Intro To Backpacking Food (Basics for Beginners)

top everybody I'm Pete I'm Joey and what are the backpacker brothers and today we're going to be giving you a short introduction to backpacking food [Music] so like everything with backpacking there are different ways of doing things different philosophies but what we're gonna really be talking about here is what we have found to work the best for us over lots of trial and error and a number of years of doing this we think that this is going to be the best thing for you to just sort of get out there and have a good experience without having to experiment too much so the main three things that you want to consider with your food is you want it to be high-calorie you want it to taste good and you want it to be low weight so typical camping food you might think of like baked beans right here this is gonna fail with the weight it's gonna fail with the calorie so that's not something you want to be taken with you on the trail and then the fourth thing that we'd want to mention too is it's always good to pay a little bit of attention to the nutrients that you're gonna get in there so it look for a little bit of variety it's gonna be easy to get high carbs and then it's gonna be almost as easy to get high protein and then the other thing you're gonna want to get a bit of is fiber so things like dried fruit and any type of dried vegetables that might be in some of your meals so what we're gonna do is we could spend a half an hour going through every kind of backpacking food that people use but we think the best way to do it is just to go through meal by meal on a typical backpacking trip let's say three days for Joe and I up on the superior hiking trail what do we bring meal by meal and what do we eat [Music] all right so the first meal of the day is breakfast so you know you woke up in your tent or your hammock maybe you slept well maybe you didn't you know you're gonna want something to kind of pick you up something enjoyable and something that's gonna fuel you to pack up and get right back on the trail as soon as you're ready to go the best way that I like to start the morning is with a nice cup of coffee I drink coffee in everyday life maybe you drink tea it's another option you can bring with you I like to bring instant coffee it's really the easiest way to get a cup of coffee out there without having to bring you know some elaborate extra gear to actually like do a pour-over with real coffee or something pete has tried that in the past and it just doesn't really work too well not worth her it's yeah it's it's just kind of a pain to do my favorite one right now is Starbucks and then in terms of meals it's kind of two different ways you can do it here one of our favorite meals is this breakfast skillet for mountain house these meals you're gonna see these throughout as we talk about our meals and you know the reason why is because they're just they're simple they're off the shelf they require no cleanup because you actually can just eat right out of this bag and they taste good if you're looking for something quicker you can also do something like just some granola you'll see we really like this brand kind because it's got a lot of good nutritious greens in it but it usually tastes really good too and over on this side we got another meal one of my favorites biscuits and gravy you can see this is the same as the meal that shoujo showed you over there the only difference is this is a to serving meal so it's great you can buy single serving or a two serving and I myself a lot of times I can eat a to serving meal Joe sometimes does and sometimes he doesn't so it's good to have the single serve and the double serve as well another standard is of course oatmeal always a solid thing to have I personally like to buy these packs that you can bring out on the trail with you really simple you just off the top and just add water doesn't make that big of a mess and then if we're really looking to get up early you know and hit the trail quickly as Joe mentioned the granola over there is a good option but also a really good option is just a standard granola bar and one of our favorites is the kind bar here again a little bit more healthy and there's a little bit more calories in it than a standard granola bar that you might pick up at the store [Music] you okay so the second meal of the day is lunch now the way we do lunch is a little bit different than some people like to so you might be somebody who you want to actually stop and cook yourself a meal the way that we sometimes do in the morning or at night you know getting out the cook kit boiling water making one of those freeze-dried meals we find that to be a little bit too much of a hassle and we just don't feel like doing it instead what we like to do is pack a number of different snacks and then just sort of munch on those throughout the day whether it's while we're hiking sometimes or when we're taking different 5 or 10 minute breaks so we usually will put some of those in our hip pockets on our pecs it's a really easy way where sometimes you don't even even have to take the pack off but you know you're gonna be stopping every now and then anyways just for a breather or to enjoy nice views so we're gonna talk about some of the snacks that we like to bring and why we like to bring those so I'm kind of tagging along with breakfast the kind bar again a granola bar always a solid option normally fits in the hip pocket so that's a great one that we like to bring pop-tarts again you can probably fit them in somewhere maybe not in your hip pocket but this is something we normally wouldn't eat in our day to day lives but when you're out on the trail and you need calories you can pound some pop-tarts and I'd say my all-time personal favorite is the Snickers bar any candy bar that's your favorite but the Snickers bar is packed with calories it's got nuts in there it's a solid trail food so I probably eat you know two of these a day you know one in each hip pocket and I don't shy away from it so definitely the Snickers bar highly recommended something a little unique maybe that I eat is dried edamame so these don't necessarily taste the best they have a little salt on them but I eat these just so I get a little fiber in my diet throughout the day because if you're eating a bunch of candy and a bunch of meat and jerky and freeze-dried meals you want to try to get a little nutrition and maybe try to get some form of a vegetable out on the pill and then in the middle here we have the classic trail mix and Joe and I normally opt for trail mix that maybe has some dried fruit in it but definitely has those M&Ms in there again not shying away from those calories trail mix really solid food easy to get into little Ziploc bags and put it into your hip pockets so I also have to make a quick shout out to the Snickers bar we were in Yosemite and we actually have a video of that if you haven't seen that definitely go down below and check that out it was an incredible trip highly recommend going there we were climbing up to the top of clouds rest it's a mountain in Yosemite and it was a really arduous hike it was hot you know several thousand feet vertical cane and you know pretty close to getting to the top I almost bought out we were pretty pretty exhausted but you know I I took a moment I laid down on the ground and I ate a Snickers bar and you know it gave me what I needed I got to the top of that mountain and and it was totally worth it so it's taking a look over here some of the other options we like to bring with us so I'll start with this you can buy these little tuna pecks they're sort of these single serve packages you know tuna fish very nutritious they make these in different sort of flavors this one is lemon pepper you know lots of protein fishes of course good for you and it's kind of a good way to get something out on the trail that tastes a little more like sort of normal everyday food that you might eat along those same lines of protein both Pete and I always make sure to bring jerky it's it's again great protein source good amount of calories and it tastes great again with protein I always like to bring some protein bars I like these ones because they taste actually pretty good usually protein bars don't taste that great but these are decent and you know I'm just somebody who personally for my diet and my personal fitness goals I tend to eat a little more protein than people typically might so this is a great way to get some protein out there and then of course I'm also gonna reiterate the importance of having some fiber out there so getting some dried fruit is a great way to get some of that fiber and it tastes really good and again you know being a dried fruit type option there's there's no moisture in there or there's very little so it's going be lighter weight as well another food option that we like for snacks that we actually don't have with us here today are things like cheese like string cheese's are easy in those single serve packets or even some people bring out things like summer sausage and you might be a little worried about doing that because those are things you might normally think you keep in the fridge but over a couple days you know even if you're out there three or four days things like that are going to keep so if you want a little bit more flavor cheese meats things like that you can definitely bring those out on the trail as well alright so you made it to the end of the day it's dinner time you're in camp you're all set up and you really want a great meal at the end of the day it's really satisfying so again these dehydrated meals are solid options so you know we have been showing you guys a variety of a few different examples of these dehydrated meals throughout you know there are a ton of different options out there depending on what you like and don't like different brands as well and so we will link below to some of our all-time favorite options out there and you know why we like those maybe the only negative to these meals is that sometimes if you're eating a lot of these they can get a little expensive so there are cheaper options out there that you can find at your normal stores some ones that we like are versions of these pasta sides ramen is also great and something that we also like to add to our meal sometimes if you're really hungry some freeze-dried potatoes are a great side sometimes you can bring butter out on the trail and this can be a really great option to just add to your meal at the end of the day something that we really love both Joe and I is hot apple cider so sometimes people will bring cocoa out on the trail but we started trying out this cider and it is so good it's just a great way to end the day so a lot of times we'll have this like kind of like late at night after it gets dark after you've eaten it's super sweet it's packed with sugar but out on the trail again that's something that your body needs so we really really enjoy this it's getting a little cold out at the end of the night and you just wrap your hands around that mug and have some hot apple cider so of course after your meal sometimes it's really nice to have a little dessert out there as well so again with these dehydrated meals there are options out there they actually taste pretty good we haven't tried a couple of them you know again like Pete said you know something like a Snickers bar maybe pop-tarts that could be good too but it's really enjoyable to have something warm because you know when those temperatures start to drop a little bit you know you having the hot apple cider and a hot dessert is pretty awesome something that we both do I maybe do it a little more than Pete but we both had before is something called dry baking so we'll follow up at some point here with a video that's dedicated to dry baking sort of a how-to but basically it's a really really easy simple way to bake something fresh right there out on the trail with almost no additional gear needed and the way we like to do it usually is just getting this simple just add water mix definitely recommend trying out dry baking and again we'll be following up with a how-to on that okay everybody that's it that's our introduction to backpacking food and we just want to reiterate that there are many ways to go about doing this lots of different philosophies and methods when it comes to backpacking food but this is really the way we do it and we feel like this is the best way for you possibly as a beginner to get out on the trail have a great experience not have to worry too much and just have solid meals that are easy to make when you're out there so we'd like to ask you what are some of your favorite foods when you're out on the trail and you maybe have some that you think are maybe a little bit unique or special so for us probably one of ours that's a little bit unique is this hot apple cider that we just loved that at the end of the day as it starts getting dark and it's cold out we love to have that hot apple cider so if you have any recommendations please share them with us so if you like what you see here if you enjoyed this if you found any of this useful definitely make sure to hit the subscribe button we'd love to have you we have a lot of things planned different follow-up videos like this about gear and how to's and also some really cool trips on the horizon until then thanks for watching I'm Joey I'm Pete we're the backpacker brothers hike on [Music] [Music]

Channel: Backpacker Brothers

Views: 103,302

Rating: 4.7947435 out of 5

Keywords: Backpacking food basics, Bacpacking food, Backpacking meals, Hiking food, Backpacking for beginners, Backpacking

Id: -03GVhHXdb0

Length: 13min 54sec (834 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 24 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Mentalfloss1]

Not sure if you've run across Packit Gourmet, but I've literally served this stuff at home to guests just to see if they'd notice that it was dried or freeze-dried backpacking food. For one dessert I got a "This is delicious! Did you make it?" and that was from an anti-backpacking-food person. I fixed a stew one night and everyone loved it and no one thought that it was trail food. I do tell people afterward. Anyway ... some of their things are a little bit fiddly to fix, but are always delicious and impressive. https://www.packitgourmet.com/

[u/BackpackerBrothers]

We've tried a lot of different things for food out on the trail. We've found these things to be some of our most reliable favorites. Relatively simple, lightweight, high calorie, tasty. Curious to see what other backpackers like to bring!