In this post I lay out my approach to eating a paleo diet while out backpacking, camping or making wilderness trips. If you would like to know more about what the paleo diet is and my reasons for adopting this lifestyle, check out Part 1 at: https://brackenoutdoors.com/paleodiet/
Broadly speaking, the paleo diet emphasises the use of fresh and unprocessed meat, vegetables, fruit and fish. This works just fine when you have easy access to fridges and shops, however, as soon as you start having to lug your food from A to B it suddenly gets a whole lot trickier. Unprocessed foods generally have low calorie to weight ratios (500g of water-filled celery isn’t going to get you very far), are often highly perishable without refrigeration and tend to require more elaborate cooking. Compared to that, traditional backpacking foods tend to include plenty of sugar (300+ calories per 100g), grains (shelf stable sometimes indefinitely) and are easy to prepare (just add water).
If you do still tolerate all of the traditional foodstuffs pretty well, effectively having a couple of cheat days for a twice yearly trip shouldn’t affect you too much in the long-term. However, personally, when I am carrying 15kg+ of equipment for 20km a day over difficult terrain, I want my body to be operating at its best. So while I may increase my carbohydrate intake significantly for the trip and not eat as varied a diet as normal, I still aim to eat as clean as possible when I am away on a trip.
My first experiments in paleo backpacking involved trying to reproduce the commercial backpacking meals through dehydrating my own. The thing that I learned in the process was that in general, fruits and vegetables dehydrate and rehydrate pretty well. The same cannot be said for meats, a combination of having to select for leaner meats to prevent spoilage and the density of animal protein, meant that even after an hour of soaking in hot water the mince felt like gravel and I could have stabbed someone to death with the shards of chicken. After those initial failures, I trialled a half and half approach where I dehydrated the vegetables and then packed in the meat either frozen or preserved (chorizo/salami).
After a couple more years of experimenting, I have settled on the approach below.
Breakfast
For breakfast I have mostly settled on smoked bacon as my protein source, as it is relatively lightweight, calorie dense and lasts a good while without refrigeration. So if you pack half of your bacon frozen and half fresh, you can generally get 4-6 days of meals without too much of a problem. Eggs are a little bit more of a pain for obvious reasons, If I can afford the space I will pack them into specialist protective egg boxes and carry them that way. Otherwise, I quite often crack all of the eggs required for a weekend away into a Nalgene bottle and just carry them as is.
When I am covering long distances and want a minimalist food system, I will add some diced bacon into the egg mix and then cook it in a plastic bag suspended in boiling water. This minimises time, washing up and bulk (no need for a pan) but it does create a bit more waste and I am not the greatest fan of cooking in plastic.
Lunch
One of the first changes I made in regards to my food system was to do away with a standard lunch entirely. Generally I am far too busy putting in miles or working around the camp to stop for a full lunch, so I just pack enough snacks to get me from breakfast to supper and munch as I go. I usually pack 4 portions a day, below is a list of foods and the portion sizes I use.
- Corned beef (1/2 can) – calorically dense but heavy and bulky, shelf stable for years.
- Canned fish (1 can) – As above.
- Olives (1/2 a small jar) – will last a decent amount of time without refrigeration and good amount of fat.
- Gammon (200g) – cooked ahead of time and sliced, doesn’t last long but can be frozen and defrosted gradually
- Biltong (100g) – shelf stable and high in protein.
- Sausages (3 links) – cooked ahead of time, lasts a day in cool weather.
- Roasted nuts (1/3 pack) – shelf stable and easy to eat on the go, also good for keeping salt levels up.
- Ready sliced salami (1/2 pack) – good for a day or two and high calorie
- Whole salami (1/4) – Harder to find but calorically dense and shelf stable
- Avocado (1) – delicate but good for a day hike.
- Fruit bar (1) – a boost of carbs when needed, nice at the end of the day. Make sure to get a grain-free version, I usually use Nakd bars or Aldi/Lidl paleo bars.
- Nut butter (1/4 Jar) – Harder to transport due to bulky packaging but good calorie density and a real comfort food.
- Dried fruit (100g) – Rarely pack these unless I need vastly more carbohydrates than normal.
Supper
Now I did start off this post mentioning that backpacking foods generally are not the best when it comes to eating paleo, however, there are a few brands and meals out there that do meet the paleo requirements. I have heard of paleo specific backpacking meal brands in America, but over here in the UK the only ones that I have found are made by the company Expedition Foods (not a sponsor and no affiliation). Expedition foods has a dairy free range and a gluten free range and there are two meals that fit into both categories: The Thai Green Curry and Rice and the Sweet and Sour Chicken. Both of these do unfortunately contain rapeseed oil and small amounts of sugar, but in terms of other ingredients (particularly gluten and dairy) are quite clean for a pre-prepared meal. Personally, I can cope well with with a few less than optimal ingredients (provided that there is no dairy or gluten) over a couple of days, if it is only one meal a day. Plus, I can then take advantage of the shelf-stability and lightweight, packable nature of these foods.
As the pre-packaged expedition foods is my now my go-to for lightweight backpacking I haven’t experimented as much with alternatives for the reasons described initially. However, in the absence of those meals I would probably be looking at packing in some boil in the bag rice, dehydrated vegetables and some shelf stable protein (refer to lunch snack list for ideas) and then assembling it on the go and seasoning it with some herbs and spices. As I say, though, you might have to do some experimentation yourself to get some good combinations.
If I’m out on more of a static camp where I don’t have to pack items in too far, I will typically carry in a small cooler bag of frozen and defrosting meat. Then for the evening meal I pan fry a pork chop, beef steak or a few sausages in some good quality animal fat (lard, tallow, duck fat). This is usually enough for a meal if I’m not strenuously active but I do sometimes fry up some sweet potato, parsnip or apple slices alongside for a bit of a carb boost. However, in essence, I try and keep things simple and to one pan, even the simplest meals taste pretty good over a campfire in good company.
I hope this post gives you a bit of inspiration and help in taking the paleo diet outdoors and if you have any tips and/or questions about anything paleo or outdoors related, drop a comment below. Thanks for reading and until next time, remember to make the most of every day.