[at-l] Hiking food you love to hate...

[kahley7@ptd.net (kahley)]

>
>Anderson, Paula_(MD) wrote:
>
>
>>whats yours?

When I was training for my thru I also tried to train my appetite.
I guess it was more an exploration of food.  Every morning, I'd
hike my hill and have breakfast from my pack.

Grits are goood with  "stuff".  Mainly pepper and butter but almost
anything I put in them worked..onion soup mix..yum.  Taco seasoning,
brown gravy mix, or <gasp>brown sugar, maple sugar, jelly packets
  ....yummmmmmm.

When I had explored breakfast, I switched to suppers.  I don't like
Liptons...period...salty gummy.  I'd just as soon buy a bag of those
tiny noodles or instant rice and a couple packets of dry soup stuff.
I love Mac&Cheese.  I'd eat it 3 times a week if it wasn't so high cal/fat.
Instant rice with lemon pepper and butter or haul one of those tiny cans
of V-8 and cook the rice in that with a bit of onion soup mix....wow!!!!

Lunches were more of a problem.  I have a problem with chocolate and
migraines so candy cannot be a staple.  A bun with a tiny can of tuna
a couple slices of onion and a squeeze pack of mayo was tops....a
squeeze packet of relish put it over the top.

If I were to thru now, the biggest expense would probably be tuna in foil.<g>.
Have half in a sandwich for lunch and the rest with rice or noodles or
mac&cheese for supper.

I ate one trail meal a day for almost 18 months so I'm pretty sure I know
what I'd eat.  No poptarts...bleech!!!!!!  Double bleech.  The cream cheese
things are edible but poptarts ....I'm with Cheerio...cardboard.,,,choke choke.

Gorp...is OK if you vary it but that's hard to do on the Trail.  Buying six
or seven components makes a ton of gorp.  BTW...about the hands in the
gorp bag, open your fridge and look at the plastic jar the spagetti cheese 
comes
in.  It has a flap for pouring, although spag cheese doesn't really pour so I
think that flap is there so you can stick a knife in and loosen the cheese.
You can pour most gorpage from that flap so you can skip the hand and go
right to the mouth..

French fried onion rings in a can are great, sans can.  High density/calorie.
Adds a new component to supper if you dump some on top. 'Hiker fries',
the shoestring version of potato chips are good too.

Hard boiled eggs...I see me begging eggs and hard boiling them at every
opportunity.  A chopped egg in noodles with some chicken bullion is
a staple lunch for me at home and makes a great trail supper.
Or again, with a squeeze packet of mayo and relish and a slice of onion
for egg salad sandwich.

This is allll theory since the thru didn't happen, but I think it served me 
well
by teaching me that I was happiest when I adapted what I normally eat to
a trail manageable state.  Now if I could only train a cow to hike or find a
decent dried milk......