best value food
 

nutrition/cost/weight, what is the best?

If you have a way to heat a small pan, bread is great. Just place however much flour (cheap!) you want, and add a bit of baking powder, a tiny bit of salt if you want, then add water until doughy. Then cook until, well, it's cooked. Tons of carbs, and healthy if you use whole grain. A bit heavy though.

Oh, and peanut butter.

trafficcasauras, For how many nights? Use a stove?

Brad

That would be bannock in Canada, or fry bake if you are in the West Indies.

Peanut butter, bananas, oatmeal, and eggs.

its my planned 10 thousand mile trip. so far, i've decided against a stove and filtration system, just tablets and firesteel. i don't want to have to make more stops for supplies than i have to.

thanks! i've never come across that suggestion. thanks again, that could change the whole cost of my tour! maybe i could get below $15 per day! that would be great! even if there was inflation in food prices, i could have a much better margin.

peanut butter is probably easier than getting the almond butter eveyone brags about.

And if you find them and know they have not been messed with, dandelion greens are one of the most nutritious greens out there and just need to be boiled for 10 minutes in a little salted water.

They provide a great source of many essential vitamins and minerals.

yeah, i've heard that they absorb bad stuff easily, so i would have to be safe. boiling sounds pretty good.

Top Ramen noodles.

The best carb to carry is couscous. It uses less fuel than any other. If you want pasta, use the thinner varieties that cook more rapidly.
Packets of noodles are quick and convenient, specially for roadside midday meals.
Chorizo sausage keeps well and is a source of fat as well as protein.
Pesto sauce is another traditional standby for cycle tourists.

On a nomadic tour you have to buy (or catch/pick) whatever is available along the way.
Gathering/catching your own food can be fun. You need to be sure of ID for fungi and ask the locals for what is good/accessible/in season. On my coast we dont have the rocky pools for muscles and limpets but we do have mud for razor shell and some nice coastal plants.

You can get(make) small wood stoves which make efficient use of small dry twigs, which are easier to find dry than bigger branches.

Where are you going?


The best for nutrition/cost/weight is whatever you can find that appeals to you along the way. The answer will vary depending on where you go and what's available.

If you want to tour on $15 a day for 10,000 miles, I suggest you revisit your plan to leave behind cooking utensils. You've already got a whole slew of suggested stuff that is highly nutritious but needs some sort of cooking. Like the dandelions and couscous, and bread and so the list goes.

I have found cooking oats to be a great source of cheap nutrition. But you still might need to cook them.

One of the things about extended touring and being intent on keeping to a short list of "simple foods" is that they become mighty boring after a relatively short time.

You really should consider thinking about the types of food that will be part of the culture of the areas you intend to visit, assuming that those areas are in different countries.

I also would suggest you seriously consider taking a big bottle of vitamin tablets.

$15 a day? 10 x $1.00 hamburgers + one $5.00 six pack!!!

One other thing to consider is ... if you are indeed planning to do a 10,000 mile trip, I presume you aren't planning to remain within one country. If you're travelling to other countries, you may not be able to bring food across the border. When you arrive in another country, there may be different food from what you're used to.

We could suggest all sorts of things, but it's possible you might not be able to get them.

FWIW, raw large flakes oats make a delicious alternative to regular breakfast cereal, you don't need to cook them and they're still edible if you only have water, but milk is nicer. Juice works too. The original museli... add whatever other seeds and fruits you can scrounge up.

Throw some peanut butter in your morning porridge and you'll be full for hours. I eat a lot of oats and they're one of the best foods going if you ask me.

Couscous could be soaked instead of cooked but you'd likely need to soak it all day. If you're really serious about not cooking, learn to eat the "raw diet" that is faddish these days; meaning it'd likely be more than 15$ a day unless you eat oatmeal and tinned veggies ever day.

Lentils are an easy, cheap and nutritious meal. Onions are cheap and tasty, the dehydrated ones are cheap enough if you want to save some weight/space. Textured vegetable protein is another cheap staple that is versatile. Wikipedia says not to eat lentils raw though, but you can make a small pop-can stove pretty cheap so I think I'll pile-on with the 'you should cook' suggestion too :)

It's not for me and for most people perhaps, but perfectly good food can be had out of dumpsters behind markets. The rats that ran over the food in the dumpster are only slightly less classy than the ones that ran over it within the market.

Roadkill, especially feral pigs, rabbits, and deer are perfectly acceptable if you are sure that their demise was recent. Cooking, however, would be needed unless one is especially hard core. Not for me either, but just sayin'.

This course offers instruction on how to live off the land.

Coconut milk, almond butter, cans of wild caught salmon, eggs if you are cooking. Also if you carry around a quality oil, like extra virgin olive oil or coconut oil, you will always be set. Meat is more nutritious than grains and fruits, but carrying it for a long time can be a problem. I like to make a bunch of jerky before I go. Bacon is something you can grab as you go, and will last a while after cooked.

Hard cheese packs lots of cals, protein, and fat into a small pkg. Vegetable juice will balance the diet and add essential minerals lost in sweat. Cheap cookies for variety and quick energy.

Being a social creature, I have taken advantage of homeless shelter food kitchens. Made a small donation and ate well. Some churches have readily available funds for aiding transients, if touring times get really tough. I've even heard of them springing for a motel.

So true! Can be found anywhere in The Americas. Add a can of tuna, fresh veggies, garlic and other spices and you pretty much have a gourmet meal.

I like the suggestions in here

great link

i love the audubon guides, sentimental. its cool the have some for mushrooms!

vitamins are good. the travel wood stove i should get.

hmmm, maybe it won't take that much money...i've been thinking about this for over a year already, and i just remembered that i had calculated $15 SOMEWHERE on this lost spreadsheet.