TREKKING • Getting started • Skills & techniques • Fitness • Food & nutrition • Equipment overview • Trek preparation • Gear check list • Camping • Navigation • Safety & first aid • Further reading

TREKKING
Food & nutrition

It's been a long day and you've got about an hour or so before you hit camp. You're thinking about a warm, comfortable bed and looking forward to a hot meal and cup of tea or coffee. It's a meal that you know you're going to enjoy. You've earned it by carrying a pack all day. Some of the most memorable and enjoyable meals are those prepared while trekking.

Nutrition:

To be able to function at your peak while trekking it is not just a matter of taking food with you. The food you take must have the right balance of nutrients.

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Nutrient groups:

• Carbohydrates:

Carbohydrates are our most important energy source. Grains and grain product such as pasta, rice and flour along with potatoes, sugars from fruit, honey and cane should make up around half of our daily intake of carbohydrates

The simplest carbohydrates are the sugars. These are quickly converted to energy and make for a quick energy fix.

Starches are complex carbohydrates. They need to be broken down into sugars by the body before they kick into play. These should make up the bulk of your carbohydrate intake and are the best for providing energy while exercising. Complex carbohydrates found in unprocessed food are generally better as they tend to contain more vitamins and minerals and also roughage for healthy digestion.

• Fats:
Fats are a long term energy source. They take much longer for the body to digest. Fats are more complex than carbohydrates requiring 5 times more energy and 3-4 times more oxygen to convert into fuel. Common sources of fats are meat, eggs, nuts, butter, margarine and dairy products.

• Proteins:
Proteins are necessary for the many bio chemical processes that occur within our bodies. They are also building materials. Proteins are made up of amino acids. 22 of these amino acids are used by the body. 8 of these cannot be produced by the body's metabolism and must be sourced from outside. These eight are called the essential amino acids.

Proteins that contain all eight essential amino acids are called complete proteins. These are found in foods such as meat, fish, eggs, poultry and dairy products.

Unfortunately many of these are impractical for trekking as they are both heavy in weight and spoil quickly. Combining certain types of nuts, grains and legumes can also provide a full compliment of complete proteins.

• Vitamins and minerals:
Vitamins and minerals are essential for the bodies wellbeing. Most are not produced by the body and have to be sourced externally. Usually a well balanced diet of fresh, relatively unprocessed food will provide all the vitamins and minerals that the body needs but supplements in the form of multi vitamin pills can be used in addition to a healthy diet. Be careful when taking vitamin supplements as there is evidence to suggest that excessive intake of vitamins A, D and K can be poisonous. Vitamins and minerals don't provide energy but are necessary for the body's metabolism to function properly. It is advisable to increase your salt intake in hot weather if you sweat a lot.

Planning your food supply for a trek

Planning food for a long trek requires a different approach than a shorter one. This is because weight and shelf-life are critical on a long trek, especially if you are planning to trek solo. Keeping it simple is the key to success here.

Firstly, work out the number of person days you need to plan for. To do this multiply the number of trekkers in the group by the number of days you plan to trek.

Next plan a full list of breakfast, lunch and diner menus for the trek. We have some excellent outdoor cook books at our book store that can help you with this. After a few treks you will soon learn to gauged the quantities of food that you are likely to require, but to begin with commonsense should prevail.

While not favoured by everyone, freeze dried outdoor meals are generally high in nutrition, lightweight and compact. Nowadays manufacturers are getting better at making them taste better and many are actually quite delicious after a hard day's trekking.

Important

If weight and space allow it's advisable to include a spare day's rations incase you underestimate the time of completion of a multi-day trek.

Packaging

There are many ways to package food for a trek. Again, trial and error are probably your best guide but here are a few tips:

• Commercial packaging:
Remove any unnecessary commercial packaging and repack for efficiency if necessary. When buying food for your trek, consider the commercial packaging that the food comes in. Some brands of tuna come in flat, lightweight, foil vacuum packs making this form of protein very suitable for trekking. Also for shorter treks, UHT milk is available in sturdy packs individually portioned to suit a cup of coffee or a bowl of cereal. These have proved very successful in the right circumstances.

• Ziplock plastic bags:
Food such as breakfast cereal, powdered milk, dried fruit, nuts etc. can be carried in these.

• Locking type plastic storage containers:
These are lightweight and come in a wide range of sizes. These can be useful for coffee, tea, sugar etc.

• Film containers:
For our younger visitors, film was a light sensitive material once used in cameras. If you can find some film containers they are excellent for carrying salt, pepper, herbs and spices.

• Spillage prevention:
Any supplies containing liquid that is at risk of rupture should be double packed inside a ziplock bag. If a rupture occurs it will be contained and won't contaminate the rest of the food supplies.

Stoves

Stoves are outlined in our equipment overview section.

Cookware and kitchen utensils

The amount of kitchen ware that you need to carry depends on a number of things such as; Are you trekking solo or in a group; Will you be cooking meals from scratch or will freeze dried meals dominate the menu; and what kind of food will you be cooking. Here are some items that should be considered:

• Metal or plastic plate
• Metal or plastic drinking mug
• Knife, fork and spoon
• Swiss army knife
• Cooking pot/s
• Fry pan
• Pot lifters if your pots don't have folding handles
• Matches or cigarette lighter
• Spatula
• Wooden spoon
• Pot scourer
• Metal or plastic breakfast bowl
• Fuel stove
• Fuel

In addition to the above check list, trekker's kitchen sets are also available. These are designed to be compact and lightweight and are an option worth considering.

Recipes

There is a wide range of camp cook books on the market nowadays. These are usually written by experienced trekkers and campers who have experimented and refined recipes over the years. Try using the search engine in our book store to see what you can find.

Equipment overview >