While dehydrated meals that you can buy at specialty stores are lightweight and provide tons of calories, they are also very sodium dense. I’m going to go over some healthy backpacking food items that not only taste good, but are good for you.
Oatmeal is a staple in almost every backpacking breakfast. Yea we know oatmeal is disgusting but there are ways to dress it up. One of my favorite things to do is to bring dehydrated fruits. My personal favorites are strawberries and bananas. Not only do they make a great snack, but they can also be put in multiple recipes. Putting some dried strawberries or bananas with your oatmeal, along with a little brown sugar and a touch of cinnamon will spice up any plain old oatmeal packet.
Wraps are also one of my favorite backpacking foods. I like to use a whole wheat tortilla as they are healthier than white tortillas. There are two varieties of wraps. One is a Peanut butter (another of my favorite foods) and dried fruit wrap. You can also use almond butter or any nut butter you want. These are simple to make. Just put peanut butter on your tortilla, add dried fruit of your choice and wrap. Not only are they delicious, but they are very good for your body when you hike. The tortilla and fruit provide short term energy boosts by the way of sugar and carb intake. The peanut butter will provide long term energy through the consumption of fat. Not only is this a healthy meal but it’s also a delicious one.
The other wrap is a tuna wrap. This one takes me a little more time to make because we brought fresh zucchini that we cooked in a JetBoil. You can also dehydrate your own vegetables too. It’s the same concept as above. The ingredients are a whole wheat tortilla, some mustard and mayonnaise packets we took from a deli, tuna packet (or chicken), and vegetables. Combine them all and we have another great meal.
Some additional healthy food items include rice, granola, egg mix, pita bread, whole wheat spaghetti and soup. You really can’t go wrong with food choice if you are going backpacking because you will burn everything you consume plus more from the exercise. But if you wanted to at least trick your mind into feeling healthier than these are good foods that also taste good.