Food on the Trail

Knowing what type of gear and equipment was easy. Planning out a route with how many miles were planning each day was also straight forward. I've went for my trusted Trangia stove again this year, but instead of the spirit burner I'm using a gel burner. This is lighter than the spirit burner and the burner itself holds about 47ml of gel, this is 2/3rds full. It took about 6 mins to heat up a bowl of water and the gel lasted for about 13 mins in total until it burned out.  However, the most time thinking about what I was planning to eat on our hike. Obviously, I broke my food into seperate meals so;



  • Breakfast
  • Mid morning snack
  • Lunch
  • Afternoon Snack
  • Dinner


Breakfast


This will consist of porridge. I have bagged each day's breakfast into 40gram packs. In This I have added a little sugar and chia seeds. I have also included with some flaked almonds, dried fruit or trail mix.


I covered the mixture with about 300ml of water.
The porridge tends to cook quite  quickly on the stove. The gel burner doesn't have a simmer ring so it is full on burn until the gel runs out.

This portion was completed in 2.5 minutes.
It took about the same amount of time to heat up some water for my coffee. I had also added some dates for extra flavour.

Lunch


There are a few opportunities to pick up lunch from a shop along the way or sit at a bar or cafe for some food. In some cases I'll have to pack my own lunch. Below sre a couple of examples of lunches I'll make with a wrap or pitta bread.

Dinner


I have a range of options to have for dinner. I first decided to split the content of the meal into protein and carbs. For the carbs I went with the following:
Mash potato
Pasta
Noodles
Couscous
Bulgur Wheat
Rice

And the protein options:
Veg sausage mix
Tuna
Tofu
Salami/ Chorizo

Jut now my breakfast and 4 days of food weigh in at 1.75kg. The meals below are based on weight, the heaviest combination gets eaten first.

Meal 1
Rice and tuna. Using the tuna toppets, 2 pouches should give 30g of protein and the rice should offer plenty of carbs. It also weighs in at 450g



Meal 2
Veg sausage mix and couscous. I am planning on taking an empty peanut butter jar to cold soak the sausage mix, hopefully this means it'll be quick to cook. I'm planning just to pan fry The mix. The couscous should just need hot water added with some veg and salt/pepper.  I may need to buy a sauce for this as it might be quite dry



Meal 3
Bulgur wheat and tuna toppers. Like the sausage mix the plan is to cold soak the wheat so that it should be quick to cook when we reach the wild campsite at Kingshouse. The tuna is an easy option to mix into the wheat. 


Meal 4
Mashed potatoes and veg sausage mix. Might keep this for the next day. We should be in Fort William by then and a meal out might be a good idea to celebrate.


These next two meals will be bought in Fort William. Speed and convenience will be the key. 

Meal 5
Noodles and tuna

Meal 6
Mashed potatoes and salami

Snacks

I'll plan for 2 snacks per day. This will either be 40g of almonds and a protein bar Protein bars. I also have mixed nuts and dried fruit that are bagged into 40 g servings and mini salami sticks. Overall I have plenty of snacks to see me through the trip. 

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