Commercial Backpacking Meals

Let's call these peanut butter, bacon and honey bagels what Aron Snyder calls them....butthole sandwiches. It's more exciting to say you ate one.

I like Probars. They taste really good. The only Clif bar I will eat anymore are those new ones that have the nut butter filling in them.

So I guess if you want to, you can tell everyone you ate buttholes and nut butter on your hunting trip.......

And people complain about Mtn House because its the McDonald's of dehydrated meals. It's not the stuff a lot of guys want to be putting into their body. Lots of salt, and its not the right kind of salt to put back in your body. Eat McDonalds for a week and see how you feel. Eat Subway for a week and compare how you feel.
 
I love mountain house. I've never had a digestive problem with them and I don't think they are too salty. Pro bars are great. Try Mio for flavoring your water. They have a ton of flavors and some even have caffeine.
 
npaden said:
For the number of people who use mountain house compared to the other brands, the complaints on mountain house really seem to be few and far between. I like it. Some things like Chili Mac are going to cause GI issues whether it is mountain house brand or not.
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Agreed. With the shear amount of people who eat mountain house there are bound to be a few who don't like it or that it doesn't agree with.
 
You didn't say how many days your packing for but I try to target a minumum 125cal/ounce and plan accordingly. This equates to 2000 calories per pound. If your goal is 3000cal/day and your packing in for 7 days you're looking at over 10 lbs of food. I don't waste time or weight on supplements but other people swear by them. To each their own...
 
I'm fond of Mountain House. I have a Jetboil and I pretty much just use that with Mountain House packages on backpacking trips. You can a variety pack of Mountain House meals at Costco for a pretty good price.
 
I don't pay much attention to calories per meal, but the ones sized to be "2.5 servings" are great for a whole meal when hiking and/or hunting all day.
 
2ski said:
Let's call these peanut butter, bacon and honey bagels what Aron Snyder calls them....butthole sandwiches. It's more exciting to say you ate one.

I like Probars. They taste really good. The only Clif bar I will eat anymore are those new ones that have the nut butter filling in them.

So I guess if you want to, you can tell everyone you ate buttholes and nut butter on your hunting trip.......

And people complain about Mtn House because its the McDonald's of dehydrated meals. It's not the stuff a lot of guys want to be putting into their body. Lots of salt, and its not the right kind of salt to put back in your body. Eat McDonalds for a week and see how you feel. Eat Subway for a week and compare how you feel.
Click to expand...

2ski
I haven't listened to all of the Gritty Bowman podcasts, so I havent heard their opinion on this matter, yet. What do you and they recommend? I have been doing a lot of research on general nutrition over the last 6 weeks and I can understand their concern, to a degree, if you are already eating super clean and have made an effort to convert your body from using carbs to using fat. For the general person, that is not watching their macros like a hawk, I question the benefit of increasing the complexity of preparing for your first backcounty scouting trip. I would love to know your thoughts. Please dont see me as being argumentative but trying to discuss and learn.
 
Not everybody does - but I really like the Heather's choice - Breakfast, Dinner, Packaroons. They do take longer to re-hydrate, but eating as healthy as possible and getting quality food makes a big difference over a two week hunt for me. I personally shoot for 4000 calories a day, and I'm at around 2lb / day with what I pack.

I pre-mix Wilderness Athlete Hydrate & Recover with a scoop of Protein Powder and a scoop of Energy & Focus in small plastic bags. I take lots of Pro-bars. I bring a couple packets of olive oil to add in to meals for some extra calories. Justin's nut-butter packets, Honey Stinger Waffles, Mixed Nuts

At base camp I'll keep a bag of apples, extra granola bars, mixed nuts, gatorade (lots of sugar, but great to pound one when you're going to get a load of meat), and backup food...
 
I personally love Heather's Choice meals, they are in alot smaller packaging than Mountain House and taste great. Plus, you can actually pronounce the ingredients so you know exactly whats going into your body. If you are Paleo/Primal minded these are a must. I hunted the high country for elk last fall in Colorado and my daily food looked like this:

Heather’s Choice—Buckwheat Breakfast
Folger Coffee Packet
Natural Almonds—100 Calorie Pack
Epic—Bison Bar
Heather's Choice—Packaroons
RX Bar--Blueberry
Clif Bar—Cool Mint Chocolate Chip
Heather’s Choice—Chipotle Cherry Chili
Wilderness Athlete—Energy & Focus
Wilderness Athlete—Hydrate & Recover

This provided me with about 2500 calories a day and it was plenty for me.
 
This thread is the first time I've heard of Heather's Choice. 15 bucks for a <500 calorie meal? Yeeesh... That's rough.


I'm not someone who takes a lot of comfort in food, it's just fuel for the machine from my perspective. With that in mind, is it a sound strategy to just find foods with the most calories per ounce, within a reasonable weight limit? For instance, I'm planning on mountain house mac n cheese for 8 nights straight this fall, simply because it's the highest calorie offering.
 
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npaden said:
For the number of people who use mountain house compared to the other brands, the complaints on mountain house really seem to be few and far between. I like it. Some things like Chili Mac are going to cause GI issues whether it is mountain house brand or not.
Click to expand...

Couldn't be more accurate above, MH and snickers (I prefer whatchamacallit and payday's personally but similar deal). You may get mountain mud, but so what. For the MH meals I know I like, I have never not wanted to eat them. Same for a whatchamacallit, snickers, or payday. I have passed on eating cliff bars, power bars, and all kinds of healthier options after climbing a few thousand feet in the heat. When fatigued, your body can be finicky with food. Knee deep in a hell hole wilderness area isn't the place to eat like a ballerina... No offense to ballerina's.

I also hunt in some pretty dry areas and have run the numbers and it can be lighter to take high fat nuts, summer sausage, hard cheese, etc. than the MH plus the water I need to hydrate it. Everything is a balance. Having to carry pounds of water for a few days just for your MH doesn't make sense to me in dry places with little water supply.
 
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You are a better man than me if you can eat MH mac and cheese for 8 days straight! I agree to a point with regards to the Heathers Choice. I think they are just way too over price. In my day to day, I try and eat as clean and healthy as possible. I do feel that MH is probably not the healthiest option, really high in sodium and lots of preservatives. I try and mix up my food kit so that I am not eating exclusively MH, and try to mix in as much healthy options as I can
 
I'll add in my 0.02 and say I was pleasantly surprised with "Good To Go" dehydrated meals. My girlfriend has celiac's which means if she has gluten her stomach starts to digest itself. You'd be surprised how much prepared food has gluten in it (mountain house), so when she found these Good To Go's we had try them. I hesitated when they said vegan (also gluten free) but al-be-darn they are really really good. They make 6 or 7 varieties and we tried most all of them with not a one being anything but tasty and filling. Best part, when the package says double serving, no kidding they mean it. I'm 215lbs and there is no possible way I could take down one double serving bag (3/4 bag tops)- you give me a double serving of mountain house and I've still got room for dessert. More compact than Mountain house bags too and they are meant to take boiling water.

And if you'd die if you didn't get meat in a meal (they already have plenty of protein though), you can always add in some of the summer sausage you packed for snacks (like I did)!
 
I like the Mountain House breakfast one with eggs, hashbrowns, etc slapped on a tortilla. Fortunately most of my time spent in "backcountry settings" I had a boat, so plenty of room to pack real food
 
Just a quick update as I tried some of the Paleo Meals To Go on a recent backpack trip and they we good, healthy and filling. Even my 16 yr old son said they were tasty.
 
Make your own dehydrated meals. Lots of recipes on line. Made a huge difference in our camp. We look forward to the meals now versus forcing the calories down. Do a little research and you won't regret it. I'm surprised more don't explore this option. I am far from a chef so if I can do it, anyone can.
 
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