Food for long Tramps

Being too lazy to devote much time nancying about with menu's it's simpler to have pe-prepared grab n' go 'ration packs' at home. Breakfast:Homemade muesli(pre-milk powdered)is tasty and filling for breakfast though am moving to oats to save some weight once the current batch is gone. Lunch: mealmates and cheese. Being a gannet with little self control and a tendency to slice off doorsteps the pre-sliced cheese short circuits this temptation so goes further per kg carried. Snacks: Peanuts +/- sultanas Dinner: 2 Minute Noodles, Pkt deyhd peas, 2 Saveloys Savs are great lots of preservatve so they last forever. We've had them for ten days in the Central Otago summer, ok they sweat grease but no ill effects. Heavy though so now ditch them for the last half of long tramps Misc: Teabags -lots of, sachet soup. Houndstooth fern makes handy greens thrown into the dinner mix as presumably the dehyd veges have lost most of their vitamins in processing.

Good tip re: the ferns. Hell mission boy, are you having me on about the croissants in the dehi? If not, which one is that. It seems as though they're using up scraps from other food industry sources, putting that stuff in the mix. Wonder what's in the savs that they don't go off?...

I meant croutons lol both have very similar spelling but taste far from the same!

gotcha, ta.

Oats and Tea(bags) for Breakfast Wraps(long-lasting bread) and Cheese for Lunch Dinner: - Stock Cubes for soup (6 stock cubes = 20g)? - Couscous (spelling?), - EasyMacCheese Pasta plus 3minutecooking pasta/instant mash - 7minute cooking Rice - Tea(bags)if having no soup Snack: macadamia shortbread, cool coconut, ginger and/or blackforest muffin bars, etc.

I can't believe no one else has mentioned this: Dinner = Boil in the bag curry with instant or boil in bag rice. It's super high in energy, healthy, tasty, huge variety of flavours, economic with fuel, and cheap. (the indian grocery story near south city in christchurch usually has them on a 3 for $5 deal) Breakfast = instant oatmeal with re-hydrated fruit. Leave your dehydrated apples, mangos, pineapples etc in a pot, cup, or water bottle over night. You'll have delicious fruit in the morning and a sweet juice to drink too. (it usually needs diluting)

Hey guys, great suggestions for dinner and breakfasts. I usually have the above mentioned snacks such as muesli bars, crackers & cheese, raisins, baby carrots etc. Im keen to hear suggestions for 'lunches'? As carnivorous as I am I am completely over salami on tramping trips with anything so thats out. I once took pita pockets but they got stale after day 2. Im thinking I might take good ol marmite & chip sammies this time for the first day but what else for lunches that wont go stale, which dont include pulling out the cooker and boiling the billy and that are filling and not the above listed snacks?

Have you tried back country , buritos and they also do a tunalunch.

The Kaweka boild in bags are good if you don't mind the weight - 300g each and even then they're only about 1800kJ each. I'm quite partial to the jambalaya. Also they're a bit expensive if you can't get army surplus. For lunches I used to have any 2 minute noodles that came with a garlic oil sachet (forget the brand). I've found that sprouts or salad mix can be a good way of pepping up sanwiches/wraps if you're out for less than a week. Sometimes I take homemade hot cross buns for lunch - a very rich and dense dough that doesn't squash and loaded with sultanas etc.

I recall the original post said food for a long tramp and mentioned 8-10 days...for long tramps I carry 600g food/per day. This equates to 150g for breakfast ( e.g. 100g muesli/50g powdered milk),180g for the evening meal (BCC dehi),around 200g for lunch (e.g. 70g crackers, pesto, slivers of cheese, dehy hummus)and the rest in snacks. Of course on this regieme the first thing you do when you come to a hut is check out the cupboards for spare food! If folks are going to carry boil in the bags, curries etc on a long tramp, they'll be less likely to enjoy the tramping I'd say...Frank and I still joke about the guys we met on the Stewart Island NW circuit. One of the poor sods had been given a glass jar of Dolmio pasta sauce to lug around and it wasn't eaten until towards the end of the trip. I would've "accidentally" dropped it probably at the end of the first day! I reckon if you want to eat wet, heavy or fresh food then stay home. We witnessed a group of outdoor students doing the circuit and blowing knees and various body parts because they were carrying far too much weight e.g. 4 season tents. As they were being choppered out, the remaining group had to take on their heavy party gear. At the same time there was a little family of teenage siblings carrying BCC cuisine who did just fine on the circuit.