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Tips
Go Light, Fast and Healthy...Dehydrate
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Rating: 8 user(s) have rated this gear
Posted on: 10/18/2008
Views: this gear has been read 1371 times
Written by: jaegs
I've been making my own trialmix and dehydrating apples and bananas for a couple of years now. It's amazing how much weight you save when you compare a regular banana and a bag of dehydrated banana chips. It also allows you to store twice as much food into half the space. I always paddle a kayak and space was always an issue before I began really looking at our food and what could be dehydrated.
I typically only attempted snack foods like apples, pears, bananas, and trailmix until this year. This year my brother and I decided we'd go light and fast. This meant rethinking all our food choices and dehydrating everything we could.
First I took a look at breakfast. We typically eat oatmeal and might bring cereal for one day to mix things up. I decided we'd get away from the sugary instant oatmeal and go with the steel cut oats which are more dense and make more oatmeal per serving than the instant version. Nothing too creative here.
For lunch we bailed on any bread and replaced it with pitas, they're more dense, pack great and can withstand rough handling. We did keep our tuna but went with the packets vs the cans for obvious reasons. I then dehydrated broccoli cole slaw, carrots and celery. This worked out great as the vegetables only took about 20 minutes to reconstitute themselves. I then mixed the tuna and vegetables, added some balsamic vinaigrette and had some great pitas.
For dinner I had to think, what could I make that would fill two 6'3", 200+lb guys up after a long day of paddling yet be dehydrated enough to save significant weight. It's always the dinner items like potatoes and sauces for things like spaghetti that typically make up the majority of weight. I decided to take a hard look at spaghetti since this was definitely one of the heartiest meal you could make. The noodles are already dried so I didn't bother to dehydrate them although I've since done that and found out you can lighten them up further. Then I took a look at the sauce, I dehydrated the sauce for about 12 hours until is turned into a leathery sheet. I rolled it into wax paper and placed in in a ziplock. Then I took ground turkey, browned it, ran it under warm water to get the excess oils out and padded it down in a paper towel. Then I dehydrated it until it was the consistency of gravel. To my surprise I could fit the spaghetti, sauce and meat in one ziplock quart bag. I didn't look like it was enough to fill one person let alone two hungry grown men. The true test would be on the first night of our trip.
I repeated this with some variety for 5 days worth of meals. To my shock we were able to fit everything into one large dry bag which made portaging a snap. Breakfast and lunch went off without a hitch but I was concerned there wouldn't be enough food to fill us up for dinner. I boiled water and made the spaghetti as usual and then I took 3/4 cup boiling water and added it to the ziplock bag the sauce was contained in. I then did the same for the meat and let them sit for 20-30 minutes. To my shock each came alive and reconstituted themselves back into their original form. We gorged ourselves on spaghetti and still had some left over. It was quite amazing and I soon began to develop ideas for dehydrating stews, soups, yogurt, pudding and applesauce. Nothing was off limits.
We now travel as light as we can but guess what, we are probably eating better than we ever have. I encourage people to give it a shot and forget those $15 camping meals that tastes like someone's bad idea of a joke. It makes no sense to train, stay in shape, eat healthy and then go on your trip and eat camping food laced with preservatives. Look into dehydrating, save money and enjoy eating beautiful meals in beautiful places. 
Spaghetti Sauce
Ground Turkey
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