Diet & Food :: Cupcake's 2002 PCT Adventure

Cupcake's Diet

Before the Hike:

I'm a vegan who eats eggs, some meat and has a few other restrictions.

Sweeteners are the biggest problem. I choose not to eat most sweeteners:

Sugar [of any kind, including evaporated cane juice (hey, what is sugar if it's not evaporated cane juice?)]
Corn Syrup
Molasses

Here's a little strategy about how I'll be eating on the trail. I'm working to have great food on the trail.

First Breakfast (6AM): Odwalla Bar

Second Breakfast (9AM) Hot or cold cereal with soy milk powder, nuts, oil.

Lunch/Snack (10-3): Nuts and dried fruit (1/2 lb a day???), salmon jerky, dried tofu, crackers, humus, rye bread, more Odwalla (and other) bars, miso soup, seaweed.

Early Dinner (5PM): Hot-polenta-like stuff, lentil pasta, rice & beans, dried
tuna, dried chicken, other un-identified food. Everything has oil added.

Late Dinner (8PM): Miso soup, high-protein snacks.

After the Hike:

Here's a recap, more than a year after I finished.

I needed more food first thing in the morning, so mostly ate my cold cereal, right out the Ziploc while still in my bag. Hot cereal felt like too much of a hassle, including getting out of my bag. I'm still searching for the perfect breakfast while hiking.
Maybe once or twice did I have miso. The romantic idea of sipping miso as my dinner cooked was exploded by my hunger. Why heat up water to then only have miso? My boiling water went to making as much food as I could ingest. After real food, miso seemed irrelevant. Still, I carried a little miso the whole way...
My lunch and snacks worked out well, although I had too much dried fruit (too sweet). I love almond butter. I added fresh fruit, including avocados, to my daytime snacks. Avocados rock on the trail. There's nothing like an orange more than one day out of town.
My homemade dried tofu had no appeal. In to the hiker box it went.
My favorite dinner was a version of kitchree: rice, split peas, egg and curry. I'd vary it with shredded coconut, raisins, tuna, and almond butter, sometimes adding all four. And of course olive oil.
I really ate a lot in town. Yogi taught me the art of timing my hiking so that I could get to town to maximize intake. For example, speeding up to get into town by 4PM. Then I could have a dinner right away, and a dinner a few hours later.
I ate more beef on my thru-hike than I have in the last 20 years. Sometimes beef is the simplest thing on the menu. A steak is a steak, but chicken or fish usually had sauces with questionable ingredients.
Potato chips, even if crushed from being in your pack, taste great: fat, salt and crunch.
When my box did not arrive in Big Bear, I went shopping. The store only had huge onions. I discovered how great shallots are for backpacking. Yum. I sent a message to my resupplier (Dad), and soon all my boxes had shallots.
Organic Vegan Food bars are great! One 2.4 oz bar: 300 calories, 12 grams fat, 14 grams protein and good raw ingredients. Yogi never tried one, but I'm sure she'd hate it.
I really think it helped to eat protein just before going to bed. The idea is that your body uses it during the night to repair muscle.

{Tidbit}