How much does your food weigh?

[Luked]

Packed all of mine up tonight. I'm using Peak Refuel for breakfast and Dinners. This is my first trip out west so im still learning.
For 8 days mine are at 14lbs total.
Each day is anywhere from 3350-3860 In calories. It might be too much, but I guess I don't have to eat everything each day.
Was curious what your guys weigh total for your trips

 

[nobody]

Key to backcountry food is to pack enough that you're not starving, but not so much that you have extra left over. Otherwise it's just dead weight.

Target 125-150 calories per ounce, and target about 2800-3k calories per day. At 150 calories per ounce, and 3k calories, you'll be 20 oz per day, or 1.25 lbs, so for 8 days you're 10 lbs. I just cut 4 lbs for you right there.

When I'm training and working out and lifting/running at home in the offseason, I'm about 3k calories to maintain (28 years old, 6ft tall, 190 lbs, athletic build), but I plan for about 2500 calories per day on the mountain, so about a pound a day of food (150 calories per oz). I'll cut a few pounds in the hills, but I'll put it right back on pretty quick when I get home.

But hey, I'm just some random guy on the internet.

 

[Dioni A]

It's going to depend on how you like to hunt. On the exo death hike I packed 11 pounds of food for three days. On a mostly stationary deer hunt I'll have 6 days of food weigh 11 pounds. I wouldn't be afraid of over packing. You can toss or burn what you don't eat. My strongest advice would be to take things you really enjoy eating. It can be hard to choke down some of the crap people on here will suggest you eat day after day. You should also check out the valley to peak nutrition podcast.

 

[maxwellh86]

Instant oatmeal or granola for breakfast, two packs of maxpresso; pro bar, trail mix, Lara bar, cliff bar assortment for lunch, plus nuun tablets; Peak refuel/mountain house/heathers choice for dinner. About 1 lbs a day and I try to keep it over 1800 calories. I come back much lighter but I’m never suffering, too busy.

 

[Weber]

About to head out. 7 days of food at 15 lbs. This includes zip lock bags and some green belly bars as backup in case I get stuck.

A little over 3k calories per day. That being said I throw some variety in to save my gut from just bars and house.

2x Tillamook cheddar slices (individually packaged)
1 oz almonds
5 or 6 dried apricots (helps the bars come out out a different shape than they went in plus some potassium)
1 oz fritos
2 pro bars
1 oz of Jerky
1 pouch of peanut butter (justins)
1x bagel thin
Propak house breakfast
House dinner
House granola for desert
1 starbucks via
1 nuun tablet

I could lighten this up by removing the extra packaging and such and dropping the apricots if I wanted to really shave oz's.

If you want to optimize for calories per oz and sacrifice on other stuff you can definitely cut this by 30%

 

[xcutter]

Packed all of mine up tonight. I'm using Peak Refuel for breakfast and Dinners. This is my first trip out west so im still learning.
For 8 days mine are at 14lbs total.
Each day is anywhere from 3350-3860 In calories. It might be too much, but I guess I don't have to eat everything each day.
Was curious what your guys weigh total for your trips

This sounds like a really good weight for that amount of calories in my opinion. Seems like my food is always closer to 2 pounds per day or slightly over and around same calories as yours. Can you post your food list? I'd like to maybe change my list of food up.

 

[Luked]

I can get a food list together. Will be later as its on my home computer.

 

[Larry Bartlett]

I agree with everything Nobody stated.

I'll add that two dehydrated meals per day is not an ideal sodium intake. One meal is often 60% of an entire 24 hour intake of salt. Blood pressure, heart rate, kidney function, contributing dehydration effects, etc. Not good.

I wont beat a dead horse about science, but my team has tested hunters energy needs and metabolic parameters several years now. In a jest we only need roughly 2000-2500 per day in moderate to abundant physical scenarios, and the key to muscle retention despite weight loss is protein intake of at least 0.8 grams/kg/per day.

https://physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.14814/phy2.13925

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328959483_The_energy_requirements_and_metabolic_benefits_of_wilderness_hunting_in_Alaska

Food choices at 125 cal/ounce will provide 16-oz weight and 2000 cals. That should be your target threshold and then add a few snacks but not extra dehydrated meals and you'll be fine.

 

[S.Clancy]

I packed just over 2 lbs a day, ~3400 Cals per day. Over 7 days I lost 3-4 lbs. Low 3K per day is min for me, but, according to sources, I eat alot.

For reference, I'm 6'1", 190lbs and eat over 3K in daily (office job) life.

 

[mtwarden]

I always figure roughly 1.5 lbs/full day and ~ 3000-ish calories- so you're in that ballpark

One thing that I've done that saves a little weight, but a lot of volume -is repackage all the freeze dried meals into quart ziplocks, use a HMG cozy and eat directly out of it. I weighed all the packaging at one time and it shaved a little weight, but the big win was the volume it saves

https://www.rokslide.com/forums/thr...t-and-volume-of-your-backcountry-food.231506/

 

[scott85]

I’m 1 to 1.2 pounds a day and that’s overpacked. I personally want to get around to under a pound a day.

 

[Trackerbacker]

necroing this. im at 1.7# approximately. its food i like, ill take the penalties where they are, though i dont see many except cooking twice a day. I dont include coffee (we make bosnian at home, and thats what goes on the trail with me). truth be told, i could easily cut servings, but what good does a neccessity do if left at home for minor penalties in the field?

truth be told.....i probably eat better on the hunt than i do out of the field (homemade breakfast burrito or eggs and avocado sometimes, coffee, small lunch, small dinner), and all the scraps of being a dad of 3 earn you.

 

[HighUintas]

I just weighed my dehydrated meals for this weekend. I have a mix of backpackers pantry and alpine sure pouches. They average 700cal. They also average 100cal per oz. That sucks. I'm at 1588 cal per pound there and the goal is 1lb food per day. I need to get close to 2500cal per pound.

These are for lunch and dinner. 18 pouches for 9 days. I'll supplement them with something else at lunch and dinner and have something different for breakfast. Do you guys have any good suggestions for the other food to add would make you the difference? I know fats are the most calorically dense, but I'm not sure what kind of bar or similar I could pack that would make up the difference. Maybe I should just pack jar of PB.

Also, when you guys are stating calories per pound or oz, are you counting the packaging weight?

 

[renagde]

I just weighed my dehydrated meals for this weekend. I have a mix of backpackers pantry and alpine sure pouches. They average 700cal. They also average 100cal per oz. That sucks. I'm at 1588 cal per pound there and the goal is 1lb food per day. I need to get close to 2500cal per pound.

These are for lunch and dinner. 18 pouches for 9 days. I'll supplement them with something else at lunch and dinner and have something different for breakfast. Do you guys have any good suggestions for the other food to add would make you the difference? I know fats are the most calorically dense, but I'm not sure what kind of bar or similar I could pack that would make up the difference. Maybe I should just pack jar of PB.

Also, when you guys are stating calories per pound or oz, are you counting the packaging weight?

I was at 20.5oz per day and was at 2800 calories. That included all the packaging and everything was put into a gallon zip loc, 1 bag for each day. So that's about 137 calories per ounce including all the plastic wrapping.

 

[HighUintas]

I was at 20.5oz per day and was at 2800 calories. That included all the packaging and everything was put into a gallon zip loc, 1 bag for each day. So that's about 137 calories per ounce including all the plastic wrapping.

What were your primary foods?

 

[renagde]

What were your primary foods?

Pro bars, paleo bars, nut butter packs, fbomb bars, Duke's snack sticks, dried cheese crisps, stroopies, Honey Stinger waffles then Pinnacle Food Co dinners.

 

[mtwarden]

Peak Refuel meals tend to be a little higher in calories than most of the other manufacturers. Add a couple of packets of olive oil and your over a 1000 calories for suppers at roughly 5-6 oz/meal.

I ditch the packaging and put the meals in half gallon freezer bags- only shaves about an ounce/package, but the volume of all the suppers are greatly reduced.

https://www.rokslide.com/forums/thr...t-and-volume-of-your-backcountry-food.231506/

 

[renagde]

Shameless plug for Pinnacle Food, their meals are 5-6 oz with the packaging, are around 7-800 calories and are darn good. Every bit as good as home cooked meals. My hunting partner who packed Peak was drooling every evening. Their meals are all precooked and then freeze dried, where most mix freeze dried ingredients which means that the flavors don't mess like they do when you cook everything together. I believe they're a pretty new company and I'm impressed.

 

[HighUintas]

I will look into pinnacle for next time.

I also saw someone's picture of olive oil packets. I will do that. Hopefully Walmart or another near by grocery store will have them.

I also thought about storing all my meals in a ziplock bag, taking one of the mylar bags with me to cook in and rinsing it out when I'm done to save some weight. But, hadn't gone through figuring out how much weight I would end up saving. If I can save an ounce per dehydrated meal, I will probably end up doing that.

On my scale, larabars and probars are about 135 calories per ounce, so maybe I will add some of those for my bars.

I didn't know until last few days that I would actually get to go on this hunt, otherwise I would have had all this figured out weeks ago