Freeze Dried Backpacking Meals Rated by Calorie Density (Part 2 in series)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ก.ค. 2024
- This is a survey (now updated) of 319 freeze-dried backpacking meals across 12 brands, all rated by calorie density. Includes a discussion of packaging style, preparation, cost efficiency, and package weight. Now includes full nutrition label information and nutritional analysis columns, as well!
PLEASE NOTE: food labels sometimes change. Some of the specific items referenced in the video have had their calories adjusted. The chart has been updated to version 2.5! Over 1000 hiker foods are now included, new tools for menu planning and nutrition calculation have been added, and key existing items have been corrected for accuracy.
Watch the video about the chart update:
• Hiker Food Chart 2.0 (...
For questions about the new nutritional analysis columns, check out the video series on Performance Nutrition for Backpackers:
• Hiker Food
Download the Hiker Food Chart 2.5:
PDF Version:
www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/u1vt57...
Excel Version:
www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/bgwzfi...
View Part 1 in this series here:
Defining "Ultralight" Food for Backpacking and Bug Out Bags
• Defining "Ultralight" ...
Introduction - 00:21
Chart Explanation - 01:08
Alpine Aire - 04:07
Backpacker’s Pantry - 05:33
Good To-Go - 08:38
Mountain House - 08:59
PackIt Gourmet - 10:23
Paleo Meals/Peak Refuel/Thrive - 11:20
Wise Company - 12:25
Package Weight - 13:30
Price per Calorie - 15:56
Conclusion - 17:10
I love the spreadsheet and the fact that people have gone to this much trouble to do the research AND the math. Hats off to you.
Even more importantly he doesn't beg online or ask for handouts to support something he enjoys doing.
I am blown away that this was your first series. Video quality and editing are on like you have been doing this for years. Very impressive.
Thanks very much! Most kind of you!
The time you put into this and then shared your knowledge, WOW!! THANK YOU for all of it!! I'm a total gear geek and you just gave me my missing piece 🥾❤️🥾
Awesome! I’m so glad.
Where have you been all my life?! You're reporting about food has been absolutely helpful. It's been the missing link in my efforts to lighten my "gear"/food weight section hiking 4-7 days at a time. I've been dehydrating my meals and unable to obtain high calories with low weights. Thank you so much for your remarkable efforts and engaging style of teaching. Mama Gecko
Im speechless. A hero of the internet.
You have provided such an incredible service with all this research, documentation and commentary. Thank you!
You are most welcome! I’m very glad to help.
Wow!! Just when you think you cannot learn anything more after 32 years of backpackjng you come along. Mind blown!! Gracias.
Thanks! I am very glad if any of it can help.
I'm extremely grateful for your work on the backpacking nutrition series. I'm mid 50's and have been backpacking for at least a few days a year for about 10 years. Meal planning was never my strong point. My teeth are messed up so that doesn't help. I'm about to go ten days on a winter trip so the pack is already heavy. You've literally given me charts and ideas with which I can cobble together a workable approach so I don't become a wet noodle a few days in. I do TH-cam too and what you've presented gives me the chance to up my game. I'll be linking back to your videos in the documentation of my trip. Subbed of course.
Thanks! I’m very glad if any of it can help. I put a lot of different kinds of foods in the chart so folks could choose and compare items from a variety of eating styles!
Thank you, this is an epic review! Glad I found your channel.
Freeze dried dinners are definitely the lowest caloric density of anything I pack. I agree with you, I carry one per day and find the convenience and luxury of a hot dinner worth it. I usually jack mine up with olive oil or butter powder.
Thanks very much!
I agree. Olive oil and butter powder are great options. I like cheese powder, too, depending on the meal.
"butter and bacon make everything better"... never a truer word spoken !..
I’ve just come across your channel and I wanted to let you know that you’re one of the most interesting creators I’ve ever come across. Amazing information and your humor hits me in the right spot. I really appreciate your work!!
Thanks so much! I’m always worried about the bad jokes. Good thing at least half get edited out before publication 🥸
It's like This Old Tony started a hiking channel. And that's great! Love your videos, learned a lot!
I'm blown away by the thoughtfulness and thoroughness of this channel and series. This is exactly the missing information we need for our upcoming long hikes. Bravo, and thank you!
One suggestion - maybe you can share the spreadsheet on google sheets? It's much easier to keep it updated, and for cloning and collaboration.
Thanks! Check out the Hiker Food Chart 2.0 video. It has a link to a Google Sheets version, courtesy of Buck Crockett.
Thisis what I call ‘hands-on’ learning.
Thank you so much for creating these videos. They give an amazing amount of background information so I can easily make decisions on what food to bring backpacking.
Cheers.
I love all four of your videos and the charts - thank you for making them!
My pleasure. Thanks!
Thank you! The time and money you put into this is much appreciated.
Amazing job man! Your videos are incredibly helpful.
Huge thanks for compiling and analyzing this information. This is hugely helpful, especially for those of us getting into hiking distances.
Great follow up video, thank you for all the legwork done here!
After watching your first video and being blown away by all I had been missing (and doing wrong) of course I gravitated to this second video, which continued my enlightenment. In a couple of words - THANK YOU for your remarkable efforts.
Thanks! I am always glad if any of it can help :)
I had no idea Backpackers Pantry makes a whole milk package. This whole time I've been ordering cans of Nido powder. Lots of good nuggets in this video, thanks for sharing!
Awesome 2nd part. Thanks so much for this priceless info and sharing!!
Glad it could help!
Thank you for your great videos. Very to the point and informative.
Looking to getting back out doors and these calorie videos have been amazingly helpful, can't thank you enough for the download!
You are most welcome! I’m glad if they can help.
Awesome review and real helpful spreadsheet!
Your videos are amazingly detailed and informative! You have saved my Thru hike of the AT.
I do have a hint to share - peanut butter packs great in a zip lock bag - cut off the corner and squeeze. Roll up and store for the next time - super light weight packing option (I think!)
That sounds like a great way to use bulk peanut butter in the field. Thanks!
This is one of the best corners of the internet. Thank you!
Thanks! I really appreciate that!
Wonderful work with these lists and go-through! Thanks for the logics. Tought me more for planning meals, even though I live in Sweden and not many of the brands come here.
Thanks! I am very glad if it can help!
This is awesome. Thanks!
simply phenomenal
Thank you so much. Very helpful.
Incredible video. Extremely useful.
Thanks so much! I'm glad.
Wonderful! Thank you sir.
How is your content so well done, and yet you only have a handful of videos and subs! Your approach to information is great and I can't wait to go through the rest of your current catalogue. Also the Jazz Hands give me Shabazz vibes iykyk.
Thanks! I wish I had Nick’s cool accent, though 🤓
Thank you SO much for your time and effort into making this very informative video! You've provided valuable info that I've never seen on any backpacking video including those geared toward ultralite.
Thank you so much! I am very glad if it can help!
@@GearSkeptic this probably comes as a surprise but I'm not even carrying my own backpack - my burros carry my stuff into the backcountry. I want their packs to be as light as possible.
I’m sure the burros will appreciate it, too!
You’re a mad man and I love it haha
I don’t even hike but this is amazing. Great work.
great work!
Love pt 1 and pt 2! Eye opening for sure! Hard subbed your channel as well! I’ll be making a video soon for my channel and I’ll share the link to these two videos. 👍👍
Thanks very much! I appreciate that, and will look out for your video!
Thank you. I need to fit 10 days of food into a bear vault 450. This information will be a big help in doing so.👍👍
I put 9 days into 450. 7 pouches of freeze dried food (repacked into small ziplocks), 1 pack aten the first night and thus not in the canister. One ziplock of dry mango (not freeze dried) and one of mixed nuts. 50g of dark chocolate. Toothpaste and my eating bowl are also inside. It's pretty tight but there is still some air space. Some of the freeze dried food has more volume than others. The rice is usually bulkier than pasta.
Very informative, thank you for this! 👍 👍
You're most welcome. Also, the chart has been updated quite a bit since the video.
Thank you!
I have a couple of friends that hiked the Appalachian Trail. They had interesting philosophies to food. One went ultralight and hiked fast so that he did not carry as much food. By hiking twice to three times the miles every day, he had to carry half to one third the meals between stops. Generally, they ate the heavy food first, (first day of hiking out of town). In order to not get tired of the same food all the time, they would mix it up with real food. They would also bring refrigerated or spoilable food, for the first day. They might be seen with fruit, salad or bread for example. They would also eat all the food in the morning, or "camel up" at water stops (drinking water so they didn't have to carry it.) Food that did not need cooking, did not require fuel to cook it. (They did have cooking supplies cause a hot meal greatly raises spirits.) While one of them had prepared hundreds of pounds of granola prior to hiking, it remained uneaten.) Food choices were heavily influenced by what was 1) available and 2) cheap. Generally they did not want to have to walk a long way to across town to a grocery store, instead heavily supplying themselves of smaller stores -like gas stations- that were close and then buying whatever was available.
A lot of interesting ways to approach the subject, for sure! Just be careful with the camel up strategy. There are some biological limits to how far you can push that safely.
Great video thanks
Enjoyed u chicken teriyaki,n thanks for u comprehensive inputs, very informative !
Protein is the nutrient that we need in greatest quantity every day (because the body has no way to store protein).
As you have pointed out, there are plenty of dehydrated grains and vegetables in the supermarket.
So meat is the main thing that we want freeze-dried.
A quarter-pound fast food burger (without bun and condiments) weighs 3oz, saving 25% of the weight of fresh meat. They keep for a couple of days unrefrigerated. Wendy's sell plain patties for $1 each. This is an excellent, low-cost, moderate-weight, way to carry the most important nutrition. (Best to not seal them tightly; a little air prevents anaerobic molds).
Canned corned beef and Spam similarly save about 25% weight compared to fresh meat.
A #10 can of Mountain House Ground Beef contains approximately 18 burger-equivalents and weighs HALF of the weight of fast-food burgers. The can sells for almost 4x the price of Wendy's. This is as light as it gets for the highest-nutrition food; at a stiff price.
An 8oz bag of beef jerky contains the nutrition of approximately one pound of meat at half the weight, for ~$10-$13. Compared to Wendy's that saves 33% weight for triple the price. However, jerky doesn't have enough fat, so you will need to supplement that.
Freeze-dried ground beef is perhaps justifiable if you are packing for a long trip and need to save weight. If you're only doing weekends, or can resupply every few days, then it is hard to beat the price-to-performance of Wendy's (without the bun and condiments, of course). (McDonalds patties sell for ~$1.60, which is still reasonable, and are otherwise similarly good nutrition sources).
what a great video ! very usefull for me ! thank you so much
I am happy if it can help!
Wise meal pouches used to be just over half the price of any other freeze dried meals with twice the amount of food so i really liked going with them. Then they cut the amount in half and almost doubled the price. I sure hope they also improved the flavor. I wouldn’t know because at the new price I just go with mountain house or backpacker’s pantry. The wise meal’s flavor wasn’t as good as the others when I used to get them.
great information.
I have been reviewing Australian and NZ products similar to your work. I found that many of the freeze dried and other dried meals have their nutrition values based on reconstituted values, which is why they don't seem to be very lightweight. However, some dried ingredients such as mince is based on the dry weight nutrition value, making them seem far denser. I am still tinkering with a new analytical approach to review the energy density given the disparity, but for present I have noted which products are based on dry or reconstituted weights. There are also some products that are reconstituted with milk and/or butter that is not included in the pack but increases the overall energy density. The last grouping I have noted as 'As Is' i.e. no water added but like bars or bread is just eaten directly. Not sure if the same has occurred with US dried foods.
To my knowledge, all the dried foods here are always listed with dry weights. If a food is ever reconstituted with something other than water, the nutritional label will have two columns: one for the calories just in the food, and a second for the dish after prepared. I’ve seen this most often with stuff that can be mixed with milk.
Sir, THANKS ALOT !!!! I was thinking about same subject for couple years. No, I don't hike much obviously, just my curiosity for camping.
You are very welcome!
Good stuff.
🧡 THANKS 🧡
This comments from Joe Gardner otherwise known as boots on the trail wonderful job you make it so concise and easy to understand was wondering if you could do a video or series of videos on fuel canisters and how long they last I wasn't sure if you had done that yet thanks so much for a wonderful presentation
I am working on a video about stove efficiency right now! Also, I do have section on this in the video on Backcountry Water Treatment Part 1 (boiling vs. pasteurization).
In that video, there are numbers for how long a canister will last depending on not just how high of a temperature you heat the water, but also some efficiency discussion of high flames vs. low flames.
Thank you I will definitely check that out
Freeze Dried meat paired with Hamburger Helper style mixes makes easy home made MREs. Just replace butter with Olive Oil in packets. Two 15ml packets is 3 tbl spoons of butter. Replace milk with powdered milk...
Good tips! Thanks!
Cold soak lunch in a Ziploc and keep the hot meals in the original package. Add fat to increase density. That's what I got from this video.
thanks for this video!! Super jealous of your Snow Peak spoon; I have the fork version but no one sells the spoons now.
You’re most welcome! And, you’d laugh at how many times I’ve been asked about that spoon.
You should do a video on most compact size options! For hikers who don't care about weight but want to pack more food.
I am working on one! 👍🏼
On the bags they have reusable sillicone gallon, sandwhich and snack bags. They are sturdier and the gal. Bags have a squared botton. It would be interesting to try those bags in outdoor activities like hiking or camping.
I will look for those and try on out!
You showed an example menu in your Part 4 video near the end when discussing total sodium. You showed two freeze dried meals with the data that included carb/pro ratios, sugar %, mg Na/cal, but I can't find a download of yours that reflects that expanded data. Do you have an updated freeze dried meals excel sheet with that data? If so, could you please post? Truly appreciate your analysis and the way in which you presented the data. Exceptional :-).
In the description box of the Part 4 video there are links to the sodium-enhanced version of the chart, in both a PDF and Excel version.
Thanks!
Here is a copy of that spreadsheet link (the most updated one, with sodium included): www.mediafire.com/file/chxyvxphab203z0/Hiker_Food_Chart_%2528Na%2529.xlsx/file
@@GearSkeptic thank you kind sir!
@@GearSkeptic I'm sorry if I'm missing something, but the link you provide does not include the expanded nutrition information for the freeze dried foods you made a separate list for apart from "hiker foods." This list has 908 entries, but if you added the total entries from your original hiker foods list and your freeze dried foods list there would be a total of 1187 entries.
Ah. I misunderstood. No, sorry. There is no similar data for the freeze dried meals. I never computed them for the nutritional details, only calorie density.
There’s only one freeze dried meal that I like Mountainhouse beef stew but they put corn in it so I have to pick the corn out of it but this is very informational thank you
Check out Pack-It Gourmet. They offer a lot of the ingredients individually, so you can make (or tweak) your own recipes!
Good-to-go. Strong curry flavor.
Huel makes a lot of my favorite freeze dried foods, the macaroni is especially good I could literally live on the stuff and be happy but it is barely better than the heavy category.
Interesting! I had not heard of those. Thanks for the tip!
Very interesting videos about the connection between food and energy density. At the end at this video you use a very interesting spoon, what kind of brand is it or where can i buy it?
It is the Snow Peak folding spoon. Unfortunately, they seem to have discontinued it. I only see the folding fork.
Peak Refuel now has an excellent Butternut Dal Bhat dinner (149kcal/oz)
I will make a note to add any new flavors to the next list update!
Thank you for sharing the spread sheet. I think it would be useful to move it over to google sheets for ease of access :)
Check out the video description box for the Hiker Food Chart 2.0 video. It contains a Google sheets version link.
@@GearSkeptic Thank you. I did not notice that link :(
TVP is soy. But it's actually our old friend soy protein isolate from the recovery drink section. Is the noodles and meat meal applicable for the recovery meal ratios?
Funny story, every protein isolate powder I have tried stops my digestive system for at least 4 or 5 days. It's not my favorite. And I have tried a lot, particularly unintentionally because it is snuck into a lot of "health" foods.
I did just order tailwind powders but if it gives me the same-old issues, I am 100% going to make my own recovery drink with TVP.
I try to stick with liquids for my Recovery Snack, but there are plenty of solid foods that have 4:1 ratios and should still provide benefit (just slower).
Clif Bars, Picky Bars, and Soldier Fuel bars come to mind (all listed in The Chart). I have used those for Recovery when drink mixes weren’t available.
If the milk-based protein powders give you trouble, another option (that a friend of mine uses because he has the same issue) is a combination of pea protein powder and rice protein powder. They are usually sold separately, but he mixes them because individually they lack full essential amino acid profiles, but together they make for “complete” protein.
@@GearSkeptic Pea powder is solidly and literally on my no-go list.
There is a problem with your conclusion about the cost of repackaged foods, the cost of the new packages was left out in your analysis.
Using that mountain house example, the few dollar difference would quickly get cut down a few dollars if using ziplock bags.
The only real advantage then is volumetric caloric density improving.
A small oversight, but an important one to call out.
Good work as usual with this.
A fair point!
Summit To Eat is a good company too, they are pretty calorific
they're fantastic, but I don't think they're available in the USA
im all about not washing dishes on a cold mountain 😊 expedition foods 1000 cal freeze dried
People don't think about the fact that if they're using freeze dried food, they still need to cary the water weight in their water bottle.
Often, the advantage comes from having your night’s camp near water. You don’t have to carry that water all day, just near the end. And if you’re on a 5-day stretch without resupply, imagine carrying 5 days’ worth of water all from the beginning.
Now, if you’re in the desert with no water sources at all…go ahead and bring soup.
Nice man cave!
Where can I find the folding spoon at the end? What's the brand? Thanks!
It is a SnowPeak folding titanium spoon. Unfortunately, it is not on their site anymore. They only show the folding fork, and that is out of stock. Might have to check secondary markets.
I like it because it is long-handled when extended. Seems like most folders are shorties.
@@GearSkeptic Ah, okay thanks! I'll keep my eyes open in case I ever come across one!
from my experience, repackaging was the only way to fit my food in the bear canister
Agreed! I did a separate video on Volumetric Calorie Density that talked about the benefits of repackaging.
Question? I have some Freeze-dried Bison 🦬 a friend gave me (homemade) it’s my understanding that freeze dried food Keeps its nutritional value- so where would it be on your chart ? Serving size 4oz 190 cal total fat 11 g saturated fat 4g trans fat 0 cholesterol 50mg sodium 60mg total carbohydrates 0 sugars 0 protein 23g iron 2 mg potassium 350 mg off the label of raw meat not freeze dried bison
I can’t find any except dog food lol
That’s a tough one. You would need to know the weight of a 190-calorie portion of the dried stuff. In general, bison tends to be leaner than beef. Even beef jerky tends not to be very light. So, with less fat than beef, bison might be heavier still.
@@GearSkeptic I’m going to ask my friend if they can do that for me I will add the results when I have them
@@GearSkeptic Bison 6 oz precooked = 4 oz cooked = 2 oz freeze dried it’s actually 2.3 oz finished the experiment is over my friend said it was fun being se technical where will it land on your chart ??? Thank You 🤪
Ok. Those numbers give 82 calories per ounce. In the Meat section, that puts it right between Spam and the Primo Italian Dry Salame.
@@GearSkeptic thank You 😃
I downloaded both the excel version and the PDF and in both cases there is no “type” column that tells the packaging. Is this a mistake or an intended edit?
That was a change I made when incorporating the dried meals into the same spreadsheet as the other foods. I needed to keep the columns the same to make cut-and-pasting into the same list compatible (like for the combo calculator and the menu planners).
Sorry for the confusion.
Yea... I am not going to buy food for $45 per day. So far I have used heavier foods straight from the groccery store. Often multiple kilos worth. But at least it has been cheap at maybe $9 per day. I have been looking to shed some of that weight of. But that price is just too steep
I think the price is mostly about the convenience of boil-in-bag meals. Freeze dried stuff often isn’t the lightest. You can use the regular food chart to find the most dense items, a great many of which can be found in markets.
1:36 omg :D
🤣 Corona. Seriously, delightful. 🤣
Did you, when compiling all this data, consider the fact of how much water you will need to wetten your foods that need it?
I did, but it depends on the availability of water sources along your route. Most places on the big trails have water within a few miles of camp, so you can save weight by carrying dry goods all day and just grab water near the end of the day.
If you are actually going to have to carry days’ worth of water all up front, then it does make the point moot. From what I read, the body doesn’t care how the water is ingested (drunk vs. eaten), so water in your food is no different than water from a bottle. In that case, bring all the wet foods you want!
Are you sure you aren't agent Smith? Can you repeat the phrase " Mr Anderson" ? I have a theory.
What is that spoon?!
It is a Snow Peak folding, long-handled titanium spoon. Unfortunately, they don’t make it anymore,
@@GearSkeptic Thanks! Too bad. Love your videos! Thank you for all this extremely helpful information.
Good stuff as always however your methodology for calculating calories and protein are flawed. Nuts and associated products are difficult to digest with appropriately an additional over and above other foods of 20% of the calories going towards digestion, so you don't gettem. (Their will be a drop in available protein as well). And the figures for plant protein conversion are even worse. It gets very complicated as there are many amino acids to deal with but I calculate at 50% reduction of available protein for non animal sources. My solution: Do my own beef jerky putting it into a day sized bag with olive and coconut oil to make up the calories. Yes I will eat all softs of things but to know my protein and fat this is my base. Well, my base minus what fat I don't think I can absorb, which because I don't have a gallbladder I calculate at around 50%. What this means is that I choose to loose weight, but feel full, on any given trip. Trying to maintain my weight would require a whole lot of bother weight and expense. I am there to enjoy the outdoors not to be a slave to food.
In the nutrition videos there is more detail, including a chart of the bioavailability of various proteins. When I talk about the importance of protein in recovery drinks, for instance, the recommendation is specifically for hydrolyzed whey, which is considered at 100% (unlike plants, as you point out).
I suppose you could build into the food chart a calculation for “available” protein. Problem is, you’d have to know not just all the protein types in a given item, but also their exact ratios. I would love such detail, but that information isn’t available for most of the products. The calories in the chart come from the food label. They aren’t the result of any calculation of mine.
@@GearSkeptic since making my comment I have watched most of the following video. You are fantastic at correlating and communicating good Sir. Broadly and from the diet of an average American I agree with your conclusions. However many, including elite athletes, are now often mostly or always in ketosis. To stay in ketosis an older guy like me 54, needs to be eating less than 50 total carbs per day. Anyway my point really is twofold. 1. Your hiking dietary intake regimen is certainly “the norm”, in a very modern sense. But completely foreign to us as a species for the past 400,000 years or so. And 2. It makes little or no sense from the perspective of someone doing keto because that individual being fat adapted is very efficient at using fat for fuel and when food is not available almost immediately switching to using one’s own fat for fuel. This enables long periods without and or irregular food intake without any problem whatsoever. I can attest to it being liberating. I would encourage you to give it a go. Yes I eat carbs too and if hiking for an extended period simply look at what is available and or practical and then decide how to eat. Fyi. My dietary choices are practical as I have gluten and may other non animal food sensitivities. Eating fat and meat is therefore just plain hassle free easy for me. One other related bit of info. In Mongolia 🇲🇳, I use to be there every summer, you can buy dried fruit that is dried as hard as rocks. It’s completely inedible without a long soak or boiling. I love the stuff and suspect because it’s so dry it would come in as “light”. I put it in water bottles. It sweetens the water and at the end of the day I eat it.
Do high fat diets cause the shits?
It's probably individual to the person, and you might be able to acclimate, so I would suggest trying a particular diet out beforehand. See if you can adapt to it.
I haven't had a Backpackers in years, but to me they were always terrible. Great names on the food, but they never lived up to it.
I buy freeze dried ground beef bulk, i'd like to know how that adds up
I find most of these taste like British hospital food ie. horrible and grossly over-spiced.
Also, perhaps luckily, I literally cannot afford any of them.
Pasta dishes don't freeze dry well... They should always be cooked.