Hike. Eat. Camp. Repeat.: Suffer now than regret later

I was tossed a topic to talk about and the subject was FOOD. I jumped at it, after all I love to eat, wilderness or not wilderness.

It falls at such a perfect timing that I am in my last three week window of planning for an upcoming backpacking trip. I'll be heading out with some of my usual hiking suspects to traverse the sierra nevada from the West to the East via the High Sierra Trail route and we've allowed ourselves 7 days to finish it, so that would mean about 21 meals plus extras. Yes, extra! My family has successfully instilled in us, growing up, what I like to call, The Hunger Fear.

Eating is a family tradition. Family get together always involve food, from the joyous birth of a new member of the family to the celebration of life of someone who has passed, my family will have a table spread out with all kinds of food - not just snacks, but actual meals!

To avoid that "Hunger Fear", my family has always been known to pack, cook, prepare extra amounts of food for any occasion, whatsoever. "At the end of the day, it is better to have left overs than get short of anything.", were my Nanay's (our grandma) words she has passed on to us.

But this is backpacking, extra weight is deemed like a sacrilege in the backpacking community. One will get stoned to virtual death in any public intarweb forum. Religious ultralight practioners will throw themselves into the fire before they'd even consider packing in any extra weight. So, how do I go about packing enough meals for a trip without abandoning my family's mantra.

Over the past few trips a few suffer-now-than-regret-later tasks to ensure a hunger-free trip have been developed and discovered.

Menu Planning

As any "Suzy Homemaker" knows, just a week's worth of menu planning is tedious but a suffer-now-than-regret-later task. Having a meal planned for each day of your trip will make it easy to not over pack. And be able to gauge how much extra snacks and meals can you still bring.

And meal failures do occur even at the home front, but there will always be the "take out from down the street" to save us. However, in camping in a remote area, one does not have that fall back option. So every meal that is planned, should be tried and taste-tested before it can get the stamp of approval and earn a space in the bear canister.

Re-packaging

You know those shelf stable GoPinic meals you can carry anywhere? Yeah, strip that box open, examine the contents. Those individually packaged nuts, cookies and such? Strip those too and shove them all in one snack size ziplock. That just saved precious space on a trash bag that will be packed out. When you're gone for days with no town access, trash space is precious, too. Examine carefully all of what will be packed and get rid of any unnecessary packaging. It'll also save precious weight.

Can't find a pro-pak version of your favorite freeze-dried meal? A day as close enough to the trip as possible, poke a needle through your free-dried meal packaging to let the air out and tape over the hole after. That should make it easier to shove inside the bear canister or bag.

Foil pack versions.

Got that Chicken Alfredo thoughts in your tummy? Found the powder to make the sauce, pasta can be packed.. but unrefrigerated chicken? The foil-packed chicken chunks would be the answer to this. Remember to test out your menu at home first! Packaged chicken may not be for everyone. Tuna and salmon can also be found in foil packs, not just cans. And Spam! This processed food is a guilty pleasure, especially for breakfast.. or also lunch.. maybe even dinner. Ha! Happiness was off the roof that day I found those Spam singles in foil packs.

Mini groceries.

Find a local DYI gift basket store. They're the perfect spot to find mini/solo versions of a lot of things, from summer sausages, cheese, chocolate bars, cookies and even liquor and wine bottles. My local Cost Plus World Market is my gem for these things. Grateful that I will always have cheese stashed during multi-day trips and they'll last!