[pct-l] Who eats what on the trail??

[Gottula Family]

In reference to vaccuum packing dehydrated meals, I use a paper towel as a "lining" between the food and the plastic bag. Using a paper towel as such....I haven't had the food puncture the plastic while vaccum packing it.  
 

 
> Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2010 13:25:44 -0600
> From: sbryce at scottbryce.com
> To: pct-l at backcountry.net
> Subject: Re: [pct-l] Who eats what on the trail??
> 
> On 9/8/2010 12:05 PM, greg mushial wrote:
> > On the trail, I've been eating mostly finger foods, cliffbars and Mountain
> > House dehydrated, bought in #10 cans... but I must admit, they are getting
> > "old", ie, eating has become something one does, not looks forward to. My
> > question is: how many people are making their own trail foods (dehydrated,
> > and/or, vacuum sealed)?
> 
> This has only been trail tested for 150 miles, but....
> 
> I made out an excel spread sheet that showed general categories of 
> foods, average calories per ounce for that category, the amount I planed 
> to carry per day, and the total weight/calories. I was shooting for 2 
> 1/2 pounds of food and 5000 calories per day. By putting this in a 
> spread sheet, I could vary the amounts until I came up with a 
> combination that worked. Each category included several foods for 
> variety. I ate finger foods during the day, and had one home 
> cooked/dehydrated/vacuum packed meal per day. I had a total of 10 
> dehydrated meals on the menu, so I would not get tired of eating the 
> same thing every day. I prepackaged 150 of these meals.
> 
> The break down looked something like this:
> 
> Dinner: 110 cal/oz 8 oz/day 880 cal
> Cookie/Cracker: 140 cal/oz 10 oz/day 1400 cal
> Chocolate: 140 cal/oz 4 oz/day 560 cal
> Nuts: 160 cal/oz 8 oz/day 1280 cal
> Energy Bar: 110 cal/oz 8 oz/day 880 cal
> Gatorade mix: 110 cal/oz 1.5 oz.day 165 cal
> TOTALS: 39.5 oz/day 5165 cal/day
> 
> 
> Of course, this is flexible, and since the calories per oz are averages, 
> the total calories would vary every day. Once could supplement from 
> hiker boxes or grocery stores along the way. Or just leave the cookies, 
> crackers and bars, etc. out from any resupply that is going to a place 
> that has a grocery store.
> 
> There were some lessons learned.
> 
> If you vacuum pack cookies or crackers, they will break.
> 
> If you vacuum pack vanilla wafers, you will have one solid mass of 
> cookie when you open them.
> 
> Vacuum packed fig bars are unappetizing.
> 
> Just because you like it at home does not mean you will like it on the 
> trail. I bought 300 of one particular bar, and lost all desire to eat 
> them by day 5.
> 
> Vacuum packed meals don't pack into a bear canister very well.
> 
> When you vacuum pack dehydrated meals, bits of the food are likely to 
> puncture the bag. I weighed my dehydrated meals into zip lock bags, then 
> vacuum packed the zip lock and contents. The idea was to rehydrate the 
> meals in the zip lock. I discovered before I left that nearly every zip 
> lock bag had pin holes in it and would not hold water. My only solution 
> at that time was to toss in an extra empty zip lock for each day on the 
> trail so that each punctured zip lock could be put into a new zip lock 
> before adding water. This was a workable, but less than optimum solution 
> to the problem.
> 
> HTH
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