Backpacking Food: How to Plan, Pack, and Prepare Meals for a Trip

Video Transcript

"Welcome to ExpertVillage.com. My name is Richard Fields. In this clip we’re going to talk about how to plan and prepare meals. The rule of thumb is you need roughly 2 pounds of food per day. For breakfast I try to measure out my food to make sure I’m not carrying more or less than I need, rather than guess at it. for lunches, of course there will be some trail mix, there’s things like the vacuum pack tuna, the peanut butter in squeeze sticks, small packets of jelly and a hardy bread are good ways of getting a quick lunch on the trail. With the tuna, there are these little packages of mayonnaise that don’t require refrigeration. Which brings me to, don’t take perishable foods, that’s gambling, and if you take some, eat them the first day. For dinners, the prepackaged backpacking meals are the way to go, you need only to add hot water, zip them up close again, wait a few minutes and you’ve got a meal ready to eat with no cleaning. The beauty of this type of food system is that there’s very little clean up and you just need to know how to boil water. You will want to be very familiar with your stove, lighting it and operating it before you head out into the wilderness. Wherever possible, one of the neat tricks I’ve found is to have a wind screen around your stove, it really increases its efficiency and reduces preparation time. The times that you’ll use your stove will be in the evening or perhaps in the morning for like coffee or tea or oatmeal, otherwise, it’s an item that can stay in the bottom of your pack. "