Originally Posted by
Rob_E
Dry beans and rice are relatively light and travel well. I don't tend to have the patience to cook them, but rice, beans, and vegetables can be found most places and can keep you going provided you have access to ample, clean water. My preferred meals for cooking in camp have become Tasty Bite meals:
Tasty Bite You can filter their available products by whether they are vegetarian or vegan, although I don't think the website is actually showing a complete list of their products. The meals I have picked up are all "heat and eat," and they don't need to be refrigerated. Simply boil some water, put an unopened package into the hot water for 5 minutes or so, then open it and eat. Even if I'm not planning to eat at camp, I like to have a couple of those meals with me in case I don't find a good place to stop throughout the day.
Those Tasty Bite meals look pretty good though about 1g sodium per packet. Split lentils (moong dal, urad dal) can be cooked with white rice in 20 min while setting up the tent or whatnot. Even quicker is parboiled rice & dehydrated lentils.
BTW I read that some folks use a dehydrator (or low-temp oven) to dry cooked beans, lentils etc. I suppose shelf-life not as long as packaged meals but maybe good for a week or two on the road.
Otherwise in re meat vs veg/vegan...with factory farming the quality of meat has declined. I've tried some of the high-quality stuff from PA, much better than grocery-store but pretty expensive. Even grocery meat has gone up in price, going veg/vegan can save a lot of money.