How much does your food weigh?

[hatchmaster]

For a multi day trip how much does your food weigh per day?

I'm not counting water. Just breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks.

I just weighed mine and it's 1lb 10oz per day.

[uwe]

1.5 - 2 lb, and that includes everything except water.

[JWP3]

I'm trying to keep mine under 2 lbs and am having a hard time doing that and getting more than 3000 calories/ day. Any suggestions?

[Kojones]

From a strategy perspective... I have decided that short overnight trips may not be worth bringing the whole stove, fuel, pot, etc. collection. Thinking about the number of nights, it may be lighter to just pack ready-to-eat food. And consideration can also be made to how the trip is laid out... will there be time to cook food, or would it be better to just take 5 minutes to eat and hop into bed or keep moving (overnight trudge).

Kojones

[strat1080]

From a strategy perspective... I have decided that short overnight trips may not be worth bringing the whole stove, fuel, pot, etc. collection. Thinking about the number of nights, it may be lighter to just pack ready-to-eat food. And consideration can also be made to how the trip is laid out... will there be time to cook food, or would it be better to just take 5 minutes to eat and hop into bed or keep moving (overnight trudge).

Kojones

I've been coming to the same conclusion. I'm planning an overnight trip in a couple of weeks and I'm simply going to bring ready to eat food rather than a stove/fuel and pot to make food. I figure I won't really save any weight by bringing the cooking utensils and I won't have to bother with boiling water and waiting to eat. I'll just eat right then.

[Dex]

Just curious - what food are you taking?

As to a stove or not - I'm est the weight at about 1LB with 1 pot and a spoon - nice to have something warm on a cold night.

Iso/Pro canister - MSR Pocket Rocket
http://www.rei.com/product/660163
Stove Weight 3
Fuel Weight Included in Canister
Canister Weight 8
Total Weight 11oz

[uwe]

I'm trying to keep mine under 2 lbs and am having a hard time doing that and getting more than 3000 calories/ day. Any suggestions?

I bet you could get by with less calories = less food. If you are going a couple of days, having the BOD chew on itself a little is not going to hurt. Your pants will fit better when you go to work on Monday. Most Important thing is to feed it a balance of nutritional cal's - carbs/protein, electrolytes and some sugar, with lots of fluid - 4-6 liters per day if humping for most of it. If you are doing Denali, etc, then this goes out the window as bad advice.

My typical meal plan:
Breakfast - 2 Quaker Oats instant packets with dried blueberries and 1/2 liter of hot tea (2 bags) - I take the oatmeal and blueberries, mix and use Glad Clingwrap with a tie stick to reduce weight and waste. Ditto for tea bags, remove them from their packaging.
Snacks - Gu and Quaker Oats bars - 4/ea/day
Lunch - 6" sub from subway with double cheese or (2) pita bread loafs with cheese. (A pate of lightly salted butter is nice)
Dinner - Endurox R4, ramen noodles, a tuna or salmon pack, hot tea, walnuts and snickers candy bar
Day after day, night after night, year after year. Boring, sure. But fairly nutritionally balanced, reliable, fast, least amount of trash to haul out, and as it is now a habit, requires no thinking, figuring, etc. It is very inexpensive, light (less < 2 lbs day), and packs very well.

I've been coming to the same conclusion. I'm planning an overnight trip in a couple of weeks and I'm simply going to bring ready to eat food rather than a stove/fuel and pot to make food.

That is a good strategy. Yet, there is something calming and soothing about going through the ritual of cooking some noodles, or oatmeal, or preparing a cup of hot tea or coffee in the morning. I usually find I have the time to do this - from start to finish, including clean-up is 30 minutes or so. For me, I see 11 oz of gold in them thar cookin' gear.

[Wilderness_hike]

I'm trying to keep mine under 2 lbs and am having a hard time doing that and getting more than 3000 calories/ day. Any suggestions?

Wow, that is a really low calorie/oz ratio. Shoot for foods that are at least 125 calories/oz. This sounds difficult, but when you start looking at all the foods out there, it's really not that difficult. A typical light weight dinner for me might be Ramen (130 cal/oz) with some olive oil added in (olive oil is insanely high in calories......I think it's like 240/oz) and some parmesan cheese. Lightweight, and packed with calories. Other foods with high calories per ounce might include potato chips, peanut butter, peanuts, almonds, tortilla chips, chocolate, and most energy bars

[Steve Gio]

Seems to me that its not just the calories but the quality of the food that matters. Empty calories from chips aren't going to keep me going strong. I never thought to weigh my food but always seem to have more than needed. (thanks to my wife). On our next outing I think I will check the #s just to know.

We usually bring bagel sandwiches with hummus and cheese for lunches and something for a hot dinner. Breakfast is outs and grapenuts with raisins, powdered milk works great and don't foget the tea. I also bring Tang. Yes its still around and even good warm. This past weekend we were lucky to find some good mushrooms to mix with our rice, chicken pesto that we brought. good stuff.