List: Appalachian Trail food

Short backpacking trips lend themselves to fresh fruit and vegetables, tasty and elaborate backpacking meals, and s’mores. A long-distance thru-hike, not so much. You starve yourself because you never carry enough calories to make up for all the ones you’re burning, and the most calorie-dense foods are not very good for you. Here are examples of food that I and other hiker trash lived off of for six months.

Breakfast:

• Oatmeal
• Grits
• Starbucks Via
• Pop-tarts
• Carnation instant breakfast
• Honey buns (I never ate them, but they are really popular)

Snacks/Lunch:

• Peanut butter (Put it in a ziploc bag and then use the bag as a mitt to smear PB on a tortilla. I know it looks weird, but it weighs less than keeping it in a jar, takes up less space, and is honestly less cleanup. I also found pre-mixed PB and Jelly in a jar and put that in a bag. SO GOOD.)
• Jerky
• GORP
• Tortillas
• Almonds
• Gummy snacks
• Candy bars
• Clif bars
• Cheese and peanut butter crackers
• Hard cheeses (Babybel gets expensive; just a wedge of Asiago or similar works well)
• Dried fruit and berries
• Salami and pepperoni (I can’t stand it, but it’s really popular)
• English muffins
• Fig Newtons

Supper:

• Knorr pasta and rice sides
• Tuna packet*
• SPAM (Again, can’t stand it, but it’s popular)
• Bacon bits
• Backpackers Pantry/Mountain House meals (occasional splurge; Mountain House Pasta Primavera is AMAZING)
• Dehydrated vegetables
• Ramen*
• Instant potatoes*
• *Ramen bomb = ramen, instant potatoes, tuna packet or SPAM, along with anything else you can throw in (popular meal when supplies are low)

Other:

• Sugar, salt, pepper, honey packets
• Flavored water mixes
• Tea
• Olive oil
• When hiking out of town and you’re going to eat/drink it that evening: hot dogs, beer and/or wine in aluminum cans, marshmallows, etc.