Dehydrated food for a 12-day hike

[lannyman8]

ref your stove problem try looking at a wood-gas stove home made type from tins, it would be light weight and not take up to much room, fuel could be collected allong the walk for brews and meals, it would run on any combustable solid fuel, sticks leaves pine needles wood etc etc etc....

1 meal a day would be no good, you need to have a constant source of food every 2-3 hours to keep bllod sugars up, especialy when trecking with weight, cold conditions, hills etc etc

also dont forget the golden hour, the hour when you finish walking, its when your body will take on most calories....

hope this is of some help....

chris.

 

[PeterW]

To get the most out of your food and your digestive system (!) you need to graze all day, looking at your calorie intake as a constant input vs output on effort expended.

Regardless of how squeamish you want to be about it, you need to keep fibre in your diet as otherwise things will get a little slow.......... Starting the day off with something such as porridge is a good idea, and it can be steeping whilst you break camp etc. The meats are OK, but they won't give you the energy you need without some serious work - the fat content is too low. A bottle of olive oil is a good plan, as are items such as raisins and sultanas as they add variety and fibre to the diet.

You also need to look to maintain around 75g of protein per day (1gm per kilo body weight) as a maintenance level - thats not saying 75gm of tuna, it 75gm of protein and the average 130gm tin of tuna contains around 25gm ! Supplementing your diet with a protein shake if water is not an issue may help you here.

Salt is going to be key to keeping your body working correctly - you need to maintain a healthy level, and beware when dehydrating that you will be concentrating the salt levels.

You can get a lot of inspiration from somewhere such as Green Zeal and the 3600kcal Exped packs that they sell - at £15 each they are steep, but are only 550gm. http://www.greenzeal.co.uk/Store/all_day_rations/3600menu02

I've recreated a number of these in the past, and use products such as Angel Delight and add milk powder and chocolate chips to the mix before repacking - its quick and easy and super light. if you pack it properly it can be mixed in the bag so no mess..!!

Flapjack is simple to make and you can really boost the calorie intake - it can again have protein powder mixed into it to give you a protein source.

Finally..... water !! Rule of thumb is 1ml per 1kcal consumed, so if you are hitting the 3200 kcals you need over 3 litres of water a day - add to this any exertion and you will be up around 4 litres or more.

Drop me a PM if you want any more detail - I've also got a big industrial meat slicer if you want to borrow it but its HEAVY !

Cheers

Pete

 

[Shewie]

Babelfish5 on youtube has some good recipes to look at when you get round to the cooking lubo

 

[Jimmy Bojangles]

I find pesto makes a great change to the usual stuff I take out, super noodles ect. It also has a high fat/oil content, and you only need a couple of teaspoons mixed into a portion of pasta to make a tasty meal.

Cheers

Mat

 

[lub0]

@PeterW I will definately be eating atleast 3 times a day, though I will only cook for one or maybe two meals with the other meal being a ready to eat one. I hear you about the fibre, and thankfuly Quinoa is quite a fibrous carbohydrate and coupled with the other veggies I'll have in the dehydrated rations should do me fine in that department. I intend to buy fresh fruit and veg in any town I pass and eat it raw simply for the vitality it will provide rather than any calories. I'm a big raw food eater, though I'm not silly like many raw foodists are and leave out proper cooked meals and animal meat/fat.

I would love to use oats, however I can't stand them without milk, however dairy does not get along with me as I get a mucus-attack about a day after eating anything more than a small amount of milk/cheese/ect and find it difficult to breath fully for a few days until it clears up, so I simply avoid all milk and it's derivatives, however I can tolerate raw milk perfectly well as long as I don't over do it.

I'm going to modify this logan bread recipe to contain more oats, and in the morning I will simply break up the bread and heat it up in the billy can with some water to create a porridge. That way I don't have extra meals for breakfast. I want to keep things as simple as possible.


As for the bottle of olive oil, I think I'll simply use a few blobs of pemmican mixed-in with the dehydrated meals to add fat to the meal.


This is what I'm thinking of so far...

2kg logan bread
1kg trail mix (nuts, m&m's, dried fruit)
x12 dehydrated rations
750g pemmican

...these three allow an easy breakfast in the morning (logan bread porridge), snacking during the walk, and a proper meal at the end of the day.



I have another dilema and that is cooking fuel, or should I say the lack of it. The trail is mostly bleak moor land and hills with minimal woods, so I will be taking solid hexi blocks with me, however I want to take a few blocks as possible, which means the dehydrated meals must cook quickly so I was thinking is it possible to stew the beef until tender, then pat dry with some paper towels before dehydrating. That way the beef will only need warming up and not have to stew for hours using up packs and packs of fuel, or heaps and heaps of twigs and leaves!

I think I will also cook, or half-cook the quinoa and the other veggies and do the same thing!

@shewie thanks for the youtube guy but his name is actually Mister MrBabelfish5... next time get it right hehe
@Jimmy, Pesto is a good idea as when Quinoa cooks it soaks up all the water it's cooked in (like rice) so I'll end up with more of a rissota type meal than a stew.

 

[lub0]

2.5kg of stewing steak straight from the local butcher...

Trim away all visable fat and reject any pieces that have excessive fat running through them.

Now weigh what you have. This is a very important step for calculating calories at the end of the drying process. In this case I have 1.8kg of lean meat from the original 2.5kg amount.

Add just enough water to cover the meat so that the stock is as concentrated as possible. Bring to the boil then simmer on a VERY low light until the meat is as tender as you like. In this case I opted for a 1.5 hours which makes the meat just a little on the chewy side rather than a melt in your mouth 3 hour cook time!

While the meat is cooking, use a spoon to skim away the surface fat. ALways remember we want as little fat as possible as we are going to eventually dehydrate this beef.

Once cooked, place the meat into a colliander and rinse away any remaining fat, but for the love of god save that rich and tasty stock and use it to make a stew using the fatty off-cuts from the start of the process. Yummy!

Dinner for later!

Once rinsed, help reduce the amount of time the meat will need to be inside the dehydrator oven by queezing as much remaining moisture from the meat using two kitchen towels.

Now load the meat on to the trays and place in to the dehydrator oven.

to be continued....

 

[lub0]

Now on to the Quinoa.


First thing is to weigh the Quinoa. Then let it soak in water to allow the bitter sapoin to release from the seeds. Once the Quinoa has soaked for an hour, rinse the now loose sapoin away under water pressure, then put the now thoroughly rinsed Quinoa in to a cooking pot and fill with water about 2cm above the Quinoa. Cook until HALF done. You know it is half done when it has absorbed most of the water, and many of the seeds have sprouted a tail, and the QUinoa should taste half soft and half gritty. This is what you want. Now simply spread the quinoa as evenly as possible on to the dehydrator trays and then place the trays in the oven to be dehydrated.

 

[lub0]

I've finally finished the 12 individually packed meals and all I can feel is relief as the entire process from start to finish was possibly the most tedious thing I have ever done in my life so far. It turned out I needed more meat and quinoa, so I basically had to spend twice as much effort/time as I expected. It was partly my fault for forgetting to weigh some batches of food before putting them in the dehydrator which really put a spanner in the works with regards to the caloric calculations at the end, but nethertheless each individual meal consists of the following...

200g washed quinoa: 170kcal
100g of very VERY lean beef: 250kcal
mushrooms, bell pepper, onions, garlic, salt, pepper: 10kcal

total calories per meal: 430kcal per meal
total weight of all 12 meals: 3.6kg

The pemmican and logan bread is next on my to-do list, but since finding out my local butcher's meat is all from grain fed cattle I now must arrange a deal with my local farmers market whom sells grass-fed beef to sell me a quantity of marrow bones for the pemmican.

pics to follow....

 

[lub0]

opps, double post sorry.

 

[Rizouk]

Amazing work with dehydrator, jealous

 

[lub0]

Well it beats buying the overpriced and unhealthy ready made rations from the shops, but the amount of work and time needed makes it one of the most tedious things you can do. I hated every minute of it, but at the end of the day I got 12 well made healthy rations out of it, so it's all good.

 

[copper_head]

Nice work, hows it taste? You still going for one large meal per day?

 

[Martyn]

What's the total weight? You any idea of the calorific content?

 

[rik_uk3]

Looking OK, but just for fun, weigh yourself naked before you go and then on your return, see how much weight you have lost.

Chris Townsend has done a lot of solo hikes and his books are well worth reading
http://www.christownsendoutdoors.com/ He talks in detail about the pros and cons of what he uses/used and ate; plus they are great reading.

Stove wise and for what you are cooking a paraffin/naphtha stove and a litre of fuel should see you through if you have this type of stove or can afford a new one. The Swedish Army alcohol sets are not great and you will use a lot more meths than you would paraffin/naphtha over a 12 day trip.

Look forward to your reports of the trip, I'm a tad envious of you to be honest.

 

[lub0]

Nice work, hows it taste? You still going for one large meal per day?

They taste very plain to be honest. I usually cook quinoa in either vegetable/meat stock to give it a rich flavour. I could use stock cubes or boulion but that stuff containes toxic monosidum glutamate. Before I even knew this fact I was always naturally weary at how a powder could make even a steaming pile of sh*t taste acceptable, now I know why!

I intend to cook the pemmican in with the meals to add heavy calories as well as a rich flavour. Tomorrow morning I will ask the grass-fed beef stall at the local farmers market to bring me as much marrow bones as she can carry next time she's there so I can begin to actually make the stuff!

As this will be a strict endurance march I won't be bringing beverages or any other "nice" things, and only a single pot to cook two cooked meals a day consisting of logan bread porridge in the morning, trail mix throughout the day then one of these gourmet meals at the end of the day before bed. I want to keep things as simple as possible and just focus on covering ground quickly each day.

What's the total weight? You any idea of the calorific content?

As stated on page 1 of this thread...

200g washed quinoa: 170kcal
100g of very VERY lean beef: 250kcal
mushrooms, bell pepper, onions, garlic, salt, pepper: 10kcal

total calories per meal: 430kcal per meal
total weight of all 12 meals: 3.6kg


And with the logan bread and pemmican I guess the total weight of all the 12-days worth of food would be somewhere around the 7kg mark. With two litres of water that makes it 9kg for food, which leaves a maximum of 16 kilos for everything else! My large alice pack weighs 3kg alone, and my german para boots are 2kg the pair!



@rik_uk3, I will do a weight before/after.
I'll be sure to spend the night reading through that guy's blog as it is indeed very relevant to my upcoming adventure. Which book/s of his do you reccomend and could you link me to a place to buy them from when you got a minute.

edit: just read his blog on long-distance camping and this line really struck a cord with me...

such as fussing over details of gear and wondering if this is the right stove or sleeping bag, perhaps mask deeper fears, hidden doubts about the walk as a whole and whether it really is feasible or wise to attempt it.

As for the stove I am now beginning to consider options other than my aluminium swedish army trangia as I've realised I will have to carry solid hexamine fuel with me as the trail is mostly barren of trees and therefore, fuel! I intend to carry as little hexi as possible and try to harvest sticks and twigs as and when I find them along the walk and although I always love to use solid fuel burning stoves as there's something about gas that I don't like and the only way I can describe it would be it feel's like cheating... like using a GPS in place of a map and compass sort of thing. Although since this will purely be a challenge to get from a to b in 12 days, I am willing to indulge in options that I usually consider blasphemous.

Please do put your reccomendations forward for a new parrafin stove, though, as carrying 1 lite (I guess 1kg?) to cook all the trips meals sounds ideal. I will be cooking a total of 24 times, though the logan bread porridge in the morning will merely need to be warmed up as opposed to the end of day meal which needs to be brought to the boil then simmered for atleast 10 minutes!

 

[lub0]

While at the farmers market last Saturday I asked the gras-fed beef stall to bring me as much marrow bones and body fat as possible, so hopefully he won't forget and that the haul will be substantial enough to make the amount of Pemmican I'll need.

In the meantime I finally tested out my logan bread recipe. I have found that logan bread can be made very imprecisely and that basically you just make sure you add enough wet ingrediants to make the final mixture a thick sloppy consistency. That is all!


I've uploaded the spreadsheet I used to formulate the recipe. It also contained the weight of ingrediants in grams, and the calories in kcal and also the total weight and calorie at the bottom. At the far right you can see a 10% fraction of each ingrediant so you can make this bread in a small test batch to see if you like it before making the full 4.8KG loaf! Here's the recipe https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...FVkdWE1bnZ1aFl4WVJrYjlObmZ3ZFE&hl=en_US#gid=0

And this is how it came out... (note, the hollow-like cavities are due to me not properly breaking down the clumps of dark mollases sugar before commiting the mixture to the oven! Now this bread must be sliced in to portions then dehydrated either in a dehydrator or an oven on a low-light with the door slightly open.

 

[lub0]

The woman at the grass fed beef stand at the farmers market did not let me down as you can see...

Does anyone know the best way to extract the marrow from these bones. Everywhere I look say to boil the marrow out of them but won't that introduce alot of moisture to the pemmican which of course is completely undesirable for long term keeping.

 

[Martyn]

They taste very plain to be honest. I usually cook quinoa in either vegetable/meat stock to give it a rich flavour. I could use stock cubes or boulion but that stuff containes toxic monosidum glutamate. Before I even knew this fact I was always naturally weary at how a powder could make even a steaming pile of sh*t taste acceptable, now I know why!

There probably isn't a day goes by that you dont consume msg. The "scares" surrounding it, have been around for decades, but there remains no scientific evidence and the scare stories remain largely anecdotal.

 

[lub0]

I completely avoid all MSG by eating only food cooked from whole forms. I don't snack on junk food which contains MSG. MSG is actually very easy to avoid and as for scientific evidence, there is a lot out there but nothing official will ever be said against the stuff due to the complex financially mutual relationship shared between government and the food, drug and medical industries. Besides it should be basic god given intuition to us all that if something in such a small quantity can provide such an astonishing sensation of taste would be cause for concern. You do know MSG is a chemical product? If so surely that would be the end of the argument right there, no?

But back on topic, I've just sawed-open a large bone and found that I could only extract marrow from the first 2 inches. I was hoping the large boulbous area would contain a bounty of marrow, but it does not seem to be the case. Apolagies for the crap picture...

That particular bone was from the local grain fed butcher so I will use this marrow in normal cooking and use the marrow from the grass fed bones I got today to make 100% raw pemmican, something I do not reccomend with grain fed derived meat/marrow.

 

[hermitical]

They taste very plain to be honest. I usually cook quinoa in either vegetable/meat stock to give it a rich flavour. I could use stock cubes or boulion but that stuff containes toxic monosidum glutamate. Before I even knew this fact I was always naturally weary at how a powder could make even a steaming pile of sh*t taste acceptable, now I know why!

Have you tried the Marigold stocks and bouillon?