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The Expedition Kitchen: Water, Food, Kit

 

Not much on a long trip is more important than food and water. To complicate this, food and food preparation can be a very personal task. Below is not only what I chose to carry on my 1700 mile expedition but also my thoughts and notes on how I evolved my own thinking on the trip and how my personal plan will change on future trips. While you will read that my first month was a bit harrowing from a dietary perspective, this kit and food supply became the foundation for my entire trip. Other than the first month, or the brief periods where food was running low, I felt strong and energetic the entire time. I ended the trip feeling fantastic, with a great base of paddling muscle mass and very lean physique.

Kitchen Kit:

  • MSR Reactor Stove, with Pot

  • Optimus cannister stove

  • Canister Fuel, 1 can/week minimum

  • Titanium Spoon

  • Spice Kit

    • Salt

    • Pepper

    • Pepper Flakes

    • Cumin

    • Garlic

    • Dehydrated Onions

  • Olive Oil in Platypus 1 Liter Platy Bottle

  • Brown Sugar

 

Kitchen Kit Changes:

  • Replace the Reactor Stove with an MSR Dragon Fly

  • Replace cannisters with fuel bottles

  • Add small GSI cutting board

  • Add small GSI fair share mug

  • Add Non-Stick Pot set

  • Add Outback Oven kit with diffuser

  • Add pot holder

 

Base Food: (Some combo with me at all times)

  • Oatmeal

  • Black Beans & Rice (Dehydrated/Instant)

  • Couscous with fruit

  • Lentils & Rice (Dehydrated/Instant)

  • Potato Pearls (I preferred the bigger size pearls)

  • Dehydrated soup starter mix used as a vegetable add in to all the above

  • Ramen Noodles (without the spice kits, too much sodium)

  • Orzo

  • Elbow Macaroni (the really small style)

  • Peanut Butter (Adams crunchy was my favorite)

  • Tortillas, 10” flour

  • Cliff Bars

  • Raisins & Nuts

  • Honey

  • Dehydrated fruit

  • Gorp

  • Sprouts (Made from lentil mix carried with me)

  • Dark Chocolate Bars

 

Fresh Food:

  • Bananas (Eaten quickly, they don't store or carry well)

  • Apples, Peaches, Pears, … (whatever local fruit can be purchased)

  • Figs and/or Fig Newtons

  • Avocados (This is a must)

  • Fresh caught Fish

  • Cheddar Cheese Blocks (cool to cold water environment only)

  • Yogurt (cold water environment only)

  • Butter – small stick size

  • Granola

Fishing

  • Homemade hand line with xxxlb test

  • Small tackle box with jigs and worms

  • Tool for removing hooks from fish while on the line

  • Large ziplock baggies for storing fish in kayak

Water:

  • 10, 6, 2 liter MSR Dromedary bags (one of each)

  • Aquapure tablets

  • MSR Gravity Filter

  • 2 liter Platypus Play bags

 

On most trips, water is a premium item. We can't live without it, so managing your water supply is of the utmost importance. For all trips, the trade off is how much to carry versus how often can I resupply. Traveling the Inside Passage created different challenges at different times. Amazingly enough, some of the more populated areas, such as Puget Sound and the San Juan/Gulf Islands proved among the most difficult to find water. Wilderness areas with an abundance of streams and creeks, especially during the spring runoff, made for easy water finding. The drought in SE Alaska this summer then created an environment that was a little more challenging than spring, but not as difficult as other areas.

 

I chose to carry 3 different size Dromedary bags so that I could maximize my flexibility in carrying water. These bags collapse down to hardly anything, so storing empty bags is easy. In extreme environments I would choose to carry more water, while in areas with lots off water, I would minimize what I had on board. In a kayak, obviously space is more of an issue than weight when it comes to water and even food. The 10 liter bags take up significantly more space than the 6 liter and the 2 liter bags. So there was always a balancing act with the availability of water and how much space you had. Space in your boat is a personal thing, since we each have different requirements for what is on board.

 

Of equal importance is how you choose to purify your water. I chose to use a MSR Gravity filter as my main purification tool. The Aquapure tablets were my back up mechanism, with boiling being the tool of last resort. While this system worked very well, I will be changing things up for future trips. In the end, the use of a filter is just a difficult and time consuming process. It requires you to collect the water and then have a place to purify it. In challenging water environments this is not always easy or possible. The ability to simply grab your water from a stream, add chemicals to it, and then be on your way is a much more efficient way of purifying your water.

 

While some may have concerns about chemicals, my experience with 'Pristine' was that it was tasteless and odorless. This could not be said of the Aquapure tablets that not only left an after taste, but caused a weird foaming to occur when that water was used for boiling. The chemical Pristine is sold in Canada and I will be researching it's US counterpart. In addition to this chemical process, towards the end of the trip, I constantly tried to keep my small 2 liter bag full of fresh un-purified water. This was then used for cooking, thus allowing me to carry less purified water. It worked very well in areas where water was abundant. In Alaska, this was certainly the case most of the time.

 

 

Carrying food and cooking:

 

For my trip, I felt the best way of doing things was to follow the ultra light backpacking community. I did this mainly for three reasons. First, I really wanted to simply make camp, add water, and eat. Second, I thought I wanted to minimize space and that this was the way to do things. Lastly, I was concerned about my ability to resupply along the way. My initial planning involved creating a set of 'instant' recipes and then prepackaging 6 months of food in zip lock bags. These bags would then be pulled out for breakfast and dinner, and by adding boiling water I was eating in minutes. The use of a 'Cozy' aided in the cooking and heating of this food. Lunch was done on the fly and was mainly 10 tablespoons of peanut butter combined with tortillas and fruit. Cliff bars were a mainstay, I often consumed 2-3 of these a day, having never found a suitable replacement for them.

 

This plan worked great as I envisioned it, but it was flawed in reality. First, the portion and caloric contents of the prepackaged food was completely insufficient for my dietary needs. The first month proved disastrous as I attempted to stick to my meal plan. I was constantly hungry and losing both weight and muscle mass. By the end of the first month of travel, it was clear that I had a major problem in need of fixing. I would say my portion size was off by a factor of 3 and my caloric intake including fat, was at least 50% of what was needed.

 

Often, in months 2-5, I would add 3 and 4 of my pre-made packages together to get anywhere near the caloric content needed for my travels. This in addition to mixing in large amounts of oils, butter and more instant mashed potatoes created meals that were at least closer to what I required. Second, and equally as important, most of the food began to take on the taste of the plastic bags. Clearly something was leaching from the plastic into the food itself. This became a very scary thing, and while I continued to eat much of it, I did begin throwing out the worst offenders.

 

After 5 months of travel, not only experiencing how I ate and reacted to things but also meeting other long distance travelers, I slowly began to change my approach to eating and resupplying. I began to realize that 'Eating Fresh', that is, changing up your diet; cooking more often; buying different food items, especially those that were fresh; had a profound affect on my body and my energy. Not to mention the fact that I began to look forward to meals again. So, here is what I would do differently on all of my future trips.

 

I am going to continue using a base set of ingredients that include grains, lentils and pastas , potatoes, and vegetables.. For these I am going to experiment with the use of the 2 liter dromedary bags for food storage. They are more economical than plastic bags; have no leaching affects; are BPA free; collapse as food is consumed; are tough as nails; and are way greener. They also offer you the ability to change up your base items as you begin to re-supply by simply choosing new bulk items to store in empty bags.

 

There is obviously a major question in your food planning, how often and of what type of resupply stops will be available to you. Will they have what you need and will it be affordable for your budget. This is to be contrasted with the costs of buying at your 'home base' and having these items shipped to you General Delivery as you move from point to point. For my trip to Alaska, I shipped everything, which turned out to be very expensive. For that money, I could have bought locally along the way and really varied my diet. However, for some trips, you will be forced to carry more supplies with you and to possibly have to ship. My experience is that if there is a post office there is a store, however limited its supplies may be. For traveling the Inside Passage, there is really only one stretch where you could not resupply every 10-14 days. The central coast of BC is very rugged and wild, so that stretch would require a minimum supply of 3 weeks of food.

 

Fresh fish and other local seafood became a life saver for me and will continue to be part of my on sea diet. I used a simple hand line that I could attach different jigs or worms to. Fishing for bottom dwellers off of kelp beds worked best in the Inside Passage. At first I experimented with stringing caught fish along the side of the boat, but eventually switched to simply cutting them as they were caught and then bleeding them in plastic bags. I would then make a quick stop away from camp before simply filleting them. Poaching the fish turned out to be the easiest and simplest way of cooking them. They were then added to whatever base meal I was eating.

 

My base kitchen kit will be modified to more of a 'cooking' kit and less of a 'boil water' kit. While I still intend to work from a boiling mentality, simply because I like to just eat quickly, I do also value the benefit of cooking. So, switching to a Dragon Fly stove and adding a normal cook set and outback oven will provide me with more options for how to eat each night. I will still be able to just add water, but now, I can decide each evening what it is that I want to eat, quickly mix it up from my base supplies, and even add local fresh ingredients. This will only add a small amount of time to the cooking and eating process, while providing a greater flexibility in meal choices. The use of dromedary bags will also add to the flexibility in that at resupply time, you can choose new and different bulk items to add to your kitchen supplies.

 

By carrying a cook set and expanding my fresh ingredients, I open up the ability to actually cook meals on nights that I desire something different or more complex. Having seen the power of the Outback Oven to create wonderful warm delights, things like brownies, muffins, and the like, I am excited to add one of these to my kit. Additionally, on these long expeditions the power of creating new meals to mix things up and fuel your body is a great spirit uplifter. Eating the same thing over and over again becomes very draining at meal time.

 

Lastly, I want to mention the use of Freeze Dried Meals to augment your cooking. I think on long expeditions these are mandatory. You need a base of high calorie, instant meals that can augment your diet. I was extremely pleased with the taste of most of the brands that I tried along the way. My main issue with them is the amount of sodium in the meals. For me, my body does not react well to that amount of sodium, especially in dinner meals. So I will be searching for brands, such as xxxx, that taste good, have a good shelf life, and have a more manageable amount of sodium in them. From a planning perspective, I think you need to have a third of your dinner meals be freeze dried items. Recognizing that you may carry these over from one month to the next in reserve as they are not eaten. This is definitely an item that should be resupplied via mail, as buying them in bulk before you leave is a must.

 

Menus are a very personal thing. However, I have asked some of my long distance kayak friends to provide me with their favorite back country meals, snacks and recipes. I will be posting these courtesy of their owners for all to use and share. Additionally, the NOLS cookbook is a great read as is the Freezer Bag Cooking cook book (www.trailcooking.com). There are many other sources of outdoor recipes as well as ones you have created. If you have recipes, tips, techniques that you would like to share, please email them in and we will share them with the community.

 

 

A Typical Day

 

My days became very routine, and the 'feeding' process was just one of the many steps that was repeated over and over again. I came to eat a very consistent set of food. Below is an example of a very typical day of food consumption,:

 

Breakfast

  • Coffee – Every day but 3 days in Glacier Bay when I ran out of coffee

  • 1.5 Cups of oatmeal with brown sugar, butter, raisins, peanut butter and anything else that could be rounded up for this meal

  • One Cliff Bar as soon as I hit the water

First Snack

  • Generally within an hour to an hour and a half of paddling I consumed another cliff bar or equivalent

Lunch (3-4 hours after paddle start)

  • 10 tablespoons of peanut butter

  • 1-2 flour tortillas

  • Snacks such as fig newtons, gorp, or dried fruit, sometimes with more peanut butter

Second Snack

  • Fruit or Nuts

  • More Peanut Butter

Dinner

  • 2 cups off some combination of:

    • Lentils

    • Rice

    • Black Beans

    • Pasta

    • Instant Mashed Potatoes

    • Cheese

  • Olive Oil & Butter

  • Sprouted Lentils for Salad

  • One cup of Tea

  • One chocolate bar, often with more peanut butter

  • Fish when caught