Backcountry

And a lot of separate components are available already commercially dehydrated e.g. dehydrated refried beans, those oily chinese shallots, dehydrated mushrooms, tomatoes, peas. And the fantastic range of freeze-dried fruit - Fresh As. Also there are packets of dehy tabouli, humus and falafels. On a multi-day trip I'll often take some of the felafel mix to cook up the night before for a lunch filling the next day. I ran into a professional instructing couple in April down on Stewart Island who had done this very trick and made the felafel mix into a couple of big pikelets then piled on the 'filling' when they stopped for lunch. A lot quicker than my little felafels I usually do. What else was cool was they had these recyclable fabric sandwich wraps to put the felafels in, intead of plastic bags.

@Gaiters: "Ten bucks is still a lot of money militaris. That fifty bucks for a five night tramp. The whole point of tramping is to be on top of your game fit not lazy." That sounds like a fairly subjective idea to me. Even if it wasn't, must it really extend to caring about how other people prepare their meals? People do what works for them according to their own circumstances. It doesn't offend me to see others eating out of a commercial dehy packet (as long as they carry out the rubbish), unnecessary expense of meals is unlikely to be the cause of a SAR callout, and as far as I can tell it doesn't affect anyone else, so I'm not too fussed about it.

Hi Izogi. You edited my comments a bit liberally there. There's a paragraph between, but thats cool. I hear you. But yes it is subjective, this is an Internet forum everything is subjective. That's the point of these places right? I'm just trying to motivate people to put more effort into an area of tramping that seems to get a little neglected. This is a hobby full of very detail orientated people. I may have come across abrasive. But I wasn't meaning too. I just love this aspect of tramping as much as I do plotting trips on maps or gram counting my pack. You know what I mean?

i dont think you should acuse people of being lazy just because they chose a specific type of food, the reasons why you end up eating dehy can be many and varied... if you cook your own meals most of the time, people might just want a change when they are tramping. or they are travelling a long distance and running late and just grab some dehy near their destination.... you could be with a group where you're going with the flow and others are eating dehy.... etc etc.

Hi @Gaiters. Sorry for the out of context quote. I did (and still) read that earlier comment as being unnecessarily judgemental of other people's goals and methods with how it was written, but no worries.

Waynowski my above post explains the statement I made. I was trying to appeal to those who spend a lot of time and energy on every aspect of their past time but not the nutritional aspect . I think everyone myself included already gets your reasons for eating that stuff. I was really trying to get through to people who maybe starting out, that kind of feel its just what you get. I ate that stuff for awhile a decade ago. Used to cost me an arm and leg, and I felt most of it was absolute crap, i tried the entire range. Personal evolution led me to what I take now and I feel its a million times better for a million reasons, so I'm passionate to share it. In fact after I got back from Nepal I thought of starting a garage company selling my food, because I feel it is way better than that freeze dried stuff.

"In fact after I got back from Nepal I thought of starting a garage company selling my food, because I feel it is way better than that freeze dried stuff." Are you still considering this? There's probably space in the market if it's good and the price is competitive. As it's food being sold, I'd imagine there would be a heap of bureaucratic food safety hoops to jump through, though.

Yeah there is but luckily I'm a kitchen manager. Hence my passion haha. I run a very big company with all the facilities I need. One thing that I actually really dislike about the freeze dried food is the packaging.

dehy food companies are selling food that works out at $50 a kilo and upwards.... package something in a fancy way and the price goes through the roof. i can buy ten kilos of lentils for that and it cooks up to thirty kilos worth of meals.... and it has great vitamin mineral and protein content... and i've got control on how much salt and flavourings i do or don't put into it.. and no preservatives.

"And a lot of separate components are available already commercially dehydrated e.g. dehydrated refried beans, those oily chinese shallots, dehydrated mushrooms, tomatoes, peas. And the fantastic range of freeze-dried fruit - Fresh As. Also there are packets of dehy tabouli, humus and falafels. On a multi-day trip I'll often take some of the felafel mix to cook up the night before for a lunch filling the next day. " Honora, do you mind posting a source of this stuff? I'd love to have a few kg of dehy refried bean, humus, falafel mix in the cupboard ready to go.