Hiking Food

DCUKMod said:

Would it work to do an inventory of your food and drink befoire leaving, then at the end of each day, do the inventory again, and then log what's "missing", and you might even remember what you ate, roughly when in the day? Repeat next day, and so on, until you get home. Just a thought of how you might do it, without too much intervention in the day.

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Yes, that's a good idea, thanks.

Oh dear, this brings new meaning to "hiking food"...

I'm going to a 'walking festival' in Wales this weekend. From Friday to Sunday there are several walks each day to pick from, with a certain number of places for each. It's all free and with local / knowledgeable guides. I've booked myself on as many walks as I can. I'll be out of my comfort zone because I'll be in a group for each walk and I'll probably be expected to interact with people. I may even feel the need to wear fresh clothes each day and make a cursory effort to wipe down with a baby wipe and apply some odorant.

On Friday I'll be going on something called a "Mindful Walk" which appears to be some kind of hippy yoga thing which ends up at a Yurt. I'm terrified we may be asked to sit cross-legged and make strange noises at some point.

On Saturday I'll be going on a walk where they teach you basic navigation and first aid skills. I'm tolerable at navigation but my current understanding of what to do in a first aid situation involves turning on my phone and panicking when I can't get a signal, so I'm hoping to learn something there.

On Sunday morning I'll be getting up at crazy o'clock to meet a group at 6AM to go on a walk listening to and identifying birds. I'm not into bird watching but I hate them waking me up in the morning when I'm trying to sleep in a tent, so I'm hoping to gain some inside information on my enemy.

At about 9AM I'm then joining another group to go on a very big walk that should pass lots of nice rivers, lakes and waterfalls. I'm hoping to be in my comfort zone at last on this one.

But, all the walks on Sunday are timed to end by 4pm, so that everyone can attend the climax of the festival...



... Lord help me! What are the chances of low-carb specialities there? Well maybe that's where the hippies come in useful, presumably they will have made a cake out of an enchanted lentil or something.

I think I'll be needing to make my excuses and be on my way

Brunneria said:

Oh, to be a fly on the icing...

Hope you have a fantastic time!

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If I'm foolish enough to step over the threshold into The Room Of Cakes, I'd like to think there will be lots of flies on the icing to put me off!

archersuz said:

@AdamJames It sounds a great weekend. I'm seriously envious. Just grabbing my rucksack out of the loft and dusting off my walking boots (and cake fork)

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What, no Lara Croft outfit and bow? I think there has been some sort of misunderstanding. Well okay, I suppose you can come anyway

Funnily enough I was just typing you a message when yours popped up. I was going to say those Princes Mexican Tuna things were a very good find.

I've now had a good scan of similar things by John West and the like in several shops - Coop, Morrisons, Tesco and Sainsbury's. I'd have given up looking at that sort of thing altogether if you hadn't mentioned them. Finally found the ones you mentioned in Sainsbury's tonight and they are by far the lowest carb of the lot, plus a little higher in calories which is even better. Also cheap - relative to the John West stuff anyway! I bought 4. They better taste good!

archersuz said:

They taste very good! I mix mine with salad (including a very small spoonful of coleslaw) and eat for a low carb lunch. My Lara Croft outfit is in my rucksack........

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I'll be able to try them with salad this weekend in spite of being 'in the hills'. Funnily enough I was checking out the coleslaw in the shop today - some of it's pretty low carb, a spoonful is definitely on the menu.

This weekend I'll be 'car camping' which for me means actually sleeping in the back of the car. So I've bought a dirt-cheap (£10) big cooler box for this experiment and am 'going big' with food since I don't need to carry it.

Rather than the small, light, calorie dense stuff I was asking about in this thread, I'm going to be eating pretty much exactly the food that seemed to work best for me a while back during the working week - lots of low carb, low calorie veg used to pad out meals. I'm taking chicken breast, chorizo, cheese and those tuna things for the 'centre pieces', and I'll pad them out with celery, spinach, peppers, tomatoes, mixed leaves etc. I'll be taking containers so I can put some in my rucksack on the walks as well.

I failed to get fat-adapted this week, felt like ****, and have over-eaten and had too many carbs today and yesterday. I feel better as a result, but blood sugar is well back into the danger zone and weight gone back up again. So it will be interesting to see if this plan for the weekend gets me from the blood sugar danger zone to the safety zone, and results in weight loss, the opposite of how it's gone every weekend so far.

None of this really matters of course so long as I get to meet Lara Croft. I'll see you there!

archersuz said:

And the tuna doesn't need to be chilled - just open the can when you want it.

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Since I was 'car camping' last weekend, I had things like chicken, salad and milk in a cooler box in the car, but when I was out on the walks in the festival I took the tuna things since they survive hot temps (crikey it was hot!). I had a couple. I thought they were pretty good, but tiny! Also I think I'd prefer to have less of the sauce and more kidney beans, for possibly the same carbs. Anyway they are the best of that sort of thing I can find and they've made a permanent spot on my hiking food list, thanks.

I persevered looking for similar things and I've found a couple of John West things that come close in terms of carbs per 100g. In ranking order:

Princes Mexican Tuna Fillers: 3.7g / 100g
John West Light Lunch Tuna, Tomato & Bean Salad: 5.5g / 100g
John West Light Lunch Tuna, Tomato & Black Olive Pasta Salad: 7.2g / 100g

I haven't tried the John West things yet. They come in bigger packets - 220g vs 100g so obviously the carbs add up. They are well within what I seem to get away with when walking straight after eating though.

DCUKMod said:

you could freeze bottled water, because, you'll also be consuming it along the way.

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I haven't used this idea while hiking yet, but I used this idea for car-camping with a big cooler box last weekend. I froze a 2-litre bottle of water and used that, along with some traditional ice blocks, to keep things cool for 3 days in hot weather in the car. Worked surprisingly well - there was even cold chicken in the box which I ate on day 3 and I'm still not dead so apparently it was safe enough. On the last day, I put the no-longer-frozen water bottle in my rucksack and drank it while walking. It wasn't particularly easy getting drinking water refills where I was, so this was a very useful idea, thanks!

archersuz said:

How did it go? Did you enjoy the walking? Sounds like you had fantastic weather. I'm off for my weekend under the stars soon .........

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It was one of the best weekends I've had for a long time. Yes, the weather was fantastic by most people's definition but a bit hot for me. Couldn't have asked for better though. The last day, with the most walking, was a bit overcast with a breeze but not cold, so everyone appreciated it I think.

I couldn't stop walking - whenever the planned walks finished, I kept exploring. I was hobbling by the end of the second day, but started taking ibuprofen and carried on regardless.

The first one, the 'mindfulness / yogic' one which I was poking fun at, was possibly my favourite. We were all asked not to talk to each other, and walked very slowly up a steep forest path to a clearing, where we were all asked to spread out, find a spot by ourselves and stay quiet for a long while. There was a bit of meditation, breathing exercises etc along the way. It did make my enjoyment of nature more intense and it was nice (and a bit surreal) being with company even though we weren't allowed to talk with each other! Some of the people were getting very emotional - as became apparent when chatting with them on the drive to the start of the walk, they had 'stuff going on' in their lives to put it mildly, and some of them literally hadn't taken time for quiet reflection in months. There was also a lovely horse which shouldn't have been there mingling with us as we 'quietly reflected'. It was a lovely setting but unfortunately I didn't take any shots as it didn't seem appropriate to get my phone out!

The second one, 'hills & skills', well call me arrogant, but what I learned on that was that my navigation skills are better than I thought. Unfortunately we didn't get round to first aid training however, which I was hoping for. Nice walk and nice company though. This was our highest point and possibly the best view:



The bird watching / listening one didn't do much for me. There was a lot of standing still, and talking about a particular bird making a noise, when there were at least ten different types of birds all making noises at the same time so I had no idea which one they were referring to. I think it was aimed at experienced bird watchers. Was a very nice walk though, and I had fun staying back from the group in the end, chatting with the appointed 'safety bloke' who felt the same as I did - it's nice walking around a forest listening to the birds, but we really don't need to know any more than that! The walk was very nice again, and we came down a slope with more bluebells than I've ever seen in one place. I don't have the camera or skills to do it justice, but:



The final walk was very big and varied with some stunning views, plus I got really lucky, I asked the walk leader who seemed to know the area like the back of his hand if he knew how to get to the entrance to a mine I'd been trying to find for a while, and he's given me a lot of detail for next time I visit the area.

Some of my own walks were very nice, too. The area was sort of on the outskirts of the main mountains of northern Snowdonia, so you occasionally got amazing views of a lot of the big ranges from a distance. This was one of my favourite views. Tryfan in the middle, Snowdon somewhere to the left, and all the other bigger mountains around. There was just enough moisture in the air to give a nice 'layering' effect, with the more distant hills being light grey, and the nearer ones darker:



Some lucky so-and-so had a house high up in the hills where I took this photo from - this will have been the view from their window!

Anyway this seems to have turned into an essay with a slideshow! I've just been looking through the photos for the first time now and got a bit carried away.

If anyone likes the idea of heading out to Snowdonia for a bit of walking at the weekends, I'd highly recommend the Trefriw Walking Festival next year. The people organising it are a really nice crowd and make you feel very welcome. I didn't think big crowds would be my cup of tea but I really enjoyed it and I'll be going again next year.

archersuz said:

I'm off for my weekend under the stars soon .........

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I hope you have fun under the stars ... I expect a blow-by-blow account and a slideshow!

DCUKMod said:

My reassuringly exorbitant invoice will be in the post.

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It was a really good idea, how much do I owe you?

It meant I could have regular mega-healthy(?) salady type food like this in spite of being stored in a baking hot oven of a car for 3 days!:

DCUKMod said:

Would something like this work, in your coolie box? Being flexible, it might be easier to maximise the available space in the box? There clearly are lots of sizes available, if you click around.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/iNeith-Col...=40701&refRID=9ZNGDQKPMEMMNGNJ24F8&th=1&psc=1

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How annoying, you seem to have had another idea that I should have had. I'm pretty sure that T2 has eaten away at my brain. I used to love 'outdoor kit' and thinking of uses for it. It so happens I have almost exactly that 5 litre container, and didn't think of it. I bought it to take, empty, into the hills and fill up with filtered lake water when I'm stopping somewhere for a day or two. I stopped using it because it left a horrible taste to the water. So a giant ice block is the perfect use for it!

How much has the bill gone up to now?

Can I open a tab?

DCUKMod said:

Obviously the bill has risen!

If you could just lodge your credit card details, We can ome to an arrangement .

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Excellent! PM sent with all my financial details and some photos of documentation for ID. I've got a good feeling about this!