[CrazyYank]

I was wondering if anyone out there is on a wheat-gluten free diet and what foods you take on a trip? I've been on this diet about 6 months now and this is the first hiking season where I've had to deal with my new diet and have been looking about and researching how to alter the backpacker cuisine especially breakfast since eating the usual instant oatmeal is out. Looking forward to any comments or info.

[Quark]

CrazyYank, give Nuclear Eggset a PM; she'll have lots of good advice for you.

[Hiker Mama]

We recently went off wheat in our family, and I am off corn; my kids also went off soy and dairy. It has been a difficult transition. I haven't been backpacking in many years, but I have been finding it challenging to find enough food to bring along on our hiking excursions. We have been eating a lot more nuts, potatoes, and eggs than we did in the past. Crackers are out, but I just discovered a product at Trader Joes called Plantain Chips, they are kind of bland and make a good base for cheese or hummus. We found some harder goat cheeses that we bring along hiking. I have been making my own power bars, and eating lots of Lara bars. I just discovered you can buy Lara Bars at Costco, and there was another one there that I hadn't heard of and hadn't tried, I can't remember the name off hand. Those bars are only a few ingredients, mostly dates and nuts and some fruit or cocoa. Let's see, what else... I have been making my own chocolate chip cookies, and they are really hearty and more healthy. We eat a lot of those when hiking. Plus fresh and dried fruit. You may find you will need to make your own breakfasts; if there is another hot cereal you can eat, or even some of the GF cold cereals (I like Nutty Flax; like Grape Nuts but made from Sorghum.) You might also check out Sarbar's and Dicentra's websites for some of the interesting products they have sourced. It is definitely challenging, but also totally do-able to hike with dietary restrictions. Good luck! If I think of anything else, I'll post again.

[nuclear_eggset]

Wheeee! (Thanks Quark ) More GF backpackers!! (Here's a little caveat on my advice; I'm casein-free as well, so there's no dairy in anything I eat. Having dairy gives you some additional options - dried milk in the hot cereal, other bar-type foods, just bringing blocks of cheese, etc.) So here's the annoying part: 95% of prepackaged backpacking foods are out. The silver lining? Those things are expensive (and they don't look all that tasty to me.) Of course, the best advice I can give is to invest in a dehydrator, and make your own backpacking food. Time consuming? A little bit, but if you do it right, less than you'd think. High upfront costs? Sure, but dehydrators are great for all kinds of things. A followup tip is to make use of Sarbar's freezerbag fabulousness! (I hate cleanup, even more so while backpacking, and this just works *soooo* well.) So, what I've taken on the past three trips I've done: 1. Lots of 'bars' - I prefer snacking as I move on the trail during the day, so Larabars, ThinkGreen and ThinkOrganic bars, Alpsnack, Cliff ShotBloks and Nectar bars, not to mention dried fruit and nuts and safe beef jerky (Whole Foods and Oberto both have safe varieties, if you don't have time to make your own. That's my lunch and snacking if I haven't had time to get creative. When I have time, I make my own crackers in the dehydrator, but that's another time suck. :P (LOTS of variation available there.) 2. Breakfasts - my last trip (just a single overnight), I'm not kidding - I made pancakes that morning, and packed in pancakes and hardboiled eggs. For the first morning, on a trip that's not hot, YUM! (I like the Namaste pancake mix, which I've seen at Whole Foods, but I order 20lbs at a time online. ) Even cold, they were tasty! A little heavy in weight, but very filling and fabulous "let's go make the summit" food. Another breakfast alternative that I like is hot cereal. What you say?! Quinoa flakes make a great instant hot cereal, with some in a freezer bag and you add boiling water, let it sit (insulated in a fleece is great), for a few minutes. I prefer to doctor my quinoa with a little bit of flaxmeal, some dried (freeze dried is preferrable like Just Tomatoes) fruit, a little bit of brown sugar, and a pinch of salt. You can do the same thing with Cream of Rice. 3. Dinner - the easy meal. I love taking soup - some thin rice noodles, chopped up dried mushrooms, GF bouillion (powdered or crushed up part of a cube), freeze dried tofu if you can find it - all in a freezer bag ready for boiling water to be added. Turkey chili (which I make at home for dinner) dehydrates fabulously well, and rehydrates fabulously well in a freezer bag with some boiling water as well. Very easy to make gluten free. I've also made quinoa (the whole grain) with a bunch of spices and lots of garlic and dehydrated that, and added veggies (onions, carrots, broccoli) that I dehydrated on my own, and reconstituted in a freezer bag for a very tasty meal. Next time, I may try it with pasta (with a nice meaty sauce) and maybe my chicken soup (which is more like stew than soup)... heh, then maybe I'll have to try my stew. Of course, there's always room for chocolate. So, that's a little bit of a start, but I'm sure I've left some things out, so feel free to ask more questions. With some inventiveness and creativity, a lot of the general advice is still quite useful for the GF (or GFCF) crowd. :P In the end, GF backpacking really isn't so difficult, but you definitely need more planning and need more prep time.

[sarbar]

I'd add in more...but I think NE covered it Now ask me low sodium and I'd be all over it Btw, you can often find a quinoa/corn pasta that isn't too bad taste wise. You can cook and dry many a pasta for nearly instant pasta (just undercook by a minute or two to prevent mushiness).

[E's Mom]

I'm gluten-free, too, but not a backpacker (yet). In fact, I passed up a week-long trip several years ago & one reason was that I feared I wouldn't be able to find (or be able to carry) enough food. Since then, I've come up with some good options for hiking that could work for backpacking. I'll add to this thread later (too late now). One idea I've been kicking around is writing a GF camping/backpacking cookbook. What do you guys think?

[sarbar]

[CrazyYank]

Wow, thanks for the wonderful ideas NE-Thank you for all your info. Looks like I'll be investing in a dehydrator and making up meals a few days in advance. Lots of great ideas for breakfast too. I've been eating Bumble bars, but will look for the others and try those as well. What about using rice? Better to cook it then add or put in a bag uncooked and add water later? Or not bother with it? NE, Sarbar and E's Mom, all 3 of you should write a backpacker's special diet cookbook. I leave tomorrow for Mt Adams, so I'll try some things and report back.

[sarbar]

If doing rice you can precook it at home and dry it. Then it is like having instant gourmet rice! All it needs is boiling water (a 1:1 water/rice ratio) and 10-15 minutes sit time. http://www.freezerbagcooking.com/dehydrating.htm Scroll down and look at the rice pictorials I have done An example of bamboo rice:

All dried up:

Jasmine rice:

Dried:

Very easy! Btw, the Thai Kitchen rice noodles that come in ramen style packs and their Noodle Cart trays are great - you can always toss the "flavors" and use the noodles alone. PS: As for books...our second book that we are editing currently is mostly low sodium - ie...the salt-a-holics can add what they want I know I have a number of gluten free meals in it. I need to go through the manuscript and find them! Do you like Thai flavors?

[CrazyYank]

Hi Sarbar, I was just over at your website looking and you have a very cool website and info. Thanks for the info on rice cooking. I'm going to have to buy a dehydrator and start learning how to use it LOVE Thai food and noticed your site had many Asian recipes on it, so I will be trying some of those out for sure!

[sarbar]

Oooh, I totally forgot! Maple Valley has had a gluten free bakery/deli store for the past 2 years. If any of you are every this way, drop in and check it out!

[Hiker Mama]

There's also a GF bakery in Fremont, I believe it's called the Flying Apron.

[forest gnome]

welcome, jsut thought a mention of Enertia backpacking foods was in order...though I dought they are wheat/gluten free?? just started using them, great taste.... thanks for the info and sarbar's web sight......great ideas everyone!

[nuclear_eggset]

from couscous to wheat bulgar to oats to pasta, it looks like a lot of the enertia products have gluten. even the beans and rice should be checked since they have ingredients that can hide gluten (beef stock and tvp).

[nuclear_eggset]

there are a number of places in the greater seattle area these days, including two (well, one current, one soon-to-be) pizza places with GF (and CF) options for pizza!