How To: Packing Food for a Backpacking Trip

Disclaimer: I am NOT the person to go to for advice on packing food for a backpacking trip. You’ve been warned!

I dislike a lot of common foods like honeybuns, snickers, pop-tarts, protein bars, trail mix, dried fruit, peanut butter, and tortillas. I crave salt and protein on trail and often cannot tolerate sweet foods. I usually lose my appetite the first few days of any backpacking trip and have to force myself to eat, so it’s imperative that I have tasty options to choose from. I pack a lot of fresh foods, therefore my food bag is always ridiculously heavy. However, I have found that making sure I pack foods I actually enjoy eating and that nourish my body keeps me eating well and feeling good while on trail.

I am currently packing for a four day/three night trip on the Foothills Trail this week. We will be doing low-mileage days and taking some side trips to waterfalls. Since I was packing my food bag, I thought I’d share what goes in it.

Breakfast

Occasionally, I also add hard-boiled egg and/or avocado on top of my bagel as well. This trip, I am bringing a couple of hard-boiled eggs and an avocado. These will either be eaten for lunch or snacks, or will be combined with breakfast. On this trip, I’ll probably also have a Liquid I.V. with caffeine to start my day.

Other people bring pop tarts, instant oatmeal, power bars, honeybuns, etc for breakfast and are fine. I just can’t stomach foods like that in the mornings and this is what works for me. The cream cheese will last 2-3 days un-refrigerated in temps like we will have this week, and the bacon will last quite some time as well.

Lunch/Snacks

Admittedly, packing lunches and snacks is hard for me. I always feel like I pack too much or not enough and that I’m not going to want to eat what I brought. I try to snack throughout the day rather than having one large “lunch” because that always seems to weigh me down or make me nauseated. Here’s what I’m bringing for snacks on this trip:

The cheeses and eggs will perish the fastest and will be my priority to eat the first two days. I always pack cheese, and if it’s warm season I just try to find the hardest, most shelf-stable cheese I can find. It is not uncommon for me to have a block of cheese in my fanny pack or hip pouch that I’m eating at intervals right off the block!

Dinner

Dinner is my favorite meal of the day! On short backpacking trips like this one, I generally default to pre-prepared backpacking meals. These tend to be tasty and are easy to find; even Walmart usually has a small selection, and I found some at Ingles today. Other go-to options for me are the standard ramen soup (which I like to add fresh or freeze-dried veggies to), or instant rice/pasta. These are less expensive and more practical for weeks- or months-long backpacking trips.

I’m also bringing the boxed wine shown above to have on night one, and likely bringing a mini-bottle of vodka or whiskey to make a Liquid I.V. cocktail on night three. My Appalachian Trail fam Cowbell is hopefully bringing us trail magic beers to our campsite Tuesday night.

I often pack out sandwiches for the first night of a backpacking trip. Bread doesn’t hold up well in a stuffed backpack, so I always try to eat it the first night out.

Other items