Aaron Owens runs “Backcountry Foodie,” a one-stop shop for backpackers and long-distance hikers who want to level up their food game in the backcountry. From ultra-light food recipes and meal planners to a robust calorie calculator and resupply service, Aaron has you covered. She loves backcountry food so much that she’ll even pack your food bag for you and ship it to your home so all you need to do is toss it in your pack and head out the door!
Key Takeaways:
Show Notes and Links:
Thanks for listening! Check out the links below to learn more, connect, and support the show.
Aaron Owens runs “Backcountry Foodie,” a one-stop shop for backpackers and long-distance hikers who want to level up their food game in the backcountry. From ultra-light food recipes and meal planners to a robust calorie calculator and resupply service, Aaron has you covered. She loves backcountry food so much that she’ll even pack your food bag for you and ship it to your home so all you need to do is toss it in your pack and head out the door!
Key Takeaways:
Show Notes and Links:
Thanks for listening! Check out the links below to learn more, connect, and support the show.
Welcome back to the Byland podcast. My name is Emory. Thank you so much for being here. Welcome to Better Backpacking.
Speaker 1:This is episode 165, and my guest today is Erin Owens, otherwise known as the Back Country Foodie. Now, I started following Erin back in 2017 when she kicked off her PCT hike and I have to say it has been a pleasure watching her become what she is. She has carved out a nice little niche for herself as the go-to foodie for all things backpacking and specifically through hiking, and the reason Erin is on the show today is because I had a moment last summer where I was on a backpacking trip, looking into my food bag and thinking I have got to do something different. I was just bored of what I'd been eating and immediately Erin popped into my head. If you're not familiar with Erin and what she does, she has a massive passion for back country food and it is second to none, and she just so happens to be a dietitian, so she has the education to back up everything that she's doing. I promise you that you will leave this episode with a ton of information, actionable things you can put into your next food bag on your next backpacking trip. But if, for some reason you're still struggling with the back country food thing, she's got you covered because she offers meal planning and shipping services. That's right. She will literally plan and pack your meals for you. So all you have to do is put in your order, have it delivered, toss it in your backpack and go backpacking. How awesome is that? Like I said, she's a foodie when it comes to back packing. So if you're struggling, enjoy your food in the back country. She can help. Please take a minute to go to the show notes, check out the links, go to a website and check out all of the services she offers. There's recipes, there's shipping services, there's all kinds of stuff, and she enjoys doing it. So, yeah, I'm really excited to have her on the podcast today because, again, I'd like to learn as well.
Speaker 1:I don't know everything. I want to get better, and Erin gave me a ton of tips and suggestions on how I can improve my own meals in the back country. If you like the podcast and you like what I'm doing here with Byland and you want to help me out, you can do so in a few ways. First, if you or anyone you know it's new to backpacking, send them my way, because I have a beginner backpacking course called Learn how To Backpack that I designed specifically for beginners. It is very affordable, it's easy to take, it's all online and it will get people up and going quickly, easily, and just get rid of all of that learning curve that happens early on, so you can kind of get out there and enjoy the good parts sooner rather than later. So send them my way. That would be awesome if you know someone that is new to backpacking.
Speaker 1:Secondly, you can share the podcast with a friend, a colleague, or toss it on social media. That would be great. And if you're feeling frisky, you can also donate to the show through the link in the show notes to help me pay for all the things that go into producing a podcast. There's subscriptions, there's hardware, software, all kinds of stuff. Even just a few bucks really does go a long way. So if you feel like you want to do that, you can donate to the show. But any of those options are a great way to support the show and I appreciate all of them. To all of you that have donated recently or even in the past, thank you. I really, really appreciate it. It really does mean a lot. It's very encouraging that someone put their own donation into the podcast. It just makes me want to do more of them, so thank you. Thank you so much for your support. All right, please enjoy this episode with Aaron Owens. Aaron, welcome to the podcast. I'm really excited to have you on. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2:I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1:I believe or not. I think maybe you know, I don't know. I've actually followed you since your PCT. When was that Like 20, did you go?
Speaker 2:2017? Yeah, we're coming on six years. Backcountry 50 is coming on six years, december 26. So that was almost 70 years ago that I started the PCT. I started my 40th birthday March 26 of 17.
Speaker 1:What was the? I have to know the backstory. I love getting to know well, because here's the thing I feel like the rest of this conversation. This is the launch pad for the rest of the conversation. I think, I could be wrong, but like at least for me, I found you when you were hiking the PCT and you were into food then. But like I don't know your backstory on how you got to the PCT, I had a midlife crisis, okay, so I turned 40 in. January.
Speaker 2:Maybe that's is that, when it happens, I was turning 40 and was miserable at work. I lived in Seattle at the time and my commute it turned into what were you doing for work?
Speaker 2:I've been a clinical dietician my entire career, so at the time I'd been already 16 years as a clinical dietician Got it. I'm living in Seattle, two hour commute each way, so I would get up at four to get to work at eight and then you get home when it's dark. I'm too tired to exercise. So it was just this awful cycle. I, you know, I had the house, I had the car, I had the relationship, I had all the things good job that you're supposed to have. But I was still miserable.
Speaker 2:And then I started making really bad life decisions that my friends are picking up on in my family, one being this is a good story I met a guy. This was before I met my now husband, but I met a guy online. He was a rock climber in the Philippines and never met him, flew to the Philippines, hiked around, climbed with him for a week and then we went to Bali for a week and then, luckily, I didn't die and he didn't do anything to me and came home and was like, okay, I really got to do something because that was a really bad life decision. So that's when I decided like, what am I going to do with myself.
Speaker 2:So I quit my job and decided I was going to hike the PCT because I figured five months is plenty of time to figure out, like, what is going on right now and then give me time to think about what am I going to do next and that's when the backcountry foodie thing started is that I had been a long distance trail runner at the time so and I was really struggling keeping weight on because running four to eight hours at a time, I had to eat a ton of food. So I knew that if I was struggling to keep weight on doing that many miles one day a week, I'm going to keep the weight on doing 20 miles a day for, you know, five months straight. So I started kind of panicking about that because at the time I'd only hiked up to five days was my longest hike ever and you probably, like you, knew too much Like you knew?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I knew Right.
Speaker 1:You knew too much Like a lot of people go into these hikes and they're like meh yeah no, I had already.
Speaker 2:It was like, okay, I can't afford mountain house because it's too bulky, it's too expensive. And then I'd never made DIY backpacking food. So I started reading cookbooks and looking into all those things and then again, being the dietitian knowing too much, I was like these don't have enough carbs, this doesn't have enough protein, this doesn't have enough XYZ. Okay, now what do I do? So I just started tinkering in the kitchen, taking those available recipes, making them into what I needed them to do, and then I also learned about ultra light. I'd never heard about ultra light backpacking. I was somebody that carried a 35 pound pack.
Speaker 1:And again.
Speaker 2:I was like I can't carry this thing because I packed everything up like I normally was, like this is really heavy, like I got to knock some of this out. So that's where also the ultra light food idea came in, as I tinkered everything's in the computer software so it's very nerdy, very numbers oriented and tinkered around enough to get recipes as small as possible, as much nutrition as possible. And then that's what I did. I made 450 pounds of food, five months worth of food before I left and just took off on the trail. And then people what was kind of funny, I'd never had an Instagram account before.
Speaker 2:So this is like totally new to me, the social media thing, as I was a preceptor for students at the hospital. They're like oh Aaron, you've totally got to get on Instagram, you got to share this with people. And then that's kind of how, as I went on my hike, I was starting to get direct messages like where are you? Did you leave any food in the hiker box, like I'm totally into this. And then it just went on from there. And we're now six years later. Now I have an online have a recipe platform, a nutrition coaching, a resupply service, and we just opened a shop for backpacking food three weeks ago, four weeks ago now.
Speaker 1:So where's the shop? Where's the shop?
Speaker 2:That's an online shop, a Shopify. Okay, got it Cool. It'll soon be physical because. I'm out growing my house. Yeah, I was gonna say where?
Speaker 1:where are you going to set up shop at? On the physical location?
Speaker 2:So we're currently in my commercial kitchen. I just got my commercial kitchen license is in San Luis, the Vismo, California, so I'm looking for more in Orchid, California is where we live. So somewhere between here and there I'm going to look for some retail space and have my own kitchen and shop.
Speaker 1:I love slow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's nice. It's so nice to do it. I found the perfect little place that I'm really hoping I can get into.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, san Luis, the Vismo. I've gone there so many times for work and I just every time I go there I'm like it almost feels like a second home. I drive through them like these old homes, the towns, cute, it's like just, oh man, that whole area. But the whole area is like very, very nice, especially if you like wine.
Speaker 2:Oh, that too. Well, and we're an hour to the mountains. I mean there's, we're close to the beach or close to the mountains. I mean everything's right here and it's after living in Seattle the commute it takes me 10 minutes to get anywhere Instead of two hours. So I really I never thought I would like California, but I've really fallen in love with the Central Coast.
Speaker 1:Oh for sure, and it's very funny. I live in Portland or right across the river from Portland, and I feel like it's very not that they're the same, but the idea of that you're kind of centrally located. You can go do a lot of different things. Interesting. How did you were you into backpacking at the time Was through hiking on your radar at this time?
Speaker 2:It had been on my radar for a while. It's something that I wanted to do. I don't think I thought about it as intensely as I did when I was like I really need to do something Again. I started backpacking in 2001. And I'll never forget that very first trip. Blue jeans long sleeve cotton shirt and a RAI backpack that didn't fit and mountaineering boots.
Speaker 1:It was awful, all the things you just don't do so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd already been backpacking, but, like I said, three to five days was the most. I'd ever done so this was, and I'd actually asked for the time off and my boss said you can't take the time off. So I was like, well, I'm out then, Because I'm pretty unhappy and I'm too young to be unhappy. So I'm going to do this and I'll just figure it out when I get back.
Speaker 1:How did that did it? What'd you do when you got back? See, I don't know what happened after you got back.
Speaker 2:So well, I ended up getting injured early on. I hurt my shoulder, so then I went home and rehabbed. I was like, okay, I quit my job, I have five months worth of food left. Now what do I do? So I jumped on that place on trail and then I jumped on the AT and midway at Harper's Ferry because that's where the bubble is starting to hit and then the AT and the PCT hiking are totally different. So I was in PCT kind of shape and not AT.
Speaker 2:So I ended up tearing my quad muscle 500 miles in on the AT and then that was kind of the end of the season 2017. And then, because people were still really excited about the foodie thing, I was like, okay, now what do I do? I decided to write a cookbook in 2018 when I got back, and then I don't like to write and kind of the cookbook. I didn't like that, which is why we have the online platform now, as I like to share, as I create. I didn't want to have to create, hold on to everything like two other recipes, and then I share them kind of thing for paper, for cookbook purposes.
Speaker 2:So that's why we transition to the online platform that we have today.
Speaker 1:Oh cool, wow, I didn't, so you didn't bring any. You made all of your own food that year.
Speaker 2:I'll never do five months in advance again, but yes, I made all my own food. I haven't eaten and I haven't made a pre-made meal since then.
Speaker 1:I've made all my food for the last six, seven years.
Speaker 2:So when people ask well, can you recommend like a commercial meal, I can't because I haven't eaten one? I have no idea.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's incredible. See, here's the thing. So the reason why I wanted to chat with you is one I think a lot of people. I find that it's like gear and it's food that people struggle with. It's like dialing in their gear and I would say that, like, the gear thing is easily solvable. I mean that's easily fixable. The food thing not so much. And I have horror stories in my past with not eating the right food and then my diet on the PCT. I struggled for the like most people struggle for the first couple hundred miles trying to figure out like what the heck is my body Like? I was just bonk all the time. I mean, I remember one time I was I just took a break and I just had just eaten lunch. We get up and we're on the middle, in the middle of a hill. I start hiking and like five or 10 minutes later I was like like just bonking right.
Speaker 1:It's like what the heck is wrong with me? And I took a break eight to pop tarts. And then it was like I was right as rain and I started going but I didn't know what was happening. And then I mean, I know, this is horrible. I've talked to Kyle, my buddy, about this as well, but for me pastries just forced me up the trail Like I did.
Speaker 2:the junk food.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just did the junk food diet. I caved and I felt the best eating that kind of stuff. It was terrible for my teeth. I had a lot of cavities at the end of the trail, oh gosh, but that was like my. That's what ended up working for me.
Speaker 1:On the trail, I hit a wall this last year where I was like I don't want to do this anymore, like I just like my. I was just I've been eating the same stuff all the time and I know what my body needs. But like I think I'm just in the different mindset, like I'm starting to take my little girls backpacking, I'm doing weekend trips and more like enjoyable, not trying to crush miles, type food type trips. So I need food that goes along with that. Like I want to, I guess, eat, when I say better, I want to eat, I want to eat, taste your food and different food. So and I think a lot of people are in the same boat Like they just eat the same things all the time. Do you, did you ever struggle with that, or did you? Or do you struggle with eating the same stuff all the time, or do you have a diverse menu that you eat from?
Speaker 2:Actually, this is the one thing I like to focus on and like you're saying you're eating pop, tarts and those kinds of things is I try to encourage people to continue what you normally eat at home into the back country, because that's what you're used to metabolizing, you're used to getting those energy sources, the fiber sources and those kind of things. So that's why my recipes are just regular food. They're just regular pastas or regular bean dips, they're regular hummus, they're just something you would normally eat at home but they're in a dry form. So then you feel you don't feel like you're eating something that's totally different.
Speaker 2:Which is kind of going back to what you're saying a second ago, is that I also like to treat or teach people to think of yourself as an athlete, because that's what I've noticed with my coaching customers is that they will look at their home diet and then look at their hiking diet. Is that their hiking diet will be less food than what they normally eat at home. So we do a lot of let's look at what you normally do and then we boost on top of that. So once people kind of change their mindset that I am an athlete, what other? I like to think of it this way as a sport. What other sport do you carry a heavy backpack, you're doing 10 to 15 miles a day. You're sleeping on the ground, you know. You're doing an inclement weather, you're doing elevation change, I don't know. I mean even triathletes. They get to go home and eat a pasta dinner, you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:So I think it's just a mindset change to fuel, use food as fuel and then try to eat just regular things. So yeah, as for repeating, I don't really I have a problem with repeating because I get bored with food, so I like to eat lots of different things all the time. So does that answer your question? Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1:I just want to be able to look in my bag and be like, oh cool, this is like. I don't want to eat for sustenance, I want to eat. I just want to.
Speaker 1:I'm like yeah, I want to enjoy what I'm eating, but I but I don't personally know how to do that. So, going back to the eating what you eat at home and going and then doing that on trial, I will say that that sounds very familiar because I think a lot of people separate the two things and they're like this is what I eat in the back country and this is what I eat at home. I mean, I do that myself. Do you have examples or guidance on how to reframe your mind for people Like I don't know how to explain this, but a lot of times, even after the PCT, I find myself when I'm gearing up for a backpacking trip. I'm like I don't even know where I'm supposed to start, like I'm losing.
Speaker 1:I sometimes I lose track of, and it's embarrassing because you'd think by now I would have it down. But that's like super. What I have down is very one dimensional. I want to like expand it out. So when you're getting ready for a backpacking trip or when someone's getting ready, where should they start? What's like a good starting point for that.
Speaker 2:It's actually not as complicated as you think.
Speaker 1:I try to really simplify.
Speaker 2:I really try to simplify things so it doesn't feel so overwhelming. So, going back to the what you eat at home, translating into the back country so if you tend to eat cold cereal in the morning at home, then do like bran flakes and everything's dry, and that's the other thing I try to do is everything's just dry ingredients based. I don't do a lot of making fresh and dehydrating because we're all busy, we don't have time to do that.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So an example would be whatever like your cold cereal, if you do a bran flakes or something and then do some sort of milk powder whether you're vegan, you use almond powder, soy, milk powder, dairy powder and then a boost it. This is where the extra nutrition comes from. As a hiker is add some pecans, add some walnuts, add some raisins, add some coconut, add some extra something to give it a little more of a boost, and then you just have a normal breakfast. Just add water, eat it with a spoon, you're done.
Speaker 2:I particularly fond of yogurt parfaits at home. I eat yogurt, berries and granolas for my normal breakfast. So you use freeze dried yogurt which you can get in the baby food aisle they're just little baby yogurt mounds and then I crush them up and add water and it turns right into yogurt, Put a little bit of granola in there and some berries and then you've got like a normal breakfast. So similar kind of thing. Like I love, hummus is what I normally have. Pretzels and hummus is like a regular lunch for me at home. So there's actually I'm going to give a shout out to mother of products. They have an amazing hummus mix. It's just add water, add a little bit of olive oil, dip it with pretzels and there's the lunch. I mean super duper easy.
Speaker 1:And what about like caloric intake, like that breakfast, like a breakfast parfait, or this, the other one you mentioned? I know a lot of people are obsessed with calories and you mentioned like a boost. Is that where you're talking about? Like the boost in calories? Right?
Speaker 2:So that's going from your normal breakfast to, like, your hiking. So you need to eat more when you're hiking backpacking than you do at home. So it's kind of like start with my normal home and then add more to it. Ok, and as for how many calories, we actually spend an entire year building a calorie calculator. I don't know if I mentioned this when we were chatting before.
Speaker 1:No, no, no.
Speaker 2:So I was super frustrated with the calorie calculators online because they produce horrible estimations, being that there's so many variables, like I was mentioning before your backpack weight, your type of trail that you're on, the elevation, the altitude, the temperature, and then a lot of the capric. Later, excuse me, you also have to think about your base of metal ball. Great, we're going to get a little nerdy here.
Speaker 1:Let's do it, let's start out.
Speaker 2:Men are different than women.
Speaker 2:A five foot two person is different from a six foot two person. One hundred twenty pound person is different from a two hundred twenty five pound person, so those aren't taken into account in a lot of the online calculators. So we built one that has 14 variables. It is like every possible variable that you can think of and it took us an entire year to build out the algorithm to mesh all those together. And it's a free resource on a website. So and I've checked it against all my trips and it's spot on to what I've used before. So I really believe in that. The number that's estimated is accurate. So that's kind of a resource we're trying to really get people to use. So you don't have to think about the calories.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I had an algorithm specialist, as much smarter when it comes to calculus and those kind of things.
Speaker 1:But yeah, another dietician and I've read all the research that's out there.
Speaker 2:It's based on military equations, the Olympic Committee, elite athletes, so we just meshed all these different equations that are out there from the research. It's not me just making up numbers, right? And then, yeah, my algorithm guy plugged in Because it would have taken me a half an hour to do this math. I mean it's just crazy math. And then we had a plug in guy build it for us. So, yeah, it took a team of four to make it happen, but it did take us an entire year to work out all the kinks and make sure everything jives and it provided an estimate that was accurate. So how does it work?
Speaker 1:So if I wanted to use the calculator to find out my, to find out my caloric needs for what I'm doing, what's my input?
Speaker 2:So it goes through your height, your age, your weight, your backpack weight, what distance you're covering. And here's another key thing that the other calculators don't do is is it a day hike or an overnight trip?
Speaker 2:Because a lot of the online, because a day hike is the calories are while you're actively hiking, so that could be three hours, five hours, An overnight trip. You're burning calories while you're sleeping. You're burning calories while you're sitting in camp. So there's a significant difference from how many calories you're burning while you're physically moving versus a 24 hour time period. So that's where I was finding significant. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:When you yeah, I mean just because you're burning calories.
Speaker 2:You're burning calories, I mean just being alive. For me is 1500 calories. So if the calculator only does like 2000 calories while I'm actively moving, I'm already deficient 1500 because it didn't take in what I need to just breathe in my heart to pump.
Speaker 1:Oh dude, what Wait? Okay, so these other calculators are only calculating daytime activity, like activity burn not like. Here's your, what your body burns up, just being alive in 24 hours Right. Oh, I didn't know. Huge difference.
Speaker 2:So that's where I was seeing that hikers were relying on these calculator outputs. But there's like it's not right and most people don't know what I know about knowing to add on extra calories for your basal metabolic rate. You know, just being alive, how are you?
Speaker 1:able to achieve. So, okay, do you have a like a person like me? I'm like I'm 40, like five, eight, 160. If I go on a 30, like a fire, 20 miles a day, generally, is that. I mean, is there like a round estimate of how much I would need?
Speaker 2:It's all because every hiker is different, your body types are different, your age is different, the terrain is different and just being a lot of people don't know this just standing at altitude above 12,000 feet, your basal metabolic rate, just to live, increases by 30%. Just standing there, just standing there.
Speaker 1:What is? What happens when our bodies don't reach this like calorie? What happens when we're deficient?
Speaker 2:I should say that's when you hit the wall like you're talking about. That's when you run out of energy. You start getting cranky or hangry. I know myself well enough to where I start stumbling because my legs start getting really wobbly, and my husband knows now too that he's like you're starting to stumble, you're tripping, you need to stop and eat something. So I've learned what my body does when I'm not eating enough. And then you're just risking getting especially if you're doing some mountaineering things, if you're starting to get like really depleted, you're risking getting injured.
Speaker 2:And I actually have a story where I fell off the side of the mountain and landed on a tree limb and then paled my leg and had to quit my trip early and go to the emergency room and get stitches. I was too focused on hiking and having a good time and didn't eat, and then I just depleted myself and, off the side of the mountain, I went into a tree.
Speaker 1:Does calorie deficiency hit people different? Everyone? Does everyone look different how it hits?
Speaker 2:them.
Speaker 1:Everybody's a little different. Yeah, like mental fog or physical impacts, right, some people get really, really cranky.
Speaker 2:I physically get the jello leg. So everybody kind of gets a little bit different, something different. Some people get headaches, so it's just kind of noticing. And that's what I found when I first started hiking is that I thought it just sucked Like I thought you're just cranky, I thought I just heard it all the time, you know, I thought it was just this. But once I started focusing on feeding myself, that went away and then I enjoyed the hike more, because then I was like okay, I'm sore because this is a really hard climb, not because my body's mad at me, because I haven't put enough fuel in it.
Speaker 1:Man, I feel like people need to know that that was like one of the first.
Speaker 2:That's why I have a job.
Speaker 1:I mean that's one of the things I try to. I mean that's why I started doing what I do, because I'm like, once I realize that backpacking doesn't suck, like the hard part about backpacking should be the physical portion, the physical exertion yeah the physical exertion, or, oh, I'm mentally challenging myself. If it's not that, like you shouldn't have pain from your backpack, you shouldn't be angry and like no energy. Those are all fixable problems and the cool thing is about that like it's not uncomfortable, it's not painful.
Speaker 2:It doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't have to be Exactly.
Speaker 1:We need to talk right and you're just going at it from the food standpoint, which is so huge because my first real backpacking trip. I do this annual trip around Helens, so it's like 30 miles, and the first time I did it it was my. I would say that it was my first real backpacking trip and because it was a few days of sustained back. It was supposed to be a few days of sustained backpacking, but we ended up doing it in two days and I'd never done that before.
Speaker 2:And that's a tough hike. I know that one. Yeah, it's not, it's fairly tough right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for some reason it's like 30 miles that are. It's just hard on the body. For some reason the trail conditions are kind of rough. There's not quality trail but it's just kind of rugged and I did it. I agreed to do it in two days and I didn't eat much for the first. I was trying to keep up with the guy that I was hiking with and I didn't set myself on a schedule to eat. I didn't stop myself and so and I wasn't eating and I wasn't drinking, and it all caught up to me at like 10 miles and I was by then I was so far gone.
Speaker 2:It takes hours to recover.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I couldn't eat. You know the feeling where you're like I can't physically eat anything. We had five more miles to go. I was basically begging this guy like I need to stop crawled into my tent and just pretended I didn't exist. I couldn't eat anything and he was totally fine. I don't remember what he was doing eating or drinking or anything but I just had not fed my body and it was 10 miles of pretty rugged country and I was Done. It was done. I was cooked. He gave me some tea and that helped with my appetite to where I was able to eat a meal and go back to sleep. I'll never forget that trip. I learned my lesson and then, going fast forward to the PCT, I just put myself on. I'm the guy that I have to eat every hour Something. I have to eat something every hour. It doesn't need to be a full meal, but I need like a couple hundred calories every hour, it appears, and that's the way it should be Every 60 to 90 minutes.
Speaker 2:If you're actively hiking, then you should be at least nibbling on something, Because it only takes one to three hours to completely deplete your carbohydrate stores in your body. So, depending on the intensity of what you're doing, it could only be 60 minutes and then you're done. Or if it's a less intense hike, then you've got about three hours' worth of stored energy and then you're going to be done.
Speaker 1:And one of what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:your situation is I'm a solo hiker. Now Because of that reason is that I have to follow schedule, so I might hike with somebody and I'm like I got to stop and take a break, eat my snack, you can keep going, I'll catch up with you, kind of thing, because I learned my lesson. Similar situation is trying to keep up with people not following my schedule and you feel terrible.
Speaker 1:The peer pressure of hiking. It's terrible, it is the worst thing ever, because you feel like you need to keep going. When I go with someone, if I'm hiking and I know that I'm more in shape or I'm better equipped, I make sure that I check in with that person all the time and we're not going further than what we need to be. And I'm just like I'm eating right now, like we're doing this Like sorry, and I'm the same way like. I'd much rather hike alone, because I perform way better hiking alone.
Speaker 2:Well, and I follow my own pace too. That's what happened on the AT is that I met this amazing trail family and it was like I got to hustle, hustle, hustle because I want to keep up with them, but then I pushed myself so hard that I tore my quad muscle. So now I actually enjoy my hikes a lot more because I'm not hustling and I've just become more comfortable with being by myself, which, being a female, it's harder because we're worried about critters, men, all those kind of things. So I think a lot more women are at more risk of this happening because they want to keep up with somebody if they don't necessarily feel as comfortable being by themselves.
Speaker 1:You know it's funny. I'm actually wrapping up. I'm writing a solo backpacking course to help people push past that barrier and it's more of like a personal development course over more than anything else. Like there's no skills involved with solo backpacking for the most part. Like if you can go backpacking, you can do it by yourself.
Speaker 1:You can go by yourself but the getting to that point of like being okay, being alone out there takes some work. So I've, like it's called, six weeks to solo backpacking that's what I'm going to launch it as, and it's literally just like exposure therapy, like to the outdoors and then get to that place because backpacking alone is really, really fun.
Speaker 2:And it's free. And it's like you get a notification for me.
Speaker 1:I mean, backpacking with people is fun too, but there's something different about going alone. It's empowering, and you can just. I remember the first time I ever hiked alone, by myself. I remember thinking I was like oh, I can do anything I want, I can stop here, or I don't have to stop here to Lake for as long as you want.
Speaker 2:You can push up and over as long as you can stop, for you know dinner whenever you want. Go to bed as early as you want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so fun. What are your thoughts on the junk food diet as a dietitian?
Speaker 2:I think it's more age related. Younger people can get away with it because they're able to recover easier. They've got more energy. I've even just noticed in the last five years I need to really pay attention to what I eat. I don't recover nearly as well if I eat the junk food diet. That's also not what I normally eat on a regular day. My body freaks out like what is all this sugar? Where's the extra protein, the car, these kinds of things you normally function on? For me personally, it doesn't work very well. I've just noticed that with my customers too. The older hikers do a lot better when they pay more attention to it. Younger hikers, you can usually get away with it. I've noticed it be more age related.
Speaker 1:When you say that one of the things I was curious about you mentioned the importance of keeping your day-to-day diet and transitioning that to the field. Can you expand on why that's important or what happens to your body when you all of a sudden just shift your diet? I would imagine it's similar to if you travel and all of a sudden you're now eating food in the airport or on the road and something changes in your body. I think people notice that in their bodies as well, but I don't really know what's happening. Can you go down that rabbit hole for us?
Speaker 2:Junk food diet and I also believe no food is a bad food. That's the thing too is I do have my snickers, I do have my gummy bears, I do have those things. When I consider junk food diet, I think of that as a whole picture. You're consistently eating lots of processed sugars, which will give you, like you're saying, your pop tarts. It gives you an energy boost, but a lot of those don't have the complex carbohydrates which actually level out that energy for a longer period of time.
Speaker 2:A lot of the simple sugar foods don't have the protein. That's also going to even out that, because protein takes longer to digest than simple sugars just being like cane sugar, those simple corn syrup, those kind of things that are in a lot of processed foods. So the protein will slow down your digestion, give your energy a longer time period and also, again being an older person, I just recover better because I'm using my muscles and I just need that to feel better the next day. The other thing a lot of processed foods don't have fiber. So if you're used to eating fruits and veggies, salads, those kind of fresh fruit in your daily diet I'm a dietitian I'm not worried about talking about poop, but you could have bowel problems.
Speaker 1:I mean, when we say something shifts, I would say, 90 people get backed up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Like that's when everyone complains about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what everyone complains about is like they just get backed up.
Speaker 2:Yep, and then the opposite can happen too. So a lot of hikers that I found want to be ultra light hikers, so they really focus on using olive oil being the most chlorically dense food possible. So they douse everything in olive oil that can actually make you really loose. So if you suddenly go to the super high-fat diet that you're not used to, you have the opposite problem, so you can have really loose stools instead of getting backed up. So that's something I recommend people do is like, don't jump into the super high-fat diet if that's not something you're used to doing. Just kind of slowly ramp it up if that's what you want to use to add some more calories to your diet.
Speaker 1:So that's why it's important to like is it hard on your body to do that, to make that transition if you go from daily food to just your backpacking food being drastically different, is it hard on your body?
Speaker 2:I made that mistake on the PCT the first week because I was focused so much on getting all these calories in and adding olive oil before I'd done this whole new diet thing. And I mean I did, I got really loose stools and I'm like what is going on? You know, this is not my norm.
Speaker 2:So, for me it happened within the first couple of days and again, I think everybody's different and to the degree that you change your diet, I think it's going to make a difference too. So if you go from eating really complex carbs whole grains, you know those things fruits and veggies, to suddenly sour patch kids you know gummy bears, you know Pop Tarts, all those things that are significantly different, you'll probably notice a lot sooner Then. If you just don't want to Pop Tarts for breakfast but you still eat like tortillas with some other things at lunch that have similar things to what you're used to. If you're used to eating peanut butter and jelly for lunch, you know that kind of thing, so on.
Speaker 1:So the junk food. Am I understanding this correctly that you approach it as more of like a? Would you use junk food like a Snickers as like a tool in your food? Like to as like a? Ok, I need a quick shot of sugar and energy, but I also need to level it out. With what. Would you level it out with Like, if you? Eat a Snickers for how would you employ a Snickers, I guess?
Speaker 2:And I also believe in happy foods, so there's times where I like to have this is where I just know makes me happy If I'm having a really crappy day on trail.
Speaker 2:Snickers always make me happy and licorice is my go to. So if I'm really struggling and I just need a quick energy boost, like licorice is my go to that. I know I need to follow that up with something better well, not better, but with complex carbs, that kind of thing because licorice is going to give me that boost to like I'm really struggling and I'm not quite to the top of the climb. I'll pop one of those, but that energy might be depleted by the time I get there. And now you have to go back down. So this is where I was saying going down, I don't need wobbly legs going down the other side, I need to have my legs strong, otherwise I'm going to go tumbling down. So I think, like you said, I think there's a purpose, a reason to use those and different timing to use those Snickers. I believe it's actually a good food because it's carbs, protein and fat all in one. So I don't feel like it's a bad food and if you have a smile on your face, then I think it's totally fine.
Speaker 1:So when do you? So, if you're going to eat a Snickers, when do you eat it? And then what do you do? You eat it with something.
Speaker 2:It's usually my kind of set aside food that when I'm really struggling and I need energy it's kind of like my set aside food. That just kind of lives. It's a part of my like my emergency kit. You know, like I'm really struggling, I need a boost or I'm just really cranky and I know this is going to make me happy, so it's just kind of one of those things I set aside to have when I need it.
Speaker 1:Walk me through. You make these food bags, for which I want to get to here in a minute, but when you make meal plans for people, can you give me a general outline of like what a day of food looks like, because I think a lot of people like me A lot of times I just need some ideas on like what? What are some ideas that I can put in my bag that make sense for backpack? And one of the things I appreciate about you is that you have this dietitian background. You understand that weight is important.
Speaker 1:You also like to eat food and you know you like to just you like to taste things and your recipes, the things you put out, I'm like like I remember I saw the whole yogurt parfait thing and I was like, what the heck? How have I never like, how have I never thought about this stuff? You know what I mean it's like. But once you see it, I remember reading some of your recipes I was like, oh, that makes total sense, but I can't get my brain there because I'm not like a food person, right? So when you build out like a day's worth of food for someone, can you give me like a general feel for what you're doing what that looks like like breakfast snacks, lunch, dinner and the snacks in between, and how you, why you have it that way?
Speaker 2:Well, and one of the things I think is really important too is all my meal plans are customized. I don't like to share meal plans on our website, because you know what time you wake up is different from your partner. You know what time you like to take a break, what time you some people don't like to eat breakfast, still have their coffee and then start eating. So all my meal plans are completely customized based on what your hiking strategy is like, what your day looks like, so each meal plan could look very different Right now. Right now, I'm working with a gal that's going to do the AT. She doesn't like eating a lot in the morning, so she has coffee which has zero calories in it, so we're actually going to switch it to. And I don't know if you know about my meal replacement drinks. I believe heavily in them.
Speaker 1:I remember hearing about them yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So essentially what they are is they're some sort of milk based. There's some sort of protein in there, the carb, so it's kind of this full meal in a shake, eight ounces or so. You get all your nutrition, carbs and everything. So they work really well when you're not hungry or if you just need a quick thing on the go. So what we're going to do for her is have like a half serving in the morning, because she likes to eat lunch or eat breakfast about an hour after she gets going. And her breakfast she loves eating cereal at home. So we're going to do one of those cereal combinations.
Speaker 2:So cereal could it could be a cold cereal. If you like to cook, it could be an oatmeal, and this is what I see a lot of hikers doing. It's just a packet of oatmeal that's like a hundred calories. That's not going to sustain you. So do oats at some kind of milk base, add nuts, coconut Coconut's kind of my go-to secret weapon. It's tons of calories but it doesn't add a lot of flavor and then dried fruit in there. So you go from a hundred calorie packet to a 600 calorie meal and it's not hard.
Speaker 2:They're all just normal things you get at the grocery store and then, like we were talking about so, then, the next thing about how many hours in between your breakfast meal and your lunch and we talked about eating every six to 90 minutes. So insert snacks in between and then that could be whether it's a handful of nuts, a bar, you know, a gel, if you need like a quick boost. I don't know goldfish. I love teas. It's it's kind of my junk food, but I love them because they're salty and they're crunchy, they high in calorie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there are 130,000 people in the country who are eating.
Speaker 2:Don't quote me, but I think they're about 130 calories per ounce. Pita chips are really good to. Plantain chips are actually another awesome one. I use those as almost like an electrolyte supplement too, because they've got tons of potassium, tons of sodium on them you know, and there are lots of carbs.
Speaker 2:There's fat in there. So that's part of my ultra light planning is every bite of food has all macronutrients in it carbs, protein and fat, so every. If you can maximize every bite, then you actually eat less food. So an example I'm kind of getting off on another no, no, no, keep going, keep going. So I'm like ingesting all of them.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to like okay, cool, this is like a read. Food is the thing that I have to. I have to like continually teach myself about.
Speaker 2:So what I noticed? You know there's a kind of typical hiker um tortilla, tuna and something else, whatever you add in there. So the tortillas, your good source of carbs, the tuna is your source of protein and, let's say, maybe you put some mayonnaise in there, make it kind of like a tuna salad thing. Yeah, you have three different things you have to eat and they're fairly heavy versus if you were to eat something like. I say this in all my podcasts I love quinoa because there's carbs, protein and fat in every single bite, so you can actually eat a smaller volume of food and get the nutrition you need. It weighs less, takes up less space and has more fiber. You know those kind of things, instead of having to pack three different things to get that kind of nutrition. Um, so that's where I call it. Combination foods is kind of my what I call it, what I call for.
Speaker 2:That that makes sense Um so, yeah, so, going back to the plan, so inserting snacks and then knowing how many calories you go back to, using that calorie calculator, you just kind of divide up your day. And then lunch, whatever, if you like a short lunch, if you want to like do something on the go, like a shake is really easy for on the go. Uh, if you are a cold soaker, I love pasta salads. Um, we can go on and on and on about cold soaking.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, please. So that's like a whole nother thing.
Speaker 2:So cold soaking is like a whole nother thing. Um, I did it for the entire Oregon coast trail. I'll never do it again, but I have learned things that make it better. Okay, Um.
Speaker 2:So yeah, whatever your lunchtime might look like, if it's something that you want to sit and have like an hour, or if you want something quick, um, it doesn't have to be a solid meal, it could just be you know some snack bars, you know energy bars, nuts, whatever fits your style. And then think about how many hours is it going to take you to get to dinner, to finish. So sometimes dinner, or, excuse me, by the time you finish your day, you may only have another hour worth of hiking, so you might only need one more snack and then you wait until dinner time. Or, if you're not going to finish hiking until seven or eight, make sure you're still eating every hour to every hour and a half. So insert snacks and then dinner is same thing. Think about plenty of carbs, because you probably may not have kept up all day long, so you need to replenish the carbs you burned. I think really heavily on protein to get you to recover for the next day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going to ask you if protein comes in heavily at night.
Speaker 2:I shoot for 20 to 25 grams. You don't have to go over and above like huge amounts, because your body can only utilize so much. So, and we're most of us aren't body builders, we're not, you know, ingesting huge quantities of protein. So the sweet spot from what I read in the research is 20 to 25 grams, and it's usually not very hard to get that much. Um, so yeah, and other thing, kind of a trick, you're getting all my golden nuggets. You're getting like everything I teach in all my classes on one podcast. Um, so the other thing is that if you're camping in cold weather, a lot of people think like, oh, I need fat. That's a slow burning fuel, like that'll keep me warmer at night. But it's actually protein. And getting into metabolism, the thermic effect of food, it's how much energy is burned from using the food. It produces heat. Protein produces more heat than fat does. So if you have a higher protein dinner, you're actually going to increase your body temperature faster.
Speaker 2:Um, if you're sleeping in the cold, so a lot of the women that I work with that struggle with staying warm, then that's we do like a peanut butter packet before they go to bed. So you've got some of that slow burning fuel, the fat, but then you've also got this boost of protein to kind of get you warm, um yeah, so there's kind of a day, okay, and so everybody's unique, just kind of insert what works for your style, um, and then yeah, and then between these, like how, how many calories generally do you like for me?
Speaker 1:I shoot, I guess we already covered it to 300 calories for like that. That in between snack like that's 68. Okay, so I'm not that feels it makes me feel good, because that's usually I find myself when I do my snacks on the trail. I'm not sitting down for very long Cause. Usually, especially if I'm by myself, I sit down for like 10 minutes max, right, like I literally just sit down, eat and then I'm rolling again and it's well and I've gotten to where I have self care I have to stretch.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of my I'm taking a bite stretching, taking a bite stretching.
Speaker 1:And then all this leads like yeah, oh, my gosh Care is not very important to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't worry about stretching when I was 20.
Speaker 1:Oh man, I'm getting real. My, my IT band is so tight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like my dad carry one of those scrapers now I don't know what they're called. But I scraped the fascia. Yeah, and it doesn't feel good, but I feel much better the next day, so that's part of my routine.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I should probably do that, I just it's so painful.
Speaker 2:It doesn't feel good. No, no, I feel better overall. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool, so I'm not like way off on my timing or my estimated color, can take on my breaks.
Speaker 1:I think for me it's just a, and it's fascinating that you say that, like I'm the tortilla tuna guy, for lunch I was even doing tortilla and my favorite meal on the PCT through Washington. I'm not kidding around, I would get done eating it and for some reason, for like the 500 miles of Washington, this is what I ate and I never got tired of it. I would go tortilla, salami, easy cheese. I would bring an easy cheese. First time I packed in my buddy's like, are you packing easy cheese? And it's not very lightweight.
Speaker 1:Clearly Right. But dude, I don't know what it was, but man, that kind of changes when you're through hiking.
Speaker 2:It really did. It's weird stuff.
Speaker 1:It was probably because I was doing the most miles I'd done on the trail through Washington. So, and I noticed that's when I dropped the most amount of weight. I dropped weight consistently on the trail Through there. But then when I started doing no less than 25 to 27 miles a day through Washington, I just the weight just fell right off. So I was and I was just, but that was my, that was my meal for lunch and I would get done eating. I was like, oh, I want to have another one, but I couldn't you know because you're like timed out.
Speaker 2:You know, I gotta get, I gotta, I gotta save this one for tomorrow.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it's funny. Yeah, and that's the other thing about those trails is that you're or you know like a long hunt or something like that, or you know you're out for a couple of days. How do you battle palette changes in your in?
Speaker 2:your packs.
Speaker 1:That's tough.
Speaker 2:That's tough, because normally at home I like nuts when I backpack I can't stand them, so I think it's just a matter of like, more and more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just a matter of more and more experience.
Speaker 2:Like being out in the back country, more you learn what you really like and what you don't like. I never eat cheese. It's on my regular days at home, but they just. It's one of my happy foods. I love them.
Speaker 1:They're salty, they're crunchy, it's just one of those things that I do. You know they're salty.
Speaker 2:They're crunchy.
Speaker 1:Oh, there's crunchy, but it's not that much there's crunchy but it's not something I ever eat at home.
Speaker 2:But, it's just something that I've learned, that really like that kind of thing and even my favorite preferences have changed over the years. I think, like bars I mean so many bars. The past couple of years I couldn't touch them, but now that I went without them I'm trying a lot of new flavors, new companies and I'm liking them again.
Speaker 1:Do you have any favorites off the top of your head right now?
Speaker 2:Right now I'm trying the yes bars. Oops, and they are so good and they're calorically dense. I'm actually including them in all of our new meal kits now because they're about one hundred and fifty calories per ounce, which is unheard of for bars. And then the bearded brothers have switched over to those, and the other reason why I like these is they're calorically dense. They're tiny. So, yeah, like pro bar meals, I can't eat one of those. It's like a calorie bomb in my stomach. There's just like this brick. That is just too much. So I'm on the hunt for like tiny little bars that are like three bites and then I'm done kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Are you the kitchen? Let's let's transition to what you're up to, because I feel like you've just doused everyone with a ton of knowledge.
Speaker 2:Brain spinning yeah.
Speaker 1:Your kitchen that you opened you are. What are you doing in your kitchen?
Speaker 2:So how I moved into the kitchen is this past season I started a resupply service so it was a custom service to where I built food boxes for hikers, because it's one of those things that I learned like people are really struggling getting the food that they want on the trail, especially if you have special diets, whether you're gluten free, dairy free, whatever it is that you have that I was like you know what there's. I love making resupply boxes. It's a weird passion.
Speaker 2:It is very strange, it's very strange, but I've been doing it for all my hikes, like I never go to the grocery store.
Speaker 1:The one person in the world that likes to resupply, Like you know. It really gets me up in the morning, Resupply boxes.
Speaker 2:I love resupply boxes and I'm good at it. I'm super organized, it's something I enjoy doing.
Speaker 2:So that's what I started this season was building boxes for hikers and then just realizing that I can only help so many people. So that's why we built the shop to where now I'm making all the meals in the large volumes we have. You can't see around the corner of my house, but we have three eight foot tall shelving units that are all just bars and snacks and all those kind of things. So now I can pull those from the bins, put them in a box and get them out the next day kind of thing. So I've taken my recipes.
Speaker 2:That other reason why I'm going to the commercial kitchen is my customers, through our meal planning site, have been begging for me to make them. Like, aaron, I love your food but I don't have time to make it. Would you just make it for me? And I've been hesitant all these years because it's like, is that going to take the fun out of it? You know like I've been putting it off and putting it off, but then I realized just that's just one more way that I can help people and I am good at it. I do enjoy doing it. So we moved into the commercial. I started out and caught it through this season, and now I've moved into the commercial kitchen just a few weeks ago, so now I'm making hundred, a hundred servings at a time.
Speaker 1:Are you? Is all the ingredients that you're doing? Is it already dry?
Speaker 2:It's all dry ingredients based.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no cooking. It's essentially all amusing my recipe is just mixing.
Speaker 2:It's easy work and just doing it for people. So I'm taking the top recipes that people really love from our membership site and just making them for them and packaging them up. And now they're just get on the website, pull out your favorites and then off you go. Nothing fancy, that's so cool.
Speaker 1:I feel like there was a spike in outdoor food, like meals and stuff like that, and then I feel like it seemed like there was a lot of options for a short period of time and then they all collapsed. They all went away, but I feel like there's such a need for it, so I'm excited to see have you? You've messed around with freeze dryers.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:What are your thoughts? I have a home free.
Speaker 2:I love mine. I have a home freeze dryer, but it can't keep up with what?
Speaker 1:I'm doing right now.
Speaker 2:So as soon as I have enough sales coming in, I'm going to buy a couple of commercial ones. But yeah, the home quality of a freeze dryer home freeze dryer is so much better than that's what I'm actually struggling because I know the berries that I dried myself are just so much better than what I have to buy. So I'll eventually get to where I can afford an enormous commercial freeze dryer.
Speaker 1:What would be your plan with that? Would you actually be? Would you just be making your own? Would you be making meals and then freeze, drying them? Or would you be getting organic barriers and things like that?
Speaker 2:Just organic berries, bananas, vegetables and those kind of things. Because for me, believe it or not, I don't like to cook. I don't like to be in the stove and cook. Drying ingredients, dumping it in a bag, super duper easy.
Speaker 2:That's fine, but I don't like being in there stirring a stew for two hours and then the whole process. I can just pump out so many more meals, dry ingredients, putting them in a bag, then getting out, chopping fresh vegetables, stirring it up for two hours, then you have to dry it for 24 hours, so to me that just doesn't sound fun. I want to.
Speaker 1:I want to one of those harvest dryers harvest right freeze dryers so bad because my wife she hasn't made it in a while which I need to mention this to her Because she makes this butter chicken meal. It's like the most amazing thing ever and I, every time she makes it, I'm like I want to freeze dry this and eat it in the mountains, like she makes a good chili. She makes good. I mean, I was even thinking about doing it, just going to the store and getting you know like canned chili or canned soup and just freeze drying that and then toss it in the backpack. I'd be like I paid like $2 for this Right. Like if you had a freeze dryer and you just did like canned food, you could save yourself a lot of money once you you know A lot of money.
Speaker 2:Well and I've looked at the again, being the nerdy dietician, the number cruncher, the energy a lot of people are like, oh, you're paying for electricity.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask you about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've monitored all that too and it usually costs me about $2 per batch and electricity, and that's in California and I'm sure our rates are higher. How big is your freeze dryer? I have the medium size harvest right, let's see. Is it either five or six trays? Five trays, four trays, something like that. It's not huge. And actually, what's misleading when you're reading the descriptions on those, that gives the how many pounds it can hold. Well, five pounds of stew is very different from five pounds of apples, because apples take up more space. I have to think about the surface area that the food's going to take up, because when you slice up apples, by the time they take up the surface area of the tray, they don't wait much. I can only put two apples per tray, not five pounds of apples per tray.
Speaker 2:So that's where I definitely, if you are thinking about getting one and you are going to do get a bigger one like pay the extra money because you're going to be doing more and more batches and it does take 24 hours.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of the downside is you do have to be ready to be in there. Because I made the mistake? Because, lesson learned bananas will absorb moisture from the air really quickly and stick to the trays and not come off. So I made the mistake of leaving out the trays, going to the grocery, coming back, and then I had to chisel them off of the tray by the time. I got home.
Speaker 1:So how's the freeze drying work you just so you put it on these little trays, toss it in there, push the button push the button 24 hours later you're pulling it out.
Speaker 2:Is there like a?
Speaker 1:to get it. This is ready to go, you just bag it up, or something.
Speaker 2:Just bag it up. I actually sort of store everything in mason jars because I'm trying to get away from using so much plastic. Yeah, the businessman built I had some mason jars. He built shelving units for my mason jars and then on Amazon there's actually a section a vacuum seal all of them, so they last longer. So there's actually a little suction cup that you can get for a vacuum sealer and just sit on the mason jars and that's it. It's easy and you can even use freeze, frozen vegetables, frozen fruit. You don't have to chop them up. That's I'm lazy. I mean I do all things that I'm lazy. So you just take frozen broccoli, throw it on there, and then it actually dries faster because it's already frozen, so it actually goes a little bit quicker.
Speaker 1:This is going to be a really dumb question. Is fruit like an apple on the trail? Does it make sense?
Speaker 2:Like I love Apple.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I love apples, I really love them. I've never brought one into the backpacking, though. Is it a good food to have on the trail? Is it not a good food to have on the trail?
Speaker 2:Again, I don't believe in what a good food or bad food. If it's something that makes you happy and you really enjoy it, it's optimal. Well, the thing is, if you're an ultra light backpacker, it's heavy, so that's the kind of thing. And then please, don't leave the core behind. So you have to think about making sure you carry out the core kind of thing too. So if it's something that you enjoy, there's no reason why you couldn't take it.
Speaker 2:Similar kind of thing like avocados. People love taking avocados. You just have to make sure you pack out the pit and the skin.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I feel like there's a lot of avocado eaters out there that bring them on the trail, and every time I see one I'm like odd choice.
Speaker 2:It's kind of one of those little fresh treats that it's actually shelf stable so it's not going to get mashed up too terribly bad. You're probably not going to take a fresh tomato out because it's going to get squashed, but something like an apple or an orange, something like that. That if it makes you happy and you're okay with carrying the extra weight, then yeah, go for it.
Speaker 1:I like your approach, what makes you happy, and try not to change your diet too drastically from home recipes or actually home recipes.
Speaker 2:Like my spaghetti is my mom's spaghetti recipe. I call it Yo Simity yams. Essentially is our Thanksgiving sweet potato pasta roll, so it's all just things that we normally eat at home. I've just figured out how to manipulate in a way that it's backfacking friendly.
Speaker 1:And how? Okay, so take the yams one. These are dried yams.
Speaker 2:So that one I do make fresh and dehydrate.
Speaker 1:So that one is super super simple.
Speaker 2:So it's just canned sweet potatoes. I put pineapple in it, brown sugar, some pecans, and then, because fat doesn't dehydrate, I don't add fat, so those things go in, and then when it comes out I powder it or mash it up as best as possible so it rehydrates better, and then I add either. I used to use coconut oil, but now it's really hard to find so I'm using MCT powder. Because you don't have coconut oil. You had to have hot water to get it to dissolve, or at least some sort of heat to get it to dissolve, and I've switched to MCT powder because it's the same thing as dried from coconuts, but it doesn't need the heat to dissolve. So it works really well and then it's just regular food. It's what I normally eat at home.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, your business, let's let's wrap up by like recapping all the things that you're offering people from top to bottom. What's like your main jam?
Speaker 2:It has been the recipe platform for the last six years. So that's where, like I was saying that, I produce recipes. I'm constantly trail testing that kind of thing as I upload those to our membership site. It is an membership platform, so we have three tiers. There's just the recipe platform. That's all you get is our recipes.
Speaker 2:And then if you're really wanting to dive in and meal plan a little bit better, if you're tired of using spreadsheets or spreadsheets are overwhelming our meal planner is all automated.
Speaker 2:So if you want to drop in the foods that you want to eat, it tells you all the nutrition numbers, it tells you how much it weighs, the carbs, the protein, everything you'd ever need to know. If you're watching your sodium, it tells you how much sodium is in there. So that's the next level is our meal planner platform. And then the next level is if you really want to deep dive and take my classes at six different classes that I teach you essentially what we've talked about today, but in like three times as much information as I might be overwhelming, but there's master classes. And then in that level we have once a month, like live Q and a. Essentially what we're doing right now is people ask questions and then I respond once a month for about an hour. So it's kind of like having your little personal dietitian once a month. So that's what we've been doing. Then the nutrition coaching is one on one, and then what I just launched, which we're really focusing on, is our shop and the resupply boxes is what we're doing now.
Speaker 2:So in the race we had 18 hikers signed up for my resupply, so I'm going to be feeding this year. Wow, do you have a cap? Um, I will work its way down to 10, because it's inevitable that somebody gets hurt, there's a family situation or something. So 10 is my comfortable level. I start out with a lot more, just expecting it to kind of drop. So once I people start dropping, then I can add in like a JMT hiker that's starting later in the season or a Colorado Trail hiker that's starting in July is kind of what I'm managing.
Speaker 1:So you take care of them for the entire trail? Mm, hmm, oh fascinating, so I'm including gear.
Speaker 2:I do gear. I'm essentially like a trail mom. So you place your order, tell me what you want to eat, and then I magically put it all together and then it shows up at the post office.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:That's so cool and I have a lot of international hikers that don't have support people here in the country. So they mail me or order American gear, ship it to me and I hold on to it until they need to switch it in and out, kind of thing. So, going to the Sierra, I send them, in their winter, they send back the desert gear. And then some funny things that happened last year. I got a we communicate by Garmin or some kind of text messaging is. I got a message. I just ripped my pants. Erin, can you please get me a pair of pants ASAP? So I do that kind of stuff too.
Speaker 1:As all because Amazon can't ship to post offices. Yeah, you're like an angel trail foodie Right.
Speaker 2:One of my hikers called me the trail costier. I make all the magic and I love it. It's just I kind of miss my hikers after six months. They're like we just get to know each other so well.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so cool.
Speaker 2:And then I check in on them. I'm like you're looking a little thin, Can I give you some more food?
Speaker 1:So I actually have.
Speaker 2:My hikers have all maintained their weight because we've been able to kind of keep them healthy and eating well along the way.
Speaker 1:That's so cool, is there any? So the reset button, so you're doing a resupply boxes as well. If someone needed to like someone's going on like what if it's not through hiking? What if it's just hey, I have a five day backpacking trip coming up Can and I'm like I don't want to make this. I don't know, can you take care of my food?
Speaker 2:Yes. So another thing we've started is our one day meal kits. So it's already pre planned out for you. I've already pre done the calories, the carbs, that. I've already done all that for you, as you just go in and pick out how many kits you want and then the box that goes, and then you're done. No planning needed on your part. So they are set at right now. I'm setting them about 3000 calories because it's kind of like the base level that any hiker would need. And then we have these calorie booster bundles. So if you need 4000 calories, you add on extra booster bundles that I've already kind of pre done out and then again it's all done for you. It just shows up in a box and off you go.
Speaker 1:That's so cool. I'm going to try that this year. My wife, I was like dude, you should check out what the foodie's doing, because we both followed you for a while Cause it's so fun. Like you, you one of my favorite things is going into hiker season and just finding some hikers to follow. It's just so fun. And then so you were one of the people that my wife and I had followed and I was like. So we've always like kind of we've known what you've been up to and like what's foodie up to this?
Speaker 2:year. Yeah, she's got so much going on and she was on your website.
Speaker 1:She's like you need to do this. So I'm going to. I want to try this next year because there's some trips I want to do and I, like I said, I just want to branch out and be like sometimes you just need someone to show you the way to like okay, there's, here's how I need to start thinking about it. And it's hard when I've kind of moved into a. It's easy for you because you're seeing it all the time. Right, it's like repetition is very, like, very important. But like when you move into like just your average backpacking stuff and you're not going every weekend, it's hard to remember. It's hard to remember what worked and what didn't work.
Speaker 2:And even if you've been, I encourage my people to do is keep a hiking food journal.
Speaker 1:Ooh, that's a good one.
Speaker 2:Is write it down what you had before you left and then, when you come back, write down what worked and what didn't work, and then you don't have to make the mistakes the next time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know what?
Speaker 2:And it only takes a couple of times you know do that a couple of times, and then you figure it out.
Speaker 1:I have one of the things I've. I've always I've always been jealous of people that can eat peanut butter wraps. I can't do it.
Speaker 2:I cannot, I can't do it.
Speaker 1:And I've screwed myself so many times. I'm like you know, I'm going to go peanut butter this time. Bad idea Just a. I don't eat it. I can't do it for something. Something happens in my body where I like all eat peanut butter toast all the time. I'm like man, I just want some peanut butter and toast, like I love it. I cannot eat peanut butter in the back country, I don't know why, just can't do it yeah.
Speaker 2:But just like I was saying nuts, I can't touch them. I don't know why it is, but it's just one of those things and I've learned that just from experience. So, again taking notes, write that down. You get back like this meal, just I couldn't touch it. So you know not to do it again the next time.
Speaker 1:What am I? I started making my own little trail mix. It's not very light, obviously, trail trail mix is not very light, but depends on how you make it.
Speaker 2:Oh really.
Speaker 1:I put corn, I start putting like corn nuts and M&Ms and I'll do like a, I think, almonds. So corn nuts, almonds and M&Ms, I'll toss them in just a Ziploc baggy and that's, and it's like part of my. I usually take like a handful of them when I sit down, like I don't know how many calories it ends up being, but I like to eat them. I like corn nuts and like almonds and almonds I can eat, and then the chocolate's just there for like flavor. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think trail mixes are good too, because you can get that whole mixture of salty sweet, you know, crunchy. I actually have a recipe called don't knock it till you try it, because it's so bizarre but it is so amazing. So it's wheat thens, which, again, is not something I normally eat, but I love them on trail. So pretzels, little little pretzel twists, chocolate covered raisins and pecans Totally random ingredients but, yeah, totally weird, random, but it's amazing when you you actually have to eat a little bit of everything all in one bite and just whatever that flavor combination is. It's so good.
Speaker 1:Is there a high calorie chip that you send out with people?
Speaker 2:Like potato chips.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like a potato chip.
Speaker 2:I think they're pretty much pretty darn close to all the same 150, 160 calories per ounce on average. But, like I said, I really like the plantain chips because, they just do what I need them to do. That's kind of that combination food thing that I think about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good takeaway. Like, try to find a combination food, very cool. Last question why do you do this? Why do you? You're just like so happy about it, like what what? I love it.
Speaker 2:It's such a weird passion, why?
Speaker 1:Have you ever like? Why? What makes you so excited to do this? It's my two passions.
Speaker 2:I love food. I've always been a dietitian, I'll never be anything else, and I love being outdoors. So I get to combine the two things I love the most and earn a living doing it and helping other people. I've always that's kind of being a dietitian. That's one thing that's in our DNA is we like to help people. We're in the field because we like to help and I just learned that through all my mistakes that I learned. Then I just teach everybody else before they get to that position and make the same mistakes. So I do, I love it.
Speaker 1:Very cool.
Speaker 2:There's no way I'm going. If I feel like I'm struggling, then the motivation is you have to go back to your old job and like no, I got to figure this out. I'm not going back to my old job, so I just troubleshoot, evolve and then just make it work.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Well, I would encourage anyone to check out that a minimum of the recipes that you put out and get a hold of those things, because and this calculator, how cool is that.
Speaker 2:The calculator for sure. Yeah, like that will solve your first problem, yeah.
Speaker 1:But like the recipes that you'll share on Instagram and stuff like that, I'm like this is incredible, Like so helpful for a lot of people and I feel like food is such a key to success out there. It's so important from just like a food makes people feel good and it can help you and it helps you perform and if you get it wrong, it sucks, it sucks.
Speaker 2:Well, people will spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on gear and then not pay attention to their food.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So even if you're comfortable on your nice puffy jacket, you're physically miserable because you're not fueling what's inside that puffy jacket.
Speaker 1:I love it. Do we miss anything? Did we cover everything? Any final, any final.
Speaker 2:I got a lot going on at foodie. Any final thoughts from the foodie? I feel like you're the foremost expert on like it's like. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I get like a gorilla food food-making out there Like every time you come up with like a recipe, I'm like man, this is like some gorilla warfare stuff. Like because nothing again. Like you don't, nothing's to your point. Like you haven't eaten a commercial off the shelf meal and that's seriously, that's how I do it Is.
Speaker 2:I get on Pinterest or I'll get on all recipes or something like that, and I just look at like what sounds really good for dinner and then I just manipulated into a backpack, you know so I would like to turn Thanksgiving into backpacking meals.
Speaker 1:I would like to figure out a way to do that, so gravy. I love Thanksgiving meals.
Speaker 2:Cranberry you can do dried cranberries, stove top, dried powder gravy, you know if you get a freeze-dried, freeze-dried your turkey. So it's really, it's not that hard, it's just having that know-how which is what I'm trying to teach people, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, where should they go if they wanna learn more?
Speaker 2:Backcountrybootycom, and everything is there. So our recipes, our blog, they're. Do just go there and then that'll direct you to where you need to go.
Speaker 1:Awesome.
Speaker 2:And on Instagram and Facebook.
Speaker 1:Cool, I'll make sure to put all of that in the show now so people can click away. And man, thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate you.
Speaker 2:You're welcome. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for sharing. Let me share my story and my passion and all the things that we do.
Speaker 1:Well, you're welcome on anytime. This is super great and I think it's gonna benefit a lot of people. So thank you so much. You're welcome. All right, that is it for episode 165 with the Backcountry Booty. Thanks so much for tuning in To follow up on anything we mentioned in this episode. I have included links to all of it in the show notes, so be sure to check those out when you have a chance, and if you have not yet introduced yourself to me, please do. I love hearing from you guys. I always respond. So if you haven't said hi, make sure you do so. You can reach me at emory at bylandco, and I promise you'll get a response. That's it for me. If you're headed out on an adventure anytime soon, be safe, make great decisions and we'll see you next time. 第二 Junior you, you, you, you, you.