Tom Mangan’s Two-Heel Drive blog is the hub of the hiking blogisphere. I count on Tom to alert me what’s new and cool on the net.
I read Two-Heel Drive more often (88% of the time) than any other in my RSS reader. And I’m not the only one. Search for “hiking blog” on Google, Two-Heel Drive comes up #1.
When Tom said he was tempted to “to link to everything” posted by “Trailcraft Russ”, I got intrigued.
Russ is the editor of Wilderness Trailcraft. I’ve linked to it on the right hand navigation under BLOGS.
Please, just shoot me in the head. I’ve gone over the top this time. I have created an Excel spreadsheet with a whole bunch of different types of foods in the hope of finding the best lightweight food. Please don’t laugh; bear with me, this actually is interesting.
In the quest for lightening my load I finally made it to the food in my backpack. I have already created spreadsheets with the calorie intake for each meal so I know I’m not carrying too little or too much food. But one analysis remained, how can I lighten the per day weight of the food that I carry? I have read in multiple places that long-distance hikers use “1 1/2 lbs per day” as a rule of thumb. But when I weigh my food I am always over 2 lbs per day. What are they doing different than me?
I now understand the errors in my ways. Check out the table below. This table is sorted by Cal per Oz. The topmost items are the lightest foods for the number of calories they contain. If you carried only Mountain House Mac & Cheese then you would only have to carry 19oz to achieve 2500 calories (a typical daily intake). Here’s another way to look at it… If you want to carry 1 1/2 lbs per day and you need 2500 calories then you have to average 104 calories per ounce. So in the table below you need foods like Cheese Nips Crackers or Instant Oatmeal. Flour tortillas won’t get you there and neither will Tuna Creations (both are my personal favorites). You can eat these less efficient foods but you have to compensate with foods like Swiss Mix or Mac & Cheese to up your daily cal to weight average.
besthike.com 