MY THRU HIKE

One of the most important trail things, right up there with comfortable hiking boots, is food. Long distance hikers burn from 4,000 to 6,000 calories a day and, because weight loss is almost inevitable, a hiker needs to replace every calorie burned. Keeping up with a balanced diet is difficult, as carbohydrates and their fast burning energy is the number 1 food choice at every meal. The cost of prepackaged shelf stable food is prohibitive for me, so I’ve learned that the next step is to begin to dehydrate or dry my own food. I’ve shopped everywhere locally and in Atlanta that I thought might sell home-style dehydrators and have struck out. I guess I’ll need to make my own. The Zen Stove website led me to a plan for a homemade dehydrator. I built one, very similar in design, back in the late 1980’s to put food by for a long distance hike I didn’t get to take. (My doctor told me that after the surgery I could do anything I wanted to…I didn’t know that I wouldn’t want to do ANYTHING!!!) It was exceptionally easy to build, and a 100 watt light bulb generated enough heat and created enough air flow that food dried quickly and thoroughly. We ate dried food for months and really did enjoy much of the “trail” cuisine. I have recently learned that drying food now and freezing it will allow us more time for prepare foodstuffs for the trail. But this is NOT the same as freeze-dried foods. Those foods are frozen and then the ice is extracted from the bits of food. This is a patented process that is both closely held and expensive. (I guess that’s why the astronaut ice cream at Disney World is so expensive.) My DH (darling husband) says he will give a purchased one another try before he builds this one, but at any rate, I’ll post again later on this additional adventure for the trail.