Chili
1- Coleman Mac & Cheese
1- Mtn House Beef Stew (serves 2) split for 2 meals
1- Mtn House Lasagna w/ Meat Sauce (serves 2) also split
1- Mtn House Chicken Breast w/ mashed potatoes
1- Mtn House Skillet Breakfast (for wraps)
1- Small jar peanut butter
1- 1 pound package of trail mix
1- 1 10 oz. package of beef jerkey
1- ziplock baggie of various condiment packets
8- Indv. packets of Gator-aide which eqates to 1 pound
1 - package of flour tortilla wraps (10 count)
1 - package of bagles

Any and all suggestions are welcome. Thanks!! grin
Posted by: balzaccom

Re: 7 Day Food Supply - 08/24/11 06:24 PM

Hmmmm. Well, you are not taking what WE would take, that's for sure. But we figure on roughly one pound per person per day...

Now--why do you have ALL those main courses packed....and no breakfast or lunches? Or are you planning on cooking lunch as well as dinner?

We take instant oatmeal for breakfast...add walnuts, raisins, etc for more flavor and more calories. Very lightweight, small and easy. For lunch we take salami, a hard cheese, and your bagels or tortillas...(your Peanut Butter works just as well...although it may weigh more.

And dinners are the Mt House kind...or we make our own.

But by my math you have seven dinners:

1- Coleman Southwest Chili
1- Coleman Mac & Cheese
1- Mtn House Beef Stew (serves 2) split for 2 meals
1- Mtn House Lasagna w/ Meat Sauce (serves 2) also split
1- Mtn House Chicken Breast w/ mashed potatoes

(BTW--I think it is hard to split this stuff evenly...)

And then you have this for lunches?
8- packs of tuna
2- packs spam
4- packs raman noodles
1- Small jar peanut butter
1- 1 pound package of trail mix
1- 1 10 oz. package of beef jerkey
1- ziplock baggie of various condiment packets
8- Indv. packets of Gator-aide which eqates to 1 pound
1 - package of flour tortilla wraps (10 count)
1 - package of bagles


That's lot of food there. The ramen needs cooking, so that's a problem for lunches. And it takes up a lot of space, too. The PB and Bagels will probably do you for lunches, with the trail mix.

So what's the rest of this stuff for?
Posted by: lori

Re: 7 Day Food Supply - 08/24/11 06:25 PM

The problem that I have with Mountain House is they are low calorie meals. 250 calories? Make your own and get 490 calories, plus, it will taste like stew.

Mountain House are also extremely high sodium. While you want to have some salt in your diet, they go overboard.

Every time I look at the prepackaged meals I go back to trailcooking.com and make stuff cheaper, healthier and tastier. Because I'd rather carry something that packs in calories and nutrients than give Mountain House my money.
Posted by: Gershon

Re: 7 Day Food Supply - 08/24/11 09:09 PM

I think "Lori's Links" should be listed listed on the side somewhere.

You sure have some great ones.
Posted by: Ewker

Re: 7 Day Food Supply - 08/25/11 09:32 AM

Ramen doesn't need cooking to eat. I make what is called a ramen pasta salad.

I put the ramen in a container and add some dehydrated veggies. Fill with water to cover ramen and veggies. Make sure your container has a tight lid. Let it soak for about an hour, drain, add chunks of cheese, pepperoni and ranch dressing. Stir and eat.

You can make this up ahead of time and have it ready to eat at lunch
Posted by: Gershon

Re: 7 Day Food Supply - 08/25/11 02:10 PM

If you are already bringing a pot, you can probably save some weight by repackinging your dehydrated meals in Ziploc's and cooking them in the pot. I never cook in the pouch as it's too hard to clean out and take home with me. The foil won't burn well in a fire and kind of leaves a mess. I keep my baggies because I'm cheap and reuse them.

I'd take all 8 packets of gatorade and put them in one bag to save weight. You might do something similar for the Ramen noodles and instant oatmeal.

I notice your diet is almost completely lacking in Potassium. There is a small amount in the Gatorade, but you need from 2700 to 4000 mg of potassium a day. This may leave you feeling fatigued. A cup of dehydrated bananas (100g)a day will get you in the low end. Dehydrated apricots work well, too. But they are lower calorie.

Keep in mind, you don't have 13 pounds of food. You have 13 pounds of food and packaging. Subtract out the packaging and you have somewhat less. I'd guess you have about 2,700 calories a day. That may not be enough for 7 days depending on your weight and activity. Your friends might start to look pretty tasty after the third or fourth day.

Consult this website for when that starts to happen.





Posted by: frediver

Re: 7 Day Food Supply - 08/27/11 04:43 AM

8- packs of tuna
2- packs spam
4- packs raman noodles
1- Coleman Southwest Chili
1- Coleman Mac & Cheese
1- Mtn House Beef Stew (serves 2) split for 2 meals
1- Mtn House Lasagna w/ Meat Sauce (serves 2) also split
1- Mtn House Chicken Breast w/ mashed potatoes
1- Mtn House Skillet Breakfast (for wraps)
1- Small jar peanut butter
1- 1 pound package of trail mix
1- 1 10 oz. package of beef jerkey
1- ziplock baggie of various condiment packets
8- Indv. packets of Gator-aide which eqates to 1 pound
1 - package of flour tortilla wraps (10 count)
1 - package of bagles

My changes.
lose the bagles and take more tortillas.
Try sugar free electrolyte drinks, less wt.
Perhaps exchange the tuna and spam for
more jerkey or pks of cheese/pretzel/slim jim
Don't forget to pack an extra power bar or two just in case.

Variety is great but is it worth the weight?

Pk a couple extra oz. of potato flakes for the
Mt.House meal, for my taste they are all a bit
saucy and could all stand a bit more filler.
When I buy FD I tend to get the rice based meals
so I can add a bit of extra minute rice to soak up
the extra sauce and add more bulk for little extra wt.
Posted by: DTape

Re: 7 Day Food Supply - 08/27/11 08:33 AM

I always carry dehydrated refried bean "spreads", either make your own or commercial (fantastic foods is but one brand). These are:

light
calorie dense with high protein content
rehydrate with cold water (albeit longer time)
use to thicken other meals and/or add calories
lastly, they taste great.
Posted by: aimless

Re: 7 Day Food Supply - 08/28/11 12:34 PM

Food weight is a tricky problem, because everyone's ideas about what kind of food are appealing and which foods are inedible vary so widely. My food list would look very different than yours, but considering how different tastes are, that's a given.

Then there's a lot of variation in how much time and effort you want to put into food preparation and cleaning up (and people who dehydrate their own meals ahead of time are putting large amounts of time into food prep, even if it isn't trail time).

Lastly, there's a big variation in calorie needs. Someone 6'4" and 210 lbs. who is hiking 20 miles a day in mountainous terrain could eat upwards of 4000 calories a day and lose weight. A 100 lb. woman who is hiking 5 miles a day on a shoreline trail could get by with 2000 calories a day and be happy.

The basic facts you have to work with are that the less water there is in the food you carry, the lighter your food weight will be. Water provides no calories and is heavy. Pure fat packs more than twice the calories of pure carbs or protein (9 per gram compared to 4 per gram), but eating pure fat is no one's idea of heaven - unless maybe you are an Eskimo.

So, the way I see it, you're just going to have to experiment to find better solutions that also suit your tastes. At least you aren't carrying any cans!
Posted by: DTape

Re: 7 Day Food Supply - 08/28/11 12:41 PM

Someone, I think it was Sarbar, actually weighed the empty retort pouches and found them to be almost as heavy as the cans. I think this was for chicken.