[pct-l] Resupply strategies - junk vs nutrition

[Diane at Santa Barbara Hikes dot com]

That's my point. I really truly believed that carrying the most  
nutritious food in my pack ought to help, too. But it turned out not  
to be true. At least not for me, and I'm an older woman. I think that  
is because there really is no such thing as nutritious dehydrated food.

Just because something comes from a grocery store in a box with a  
heart symbol on it doesn't mean it's actually any better than  
something that came out of a convenience store in a box that has  
cartoon characters on it.

What is needed is fresh food. I did carry in my pack real peanut  
butter, real chicken/tuna, real bread, real cheese, real pasta (long  
cooking kind) and sometimes even real fruit and vegetables (fresh,  
not dehydrated.) I also took vitamins (in the form of Emergence-C  
which I actually looked forward to.) I didn't take vitamins the  
previous year and I suffered. This year I did and I did 100% better.

You can bring your own dehydrated meals and I'm sure they will be  
happily eaten. But they will not be equivalent to fresh food. The  
real difference isn't between your own dehydrated meals and cookies  
from the mini-mart. The real difference is between packaged food and  
fresh food.

Diane


On Dec 24, 2009, at 10:00 AM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:
> Bottom line, I personally can't believe that nutrition doesn't make a
> difference, at home or out there - maybe even more so out there.   
> Lots of us
> may be able to get from one end of the trail to the other fine fueling
> ourselves with whatever junk we put in, but it stands to reason  
> that we'll
> have a better chance if we're getting better nutrients from our diet.
>
> Just my two bits.  :-)
> P178