[pct-l] Rehydrating food on the go

[Erik The Black]

I think this is a bad idea because of the extra water weight required. If
you add a pint of water to your food in the morning and carry it around all
day that adds 1 pound of weight to your pack. (Water you can not drink).

A better technique is to cook near a water source at the end of the day.
That way there is no weight penalty from carrying "food water". You just
transport the water from the source, into your food, into your belly. 

If there are no water sources near your intended camp site you can cook at
lunch or in the early afternoon (whenever you reach a convenient water
source) and keep hiking afterward.

I have heard people advocating this cold rehydration technique as an
alternative to carrying a stove. But the extra water required to rehydrate
one meal exceeds the weight of a stove plus fuel for an entire week... 

So that sounds like a false economy to me.


Happy trails,
Erik the Black

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Hi

In his book 'The Man Who Walked Through Time' Colin Fletcher describes how
he routinely added cold water to dehydrated food at the start of a days
hiking so that they 'by dinner time' it would be rehydrated. Has anyone
tried it, and does it work?

Dave