Ep. 32: Running Out of Food, Eating Raw Heart, and Perfecting Backcountry Nutrition
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When I think about hunting out West, there is an element that is different from hunting other places because there's this element of what we like to call back country hunting. Now, yes, you can hunt elk and deer and other animals from say a base camp or a motel sometimes or a lodge, but there's an element of hunting that's very successful that involves going into the mountains with everything on your back and hunting that way.

Not only is it a successful way to hunt, but just the experience itself adds something to the whole journey, to the whole process of the hunt. So a few weeks ago, I kind of touched on backcountry water purification and filtration.

So this week, I want to continue that theme of backcountry prep. So when it comes time for this fall, and if you decide you want to do a backcountry hunt, you'll have all the tools necessary to pull off a successful trip. So we already talked about water. I want to talk about backcountry nutrition and food. Packing your bag for a prolonged trip into the mountains. I mean, I know it can seem like a task. So I just want to go through my process when it comes to meal planning for a backcountry hunt and

in a way that's really easy and repeatable for any length of trip, no matter where you're going. And then just give some suggestions on possible things to bring. Now, before we do that, I want to share a story of a trip where I hunted a little bit longer than my food supply.

on this particular hunt it should have probably started out as an archery hunt now i say that because we ended up drawing accidentally the wrong tags now in nevada me and my brother had always applied as a party for archery tags so it's like an august hunt sometimes my dad would jump in on the party with us sometimes a friend or my other brother

So I actually was going to be out of town. So I did all my other applications, left the deer application, which I was kind of in charge of most of the time and let them decide what we were going to do. So we figured, well, there's this area that we archery hunt. We got the tags almost every year as residents. So it was a pretty decent area. We just really liked the area and we figured, okay, let's just put in for that for archery.

So my brother Jason did the application this year. It comes back. We can check our results. And here's this early rifle tag that we'd drawn. What happened, man? Well, he'd accidentally put the early rifle choice instead of the archery choice, which was no big deal. We still drew tags, but we were looking forward to that archery hunt.

And the trouble with that early October rifle tag is it's just a difficult hunt. Although you do have a rifle, you see a lot fewer deer because that time of year they can be in the timber. It's after they're all bachelored up. They're very spread out. So it just can be a more difficult, challenging hunt.

Now, it was actually one of my favorite hunts because it was cool because my dad, my two brothers, and myself all had tags in the same area. So we went out the first weekend. We did a little bit of scouting beforehand, got a big camp set up, and then just kind of hunted around. We weren't seeing very many bucks, and we weren't seeing very many bucks with any size. A few does. It was just a very, very slow year.

So we just decided, well, the first good looking bucks that we see will take. And I had a lot more time than those guys. So I figured, well, I'll help them out. We'll see how many deer we can get. And then if I have to, I thought maybe it'll get a little bit better as the season goes on and I can do a little bit of solo hunting or whatever.

So my dad and my brother Ryan ended up getting a couple decent bucks and then they had to go back. So I decided I was going to do kind of like a solo hunt until a little bit later, just on my own and see if I couldn't find a good deer. Now I thought...

all right, I know this area really well. There's this back country portion of the unit that I figured nobody's going to be hunting in. I'm not seeing deer where I'm at. So I might as well just pack up and just go in there for a few days and see what I can find. That seemed like the best plan at the time. And it was. So I pack up my bag, I grab some food. I figure, okay, I should be able to figure it out within three days. So I kind of just planned for three days.

And I start my trek in. Now, this area is pretty high altitude. It's a big kind of like wilderness type area. So there's no roads through it. And there's a lot of elevation, big canyons and stuff. So the first day I pack up my stuff, I plan on getting to where I want to go camping. It's, I would say, I don't know, a lot of miles and maybe...

4,000 feet in elevation gain by the time I get there. So it's a pretty good day. Anytime you're doing 3,000, 2,000, 3,000, up to that 4,000 amount of elevation gain, you're really exerting yourself, especially with a heavy pack on the way in. So I pack in, get back there, set up, start glassing. I turn up zero deer.

And I'm thinking, all right, this just isn't going to work. So the next morning I get up, I glass still zero deer. So I decided, all right, I got to go further, deeper, go check another Canyon. So I keep hiking and it's another long day.

get back there again, look around, nothing. And now I'm like, all right, I'm already back here two days worth of travel. I might as well hunt this one other spot back here. So another big day and still pretty much no deer. I mean, it's just like, where are these animals at? I'd exerted a lot of energy. I'd spent a lot of time

And I hadn't seen anything. So I thought, well, I can walk all the way back to camp, which I'd kind of planned on about three days worth of food. So I was getting toward the tail end of my food supply. And I also had just been burning thousands and thousands of calories every day. The amount of food that I brought, I was working in a deficit, even on the days that I did have food. So some snacks I'd saved over and hadn't really eaten everything. So I had a little bit of extra food supply and just thought, man, I think I'm fine. I feel okay. But

I've just exerted a lot of energy, but I don't want to leave just yet. I'm already back here. I'm going to start hunting my way back toward the vehicle, but I just put in so many miles and there's got to be a buck in here somewhere.

So long story short, about day five is when I finally spot a buck. Now I'd gone in with about three days worth of food, but I'd rationed and definitely at this point was running in a major deficit. I was feeling pretty weak. I didn't have the energy like I did when I first started. I mean, I stopped, it's a fairly disgusting story, but I pretty much stopped going to the bathroom because I just had nothing left in my system. I had no more energy.

to expend. I was pretty spent. And I definitely felt the effects of it. And it really showed me how important keeping up your energy levels and your food levels are. I was burning thousands of calories, and I was probably burning close to 5,000 calories a day and putting in less than two. So I was just running on a deficit the whole time. However, on the way down, I spotted a buck and

A nice three by three across the Canyon. He went bedded and I actually kind of lost him in the trees for a little bit. So I just set up across the Canyon, got set up and waited. I spotted him bedded in the trees, got everything set up, waited on the buck. When I finally got a shot, took the shot and the buck was down. Nice three by three buck. It was actually one of the better bucks that I'd seen that trip.

I was filming it myself for Solo Hunter, and you can definitely see in that episode. That was one of the first seasons that we did. But man, I was hurting. I was in calorie deficit mode. I was really burning on my reserves and just pushing through. I got to the deer, cut him up, butchered it up. A storm started moving in. I actually...

Was just so hungry. I ate some of the heart raw and that gave me a boost of adrenaline from being successful, the storm coming in and getting some fresh meat. Now I'm, I may not suggest you do the same, but that was just like a boost of energy and excitement that fueled me back to the truck, which luckily, although it was a long distance was for the most part downhill from there. Yeah.

I think I should probably preface this entire portion of the advice podcast by stating the fact that I am not by any means a nutritionist. So just keep that in mind. However, I do have a lot of experience keeping my energy levels up in the backcountry. I've spent hundreds, countless days living out of a backpack. I've tried

nearly every backpacking food and many of them for long enough periods where it's just like I'm completely sick of eating bars and other things. But what that has given me is a lot of insight on how to keep my energy levels up and some of the things that I think are important when it comes to meal planning and prep.

I really think, especially if you're thinking about your first backcountry hunt or your first backcountry experience, thinking about food to bring is a huge portion of it. And I think for a lot of people, it's actually a deterrent. I see so many questions come in. Hey, what kind of food should I bring? How do I pack for the trip? When you're at home or out of a camp, it's easy. You don't have to worry about weight. You don't have to worry about space. You just kind of eat when you're hungry and you always have surplus.

But when you're going into the backcountry or on a backpacking style trip, everything you have, you have to bring with you and it has to be thought out beforehand.

So I really think like mule prep comes down to carrying an adequate amount of calories, but then balancing that with the size and weight. And then really the important part is making it something that you're going to enjoy and will eat. You know, you can't gain calories and fuel your body if you aren't ingesting it. And I know that sounds basic and stupid, but...

But there's so many times people will go in, they'll bring foods that they don't like, they won't eat them, and you start to shrink your stomach and then you just start to run at deficit, deficit, deficit, and you burn out and you lose energy and you can't hunt as hard.

So good meal planning in the backcountry and nutrition has much to do with picking the right items, bringing the right amount, and then just the organization of it all. I really believe that actually the organization of your backcountry meal prep has as much to do or is just as important as the actual items that you end up taking. I already said it, but just to get the benefit from the food, you really have to eat it. And it's

It's so funny to me how I see people planning their backcountry hunt or whatever, and it's like they take stuff that they wouldn't eat at home.

Really, if you start to think about, okay, you're going to be going on a three-day trip, a five-day trip, a seven-day trip, it doesn't matter the amount of days. If you're bringing something that you aren't going to eat at home or you don't really necessarily like, what makes you think that when you're out there, you're going to like it and you're going to eat it? Yeah, food tastes better when you're hungry, but there's certain things that just no matter what you do to them, if you don't like it, don't bring it.

I also think a backcountry trip is not the time to think about your diet. It's not the time to think about weight loss. You're going to be running at a calorie deficit. You're going to lose weight. Bring things you like. Bring things that have a lot of calories. And don't worry about whatever fad diet you're on at the time. In the backcountry is not the time to be worried about losing weight. It's the exact opposite of everything you do outside of the season. It's the thought of maintaining weight, keeping weight on,

having enough reserve and energy to continue to hunt hard day in and day out. So as I start to go through my process of planning the foods that I bring,

you got to realize everything's going to go in your backpack and it's going to go on your back. So you're balancing the size and weight thing with also, okay, what foods are going to give me the most calories per ounce? Where I like to start is I like to think about what I'm packing as I strive for my goal of 3000 calories per day. Now,

When you're hiking, if you're hiking all day or whatever, you're probably going to be burning four to 5,000 calories, maybe even more. Depends on the day. Just sedentary male adults, I think burn around 2,500 calories or that's whatever, you know, they post different things, but the standard is about 2,500 calories. So you are going to be in a calorie deficit from the time you leave the trailhead. It's already a given. You already know that.

But understanding that when you go into it, it really helps you plan and say, okay, well, this is what I'm encountering in this situation. Now, if you want to bring more food, you obviously can, but this is just how I plan. So my goal is around that 3000 calorie mark. Now, if I can boost it up with certain snacks and other things, that's awesome. And for hard days, I like to try to hit 5000 calories if possible. So the way I pack is I start with that base of 3000 calories per day.

And then I try to find foods that are really a high calorie per weight. So around that 100 calories per ounce is what I try to strive for. Because if you hit that 100 calories per ounce, you're really talking about two pounds of food per day.

And that just seems to be pretty standard of what, when I weigh everything out before a trip, it always generally factors out to about that two pounds of food per day. Now, the meals that I take, we'll go into it in a little bit, but the types of foods I take and the meals that I take, a lot of them may be dehydrated, freeze dried, other stuff. So you're saving on weight and space. But then some things I take that are just

more like regular food that is easy to eat and may have fewer calories or whatever, but it'll fill me up and it's something that I enjoy eating. Now let's talk a little bit about the organization of your meal planning. Okay, so we're going to pick the amount of days that we're going to go. Let's say it's five days.

What are the meals that you're going to have that day? You're going to have a breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Pretty standard. It's standard for what you do when you aren't in the backcountry. So we'll just continue that into your backcountry meal prep.

The way that I like to organize my food is I like to ration myself in individual Ziploc type bags per day. So that way I know exactly how much in one glance, how much food I have. Yeah, it's going to be a little bit more weight adding a couple extra Ziploc bags here and there. But in the grand scheme of things, the organization helps me maintain and know how much food I have, as well as kind of

on some days prevents me from eating too much and on other days encourages me to eat more. So that way I try to balance it out based on activity levels, but also knowing that I'm getting kind of my minimum each day. So I don't start running in an energy deficit. You know, the ability to hunt hard in the back country comes down to so many different things, but if you get tired and you can't give it your all, you probably aren't going to be successful. And that's why

packing the right food, bringing the right amounts of food in and being organized with it is such a huge tool in success because you need that energy to keep going, to keep hunting hard, to stay focused, especially when you're safe three, four, five days out. Those things start to drag on. You start to get wore down. You start to not hunt as hard. And then sometimes you just start wasting your time.

So to be more successful, just being organized and having the right amount of food and just understanding, you know, then you know, I see so many people go and they get in a fear of not having enough food or they bring too much food, just understanding this is what I have. I know I've got enough that I need to just keep me going and keep me at maintaining levels where I'm not dragging. So

So I like to use a baggy system. I break it out into kind of like my breakfasts, my lunch, and my dinner. Now my dinner stuff, I kind of keep all together. So that would be my mountain house type meals, my peak refuel, my dehydrated meals. That's generally what I use for dinner.

So your snacks are what fuel you between meals and then also can be a meal in itself as you're slowly eating all day. A friend of mine who is an actual nutritionist calls it front-loading. So he always describes it as you want to take in your calories that you're going to expend first. You don't want to be trying to refuel later because you're always going to be in an energy deficit that way. So I try to take my snacks and space them out throughout the day. And now what I do is I'll have –

a sandwich bag that has my snacks for each day, a larger bag for that, that I could put some other stuff in. And then I generally keep all my dinner items and my breakfast items in one bag, but I just kind of have it per day. Okay. Here's what I've got.

let's break each meal down real quick and then I'll talk about packing it all up. So we're going to start with breakfast. You know, breakfast, a lot of guys take oatmeal. I take oatmeal. It's light. It doesn't have as many calories. It's not as calorie dense as say granola. So granola is another great option to throw in for breakfast. I'm not really a big breakfast guy anyways, but it's nice to have something in your stomach if you're hungry in the mornings. I try to eat my breakfast a little bit later in the morning.

I also have my bars and other things to maintain in the mornings. And I eat a few more of my snacks throughout the day. So we've got our breakfast, which could be say your oatmeal or granola. And then you've got your snacks, which will be like your bars. That will be your nuts. That will be, you know, snack type stuff, shot blocks, gummies, jerky, anything like that. And

any kind of energy that you'd eat throughout the day. Then you've got your lunch for lunch, you know, you could go with something that you've pre packed like a peanut butter and jelly tortilla, it could be cheese and salami and a bagel, it could be tuna packet or something to that effect, you know, something more substantial. It's something to look forward to in the middle of the day and give you a little bit more fuel for the rest of the day.

And then after lunch, then you get back to your 10 at night, you've got your dinner. That's generally for me some kind of maybe whatever snacks I didn't eat and then a dehydrated meal, which could be, you know, there's plenty of different companies out there that make dehydrated meals or noodles or something to that effect.

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Go to fishingbooker.com today. That's fishingbooker.com. Now let's talk about how I organize those different items.

So what I like to do is I like to separate out each day in individual baggies. Now, not necessarily my evening meals because of those I kind of plan out. If I'm going five days, I'll take five or sometimes six dehydrated meals. That extra one could be for like a hard day or something like that. You also have to think about the way that you hunt and the way that you hunt depends on when and how you eat. So for the first day in, you're going to eat at the trailhead before you leave.

So you don't necessarily need food for that. You're going to try to eat as many calories, eat something good that has a lot of energy, that's good energy that can fuel you for the trip in. Now that next morning, you've just probably expended the majority of your energy. So I'll try to also bring, say for breakfast, a couple more like calorie dense, more filling, dehydrated meal type breakfast for a hard day or the day after hiking in. So

Instead of having granola that first morning, I might eat a mountain house biscuits and gravy meal or a peak refuel breakfast skillet or something like that. Something that's just more filling and kind of back fuel for the day that you just had, or maybe you know you're going to have a big day that day, so you eat a little bit more that day. So I'll always bring a couple extra booster breakfasts, and then I'll have just my standard breakfast for...

other days where I'm not working as hard or I'm not expending as much energy that day so I don't need as much fuel.

Now I break out my snacks and snacks are like the huge, I call them snacks, but they are pretty much the mules that keep you fueled throughout the day. So those are going to be the things that are light and high in calories. Those are your, your nuts, your bars, your all that kind of stuff. And I break out my snacks. I try to go, sometimes the way that I buy them is just super easy. I go to the store and I think of planning on, okay, six items per day.

And so I just buy a box of this, a box of that, a thing of this. And then when I get home, I take all those different boxes that I bought and I separated them out into individual, like what are they? Quart bags. So I'll take those quart bags out. I'll set five out, one for each day. And then I'll grab one snack from each separate container per day. So I'll try to put five or six individual snacks in that day baggie.

And that's just the easy way to do it. If you want to count out the calories and all that, I found over the years, it pretty much averages out about right that that is the right amount of calories that you need for those snacks. And it's just easy to do it that way. So I'll buy a bunch of random stuff that I like, things that I'll eat. I'll get a Snickers bar. I'll get some kind of, I used to use power bar type bars or cliff bars, stuff like that. I've personally eaten too many cliff bars in my life. I can't eat another one, but yeah,

But those are really calorie dense, good backcountry snacks. So stuff like that. You'll do one of those one and you'll start mixing and matching and all, you know, gummy snacks, whatever you like.

you just get a good assortment of snacks and do five or six snacks per day in your day bags. Then I'll put all those snack bags into a one gallon, like Ziploc if it fits, depending on how many days I'm going. So each day I can grab that snack bag, put that in my pack, leave everything else at the tent if I'm not bivouacking or whatever. So bivouacking would be where I'm just carrying everything with me every day. That that

That helps me break out what I'm eating each day. Then I'll do the same thing for lunch, kind of. I'll have a couple extra larger Ziploc bags that I take with me, gallon size. They'll be

in there. And in that I'll put my lunch item, which will be either a peanut butter and jelly tortilla. It'll be a bagel and salami and cheese. And so on some of the trips, you know, if it's really hot, you can front load with the first half of the trip eating more real, what I call real food. So that would be your bagel, your cheese, your salami, stuff that's not dehydrated, dried, or pressed into a bar. It's just food that is just like you would eat at home.

I like taking that because it's just, it's easily digestible. It tastes good and it's satisfying. It's satisfying and something to look forward to throughout the day.

So I'll do that and I'll say, okay, these are my five lunch items. Now for the first three days, it's really easy to bring the, depending on if it's, even if it's kind of hot, you can do salami and cheese and bagels. If it's warm weather, you might be saying, okay, now the last two days of my five day trip, that stuff may not last that long. So I'm going to do instead of something else for lunch, maybe a tuna pack or something like that. And then a couple extra bars for my lunch.

Now, then you'll plan your dinner. So I'll go, if I'm going five days, I generally go five mountain houses or dehydrated meals. You'll notice that there's not a lot of calories in those, but they do fill you up really well. And then I'll throw in, say, two like ramen type packets as extra or maybe just a spare mountain house or spare dehydrated meal, something like that as extra.

Okay, I had a hard day. That's going to be extra. And then I'll also throw in those couple of extra hearty breakfasts, which could be eaten at night or in the morning on really hard days. So I like to bring a little bit of extra food, not necessarily for extra days, but just for extra boosts of fuel.

Then as I go throughout the hunt, there's days that I'll take my ration out. That's what I'm going to eat that day. But there's some days where it's like, hey, I'm not working as hard today. I'm not really that hungry. I'll take this snack and push it over and put it in my spare snack bag. So when I do go on a big hike or move camp or do something like that, okay, I got all this extra fuel that I can eat. Or it could even be an extra day later on if I just have some days where I'm just getting up, not walking far from the tent and glassing all day.

So those are just things you can do in the field to kind of maintain and have extra food and extra energy for when you need it. But one thing you want to keep in mind is you want to just maintain your levels and continue to eat. Sometimes you have to force yourself to eat because after the first day, you're really hungry. You're eating a lot.

And then you kind of get into the mode where your stomach starts shrinking and you just, nothing sounds appealing, nothing sounds good. So you kind of slow the eating down, but you are, you're still burning a lot of calories and that's where you get yourself into trouble.

Now, something that I always try to plan for is what I call boosters. There's two kinds of boosters, flavor boosters and calorie boosters. Flavor boosters help a lot in just making something a little more enjoyable so you eat more of it. If you've got the same dehydrated meal that you aren't super excited about eating,

you'll eat half of it and then it's just real hard to finish the whole thing sometimes. Like my brother Jason has no problem finishing any of his food, but he's just a better eater than I am sometimes. So for me, I like to bring any kind of little flavor booster that just kind of spices it up a little bit, makes it taste more real and more enjoyable. That might be something like hot sauce packets,

I'll grab some of those mayo mustard packs from the deli counter so I could put that on my bagel with my cheese and salami for lunchtime. Maybe even just like a Parmesan cheese packet from a pizza thing, adding that to your lasagna dehydrated meal or some kind of dehydrated meal, or maybe just throwing whatever your dehydrated meal is at night into a tortilla to make a burrito like it.

with a little bit of real cheese. That just makes it a little bit better, a little more enjoyable, a little easier and more palatable. So you actually eat more. So you have more energy to stay more efficient.

Now, a calorie booster is just things that have high calories like oils or even just high calorie and fat content. So I use either a... There's these single serve packs of coconut oil. I'll dump one of those into my dehydrated meal every night. It just really helps with boosting the amount of calories. I think those packs have like 500 extra calories. So for the weight...

That's just the way to go. I'll put one of those in there and I can use that oil too, to fry up stuff or cook stuff if I need to later on. So I've got some kind of oil to cook up meat. If I'm successful early in the trip or say I'm elk hunting and I shoot a grouse, I can cook those, fry those grouse up in my jet boil. If I'm somewhere, I can't do a fire or something like that. So that's always awesome to have. And then even just like a nut butter, coconut butter, something like that. You can add to things or just eat as a

as an extra shot in evening time to just boost your calorie intake. What I want to do now is just, I've got a list of stuff here that I think is just kind of a fun little rundown of lists. I've got some of my favorite food items, just some things that I never want to forget, and then just some things to avoid. So let's start with my five things I never want to forget in the backcountry.

Number one, a spoon. I like a long handle spoon too, because then I'm not, it's just a weird thing. It's one of my creature comforts that I like. I like a long handled backpacking spoon.

It's one thing that I forgot a couple times and it's just been a pain in the ass. When you forget your spoon, you don't realize how important that little spoon is and how much better it just makes your life in the back country. Just simple things like, oh yeah, don't forget your spoon. That should be, that's always on the top of my gear checklist. Don't forget my spoon.

One thing that I really don't like not having, I always take my wilderness athlete, like hydrate, recover and energy and focus. That's just drink stuff to add to my water. Um,

Staying hydrated is huge. And we already talked about water filtration and stuff, but just the actual intake of water is so important. And I like having that something that gives me back electrolytes, prevents cramping. And then also I like their energy and focus, which has the little bit of caffeine. So the midday lull, when you just start dragging, um,

I mean, having that extra boost of energy, that extra boost of vitamins and other things that you might not be getting from your food. I just know like having taken it and not taking it, that really helps me keep going. And it's just something if I forget it, I just feel off because I just know how much it helps me. So that's just something for me personally that I really like.

Like having that drink mix makes the water taste a little bit better. I drink more water that way. I can feel the benefits of the energy from it. So that's just something that's always in my kit.

Now there's people, some people like savory, some people like sweet, some people like salty. I like something sweet. I always try to not forget something sweet. It just kind of makes it sometimes if you got that little sweet snack that maybe you take a bite of, or just some kind of, for me, if it's not hot out, maybe a piece of chocolate or something to finish my meal off, to cap it off. It satiates me so I don't get into my, into my snack bag too deep and just overeat the stuff that I'm saving for the next day.

And then I always try to pack something that's really calorie dense. For the most part, I pick most of my snacks on things that I enjoy eating, but I do try to throw a couple things in there that, hey, maybe I got to choke this down with a lot of water. Maybe I've eaten a lot of these type of bars, but I don't like them so much, but they've just got a ton of calories. And I try to keep those for, hey, I'm doing a pack out. Hey, I'm going to do a push over that mountain. I try to front load with it where it's like this real calorie dense food. And then I try to pack

It might not be the best thing, but I'm just going to choke that down and have that energy stored up. I try to eat it before I do something big. It's always easier to front load and have that energy ahead of time as opposed to expend the energy and try to play catch up.

And then the fifth item that I don't want to forget, just an extra bag to put my trash in. Now that might be one of your day lunch sacks, but it's just really important. And when you forget it, it just becomes a pain in the butt for you'll have these dehydrated meals that are sloppy. You might have a tuna packet or some other things you

You aren't going to leave those out there and you don't want them, you know, getting nasty in your pack. So I just always try to bring an extra gallon size Ziploc bag for my trash and keep that with me. It just keeps things clean, keeps things out of the way. And once you have it, you realize, oh yeah, that was a good thing to remember. So those are my five things that I don't ever want to forget.

Now, I would say here's just a rundown of some of my top 15 snack food items. These are take them, leave them. These are just things that over the years I've said, yeah, I really like this stuff for reasons of, hey, I like the flavor of it. I like the texture of it. I like the amount of calories of it. There's just a lot of reasons why I like these different foods. And I've tried a lot of different stuff. So yeah.

There's probably a lot of things I don't have on here that I do like still, but I'd say, okay, number one, I like Snickers bars. They're great except for when it's really hot or really cold there, but they've just got a lot of calories. They're tasty. I always try to throw a couple Snickers bars in there. That's just a personal thing.

Corn nuts during lunchtime, you kind of want that salty crunch of maybe a chip or something, but chips don't really pack well. Corn nuts are great. And they seem to, when you're bored, if you've got those days where you're just glassing and you're just kind of bored, you can eat them one at a time. They last forever. They just seem like the snack that never ends. You know, when you're just in that snacky mode where you just want to eat something, but you don't want to burn through all your bars for the rest of the day. I found corn nuts really help with that.

They can be pretty good, different flavors. As far as dehydrated meal, oh, I love the Mountain House biscuits and gravy. That's on my top list. It's a great breakfast item. It just sticks to your gut. You feel real full. If I know I got a big day coming up or just finished a big day, maybe I was successful, packed something back to the camp the next morning, the biscuits and gravy comes out. So I'll bring one or two of those for a week-long trip.

Oh, this snack I just found last year. It's these untapped espresso waffles. It's got like syrup and it's like a strapple waffle or whatever, but some kind of like little waffle in a packet trail snack. There's a bar I really like called this number five coconut Bobo bars. Those are pretty good. I don't know where I found those just a gas station or a grocery store somewhere. I hope they still make them. I bought them a lot last year. They're pretty good.

For me, number six, fruit snacks. I know this sounds like a kid's lunch, but these are things that I enjoy eating. So you see my list. It's not all like

super healthy, crazy stuff. It's just normal foods that pack well, probably have a good amount of calories. Now you don't want all candy bars and other things, but these are just things that help fuel me that I enjoy eating and that I take into the backcountry. Number seven, shot blocks. I like those because they're, you know, they've got the little bit of extra electrolytes and stuff.

Number eight, tortillas. To me, tortillas in the backcountry go hand in hand. They last forever. They add a little bit of good flavor and texture. It's easy to put stuff in them for lunchtime and they're lightweight. They don't smash. They don't really get destroyed.

Number nine, this is one of my favorite dinner meals. It's a peak refuel, sweet pork and rice. I like that. I like the little bit of sweet with it. It's not too sweet. It's good. Number 10, this is my go-to is a ramen type noodle. Now for me, there's this brand called Indomie Migo Rang. You can get them on...

Amazon. I should, I'm going to order a bunch of them before this podcast goes live. Cause then people will order them all up and I won't be able to get them. But, um, it's more of like, uh, you can make soup out of it. You can go stir fry noodle. Sometimes I'll actually throw some, this is a pro tip, throw some peanut butter in with that noodle and stir fry it. Cool thing about that one is it comes with an oil pack and a spice pack and like a soy sauce pack all in the noodle pack. So that one's really good. Especially if you get like a fresh kill, cut up some meat

stir fry it in there in the oil, throw the noodles in, fry the noodles up, and then maybe throw a little bit of peanut butter in there. Oh, so good. It's like a pad thai. Number 11, trail mix. It's not my favorite thing to eat, but...

Nuts are really calorie dense. So almonds, peanuts, those are some of the best calorie per ounce snacks. Pecans I know have a ton of calories per ounce. They're good for you. They got good fats and they're great trail snack. They don't go bad. They don't smash. They don't melt. So trail mix is good. I don't, I've eaten so much trail mix. I'm kind of getting burnout on it, but

It's just because it's such a good snack to have. It's got the sweet, salty. You can mix in raisins or M&Ms and other things and kind of make it to how you like. Number 12 on my list of 15. This is a dinner item. I like the Mountain House lasagna. That one just doesn't seem to get old. It smells good and tastes good, but it does mess your spoon up with the cheese.

Number 13, jerky. You can't really be a mountain man without a good batch of pemmican with you. So I like the jerky. I like to separate it out throughout the day. It gives you that extra salt, little bit of protein. I love it. Number 14, like a nut butter pack. There's all different brands. Nutso, F-Bomb. They've all got weird names. Justin's Nut Butter. All just, I mean, crazy names, but they're all good.

And number 15, I like, this is a great lunch item. It leaves a little bit of trash that you got to tote around that smells weird. But the tuna creations or chicken creations, there's like barbecue wing sauce flavor and lemon pepper and ginger, whatever. There's all kinds of different flavors. Wrap those up in a tortilla. Those are great for lunches. Sometimes it's nice just to not just have bars for lunch, just have something that I consider like a real food item, right?

That would classify that as a real food item, something that you can add in there. And then, you know, like even some of those ramen packets or noodle packets are great for lunch if you're carrying around your jet boil and other things. Some of the other items that not on this list is just stuff that I take. I always take some kind of coffee, tea bag, instant coffee, whatever. If you're used to drinking coffee every day, bring it into the backcountry. You know, make yourself comfortable while having a few creature comforts, but also, you know,

you know, taking things that are light, taking things that are calorie dense. And when you're, when you're planning it out, look at the food items that you're bringing and then just separate it out and organize it in your day-to-day packs. And, and you should be sweet. Now, a few things to avoid. I really try to avoid bringing the same thing for every day only because like I said, I've mentioned it a couple of times, you know, there's certain items that I'm just burnt out on.

I used to really like the Mountain House sweet and sour pork. It was my favorite until I brought seven of them for a seven-day trip. Now I can't even smell the dang thing. So just because you like something, don't overdo it. Bring some things, just, you know, varieties of spice of life. And then another thing to avoid, don't forget your fuel, your fuel canisters. One time I forgot my fuel. I brought my pot. I carried all my other stuff, my stove, all that kind of stuff, and didn't have anything to heat the boil the water up. So

up. So my dinner, I was on a tar hunt in New Zealand. It was freezing cold. I was just wishing for a hot meal, no hot meal. So I put some cold glacier water and pasta primavera, which used to be my favorite dinner. And it just smelt and tasted like throw up. I should have just ate it with no water. If you don't have water, eat your dehydrated meals or your, sorry, your freeze dried meals.

dry. Don't try adding cold water because they're just gross with cold water, I think, but some people like it. So that's just my rundown on backcountry food. I'm sure there's a million other things to talk about, but I just really believe that don't overstress it. Throw some food in that adds up to the amount of calories you need. You can balance it based on if

There's just so many backpacking options for dinners and meals. Bring some real food, what I consider real food for those midday lunches. Bagels last really well. Salamis last really well. Cheese lasts pretty good. And enjoy your experience. Make it easy. Organize it ahead of time.

and just have that plan of like, this is what I'm eating. This is what I'm going to do on days that I end up using more. This is what I'm going to do with my extras and just have that plan and have it organized. And that's just going to be what really, really helps you out for the planning part and the execution of in the field, keeping your energy levels up. And all right, well, I really hope that that helped you maybe get some thoughts going on how you're going to plan your meal prep for

for backcountry hunts in the future. And if you aren't, even if it's not a backcountry hunt, there is some form of planning and preparation that goes into every hunt. So just having the right amount of food and fuel, planning it out and just being prepared in an organized way, it's just going to help you whether it's a day trip or a backcountry trip. So I really hope that that helps you out. We have talked quite a bit about just backcountry prep. So the water, now we've covered food. I've got this question that came in.

couple days ago. It's from a guy named Terry. He says, I love the podcast. The water filtration episode sparked a question about first aid kits. What is your go-to first aid kit beyond Band-Aids? So that's a great question. And I really think that I'm glad we got that question in to answer it with this because it also ties in with the backcountry food and fuel because there's certain items in the

first aid kit that will help aid in your success in the field. Now, as far as first aid kit goes, there's a ton of companies out there that make say like wilderness first aid kits there. A lot of them are based on like amount of days. So three to five day first aid and kind of has a little bit of the basics of everything you might need to encounter.

I try to think of my first aid kit as what are, what am I most likely to encounter out there? What types of injuries? So for the most part, it's going to be minor stuff. It's going to be possibly a sprain. So something to wrap an ankle, a rolled ankle. I carry extra duct tape around my water bottle or hiking pole.

I use that more than band-aids, but it's nice to have band-aids in there as well. Those little butterfly stitch type things are great as well. So the band-aid is just a little bit more durable with some duct tape wrapped around it, or even just duct tape around a cut, keep some just stuff out. Most of the time you cut yourself, you're processing an animal. So it's good to have an extra set of latex gloves or whatever, and then use the duct tape as a band-aid.

And then I throw in, it depends on the trip, but I've got like those quick clot deals. They're a little bit heavier, but just in case there was some kind of crazy puncture that you needed to clot really fast. I mean, it can happen. I know guys where broadheads fallen out of their quiver and they've lacerated themselves with it. So I generally keep some kind of quick clot, a multi-day wilderness first aid kit. And then, you know, the couple extra items like the duct tape,

that now also foot care is huge in the backcountry so throwing in I always throw in some moleskin and then extra duct tape on my bottle will be used to help adhere the moleskin to my foot or whatever so anything for foot care is also something that I want to make sure that I have in my backcountry kit now one of the things that I use for say creature comfort or just being able to hunt harder I always take in

in with my food and my first aid is I always throw an extra, say Advil or ibuprofen, something that just, you know, you're going to be sore. You might have a headache or be lightheaded because of the altitude. That kind of stuff is huge. It's just keeps you going, keeps you not feeling everything so much. You're sleeping on the ground. And if you have trouble sleeping on the ground or in the whatever, if you're just a person that has trouble sleeping in general, you're going to be more tired, but

I found that even just bringing some kind of sleep aid is awesome as far as just rebuilding that energy and not necessarily, you know, wrestling around all night. Tylenol PM works great. Wilderness Athlete makes, what do they call it? I can't even, honestly, I can't remember the name of it, but I use it all the time. It's like a multivitamin that just helps you sleep. It's got some melatonin and stuff in it that I like a lot. So

So yeah, I'll bring those extra things in there and I'll make sure to have enough for each day of like ibuprofen. If you get allergies, you know, bring some, just know what you need. You might need some Benadryl, just some things that are small items that really help your experience and just help you sleep, help you be more comfortable. And the more comfortable you are, the right amount of fuel you have, you've got the water, you get that sleep. You're just going to have more energy to hunt harder, which is going to lead to more success. So I just can't stress that enough.

Well, I am looking forward to next week. I think what we'll do is next week, I'm going to put some of the backcountry prep stuff on the back burner for a little bit. And we'll talk some hunting tactics next week. One of the ones that has just been asked and asked and asked, but I just wanted to hold off till it got a little closer to the season is spring bear hunting tactics. So I'm going to do some spring bear hunting tactics next week. I think you'll really enjoy that. I'm going to, I've done

a lot of spot and stock spring bear hunting that I think it's a really steep learning curve. It seems near impossible when you start out. So a few of these tips are going to be just huge if you're planning on any spring bear hunts this spring. So until next week, stay fueled, eat your calories and I'll, uh, yeah, eat them on the mountain. Can we, can we end this podcast with eat them on the mountain? Probably. See ya.

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