Appalachian Trail Preparations: Food

One of the most time-consuming things about planning our thru-hike is the food preparation. Because we want to eat healthy, wholesome, vegan food, we will probably not be able to resupply by shopping in the trail towns, like many thru-hikers do. Therefore, we need to cook, dehydrate, and package all of our meals before we leave. We need over 200 dinners alone!

An added complication is that hiking 15-20 miles a day over rough terrain for six months gives your metabolism a little bit of a kick, so we are planning for at least 3,500-4,500 calories a day. So those 200 meals have to have a lot of calories, and larger than normal portions!

My parents have agreed to help us with our mail drops, which means they will send boxes of food to trail towns where the post office will hold them until we get there to pick them up. We will stay out on the trail for 5-7 days at a time, then hike out of the woods into a nearby town to pick up our supplies.

M, the cooking guru that he is, plans and cooks most of the meals. M slaves over a hot stove all day, creating delicious, bean-based entrees, which we cool, then put in our dehydrator for 12-18 hours, until it is completely dried out. Then we vacuum seal it. We will serve these entrees over instant brown rice, whole wheat noodles or whole wheat couscous - which we have tested and seem to be relatively fast-cooking.

Here is a list of what we've made so far:
3 Bean Chili
Red Beans and Rice
Spaghetti and Tomato Sauce
Lentil Curry
Spinach and Chickpea Curry
Cincinatti Chili
Refried Beans

For lunch we have white bean, black bean and chickpea hummus. For variety, we will probably also get some peanut butter. We will probably eat this spread on a tortilla or pita bread.

Breakfast is still up in the air. We haven't found a powdered soy milk that is palatable yet. I prefer Clif bars, but they are rather expensive at around a dollar a bar. I am probably going to buy some bulk granola from Frankferd Farms or in the trail towns along the way.

For snacks throughout the day, we will eat nuts and dried fruit and vegetables. For desert and an added calorie boost, we are going to buy a couple of cases of Peanut Chews and those sesame snacks - those are about the only high-cal vegan candy bars we've found so far.

To cook on the trail, we will use our can stoves, which M is also working on. These burn denatured alcohol, which is relatively easy to find in stores along the way, a good thing - since you can't put it in the mail!

So far, I think we have a pretty good variety of food, and we are about halfway done with our food preparations.