From: bonn@networx.com (David Bonn)
Subject: Re: Freeze dried food??  What else?
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Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1992 17:38:08 GMT

While hiking in the Sierras last summer, I saw and heard of many rather bizarre
diets.  One (possibly apocryphal) woman, named Christine, was supposedly hiking
the entire JMT on 15 PowerBars a day.  Some people shop at REI too much, I
guess.  In 1990, I spent several weeks working in fire lookouts in the North
Cascades and living on MREs [["MRE" stands for Meal, Ready to Eat (three lies)
or, commonly, Meals Rejected by Ethiopians]].  While the MRE episode didn't do
permanent damage, it did make me swear off mystery meat in gravy for life.

Dinners?  Lipton instant dinners cost about a buck-fifty and make a pretty
lordly tub of food.  Some olive oil and powedered milk help some of them out.
These are typically available at grocery stores.  If you think there is too
much food for one person, you can easily split them in two and repackage them
in ziplocs.

Less common and a little more expensive (but still less than two dollars) are
Fantastic Foods dinners.  Their instant refried beans and black beans taste
substantially better (in my opinion) than the slop that comes in a can, and
cooks quickly.  Add a some tortillas, a hunk of cheese, a green pepper, an
onion, and some hot sause and you've got a stylin' meal.  Once again, you can
split these in half or in thirds if you want.  Fantastic Foods also has decent
cous-cous and rice dinners with dried vegetables and spices included.  This
stuff is available at some grocery stores, health food stores, and food co-ops.

Also commonly found in food co-ops are various kinds of quick-cooking pasta
(not fresh pasta, which must be refrigerated and seems to go bad very quickly)
which typically soften up nicely in two or three minutes.  When combined with
instant pesto mix (prepared in a ziploc bag) and parmesan cheese, these can
be mighty tasty.

Stove Top Stuffing (tm), instant rice, instant mashed potatoes, and cous-cous
are also cheap foods which have lots of calories and are available in grocery
stores.  All of them can be enhanced with fresh vegetables, spices, or
instant soup mixes.

All of the above dinners weigh and cost considerably less than equivalent
freeze-dried meals, are more widely available, have more food value, and taste
better.  Heck, most of the dinners I eat in civilization are in the above list.

I carry a few tiny bottles full of various spices (curry powder, pepper,
basil), parmesan cheese, and soy sauce.  These can greatly enhance an otherwise
bland meal, and make a culinary disaster more edible.

How long do foods keep?  Depends more on the local climate than exactly what
food, but these figures work well for Cascade summers:

	Apples			-- Two days
	Green Peppers		-- Two or three days
	Tortillas		-- Three days before they're crumbly
	Oranges			-- Four or Five days
	Limes			-- Five days
	Bread			-- Five days
	Carrots			-- A week
	Cheese			-- Ten days (cheddar doesn't keep as well)
	Bagels			-- Two weeks
	Garlic Cloves		-- A month
	Potatoes		-- More than a month
	Onions			-- Longer than your trip will ever last

Keeping vegetables and other things requiring refrigeration wrapped in foil
and secured in ziploc freezer bags is usually required to get these kinds of
lifespans.  Bagels keep fine in their original bags for two weeks, but are
often rather crunchy towards the end.

The problem with talking about food is that there is so much to say, and
everyone is so very different.  What works for me might not work for you.
The best thing is to experiment with good humor and an open mind.
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