Preparation of camping food and use of drinking water
One of the highlights of hiking and hiking is the daily cooking in nature. In the preparation of food, only the sky is the limit. Only the carrying capacity sets the limit. For longer hikes, the main concern is the weight of the mare; in practice, weight should be reduced as much as possible to easily coping miles even in challenging terrain. Many dry foods are capable of helping with getting enough calories, of course, dry foods are also starting to get tired pretty quickly. Various ready meals and dry grits are good foods to give the day a boost.
For shorter hikes and overnight excursions, you can easily pack freshly packed lunches into your backpack, even in a small container, from salads to saucepans. For myself, I usually take a slightly softer landing on the first day of hiking, like something fresh, fruit, fresh bread, and vegetables. As the journey progresses, the level of the snacks will also be reduced. Long hikes are a big problem with the lack of food and vegetables and fruits. Many times in the last couple of weeks you will notice that your stomach starts to behave a bit strangely and your stomach does not always feel quite firm. In nature you should take advantage of everything around you, eg. berries are a very welcome supplement to your diet, especially during late summer and early autumn hikes, and they also bring a fresh feeling to the trip. Enjoying fish and game in the woods is also a good option for anyone who enjoys it. Preparing fish for breakfast on bread or dinner with rice is always a great choice, provided, of course, if you are willing to spend a lot of time hiking to catch the fish. In the incredible fish stories, the beautiful streams and lakes of Lapland always have a little fishermans tails added, sometimes there are days when you just can’t get fish.
For basic cooking you will mainly need a flame resistant kippo, for example a boiler for a camping stove, or alternatively a bigger boiler for a campfire. Trangia, Jetboil and other camping stoves are worth the money for hiking, especially for rainy days. Without a camping stove, you can cope more than well, but it requires a little more patience and systematic approach; In the North, it is wise to plan the crossing of the larger fells, either by packing canes and twigs in the backpack, or by cooking before crossing the higher elevations. In the more mountainous areas, the woodless areas may continue for an unreasonably long way, so it is worthwhile to pack a camping stove at least in these areas. You can buy a few different fuels, gases and spirits for camping stoves. Spirit is cheap and reliable, albeit a bit slow when preparing food. The power of the spirit as a heater is quite poor compared to gas, cooking with the gas burner takes no time. Gas burners usually come with a threaded gas bottle, they are also available in several sizes, the smaller ones are designed for use with eg. Jetboil cookers, the larger ones no longer fit properly even in the Trangia. With a good 200g bottle you can easily get through the baseline hike, if not all the food and drinks are cooked by gas. If you have to gas your food for a whole week and have no opportunity or interest in making a fire, take bigger 450g a bottle, this is last about a week. In winter, gas stoves are not as reliable as the spirits cookers. The gas does not want to come out of the bottle when very cold, and the easy solution here is to squeeze the gas bottle with your bare hands, so the heat of the hands will help the gas get out of the bottle a little easier. Of course, a small gas can be put inside your jacket even during the trip, so it will stay in good shape throughout the day. One alternative is also to consider a stove cooker, this product is more than clever in terms of size and fuel economy. stove cookers are usually small metal boxes about 10cm x 10cm in size that you can make your own fire from twigs and sticks around you. With the flames pointing straight up, the heat value is staggering. After all, a stove cooker is by no means capable of challenging camp fire in any way – but that is not the ultimate purpose of the invention. There are many manufacturers of stove cookers and the price range is also quite big, naturally according to the materials used.
Use of drinking water
The use of drinking water on trips is always your responsibility. In the magnificent wilderness of the North, I always drink directly from streams and lakes, where the nature is so clean and the water is enjoyable as it is. However, it is worth looking around a bit so that no major carcasses lie near the water or the water intake. If you are at all unsure of your own courage to drink water, it is a pretty good way to boil or purify the water with the tablets that are meant for water purification. Make sure you bring the water to a rolling boil for 1 minute at lower altitudes and 3 minutes at altitudes above 2000 meters. Boiling will eliminate bacteria and other unwanted organisms. During the hikes, much of the water comes with food, especially during the autumn and winter, it is nice to do some cooking at the campfire. I put a little more water into the kettle each time, so it is easy to add more water, even if I have forgotten to drink enough during the day.
When I go on a hike myself, I often pack the following ingredients. It is good to have rice in a pack, it preserves for a long time, and is a very versatile food. The pastas are also wonderful for hiking, as are soy meals, beans and canned food of all kinds. One must always remember to bring all the metal waste with you to waste bins; wild and unspoiled nature is not their repository. Nowadays, the shops are full of with pre-packed meals, from Mexican pots, through spinach pasta to pasta carbonara. These light dry meals usually build the backbone of my own hiking meals, in addition to buying some more pasta or rice, which I then pour into a saucepan as needed. One pretty good addition to your diet is soybean meal, I myself have used it for years. In practice, this bag costs about € 5, and at best makes it about twenty times the food, so even a relatively brief reflection can lead to the conclusion that the price / quality ratio is quite good. Different kinds of beans are also welcome in the menu. Anyway, I try to emphasize everything on food that you don’t have to worry about spoiling. Several times I have been long periods of time outside phone reception, so the acquisition of food poisoning is not very good outcome in the wilderness.
For breakfast, I eat porridge almost without exception, ready-made sachets are available directly from the shop, so you can forget about fiddling with minigrip pouches. In practice, my own meal consists of morning and evening porridge, to which I usually mix some powdered custard. For lunch and dinner there is usually a pasta bag, mixed rice, soy meal, spicy sauce (for example chili) soy sauce, and various combos if any kind of spices (salt, pepper, barbecue spice, garlic). Last but not least, what comes to sweets, their importance I cannot overemphasize. It’s nice to have a chocolate bar for every day, or alternatively, a delicious treat to suit your own taste, and enjoying them during the day brings wonderful luxury to hiking. Of course they can be packed with as much back as you can, the chocolate bar in the middle of a tough march will give you a lot more strength, both mental and physical. When hiking one has to remember to eat briskly, the calorie consumption is really high and the effects of eating too light are quickly apparent. In cooking, only the sky is the limit, the same applies to camp meal, the extra half an hour to the grocery store is sure to bring great snacks to backpack.