Need Help With Alternatives to Dehydrated Meals (Looking at Smoked Cheese & Hard Salami)

[rclouse79]

I do aussie bites from Costco for breakfast, tortilla, cheese, tuna pack, mayo and mustard for lunch, tortilla, salami, cheese, mayo and mustard for dinner.

 

[The Angelo Kid]

I took pemmican on a backpacking trip recently...never again. The consistency and flavor evoked a dramatic gag response for me and it was hard to choke any of it down. I bought mine from Pure Traditions, who markets it as ancient survival food. If my options were to eat pemmican and live, or not eat pemmican and die, I choose death. Starving children in Africa would spew that garbage out of their mouths and probably murder you. Maybe there are some other brands that are better, but I won't be going back to that well.

I was just looking at their website this morning. Definitely had thoughts of what you described running through my head.

 

[The Angelo Kid]

Half of my life hunting involved brining along a good amount of summer sausage, jerky, and pepperoni sticks - and any of the hard cheeses with low moisture and high salt survive room temps for extended periods. Just made my mouth water thinking about taking a bite out of a big chunk of Parmesan. Lol

The downside, for me, of both of those things is the salt content. I enjoy eating out and that amount of salt in most meals, but when I get into a lot of salty meat and cheese (or a big pepperoni pizza with extra sauce) for just one day my weight goes up 6-8 lbs from water retention and takes 3 to 4 days to work out of my system. Packing that extra water weight doesn’t bother me all that much, but being full of salt makes me pee twice as much during the night and I don’t care for the salty feeling in my mouth all day and night.

I still pack a small summer sausage, and enjoy a jerky/meat stick or two each day. A small baggie each day with a big pinch of Parmesan chips (Costco) makes a flavorful snack without overloading on salt.

With all the shelf stable at room temperature small packets of jelly, peanut butter, meat spreads and other stuff, there are more alternatives to dehydrated meals now than ever - the downside to most of it is we typically eat them in small amounts occasionally and having larger quantities isn’t as fun as it sounded at first.

I love breads and eat bagels regularly, but for some reason on the mountain I can barely stand them. I’ve packed a dozen bagels for a week long trip thinking I’d easily eat a few each day just for snacks - 10 of them were fed to the coyotes. I do enjoy crackers, especially the Chicken-in-a-biscuit, but the salt content is quite high in large amounts. A dense banana bread with a ton of walnuts is my go to - I can easily eat half my needed calories in banana bread each day, but it gets squished and whatnot easily, so I may limit it to one full loaf and snack on it the first few days. One year I packed a dozen donuts, but the bulk of a box to keep them from being squished was way too much of a hassle so that was a one time thing. Lol

I have experienced you bagel thing with the dehydrated meals. They don't always sit well with me but beyond that, not matter which ones I try I am having to force myself to eat them and that normally plays out after a couple of days and I end up just eating my snacks or other stuff I brought aong.

 

[The Angelo Kid]

Smoke your own cheddar. It’s easy. I do it in the winter when temps are cooler, but you could do it anytime. Get a smoke tube for your pellets and smoke it about an hour with some hickory or apple.

You can vacuum seal it and freeze it for later use. I just watch for sales on cheese and pick up a bunch at a time, then do one big batch.

Trader Joe’s has good hard salami. Summer sausage keeps well too so long as you use the full amount of curing salt n

Any advice on types of cheese that smoke better than others from your experience?

 

[Jason Snyder]

Any advice on types of cheese that smoke better than others from your experience?

I’ve only done medium cheddar. I bet white cheddar would be excellent.

Be careful not to overdo the smoke.

 

[NRA4LIFE]

I too have made many of my own dehydrated meals. Much easier on my lower unit than some of the commercial stuff, mostly MH. Just make sure you make the meals with VERY lean meat. Venison and trimmed chicken breasts are the best I've found. Stews, soups, chili, etc.

 

[Poser]

Nothing much to add to this on the direct food front, however, I found that I have to get extremely serious about my gut health in the backcountry. At home, I drink Kefir daily as well as apple cider vinegar throughout the day. In the backcountry, I take apple cider vinegar gels a couple of times a day, including first thing in the morning and just before bed and also take a probiotic supplement in the morning. In order to avoid a total gut shock, I start taking the probiotic several days to a week before the trip, depending on the duration of the trip. During hunting season, I'll often just take it from Sept through Nov since I'm out so much. Aged Gouda cheese is also a staple since it has probiotics (I usually just buy a whole 10 lbs wheel of aged Gouda for the Summer and Fall). Lastly, I take some single serving "Greens" powder supplements. Basically, give your gut some PH support throughout your trip and that change alone may solve your problem. It is at east worth an experiment. It may not be the meals themselves that are causing you issues, rather the lack of prebiotics that you are getting at home.

 

[wowzers]

I’ve only done medium cheddar. I bet white cheddar would be excellent.

Be careful not to overdo the smoke.

It is. Pepperjack is great too, especially on tacos. I like to wait until those two pound blocks go on sale. The smoke tube is the key.

 

[Jason Snyder]

You do it pretty much like I do. I try to keep it no thicker than an inch or so. What kind of wood do you use?

 

[wowzers]

Apple mostly. I haven’t experimented too much but like you say too much can get over powering so I feel like hickory or stronger might be too much. Tempted to try alder but I usually use it just for fish.

 

[*zap*]

Check into waxed cheese.

 

[Dos XX]

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[Dos XX]

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[The Angelo Kid]

Nothing much to add to this on the direct food front, however, I found that I have to get extremely serious about my gut health in the backcountry. At home, I drink Kefir daily as well as apple cider vinegar throughout the day. In the backcountry, I take apple cider vinegar gels a couple of times a day, including first thing in the morning and just before bed and also take a probiotic supplement in the morning. In order to avoid a total gut shock, I start taking the probiotic several days to a week before the trip, depending on the duration of the trip. During hunting season, I'll often just take it from Sept through Nov since I'm out so much. Aged Gouda cheese is also a staple since it has probiotics (I usually just buy a whole 10 lbs wheel of aged Gouda for the Summer and Fall). Lastly, I take some single serving "Greens" powder supplements. Basically, give your gut some PH support throughout your trip and that change alone may solve your problem. It is at east worth an experiment. It may not be the meals themselves that are causing you issues, rather the lack of prebiotics that you are getting at home.

Thanks for the feedback.