Food is next in our discussion on Fieldcraft essentials. I mean who doesn't like to eat, right. But what kinds of food and how much makes sense?
The general rule of thumb is for a 24 hour setup to carry a full days worth of food and on a multi-day setup to pack for as many days as you plan on plus an extra days worth in case your trek gets set back due to weather, injury, navigation issues, and so on and so forth. Food equal energy and add your expel that energy you have to replace it, feed the beast, right...
For the type of food, well that gets interesting. My own preference is for easy to eat items that can be carried in my pockets that are high in carbs, protein, and sugars with some salt. This mixture gives you a good mix of energy and electrolytes replacement. So I like granola bars, beef jerky, hard candies, and dried fruit/nut mixes. For a 24 hour kit this works perfect.
Normally, on a multi-day trip my breakfast is simple with a granola bar and a cup of instant coffee (or two 😉), lunch I like to just snack all day on jerky and dried fruits and nuts while on the move, and for dinner I like an easy hot meal like Raman with tuna, chicken, or summer sausage added to it. It's easy, quick, filling, and quick to clean up. This type of menu packs well, requires minimal heating from a small stove, and is lightweight with little waste. I will usually use one water bottle for powdered drink mixes like lemonade.
For the last few years I've been pre-making these ration packs for sustainment kits that are easy to pack. Each ration pack contains approximately 2200 calories including proteins, fats, carbs, sugars, and vitamins. 1 is easily thrown in a butt pack, 2 of them fit in a pocket on an Alice pack (similar to broken down MRE's, or 3 will fit in a Bergen pocket... If you're going on a property patrol toss one in your butt pack or pack. Going on an extended patrol then toss a few more in. The freezer size zip lock bag doubles as a bag for your trash. Bonus is I keep an extra freezer zip lock bag in the ration kit to use for water collection in a survival situation.
These also work great for having in premise sustainment kits for resupply drops or caches.
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