The Happy Camper: Menu Planning 101 - Kevin Callan

The Happy Camper: Menu Planning 101 - Kevin Callan

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This article is packed full of healthy, lightweight, and tasty ingredient suggestions to take on all sorts of outdoor expeditions. An absolute must read for anyone planning meals for an overnight trip.

The article is written by a wilderness skills teacher who found that his students, of all things, had the most trouble with meal planning rather than other wilderness skills. In the article he gives a large number of nutritious ingredients for wilderness trips. These examples include a few things that I have already heard of such as rice, pasta, beans, and quinoa. There are, however, even more suggestions given in the article of which I had never heard like textured vegetable protein (TVP), bulgur, toasted buckwheat, and something I thought of as only bird food, millet.

If I had read this article prior to last year’s hiking trip it would have made my hiking experience much easier. Not that my pack was especially heavy because of poor choice in food, just because the suggestions made in this article can’t be beat in terms of appropriate, lightweight, nutritional ingredients. Also, after the recent overnight winter camp, some of these items would have been worth a try to test out and consider bringing on the canoe trip, which is where weight really comes into play. In hindsight, this would have been a great idea especially because our meal for the winter camp was not a great success by any means. I'll be sure to keep this article in mind when planning meals for future trips.

Callan, Kevin. "The Happy Camper: Menu Planning 101." Explore Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2014. <http://www.explore-mag.com/the-happy-camper-menu-planning-101>.