When planning your canoe camping trips, it’s essential to consider your food preparation for your adventures: The importance of meal planning and calorie intake. Good food is essential to fuel your adventure, and it’s important to have a well-balanced meal plan that provides the necessary calories and nutrients. This article will share some of our personal experiences and tips for preparing meals for our summer canoe camping trips.
Food preparation for your adventures
Meal Planning Ahead of Time
When we plan our canoe camping trips, the first thing we do is plan our meals. We consider the number of days we’ll be out in the woods and the activities we’ll be doing. To ensure that we’re getting enough calories and nutrients, we aim for a well-balanced meal plan that includes breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as well as snacks, to keep us going.
We have a specific routine for our breakfast. Usually, while Sandra takes down the camp, Robert prepares breakfast. We mix it up between store-bought oatmeal, nuts, and dried fruit and our homemade breakfast skillet, which is just as good if not better than the store-bought breakfast skillet packages. We make eggs, pancakes, hash browns, bacon, and bannock on our rest days since we have more time to enjoy our meals and relax.
We eat a mixture of pita, rehydrated hummus, peanut butter, flatbread, nuts, power bars, and other high-energy snacks for lunch. These keep us fueled and going throughout the day while paddling and portaging.
Dehydrating Your Own Food
Dehydrating our own food is essential to our preparation for our canoe camping trips. We take advantage of the winter months to prepare dehydrated meals that will last throughout the summer. It’s a great way to save money and create delicious meals that we know we’ll enjoy while camping.
We like to dehydrate ingredients we need to make tasty meals like pasta sauce, pasta, hummus, homemade taco mix, shepherd’s pie, and other favourites. We normally eat fresh food on the first two days and use our home-dehydrated meals from day three. We mix our meals with store-bought dehydrated packs to keep things interesting.
Preparing Meals with the Right Calorie Intake
Food preparation for your adventures: The importance of meal planning and calorie intake. When preparing our meals, we always keep our calorie intake in mind. The average person needs about 2500 calories daily while on a canoe camping trip. We aim for a diversified meal plan to avoid boredom with eating the same food daily. To keep things interesting, we prepare a starter snack while prepping the main meal, followed by the main course and dessert.
We like to balance our meals between high-reward value meals and easy-to-prepare, high-calorie meals that keep us going throughout the day. We normally pack a snack for when we get to our next site, a main meal, and something sweet for dessert. This is usually the highlight and a rewarding way to end our day.
Mixing Prepared Dehydrated Packages and Homemade Meals
It’s essential to have a mix of prepared dehydrated packages and homemade meals to ensure a balanced diet while canoe camping. Store-bought dehydrated packages can be convenient, but we often find them boring or blend. Mixing prepared dehydrated packages with homemade meals ensures we get the right balance of calories and nutrients while providing a more varied diet.
Calorie/Weight Factor
When planning our meals, we always consider the calorie/weight factor. We need to pack enough food to ensure that we’re getting enough calories, but we also need to keep the weight down. We aim to keep an average of 1kg of dehydrated food and snacks between the two of us. This ensures that we have enough food without carrying too much weight. We also balance our meals with easy snacks that keep us going, like nuts, dried fruit, and energy bars.
Conclusion
Preparing for a summer canoe camping adventure requires careful planning and preparation, especially regarding food. By planning ahead, dehydrating our own food, and considering our calorie intake, we can ensure that we have enough energy to make the most of our trip. By mixing prepared dehydrated packages with homemade meals, we can have a varied and balanced diet while also enjoying delicious and satisfying meals. Hopefully, the above tips will help make your meals for your next canoe camping adventure more enjoyable and memorable.
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