Processing My Food

We're going to Glacier National Park in July. I've had a particular backpacking trip picked out for a couple of years, I've had a detailed itinerary of the entire trip since March, and now that we're just over a month and a half out, I'm designing a day-by-day meal plan. You might say that I am looking forward to it.

We'll be camping for 8 days and 7 nights, 3 days and 2 nights of which will be backpacking. When you think of backpacking, you think of getting away from civilization and busyness. Nature. Solitude. Simple living. The great irony of backpacking is that the food you eat while you're out there sleeping on the ground, peeing in the bushes and otherwise emulating creatures of the wild, is incredibly processed. That is, unless you take a "survival hike" as my father is known to do-- he takes only some nuts and beef jerky, forcing himself to fish, forage and lose weight. It's difficult to avoid processed foods, though, due to the unique challenge of no refrigeration and carrying on your back everything you need to live comfortably for a week.

This leads us to dehydrated food. Just-add-water food. It's not my usual choice, but I'm up for the challenge of making it as tasty and healthy as possible! After scouring backpacking cookbooks and then several grocery stores, it became clear to me that if I wanted to eat vegetables throughout our trip, I was going to have to dry them myself.

But wait...can't you buy fully dried meals at REI? Well, yes. But there are several problems with that:
1. They include sketchy ingredients like "ferric orthophosphate", "maltodextrin" and "dried torula yeast."
2. A packet that "serves 2" has 700 calories, and a 350 calorie dinner doesn't cut the mustard for me and my high metabolism.
3. Buying my meals already prepared is not hard core enough for my taste.

Using a borrowed dehydrator and Mary Bell's Complete Dehydrator Cookbook, I have begun experimenting. I have made apple leather, since it's supposed to be easy, and I dried some parsley. I am now attempting to dehydrate baked potatoes. I made potato flakes by cooking up some mashed potatoes from scratch and dehydrating them. Next I will dehydrate broccoli, bacon and chives.
Is it worth it? According to my calculations, baked potatoes for two cost me about $4.25. A pre-packaged dinner for two that leaves me feeling hungry goes for about $6.50. Nearly 35% savings on cost of food. That plus the fun factor make it overwhelmingly worth it. As for the taste factor, I have not yet tried any of the food I have dehydrated myself, but I have had the pre-packaged meals and I confidently conclude that this is a non-issue. I will, however, report back at a later date.