I suggest carrying CousCous. For those unfamiliar with CousCous, it is a partially precooked pasta like product originally from Morocco or thereabouts. Near East brand is available in several flavors. When you mix it with equal parts of boiling water, let it sit for 10-15 minutes, it will make a satisfying carb dish. If you don't carry a stove, I suggest you buy a medium tea form a fast food place, they will probably give you a paper cup with hot water and a tea bag and you can use the hot water for couscous, hopefully it is hot enough - near boiling.

I also have a no cook recipe for beans. A can of your favorite beans, e.g., chick peas, black beans, cannellini, etc, a can of a veg. e.g., corn, green beans, peas, etc. some fresh onion, salt, pepper, lime juice and you can eat it alone or scoop it with chips. You may end up with a lot and may want to save unmixed beans for later.

Some dry uncooked beans, e.g., chick peas and mung beans (you can find mung beans in Asian markets) can be eaten raw after first soaking them in water for a few hours. It is a good snack too, fills you up very quickly.

Couscous is my staple food while touring. It takes little room, no draining required, cooks faster than pasta or rice, absorbs liquid and cleaning is usually easier afterwards. I cook it with oil and salt to which I add chopped veggies and meat bought earlier in the day.

Fresh bread and veggies during the day of purchase. Ice cream is best eaten during or shortly after purchase. Dinty moore, tunafish and deviled ham are all great from the can, no stove needed; use the last piece of bread to sop up the corners. Most any cereal (Cheerios) is a great hand snack.

I wanted to go back to the original post to make sure I fully understood the question.

Without fear of members calling me a snob (BTW;I am a snob), I couldn't imagine touring for even a weekend surviving on a diet of fast food, tinned meats and peanut butter.

Tinned meats often have more than half your daily maximum for sodium. Ignoring high blood pressure, that stuff just plain makes you too thirsty and pee too often. Peanut butter is like eating liquid fat, with a bit of protein thrown in. Jerky is just...well it's not really food is it?

A member suggested couscous. Excellent choice. Throw in a little sauce or stew and you have a meal a good restaurant would serve. I suggested freeze dried foods, but I'd like to turn that up a notch.

When I tour, even for a weekend I make a really nice supper for the first night, then freeze it in a disposable bag. The meal keeps my tin of beer cool so I can enjoy it with the evening meal. Just because we are outside, doesn't mean we have to lower our culinary expectations. All you have to do is carry a stove the size of your average American hamburger.

Or do our members regularly survive on a fast food diet high in fat, sodium, and sugar?

Never mind, I'll just hit the delete button here...oops

Some of my staples for lightweight tripping include quinoa, TVP, tabouli and soups/stews. I choose not to eat meat, so these options provide protein and taste great while being extremely lightweight, packable and have almost an infinite shelf life.

Quinoa is an ancient grain that is a complete protein. You cook it just like you would rice (which takes longer than couscous, but provides way more nutrients) and can eat it plain, throw in a bullion cube and some veggies, or add it to soups. You can find tones of recepies on-line if you search it.

TVP (texturized vegetable protein) is a great substitute for ground beef. It is dehydrated, so when your ready to eat it, just add a little water (you don’t have to let it ‘soak’) and there you have it. I really like to use it in wraps like a taco. Just pack it with taco seasoning mixed with it, and when you’re ready to cook it, add a little water, heat for a bit, then trow it on a wrap with some cheese and whatever else you may like. TVP is pretty tasteless, so it just takes on the taste of whatever you cook it with. I throw it into chilies and pasta sauces too.

There are many types of tabouli, but most are made with couscous and a bunch of spices. You can buy it in a box at your grocery store. Just re-hydrate the stuff and throw it on a wrap. I like adding some tomatoes or salsa on top of mine.

Soups and stews are great, cause the packaged kind weigh nothing and most generally cook quickly. They also help to hydrate you. However, sometimes I find they are not entirely satisfying, so I’ll add instant mash potato flakes to them to thicken them up. Instant mash potatoes straight up, I could never eat, but added to soups its fantastic.

As for snacks, homemade sesame snaps are my favourite. Just basically sugar, corn syrup and sesame seeds baked on a cookie sheet, they provide a tone of energy for their weight and pack easily – no squishing these guys!

I will be takign 5 or 6 8th graders on a weekend tour soon, this is to see how they handle riding 3 days back to back , a trial for longer tours...

we will just shop near the campsite and cook on an open fire... hotdogs, fish, any meat (not ground) can be cooked on skewers, just get a stick and whittle it, take off the bark and you can cook the meat.

I will make some kind of bread in the coals, biscuits, or sg....

The only issue is whether shops will be open in teh coutnryside here in Hungary on Saturday evening.

Robi

Interesting thread!

I did my first (experimental ) fully loaded mini-tour a few weeks back; I rode 52 miles to a state park in the next state, camped the night, and came home the next day. (I had planned to make it a 3-day trip, but the weather forecast for the first day was truly vicious.)

I had checked my maps, and I knew there wasn't much in the area of the state park, but I did confirm by phone that there was a 7-11-type place up the road a way. So I figured I'd get there, set up camp, and then head out again to hunt for food.

Well. The best-laid plans, and all that . . . First of all, it took me a lot longer to get there than I had anticipated (I wasn't feeling at all well, lots of stomach trouble, so I was stopping a lot.) Then there was some drama with the campsite, and it ended up taking me close to 90 hot (and very exhausting) minutes to get set up. AND the coup de grace -- the state park is in a very hilly area. I was put-a-fork-in-me done at that point; no way was I getting back on the bike and riding 10 more hilly miles.

Fortunately, I had brought along a few of those freeze-dried "boil in a bag" meals that staehpj1 so loves.

For my first time, it wasn't too bad, though!

Couscous is easy, but it isn't very good for you -- it's just white flour done up in fluffy little balls. Quinoa, millet, and cracked wheat are far more nutritious substitutes that are comparably easy to prepare and actually taste like something other than white flour.

Coucous taste fricking great.... who cares if it is just white flour? It is a noodle....

also is cracked wheat Bulgur wheat?

Do not get me wrong Takara, the stuff you said is all great and tasty I just do not think eating coucous is going to be too bad for you if you have it on tour now and again...

robi

Also, if you're boiling something like steel cut oats, it's a great idea to boil them in something like apple cider. Tastes delicious

There are tons of backpacking sites available as resources such as this one, one of my favorites. Most of the ingrediants are available at grocery stores. You can either buy as you go or cary with. Touring is way easier than backpacking as you tend to go past stores more often, there is more space and more tolerance for weight, and less need to pack stuff out as in frequent a garbage can more often.

I like to take a small plastic container of gravy powder, plus some beef & chicken stock cubes with me. Also, there are countless varieties of 30-50g packets of powdered spices/gravy/flavouring available. I usually throw three or four into a bag for a trip. On the road I find the Mini Trangia to be fantastic. I buy whatever vegetables are available in mid-afternoon (if possible) then cook up a meal in the early evening before camp.

i would think rice would work well for touring. its light, good for you and takes a flavor quite esily. pasta is filling and and can be used for alot of different meals. if you like fish, cans of tuna are usualy cheap. off brand/store brand caned foods are typicaly cheap too.

honey roasted peanuts are an awesome snack.

Around here you can get tuna in those little bags or pouches,whatever you call them.They are lighter and easier to pack than a can,also easier to carry the trash out.

Yes, the foil pouch meat is great (better tasting than the cans). I also eat the MooseGoo (one tube lasts FOREVER) while biking and backpacking (but replace half the corn meal with powdered milk). Look at freeze dried beans and veggies... the better stuff is lightweight, rehydrates easily, and will make a killer burrito (with appropriate spices).

Open fires are not always allowed in my area so I carry a backpacking stove. To use a LOT less fuel look into insulated pot cozies (sold at ultralight backpacking suppliers). Instead of simmering for 20 minutes you just heat up the food and put the pot into the cozy. It will keep it -very- hot for at least 30 minutes (i.e. simmer w/o fuel).

I've found that the local grocery store has quick and easy pasta and rice meals that are better than freeze dried and a lot less expensive. Some are not quite "dry" but almost, still pretty light, and seems more like fresh when you cook. This site has some good ideas and good links to touring recipes: https://www.biketoledo.net.

I buy apples and bananas pre-wrapped. Also fig newtons.

A favorite touring dinner is a family recipe that includes sour cream(or milk/h&h), cheese, ham and potatoes. Boil potatoes, cut into bite sized chunks (or slice them), toss in chunks of ham, diced cheese and your dairy. Let it 'stew' into a nice cheesy mess. Noms.

Pre-wrapped apples and bananas????

3 oz. tuna or chicken pouch + 1-2 packets of Long John Silvers tartar sauce/crackers/tortilla/pita. Yum.

Ramen!! Cant be beat just beat a pack up and eat it like chips or cook it like a regular meal!!!! Got to hand it to the Japanese they seem to get everything right

Yep.
They are very "a peeling". I eat the apple wrapper (aka skin), toss the banana wrap and carry home the fig newton wrap.