Sunday 17 January 2010

pack food weight

Generally on short trips I don’t bother with dehydrated meals for supper. I prefer to take one of those ‘instant’ pouch rice meals that can be reheated in a couple of minutes. As was the case for the aborted Buxton trip. One thing I’d never done was weigh the food. A few years ago, I loosely calculated that I carry 750g of food per day. A figure not dissimilar to the one, then quoted in imperial weight, in Derrick Booth’s The Backpackers Handbook which I was happy with.

Having diabetes and coeliac I err on the side of caution when it comes to packing food, the extra weight of which I never begrudgingly carried. It was something of a surprise that when I put the food bag on the scales two days supply shipped in at 866g per day, a little over 100g more that my estimated weight. Taking into account that one of the suppers comprised a rice pouch with a single serve tuna pouch, in the original packaging. And that I also had a tube of mushroom pate in the bag which will last about four days, the figure that I calculated was not far off if I used home dried meals.

I’d like to reduce the weight but am resigned that I need the extra provisions as picking food up along a trail that I can use is a bonus and not something that I can rely on.

2 comments:

Ben said...

Baz Do you carry things for emergency as well glucose tablets etc, or do you make do with cereal bars and similar snack food?

baz carter said...

I carry glucose tablets as well. I have a GORP mix that has jelly babies that I can pick out when I need. But I prefer to eat a GF cereal (puffed rice) bar in between meals - about every hour and a half or thereabouts... when I remember and want the BS is saying :)