Dave wrote: >The only thing on your food list that puzzled me was the total reliance on FD meals for dinners. Is that partly to minimize odors that would attract grizzlies? Or, is there some other rationale aside from light weight? I know that I can carry more calories in the same **volume** using other foods, although certainly my choices would **weigh** more than the FD meals.< Why FD suppers? Partly laziness...lunch is by far our largest meal. ( Our lunches are designed to be portable, we both eat continuously while paddling. Hell. sometimes I'm already eating jerky before I climb into the canoe!) I'm not much for complex cooking after a long day, or when the bugs are really ferocious in the evening, or it is raining or in strong winds. There is less food odors with FD food (although I do fry freshly caught fish!) I do choose (FD) meals with the highest caloric value, but I think making a 450 cal/each FD meal is far more convenient than sitting over a Svea stove cooking rice, soaking beans, boiling pasta, mixing sauces, etc. Storage is certainly easy. . The FD meals are mostly "no cook", I usually just boil 3 cups of water, mix and cook for a an extra minute. Boiling a 1.5 liter thermos of coffee is the greatest use of fuel . I do that in the evening prior to cooking dinner. Firewood , as you know, is at a premium above the treeline, so every thing needs to be "do-able" over a one burner stove. As is, last summer's food packs for 8 weeks (including 264 fl ounces of fuel) came to almost 160 lbs of the total 350 lbs. of gear we carried. This is about 1.5 lbs per food and fuel per person per day. We had nearly 600 lbs in that one 17 foot canoe. I have looked at many sample menu's, all seem mouth-watering, but I really think that the complexity of them is better suited to trips of 5-10 days , where the enjoyment of good food is a large part of the pleasures of the trip .I know from experience (especially bad storm days) that if something is complex, it doesn't happen. You start skipping meals, which can be disastrous. I did however get one of those "Backcountry Oven) devices, for next summer . That ( foccacio and other baked products) truly is a treat, and a pleasant change of pace. >The other interesting feature of your food was its skimpiness: "losing" 2000 calories/day (= 4 lbs/week) translates to some 30 lbs of fat you expect to expend over the 50 days. How much personal reserve does that leave you? Also, what about your wife -- does she lose lots of weight also? This obviously works for you two, so my query is strictly based on curiosity, not on whether that regimen is wise or not.< The 28 lb weight was extreme, and had more to do with the heavy physical labor of the first 3 weeks on the Hiukitak, on a 2100 cal/ day diet than a conscious decision to starve myself. I was surprised at how great the caloric shortfall must have been. (15.3% of pre-trip body mass). I know I began to feel "hungry" the last 2 weeks or so. However, I invariably lose 20 pounds on less strenuous trips over a 5-7 week period, which comes to about 10.2% of my pre-trip body mass. My wife doesn't lose weight like that-- on identical rations she may loss 5 pounds over the same length trip. (4.3% of pre-trip body mass.) I did some experiments before I left on that trip, measuring my liver length with ultrasound in the standard mid-axillary plane, and came up with a measure of 18 cm. (15cm is considered the upper limits of "normal" ). 3 weeks after the trip it was 14 cm. My liver was what I would characterize as "fatty", pre-trip. Additionally there was a great deal of omental fat internally, which disappeared. over the course of the trip. Or too put it another way, 4 belt notches worth! As to the safety and wisdom of it all.quite a few mammals (bears in winter or the male walrus during rut) also do a form of "calorie-banking". I think that "starvation" in the metabolic sense does no permanent harm, in the 15% range. I do keep our diet relatively high in carbohydrates and protein, at the expense of fats. And use multivitamins to prevent the deficiencies in the B vitamins, and Vitamin C , and calcium tablets. I don't actually lose any muscle mass, as I have been pleasantly pleased to learn via a tape measure. It is the wasting of muscle mass which is one of the hallmarks of true starvation. I do work pretty hard at remaining well-hydrated. I have however increased the number of granola/energy bars by 60, and will bring an additional 2 lbs of jerky, and an extra ounce each per day of Muesli. But this is more in the way of "Emergency food", than an actual increase in our daily diet. If you read too many of those 19th century Arctic expedition books, you start feeling hungry before you even climb off the float plane. I read "SnowMan" ( about John Hornby on the Barrens), on one trip, and decided to leave that sort of reading material at home in the future. Rich ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ See our canoe tripping website http://communities.msn.com/RichWendysAwayFromHomePage *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. 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