Just out of morbid curiosity, what do the vegetarians substitute for the meaty goodness? Is it more varieties of cheese and nuts?
Food for a week in a PLCE Side Pocket - Paul Kirtley
- Thread starter sandbender
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Some good ideas in the video but there is far too much emphasis on calorie counting, we need to consider the source of the calories. Most of the calories in the menu come from simple sugars in the sweets and pasta, I'd like to see more calories derived from oil and protein rich foods. Slow release carbs are useful for keeping you warm at night, Mars Bar derived calories not so much! And when comparing weights with the expensive boil in the bag ready meals we need to consider the whole cooking, eating, cleaning process. The only things I like about the ready meals is the fact that you really can't get the recipe wrong (just add water) and there are no pots to clean. When cooking Mash etc there is the extra cleaning kit and fuel to consider so whilst BITB meals are spendy they do have a few good points. I'd also need to add some roughage to the menu shown or I'd be needing some powerful laxatives!
Good point, there is a reason why Jetboil stoves and BITB/dehydrated meals are so popular despite the cost.
That said, the best meals I've had outdoors were the occasions when I've run out of packaged food and all I've had was locally procured rice, tuna, oil and flour (and the odd goat or chicken).
Dried apricots and prunes (with or without custard) give surprisingly adequate quantities of fibre!
That said, the best meals I've had outdoors were the occasions when I've run out of packaged food and all I've had was locally procured rice, tuna, oil and flour (and the odd goat or chicken).
Dried apricots and prunes (with or without custard) give surprisingly adequate quantities of fibre!
I've often thought i'm a bit harsh on myself with my food as everything is needing some form of prep and most of it is dehydrated, after watching that vid i see i am not the only one, not sure if i'd fit what i'd take for a week in a side pocket though as i go for a bit more variety than Paul does, cool blog i've subscribed to the feed (no pun intended but enjoyed)
......Dried apricots and prunes (with or without custard) give surprisingly adequate quantities of fibre!
http://youtu.be/ZdlPaCX3S80
So we're back to the foil packets of tuna or salmon for the healthier oils, or the packaged meats for less healthy fats. In either case these oils/fats in and of themselves have a fair laxative effect for me. Add the daily coffee and there's not usually a problem for me. Mind you when I was younger, my BM schedule (both the actual and my preferred one) was only 2 or 3 times per week. Now-a-days however my meds have me going a couple of times per day
I find my morning bowl of muesli keeps me right, i agree on the bad calories mentioned above, any sweets or chocolate i take is purely for a treat and is not counted towards my nutrition. I have quick cook brown rice and mung noodles as an addition on the carbs side to the couscous and pasta, my pasta is also the wholemeal version and always done from scratch, those pasta and sauce things mentioned in the vid are just food garbage and no better than a pot noodle or batchelors super noodles in regards to actual nutrition.
I was surprised to see he only takes the nuts if he has extra space, these are the first thing in my food bag and it is usually a kilo bag or mixed raw nuts, i always look at them on the side of if i could not get a fire going for whatever reason i could live on just the nuts and wake the next day with all the energy i needed to make the next day better than the previous, after the mighty BM that was delivered due to just eating nuts the previous day
I was surprised to see he only takes the nuts if he has extra space, these are the first thing in my food bag and it is usually a kilo bag or mixed raw nuts, i always look at them on the side of if i could not get a fire going for whatever reason i could live on just the nuts and wake the next day with all the energy i needed to make the next day better than the previous, after the mighty BM that was delivered due to just eating nuts the previous day
Phew! talk about mortifying the flesh!
And I never thought I would ask for more vegetables!
I like those pasta in sauce packets too, though I add a few vegetables to them, and milk (never butter) and a few shreds of whatever meats to hand.
However you need to simmer them, as you do packet rice.
And I never thought I would ask for more vegetables!
I like those pasta in sauce packets too, though I add a few vegetables to them, and milk (never butter) and a few shreds of whatever meats to hand.
However you need to simmer them, as you do packet rice.
Aye i definitely miss my normal level of veggies and fruit when out and about, just too heavy and bulky but i have been known to take a bag of raw carrots and a bag of apples to snack on now and then as they keep well just left in your bag
Pretty much what I do too. Sometimes I keep them separate (the pasta in sauce as a side dish and likewise the veg while whatever meat is the entrée) But very often I'll mix them into a casserole. It can make a fairly good imitation of a tuna-noodle casserole if particularly if the sauce is cheese or cream based and the meat is tuna-noodle casserole when the veg is peas and the meat is (obviously) tuna. Salmon will work in a pinch.
It's easiest if you can start with a package of Tuna Helper as the base pasta kit
Good thinking Ozzy, for those who don't have a dehydrator yet i just found these on Amazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Buy-Whole-Foods-Online-Ltd/dp/B007CX3CH6
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Buy-Whole-Foods-Online-Ltd/dp/B007CX3CH6
I was thinking the same thing. An ordinary bag of dried peas or lentils from the local grocery store should keep well also.
LOL you beat me to it. A kilo of dried mixed veg is a lot of food when hydrated. Add zip lock bags of rice/lentils/pearl barley et al and you have the base of a good meal.
To be honest I find the little pouches of Tuna etc a bit on the small side and would prefer to carry a full size can (empty cans weigh nowt to worry about taking out with you or back home) and the same goes for a can of spam or corned beef (small can size), sardines, salmon, pate etc but then I'm not counting the grammes.
I needed 'bread' of some sort when still hiking so I'd need to add something like Ryvita, pumpernickel, wraps or pita bread. You could make Bannock but at the end of a days hiking something ready made and simple has its attractions IMHO
Tortillas also work pretty well Rik. Are any of the ones you listed similar to what we call crackers?
I make my own flat breads, it is so simple
2 tblspns of Brown bread flour and a tspn of baking soda per bread, 2 parts flour mix and 1 part water kneeded to a dough and flattened to 5mm and cooked on any hot flattish surface or makeshift suspension over the fire, you can even mix it direct in the flour mix bag by making a well in the mix and pour in the amount of water for how many breads needed and stir it about until it is a dough ball you can lift out, kneed in your palms and flatten to 5mm cook
rustic chip butty all done on the fire with no pans or tools
2 tblspns of Brown bread flour and a tspn of baking soda per bread, 2 parts flour mix and 1 part water kneeded to a dough and flattened to 5mm and cooked on any hot flattish surface or makeshift suspension over the fire, you can even mix it direct in the flour mix bag by making a well in the mix and pour in the amount of water for how many breads needed and stir it about until it is a dough ball you can lift out, kneed in your palms and flatten to 5mm cook
rustic chip butty all done on the fire with no pans or tools
I'm not a vegetarian, but I do like to have veg and fruit with me when I'm out and about. It can be heavy to cart around but makes for more pleasant meals at the end of the day.
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@imagedude - a large proportion of the carbohydrate calories are actually complex carbs (pasta, cous cous, smash, oatcakes and the oats in the granola). The white pasta that I had in the bag in the video is 69.6% starch and only 3.5% simple sugars. If there is not enough roughage, just replace with wholemeal pasta (which I generally eat at home anyway) but note it has lower calories for the weight. It does, however, have more of the B-vitamins you need to burn the carbs properly.
As for calories from protein - the amount of energy your body can derive from protein in a given time period is limited by your liver's ability to turn amino acids into usable energy. You can only convert roughly 300-400g of protein into energy (basically your liver converts it into carbs plus urea) in a 24 hour period. This translates to 1200-1600 calories per day.
As for keeping warm at night, protein-rich foods are actually better than the carbs you suggest. The process of breaking down proteins, while not delivering a huge amount of calories, is relatively hard work for your body and is thermogenerative It partly explains why many northern peoples traditionally had higher meat contents in their diet compared to more southerly peoples.
You can read more about the net calories extracted from food and the thermic effect of food here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_dynamic_action
That said, protein heavy meals tend to leave you feeling fuller for longer (presumably because they take longer to digest), so it's a balance between getting the energy you need and feeling sated by your meals.
As for ready meals, I don't like the Wayfarer types due to the water content and low nutritional value (by any measure - macronutrients or micronutrients) for the weight. I accept your point regarding washing up, however, and do indeed use dehydrated and or freeze-dried pre-prepared meals for some trips.
Readers/viewers should remember that the proposed menu in my video is answering a specific question - how to get a week's worth of food in a side pocket - and it is doing so in the context of equipment packed for woodland living/bushcraft in the northern temperate or boreal environment with the presence of trees. Therefore I'm working on the basis that their will be no shortage of either fuel (i.e. firewood) or water. Washing up then is not an issue.
If I were undertaking a ski tour (such as the one I completed in Norway in March) above the treeline or a multi-day backpacking trip (such as the Scottish 4000s trip we completed last month), where I had to carry a stove and fuel, the balance of what I pack and how it is prepared changes. Imagedude is right to point out these considerations in the wider context. Personally I use Expedition Foods and/or Real Turmat but those cost around £10 per main meal, which makes it an expensive option for most people.
http://www.expeditionfoods.com/
http://www.drytech.no/index.php/en/
As for the healthiness or otherwise of the diet. We can probably debate that until the cows come home. Even researchers and medical professionals cannot agree on what is healthy and what is not. That aside, this is one week's worth of food. Regardless of what you eat normally, a week of dehydrated food will not kill you. What will kill you is trying to carry a weeks worth of fresh fruit and veg on your back (said somewhat tongue in cheek). But you get my gist, you often have to make compromises on trips - more so on hiking trips, less so on canoe trips.
Personally, I'm in the woods a lot and, like when I'm at home, I try to eat as much fresh food as possible when teaching out of a fixed camp. I couldn't eat the diet featured in my video all the time either but that's not what it's intended for. But when I need to carry the food I need to keep going in minimal space and for a limited time (and on a limited budget) the side-pouch menu featured works well for me.
I hope that this adds some colour and context to the aims of the blog.
Thanks to everyone for reading/watching and generating such a stimulating discussion.
Cheers,
Paul
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