Backpacking is a wonderful way to immerse yourself in nature, get some full-body exercise, feel good about yourself for accomplishing the trip you set out to do, and reconnect with yourself or others. It’s also a wonderful excuse to indulge in lots of high-calorie food while taking in some beautiful views. However, finding the balance between under and over-packing food can be a daunting task!

Coming back into town carrying pounds of excess food makes you feel like you wasted a lot of energy huffing your unnecessarily heavy pack up and down the trail. However, running out of food before you return to town is an even worse feeling that could be dangerous, especially if you still have a day or longer out in the wilderness before reaching town.

In this guide, I'll help share some rules for planning healthy, nutritious meals. I follow these to pack healthy meals that keep me feeling great and ensure I have the right amount of food.

1. Determine How Long Your Trip Will Be

It can be hard to estimate how long your trip will be if you don't have a ton of backpacking experience. Some factors affecting your estimate are experience, fitness level, daylight hours, how often you stop for breaks, how rough the terrain is, how heavy your pack is, elevation gain, and overall gait/walking speed. It's hard to estimate with that many factors that affect it, but the average backpacker on moderate terrain can cover about 15 miles a day.

If the trail you want to do is 24 miles, you can assume it'll be an overnight trip. If it's a 38-mile, relatively flat trip, you can assume it's a three-day, two-night trip. It will take a bit of trial and error to figure out, so plan conservatively for your first few trips. Around 20 miles or less is a great overnight trip to start with to see how it feels! Once you get a more dialed-in idea of how many miles you can cover in a day, it'll be easier to plan how much food to bring accurately and safely.

2. Figure Out How Many Calories You Need to Eat

In your average day-to-day life, you probably have an idea of how many calories you burn. For most adults, it's in the 2,000 range depending on size, muscle mass, metabolism, and how active you are. Once you're on the trail, you can expect to burn 4,000 calories daily, so you must eat at least twice as much. Between carrying a heavy pack, your body regulating its temperature (especially in cold weather), and walking all day, potentially with lots of elevation gain and loss, your body will burn through calories quickly. Therefore, it is important to ensure you pack at least 4,000 calories of food per day. It is more important on longer backpacking trips.

The hunger won't always kick in for a few days, so if you're going to be out for more than three days, you must ensure that you bring an adequate amount of food because you will become ravenous by the end. I use my phone’s calculator to double-check my food before I go out. I add up all the calories of everything I am packing and make sure it is roughly in the ballpark of 4,000 calories per day I plan to be out.

3. Pick Quality Meals to Keep You Satiated and Healthy in the Backcountry

Even if you pack enough calories, you must pack balanced, healthy backpacking meals and snacks to keep you satisfied, full, and energized. You need a solid balance of carbohydrates, protein, and fats to fuel your body while hiking. Your body uses carbs for instant energy, fats for long-term energy and to keep you feeling full, and protein to help your muscles recover at the end of the day.

A few of my favorite backpacking meals that are a good combination of healthy macros are dehydrated refried beans mixed with instant rice, peanut butter and granola bars, and ramen noodles with a protein of your choice (tuna and tofu are popular options).

4. Check the Caloric Density of the Foods You Pack

While delicious and healthy, fresh fruits don't have many calories. It's worth packing kiwis or berries for the first day or two because they have important micronutrients and taste amazing, but they are heavy and won’t keep you feeling full. On the other hand, I find fruits like apples and bananas have enough fiber to be a filling snack, plus they pair well with every backpacker's favorite food: peanut butter! Another option to pack out is dehydrated fruit or dried fruit. This way, you can still get the vital micronutrients because nutrition is still important, but you aren't lugging around all the water weight.

To help inspire your next packing list, here are some popular calorie-dense lightweight foods that hikers love and that are easy to pack: all sorts of nuts; nut butters, like peanut butter or sunflower butter; dark chocolate; ramen noodles; hard cheese; candy; chia seeds; protein powder; oatmeal; sundried tomatoes; dehydrated refried beans; olive oil; instant rice; trail mix; bagels; Oreos; Nutter Butters; Hippeas; and chips.

5. Decide If You Will Snack, Cold Soak, or Use a Camp Stove

Snacking is a simple option for shorter trips for those who love convenience, like me. However, it gets old after a while. (I made it about two months of a thru-hike on this method, and boy, do I wish I had changed sooner.) But if you're just taking a weekend trip, it might be simplest to pack many good snacks, like granola bars, bagged salads, vegan or beef jerky, meal replacement bars or cookies, tortillas, peanut butter, and other easy-to-eat snacks.

Most people prefer having a stove or cold soaking. Cold soaking is when you use an ultralight jar to soak foods, such as instant rice, dehydrated refried beans, or couscous. Then, you add water and let them rehydrate over a few hours. This technique is used by those looking to save weight by not carrying a stove/pot or saving some money by not buying a stove/pot.

If you're packing a camp stove, make sure you have a small pot with a lid to help the water boil faster and enough propane to last your trip. Having a camp stove is a great move for colder trips where a hot coffee might make getting out of bed easier, longer trips because you have a larger variety of food you can eat, or for people who feel better after a nice, warm meal!

6. Make Sure You Pack Food You Like

It's not a great time to experiment with trying new foods when you're surrounded by wilderness and more than a day's trek back to your car. Pack out your favorite foods if they're reasonably lightweight and easy to pack! You never know if you'll need a morale boost while out on a backpacking trip (honestly, it’s safe to bet you will at some point).

Also, sometimes you don't feel as hungry because of the altitude, which can make eating an adequate amount of calories a struggle, so it’s important to pack out tasty food. Dehydrated meals are usually solid bets if you're worried about finding some other backpacking meals plain. Brands like Mountain House, Peak Refuel, and (my personal favorite) Backpacker's Pantry are popular brands that hikers love that make great meals for the backcountry. Remember, your adventure is supposed to be fun, so feel free to pack great treats for yourself, like candy or powdered milk for your coffee.

7. Don't Forget Electrolytes

Electrolytes are very important to your body’s ability to survive. Especially when you're sweating so much from hiking, ensuring you're staying hydrated and replenishing your electrolytes is vital. Electrolytes consist of salt, potassium, calcium, and magnesium.

Hiking gear stores, and sometimes even grocery stores, sell electrolyte replenishers—such as popular brands Liquid IV and Nuun—that you can add to your water. I like to pack a few of these when hiking during a heat wave or in a particularly arid environment. Of course, you can get electrolytes from your diet as well; foods such as bananas, potatoes, salty snacks, legumes, kale, and spinach are great sources. While vegetables can be heavy and hard to pack if you’re out for many days in a row, it can be nice to pick up some dehydrated vegetables to add to your dinners to ensure you’re keeping up with electrolytes and various micronutrients that are important for your body!

Conclusion

I hope this article provides useful information and tips that you can utilize to ensure you pack the right amount of food for a healthy, balanced diet on your next backpacking trip! If you need any advice on which camp kitech gear to buy or have ay other hiking needs, feel free to reach out to a Curated Camping and Hiking Expert, like me, to get free, personalized advice!