I normally carry most or all of my food when I tour because A: my tours are usually short, most are from two to four days and B: I try to avoid populated areas, so few or no stores or restaurants on the route. Carrying it all with me works better for those circumstances. Last fall, I did take a weekender that was entirely on pavement and had plenty of services along the way, so was able to get by without ever carrying more than just snacks and one or two bottles of water- I must admit it was nice to not tote along a bunch of supplies.

Never carried freeze dried stuff, mostly because it`s either special order for little packages or outrageously expensive for full meals. I`ve considered ordering a few big packages of freeze dried tidbits to split up and take along a little at a time, but never actually gotten around to it. My personal touring diet is mostly dry goods from the supermarket that I split and repackage at home into sizes that require 1 cup of hot water.

At the mention of MREs above, I have to say that there`s a LOT of extra crap in those bulky packages, so if you carry them, it`s probably best to open them before you leave and ditch the unwanted stuff. I remember joking with my buddies when I was in the service that it was tough to get all the garbage back into the bag that it all came out of after eating whatever was edible inside. That`s no exaggeration! Besides that, a lot of the food packs inside the big (and heavy) outer bag include the water- I prefer to carry water separately because its easier to find along the way.