1/2 pound food per day

[Bydand]

Ok, no one seems to believe me that I have my backcountry food recipe down to 1/2 pound per day. Yup, that means that with 10 pounds of food in my pack, I'm looking at 20 days before I need some grilled backstrap. I did a 40 day self-test on my food while working construction and logging in the winter in Wyoming, and I experienced no weight loss or other health side-effects. What is with this 2 lb per day thing I'm hearing from the pros? Thoughts? Recipes?

 

[Tufrthnails]

You must be canibalizing MRE's you might not lose weight, but dang the farts are bad.....just kidding. I'm curious what you are eating to be able to maintain 20 days on 10#.

 

[Bydand]

Haha, I've done my time on MRE's. Ok, to be totally honest, pronghorn pemmican. Tastes like cardboard, but I'm willing to deal with that for the weight savings. I could pack in a beer a day for morale, and still be under the 2# per day rule.

 

[JLS]

I’d rather carry extra weight and eat some decent food. YMMV.

 

[Bydand]

Yeah, I totally get that, but what If I could get my nutrients from my crappy lightweight food and eat a really small meal of something really yummy (does mountainhouse make a pizza/beer/hotwing/popper/waitress packet)? I guess if you look at a couple pounds difference for 3 to 5 days in the field, it's no big deal. If I'm looking at a given weight providing the difference between 5 and 20 days in the field though...

 

[Z Barebow]

Weight of food won't matter if you aren't ingesting enough calories.

You can muddle through a few days on fewer calories. But for an extended hunt, your energy level will be drop. Hunting in the mtns is hard and burns a ton of calories. If the you need to find the critters, you need the energy to go search for them. Otherwise you are on a cr@ppy camping trip.

 

[EYJONAS!]

I gone through my food over and over and narrowed it down. I'm down to about 1.5 lbs to 2 lbs per day including the old mountain house depending on what kind of hunting I'm doing. I will say no matter what I still always seem to have a little left over. But, I'd rather have enough then not enough.

 

[307]

How many kCal's is in your 8 oz of food?

8 oz of butter will get you 1600 KCal's, which is about half what I need/use, so I'm a bit skeptical.

 

[Flatland Crusoe]

8 oz of Olive oil a day it is!

 

[Deleted member 16014]

Not eating weighs 0 ounces per day, get a bit hungry though. Lightweight revolution! So what's the recipe?

 

[JLS]

8 oz of Olive oil a day it is!

Good Lord, don't forget the wet wipes!

 

[charliebravo77]

150g of quality protein powder and 150g of coconut oil per day nets you around 1800 calories which is comprised of about 160g fat, 12g carbs and 114g protein which would actually put you on a fairly decent ketogenic diet and might actually 'work.' It's a hair over a half pound, but you probably wouldn't die while consuming it for a few weeks or even a couple months if you also took a multivitamin. I would certainly be losing weight on it though. Maybe I'm onto something here...

 

[MJE2083]

I put down a 1/2 lb cheese burger on the regular hahaha

 

[EYJONAS!]

Classic! My buddy just came back from A.K. on a Dall sheep hunt and for the first three days his guide was pulling out McDonald's double cheeseburgers. My buddy was looking at him like WTF!? His guide's response, What? They're light and high in calories, and they're not made out of F'n granola. Now that's on to something there.

 

[Bydand]

Not sure I could give you an exact calorie count without some laboratory work, but I'll reiterate that I did a 40-day self test while working construction in the winter, and had zero weight loss, so I'm going to say it's "enough." I think the trick is to make sure you're in 100% ketosis before you start in on it, otherwise you'll be having a major carb/sugar crash and experiencing "keto flu" on a backcountry hunt probably wouldn't be fun. Even if you had to double the amount, and I can't imagine eating a whole pound of pemmican in a day, you're still only looking at a pound a day.