Cold-Prep Food

From Helen:

It's all in the presentation!
Jay's dinner of two packages of ramen
(one rehydrating) and 2 poptarts.

Just a few words about not carrying the weight of a stove and fuel on a long backpack trip. Jay and Sarah and Mark and I have experimented with several different combinations of foods that have variety and taste and yet don't require a stove to prepare. Jay eats ramen noodles with their seasonings; two of them serve as his dinner. He breaks the noodles up, puts them in his water bottle or a freezer baggie with enough cold water to cover them, and rehydrates them for 5-10 minutes. We did the same kind of thing over the weekend with a mixture instant rice, spices, freeze-dried veggies, and a little freeze-dried meat.

After eating sweet poptarts, protein bars, m&ms, dried fruit, and granola all day the taste of the salt and veggies and meat is a welcome change. We've also made cold-prep tabouli in the past with bulgur wheat, dehydrated spinach, parsley, dried lemon juice and garlic. If you can figure out how to carry oil on a backpack trip without getting it all over anything the bottle touches eventually, let me know.

Jay is preparing to hydrate his dinner.
It's a spoon in his mouth. Cleaner than
setting it on the ground!

As for finding bulk freeze-dried veggies and meats, looking online is the best bet. Individually packaged freeze-dried meals are expensive, and often have more packaging than a light packer wants to carry. Bulk foods work well for cold-prep, and it's nice to customize for your own taste. That said, ramen noodles are a great staple. They are cheap, easily available, and can be compressed without being ground to a powder. Long distance hiking requires a good balance of calories, protein, carbs and fats, and it is possible to achieve that balance and still have a good variety without cooking on the trail.