Another approach to this is to think of what you'll be missing some days into the hike and find reasonably lightweight ways to bring that for the first day's worth of eating. Your packweight is maximium at the beginning of the trip, so there's some argument for not going overboard on first night meal stuff.

For many people, I think it's fresh fruits and vegetables, that and perhaps just variety from the freeze dried or whatever stuff they've brought for the other meals.

Fresh stuff doesn't have to be heavy --- Apples are heavy, but lettuce is light. A handful of carrot sticks aren't bad.

You can get variety in dinner meals without a ton of weight by just expanding your recipe repertoire.

I'm a fan of freezer bag cooking to make meals easy on the trail; you can find some recipes there or just buy Sarah's book for a lot of variety options.