Sedonaman, There's a way to structure this to help a bit. I make up recipe cards for all the meals I use with some frequency, working out the nutrition and the weight on the back. Then, for a trip where I am able to pre-pack food (as in when I'm not dependent on grocery store resupply), I quite simply shuffle the deck until I have about the right number of calories each day, with something reasonable in terms of the nutritional mix. Best, jcp