23 Days of Food

This is what 23 days of food at about 3500 calories/day looks like:

Recipe: Peanut Flax NanoPucks with Chocolate

If you refer to my food bar spreadsheet, you'll note that one of the highest nutrition-per-weight bars is the Kind Sesame & Peanuts bar.

These bars are really tasty, but at $2/each, their nutrition comes at a steep price. My CheapBastard(tm) reflex kicked into overdrive and I began reverse engineering a bar of my own that would match the nutrition and taste at a significantly cheaper price.

Your final price will depend on local availability, but shopping in Denver, CO at Vitamin Cottage and Whole Foods, I was able to make these bars for approximately $0.30 each. Yep, that's right. 30 cents each.

Peanut Flax Nano Pucks
	140 g flax seeds 100 g sesame seeds 240 g peanuts 240 g brown rice syrup 240 g Sunspire chocolate chips 170 g puffed millet 1.5 tsp salt

1	Preheat your oven to 275 degrees.
2	Grease the pan you intend to make these in. Size will vary according to the thickness you would like in your finished pucks. I used a 9x13 pan which resulted in bars about 1.5 inches thick.
3	In a medium bowl, mix the flax seeds, sesame seeds, salt and peanuts.
4	In a large measuring cup, mix the brown rice syrup with 2 cups hot water.
5	Pour the puffed millet into a large mixing bowl, and stir in the diluted brown rice syrup. This should deflate the puffed millet significantly.
6	Incorporate the seed and peanut mixture into the puffed millet and stir until thoroughly mixed.
7	Pour the mixture into the pan and spread evenly.
8	Put into the oven and bake for 30-60 minutes. What you're doing here is baking off the moisture that you added when you diluted the brown rice syrup. You want to bake until everything is golden brown and most of the moisture appears to have evaporated.
9	Remove the baking dish from the oven and score the bars into 24 servings.
10	When the bars have cooled, cut into 24 pieces.
11	Melt the chocolate over a double boiler, and dip each bar about halfway into the chocolate and turn upside down on a rack to cool.
12	When all bars are dipped, pour the remaining chocolate over the tops of the bars.

Nutrition Information

Amount Per Serving Calories 217.28 Calories From Fat (49%) 107.31 % Daily Value Total Fat 13.21g 20% Saturated Fat 2.98g 15% Cholesterol 0.00mg 0% Sodium 166.76mg 7% Potassium 90.25mg 3% Carbohydrates 24.94g 8% Dietary Fiber 3.88g 16% Sugar 8.20g Protein 6.12g 12%

The power of cheese...

I want to post some recipes for all of you out there in blog land, but I'm still waiting for some nutritional information to roll in.

I've utilized some ingredients from a local spice shop in Denver, but they're being stingy with the nutritional information for the cheese powders they sell. I've been a customer of theirs for nearly a year and in the past three months I've asked them for this information at least half a dozen times.

In the most recent exchange:

"Do you have the nutritional info for your Romano and Cheddar cheese powders?" I ask.

"I don't, but you can probably Google it," she replies.

"Right, but the weight depends upon the amount of water extracted. Do you know the manufacturer?"

"Yeah, but I can't tell you."

I mean, seriously. What the fuck is that? Does she think that if she lets the name of the manufacturer out I'm going to be compelled to circumvent them and buy 5 pound bags of cheese powder so that I can get pricing comparable to theirs?

In the end, she told me that if I emailed her she could look up the nutritional information that the owner said was floating around somewhere.

Update: I have the nutritional information and will be posting it along with the recipes soon!

Navigational aids...

I ordered 8.5 x 11 inch mapping paper from iGage. It comes in a pack of 50, and the above scale shot is from the weigh-in.

569g for 50 sheets: 11.38g each sheet.

This is funny to me because a single map page will weigh as much as the second popcan stove I made.

Nevermind, even at several pounds, there would be scant replacement for good topo maps on a trail I am unfamiliar with.

I bought the CT trail map CD-ROM (also from iGage) and I'm still checking, but I think -- printing both sides -- I can get the number of map pages to about 20 or about 228g.

I'll post my gear spreadsheet soon so you can see how the half pound of maps compares to the rest.

Homemade, Lightweight Sandals

Last year in order to save weight I opted not to bring any sort of camp shoes or sandals. After 17 mile days in the Sierra's with my feet being continually wet from creek crossings I wished I had brought some. There's no better feeling than taking your wet shoes and socks off after a long day and putting on a pair of sandals to let your feet breath. Unfortunately there is nothing out on the market that provides you with ultralight weight sandals. So I devised a pair of sandals that weigh .95oz (for the pair) and don't cost a thing. If you have any extra thermarest or foam padding lying around all you have to do is cut out the shape of your foot and attach a semi-thick rubber band underneath the sandal, over your forefoot and voila! An ultralight weight sandal that will be much welcome after a long days hike. Personally I am using flexible velcro straps for a little more durability than a rubber band.
I've tested them outdoors and they work fantastic plus they pack down so easy! Give them a try!

Shoe Search: GoLite Sun Dragon

The GoLite Sun Dragon pictured above is the first of the trail running shoes I've tried on for the CT. There are about half a dozen more I want to try out, all clock in under 24 ounces (680g) per pair.

I will give the Sun Dragons another chance, but my initial impression wasn't favorable. The shoe has a loose fit in the size I need -- there's a lot of movement in the heel cup and for some reason the outside-mid section of my right foot (and not my left) feels funny in the shoe.

They're made for neutral runners and I pronate (roll in) a decent amount.

There's a lot of room in the toe box and the upper is slightly stretchy so it feels good.

The shoes include an interchangeable fore-foot fitting system that I don't know anything about and neither did the salesperson at REI.

I'm unclear as to whether this is a failure to train on the manufacturer's part, or a failure to learn on the retailer's.

In any case, I will try these on again. Demetri is a cool guy, and GoLite is a local (Boulder) company doing a lot of work to lighten peoples' loads.

Bars, bars, bars, bars... (Updated - 86 Bars)

For that headline to sound right, you have to sing it like the organ music they play at baseball games.

I am happy to bring food bars along on the trail for the simple facts that they provide tasty mid-day snacking, are ready-to-go, and can be help maintain nutritional balance.

With literally hundreds of bars on the market though, which ones should a backpacker bring?

I'm glad you asked. I've put together a list of bars with basic nutrition information.



Yes, although I wouldn't generally consider them food, I did include Snickers on here. I did so because many backpackers are taking them out and I wanted to show how they compare to other food bars on the market.

Andy Skurka, for example, is taking them I believe and in his blog makes mention that though the candy bars are high in sugar, the high fat content will slow the rate at which they are burned.

I would still consider them luxury items because by and large they are nutritionally bankrupt. The sugar may burn slowler, but your body is going to crash after you process it, and you aren't getting a lot of the vitamins, electrolytes and trace minerals you pick up from the other food bars.

Heat stability is another problem worth considering. If you're hiking in moderate weather with solar exposure, you're likely going to be opening a bag of melted chocolate. If you want a cacao snack, consider taking raw nibs or dark chocolate.

The list is currently at about 7086 bars. I will keep adding more as I have time.