Other than camping tents and hiking boots, camping food is going to take a big part of your backpack real estate if you are hiking and camping. Camping food can be too heavy and take too much space if you’re not careful.

Weight is only one of the factors that you should base your choice of food on. There are other, more important criteria that ensure that you get a good source of energy.

In choosing which food to take, also consider nutritional value, palatability, ease of preparation and packaging.

Palatability

The camping food you bring has to agree with your taste, at least for its time a place. It may not be the dish you’d want to find at home but after a long grueling hike a simple hot dish can taste better than any dish in a fancy restaurant.

It doesn’t matter how nutritious the camping food is if a man won’t eat it. Remember though that your appetite may change after such strenuous exercise.

Nutritional value

Camping food with high nutritional value not only gives you more energy but also in addition to keeping your body strong, keeps your immune systems solid so you resist diseases better and makes you feel good too.

Weight

Camping food doesn’t have to take the biggest portion of your total backpack weight where you could have brought some other essential camping equipment.

Though dehydrated foods are light, tasty and nutritious, your camping food doesn’t have to consist of only this type. You could also bring along some cheese, energy bar and canned food but be aware of how much you carry and how heavy they are.

The rule of thumb is that with all your essential camping equipment and camping food your backpack should ideally be not more than a third of your weight.

Ease of Preparation

If your camping food takes more than an hour to prepare then reject it unless you are not hiking or just camping in a campground where there’s no rush to get food done quickly.

Hiking/Camping food is easily available in most if not all developed countries but be sure that you read the instructions on preparation. You’ll be surprised to see that some camping food preparation includes overnight soaking.

Packaging

When canned sardines and meat are part of your camping food consider how you will open them. Most canned food today don’t require any can opener to open but at times things can go wrong and an “easy-open can” may not be so easy to open so bring along a can opener just in case.

The other that you need to consider is how you will dispose of the packaging of your food after you’re done with it. Some hiking trails do provide some litter boxes but if they don’t you would have to carry your used food packaging until you find a suitable place to dispose them.

These five considerations are just guidelines but what works best for you is highly individual. Only by trial and error will you get the perfect camping food that suits your need as an individual. If you are beginner, just follow some guidelines (or not) and go camping and find out if the camping food is right for you.