Thanks to Simply Hike for this guest article!

Maintaining a healthy diet is important at all times, but it is even more essential for anyone planning a hiking trip, particularly for an extended period. Many factors will influence the type of nutrition that you take with you on a hike, including the length of the trip, the availability of resources for restocking of supplies during the hike, and your own tastes and requirements. Your body will need suitable sustenance while you burn off energy on a hike and the packing of nutrition can be both a pragmatic and mathematically dictated task. As with all aspects of hiking, it is the planning stage that should be considered to be the most important.

If you are going on a short hike that will be over within a day, the emphasis is less on the type of food you take and more on how much you will honestly need to keep you going. Exercise requires carbohydrates which are to be found in rice, pasta, cereals, bread, potatoes, fruit, beans and some dairy products, to name but a few.

Hikes that are going to span multiple days require greater thought and foresight. Carbohydrate is stored in both the liver and the muscles in the form of glycogen. If fatigue starts to set in during an extended hike, it is likely to indicate that your glycogen levels are low. In addition to the foods rich in carbohydrates above, you may also wish to consider lean meat, poultry, eggs, nuts and pulses, many of which can be obtained in highly portable form.

You will of course need to balance the weight of any given foodstuff against its relative nutritional value and the size of the packaging that contains it. Many hikers rely on dehydrated foods, because even though most of the water has been removed, the nutritional value of the item stays largely intact. Removing water reduces the weight and size of the item, but you will of course need some water to prepare the item for consumption.

Hikers have used canned goods for many years in order to get essential nutrients when out in the wilderness. Virtually anything can be bought in canned form, although the weight of canned goods means that they can only be carried in limited numbers. Many hikers choose canned goods if they want to take a “bonus” meal with them.

One significant nutritional consideration for hikers, all too often ignored, is the availability of water. Keeping yourself hydrated is more important than staving off hunger pangs. The body simply cannot function without adequate water intake. Depending on your body mass, experts believe that you should consume a minimum of two litres of water every day during a hike, on average, ideally more. As a result you should always equip yourself with two litres at the beginning of any day, even if your planned route will take you through somewhere that should provide a refill. Plans can change and nothing is a certainty. If weight really is critical and natural water sources are definitely available en route, a portable lightweight water purifier and tablets may suffice.