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Tips and hints collected by Carol MacFarlane

Tips for Menu Planning

• For the big picture, create a menu grid, with columns for each day and rows for each meal. (See sample menus.)
• For shopping and preparation purposes, create a recipe document with amounts and directions for each meal. Make your shopping list from it (see Tips for Shopping), use it as you repackage food and pack bear cans (see Food Packing Tips), then have it available to you and your cook crew during the preparation of each meal. Also use it for recording your own comments (e.g. changes in food amounts, success of meal, etc.) for your future use.
• For breakfasts, plan to have tang (2-3 quarts) and hot drinks (coffee, tea, cocoa), in addition to the main course. For all beverage quantities, click here
• Serve lunches with a dessert, such as (per person) 1 oz. dried fruit, 2-3 cookies, 1 fruit leather, 1 energy bar, or 1 oz. chocolate.
• For breakfasts and lunches, since there may be fewer ideas than you have days to serve these meals, you may need to repeat some, so space them apart to keep the illusion of variety.
• For dinners, serve a soup (4 qt.) and dessert in addition to the entrée.
• To help fit all the food into the bear cans, plan to purchase denser foods such as tortillas instead of crackers or bagels; Basmati rice instead of Minute Rice; vermicelli instead of curly noodles).
• An important note: People will need more food on a strenuous trip than on a light or moderate trip. You may want to adjust amounts in the recipe slightly to accommodate calorie needs, or you may simply want to provide more snack food (see Snack Recommendations).

Snack Recommendations

• Provide ample snacks so that participants can eat when they get hungry or need extra energy. The amount provided may depend on the difficulty of the trip (.ie. the calories being expended). Participants on an 8-day strenuous trip might well need 2 pounds of snacks provided.
• Energy bars - Include an energy bar for each day for strenuous or teen trips. For less strenuous trips, you may need fewer bars. Use a combination of Power Bars, Clif Bars, Luna Bars, etc., so that participants can trade with one another for their favorite kinds. Keep an extra bar or two handy for someone who may experience a "calorie crisis" during the trip (i.e., someone who eats more than the average participant and who is suffering from lack of calories).
• Gorp - You can easily make your own gorp by combining a variety of bags of mostly salted nuts (cashews, hazelnuts, peanuts, almonds, pepitas) and raisins. Chocolate tends to melt and mess up the gorp.
• Hard Candies - Include 2 or 3 hard candies for each day.
• Crystal Light drinks - You may want to provide a half gallon (one package) of flavored drink after getting into camp to help replenish fluids.

Tips for Shopping

• Create a document of all meals (see Tips for Menu Planning), listing items needed for each meal.
• Decide on the various places you will purchase the items (i.e. Backcountry Pantry, Trader Joe's, Safeway) and assign each item to the appropriate list, adding the totals for like items.
• Order freeze-dried and other specialty items several months in advance.
• Use your document, listing items for each meal (see above), for the packing procedure. (See Food Packing Tips.)

Food Packing Tips for Bear Canister Use

• If using bear canisters, remove any bulky packaging and repack food in Ziploc bags, removing as much air as possible. With permanent marker, write the meal designation (e.g. B4, L6) on each bag.
• For large items such as granola, it may be best to package them in two smaller bags, both for ease of getting them into the can, and to disperse the weight and bulk between two cans.

Tips for Bear Canister Packing

• For marking the contents of each can, place 2 or 3 strips of masking tape on each lid. You will write on this tape as you pack the cans (see below). Note - Be sure that lids and cans are both marked with a letter or number, so that the cans and the lids that identify their contents stay together.
• When ready to pack cans, place all cans (but one or two, mentioned below) in a row and begin packing the LAST meal into the bottom of two or even three cans. Make sure each item is labeled (eg. L4, B3). Then pack the next meal in the next 2 or 3 cans. As you pack the various cans, mark the contents on the lid tape (e.g. L8, D7) and mark on the menu grid you have created (see Menu Planning) which cans contain each meal. This will save much trouble later on, when you may be trying to locate something. Continue adding the contents of the meals into the bear cans, keeping the weight and the bulk as evenly distributed as possible. Continue marking both the tape on the lid and your menu grid.
• Some leaders invert that process, and start with a meal and canister mapping, assigning each meal to two canisters, and then putting food for each meal into the designated can. It doesn't matter if contents in a can are out of order, just be sure to keep them in their assigned can.
• Keep one (or two-see Optional Cooler below) of the bear cans empty until the end. Then fill it with your first day's meals, so that it will be empty and available the first evening for all the snack food and fragrant items (e.g. sunscreen, toothpaste).
• Optional Cooler-For a "cooler" of sorts, line one bear can with a thin layer of ensolite. Place all perishables in this can (e.g. cheese, butter, chocolate). Be sure to keep this can out of the sun at all times.
• Instead of Ensolite (which is bulky) you can spray paint the outside (of a Gracia can) or inside (if clear plastic) with white glossy paint. This will reflect heat and light, and protect the contents. Finally, a thin roll-up cutting sheet can be slipped inside a clear plastic can, and that will also help reflect light and heat.
• If crackers and cookies are sealed in plastic in addition to cardboard, remove the cardboard before packing into bear can.

Miscellaneous Tips for Bear Can Use

• In case of rain, turn bear cans upside down so that water does not leak into cans.
• Bear cans make great camp stools! To keep participants (other than cook crew) away from the kitchen area during preparation and meal time, have someone set up the bear cans in a large circle for dining, well away from the kitchen area.
• For a 7 or 8 day trip, you will most likely need to have every person carry a bear can, if all the food is to be 100% protected on the first night.
• Even after all your efforts it may be possible that not quite all the food fits into the bear cans, and you will have to hang some food the first night or two. Make sure all the dense, caloric food such as snacks fits into the cans, and hang bulkier but less dense items such as crackers and cookies.

Tips for Rehydrating

• Freeze-dried or dehydrated foods can be rehydrated in several ways. One is to place food in a pot, pour boiling water over the food just to cover, and let it sit covered.
• Another is to package food in Ziploc bag, then pour treated water directly into the bag (assuming it has no holes in it). If you do this as soon as you get into camp (an hour or two before dinner), it is not necessary to boil the water.
• Hummus can be messy to make at lunch, with a pot to clean. Solution? Make it in a ziplock bag, and save the fuss of fetching and tghen cleaning a pot.

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