As mentioned before we have a food dehydrator, so Della often dries some of her superb meals for our later delectation on the trail (her Shepherd’s Pie, for example). I know some of you are not so lucky (as to have either a dehydrator or a Della!). You will just have to do without the latter, and if you can’t afford a dehydrator, you can, very carefully – perhaps with the oven slightly open, and on the lowest setting, and checking and stirring very regularly, dry food on a dish/tray in the oven. See: Google. I have just dried some Campbell’s Spaghetti sauce and Edgell’s Aussie Super Kernels. The 410 gram Sauce came down to 85.5 grams, the 420 grams corn to 50! Rice (see: http://www.theultralighthiker.com/dellas-coconut-rice-hiking-food/) is about 3.5 calories per gram Probably a bit more with the coconut milk added; the Edgell’s dried corn works out at 3.4 calories per gram and the Campbell’s Spaghetti sauce at 5.32 calories per gram; Maggi’s two minute noodles: 4.6 calories per gram. I figure 20-30 grams of Cambell’s sauce to a pack of noodles would be an adequate meal for me for a meal (ie just under 500 calories). These are all good numbers. With a bit of forethought you can bring your hiking diet to 4+ calories per gram, maybe even 5, meaning in our case that we need less than <500 grams of food per day each. You may need more (or need to lose less weight than me, at least!)
