So what are you eating?……. and may I have a bite?

    Food is something that we thru hikers think about ALOT!

We burn more calories than we can carry on a day to day basis and this makes us food conscious most of the time....... even when we're blogging.

A day of backpacker food averages about 2 pounds and comes in at 3500 to 4000 calories. This number is still less than what we are burning hiking and carrying those calories each day. The deficits are attempted to be made up in town and the cravings for town food usually consist in all the things not available on trail: salad and fresh produce, ice cream, fatty cooked meals, and hot/cold drinks!

Almost Awesome enjoying the West Coast phenomenon, in her vegetarian way, with a grilled cheese!

 We approach fueling our day with 3 meals, 2 snacks, and 1 to 2 calorie rich drinks.  Depending on the length of time out, we get more serious about each item's CGR or Calorie to Gram Ratio.  This way we get the largest calorie punch in the lightest form. For example an iced honey bun has 580 calories and weighs only 100 grams. That makes it's CGR a gross and delicious 5.8. 

Possum approves this honey bun!  His liver does not.

    The best CGR rating you can get is a pure fat (butter or oil) coming in at a 9.  Possum and other hikers sometimes just get it over with and just take swigs of olive oil.  It's not classy but it isn't that bad.

     On shorter amounts of days out on trail we have to include the "fun factor".  This skews the CGR but brings smiles to dirty faces.  Food that makes it in our pack that is heavy and/or can spoil quickly usually makes it in there due to the fun factor when we know that we only have to deal with it for a couple of days. Usually healthier items are added such as fresh fruit and vegetables for us to eat the first day out of town.

    Breakfast consists of soaked oatmeal with nuts, dried fruit, milk powder, and oil as our first but heavier choice and sometimes we add some type of pop tart, snack cake, fritter, or fried pie. This is accompanied with our private collection breakfast drink which consists of water, coffee, milk powder and sometimes a hot chocolate mix.  Imagine a frappuccino and you have our Green Tunnel Blend morning drink.  

    Lunch is a tortilla or bagel with some combination of the following: cheese, peanut butter, Nutella, avocado, trail mix, coconut, chips, and fruit. We usually have a side of chips that are typically crushed into crumbs and eaten with a spoon.  Deeeeeelicious!

    Dinner is still a stoveless affair. What started as an experiment and a fire prevention attempt has continued because we like it so much and we don't have to carry a stove and fuel.   Many of our hiking buddies have also dropped their stoves and are embracing the soak!  Dinner usually has one of the following as it's base: couscous, rice, dehydrated beans, ramen noodles, rice noodles, mashed potatoes, or stove top. Add in any of the following: cheese, avocado, dehydrated veg, olives, tuna, nuts or chips. Top it all off with lots of olive oil, maybe a flavor packet and usually hot sauce and you have yourself a delicious, whatever the temperature is outside, meal !!! When we can, we like to finish off our meal with a nice hot-chocolate mix drink.  Vintage is critical in regards to dinner drinks.  We have found that late 2013 and 2014 are good years and we prefer Chateux Swiss Miss which we believe is from the French Alps.

  We also eat a morning and afternoon snack that is some type of bar, pop tart, or trail mix and we sometimes carry what is called "the equalizer".  This usually consists of kettle chips or candy and is eaten when we might be dragging between meals and we need a boost.

Here our dehydrated black bean and couscous dinners are soaking in our peanut butter jars for dinner.              *P.S. We are not sponsored by The Trail Show even though we have their logo on our soak-jars. We are big fans of their long-distance hiking podcast and if they do want to sponsor us then they can have their legal team contact our sponsorship department.

On a final note, let us just add that we are very healthy eaters at home and our trail diet and food cravings out here on trail amaze us on a daily basis. Our long stretch out in the Sierra put us (especially Possum) into a whole new level of hunger. The other day while in town we found ourselves eating crushed tortilla chips with spray can cheese that we found in a hiker box (don't worry it was unopened) like it was delicious.  Imagine what old fashioned popcorn balls look like and you get the sad, sad picture of that delicacy.  That my friends is a new low.