In preparing for my trip to the Grand Tetons back in September 2018, I decided to experiment with a calorie dense breakfast that was lightweight, provided adequate nutrition to get me going in the mornings, produced minimal trash, and most importantly tasted good. Another attribute was being able to eat it cold or hot.
From a performance standpoint, I was curious as to how it would help or hinder considering I had planned some solid hiking on my trip with potentially longer days at elevation.
From a cost standpoint, the meals are pretty inexpensive, likely ranging under $1 per meal, in comparison to professional backpacker meals you can purchase at the stores.
Although the meal could be served cold or hot, I planned to just eat it cold each morning to reduce how much time I would speed preparing and cleaning up. This would also reduce my fuel consumption and allow me to pack everything away before eating.
Ingredients
Here are the ingredients I used to cover the 5 days I would be out. The extra carton of milk was a reserve for use anytime on the trip.
- 5 cups of oatmeal
- 150 calories per half cup; ~300 calories/day
- 10 tablespoons peanut butter powder
- 50 calories per 2 tablespoons;
- 5 teaspoons unsweetened cacao
- 10 calories per teaspoon
- 2 tbsp cinnamon
- 6 cartons (8.25 fluid oz per) ultra-pasteurized chocolate milk
- 190 calories per carton
Roughly 550-600 calories per meal, ~19g protein
Measured main ingredients Sample combination Add in dry powders Final Product
Post Trip Review
After having this each morning, I would say the meal tasted was pretty good and would definitely do this again. Not too sweet and not too bland. The chocolate milk really enhanced the flavor, as well as provided a good boost to calories and protein content.
The combination of oatmeal and chocolate milk also made me feel satiated after consumption for a good duration. The meal is more geared toward complex carbohydrates rather than simple carbohydrates, but the chocolate milk helps to bring in some simple sugars for starting out energy each morning.
After I got my itinerary set, I figured I would take what I would need for each overnight trip since I would be coming back to the truck each day for restocking. I would measure out a generous cup of the dry oatmeal mix into a zip-lock bag, which would also served as my bowl for pouring in the milk and eating from it. The zip-lock bags could be washed out each day as well for multi-day usage.
Things to improve
For future trips, I would add some additional dry ingredients to further boost the calorie and protein content. Although it was adequate “as-is” for the trip, I would likely add some combination of the following:
Scoop of protein powder per meal for an additional 130 calories, additional 27g of protein, 280mg potassium and 180mg sodium [refer to Muscle Milk CytoSport 100% Whey). The weight difference wouldn’t have been noticeable and would provide additional energy. Throughout each day I was burning plenty of calories, so the additional calories would have helped reduce the deficiency.
Raw pumpkin seeds would be a good option as well that could be included in the mix or consumed separately. ~28g of raw pumpkin seeds have about 150 calories, 13g of fat, 7g of protein and are a good source of iron. Other seeds and nuts could also be added to add additional nutrients.
Increase the amount of peanut butter powder by 1-2 times. I might also try a different brand as the one I had (from Costco) was kind of gritty. For this trip, I used the rest of what I had left at the house.
Where to get the ingredients?
You could easily source all the ingredients at any grocery or specialty store if you dont already have most of it on hand. I tend to use WinCo for my hiking food needs because you can get a lot of bulk items and pay a lot less than normal grocery or specialty stores. The costs at WinCo are also much better than most items at Costco.
- 25lb bag of Old Fashioned Oats, $14.50 (~$0.26 / cup of oats)
- Peanut Butter Powder, $4.66/lb (~$0.15 / tablespoon)
- Chocolate Milk (Ultra-Pasteurized, Costco Brand), $16 (~$0.67 / carton)
No prices available for the other ingredients because they were purchased awhile ago.
