My family and I have been taking day hikes and even week-long backpacking trips for many years, and of course, we also camp every chance we get. Being outdoors is such an immense sense of relief and peace from the hustle of our regular lives that we've come to prefer backpacking trips to much more popular destination.
For my family, the time we're able to spend together is simply not found in any other type of vacation. If your family hasn't camped together before, now's the perfect time to rediscover the wonder of nature. Learn the camping food ideas in this article.
Anytime we'll be spending time outdoors one of the things we have to think about is camp food and whether we're going to cook over a fire or defer to freeze-dried meals. Ultimately, we always choose to go simple and light with freeze-dried meals.
You can certainly prepare meals cheaper when cooking them from your ingredients and over a fire or grill, but there's the hassle of preparing the meal, as well as cooking and cleaning, all of which take time away from the point of the trip... spending time outdoors being active.
Freeze dried meals are for the most part appetizing and reasonably priced considering the savings in space and cook time that they afford. Having tried all the major brands and some of the not so major brands, our family's consensuses are that Mountain House has the best tasting meals.
There are some close seconds though so if you're new to freeze-dried meals then try them all out. Even the egg breakfasts taste surprisingly good once you've hydrated them with hot water. On a recent outing, we purposely took a freeze-dried meal from all the major brands to compare in the field, which is where we ma up our minds that we preferred Mountain House.
Since all of our meals are either freeze-dried or otherwise prepared and ready to eat (more on that in a minute), we don't even have to take a traditional camp stove. Instead, we rely solely on our Jet Boil PCS cooking system, which boils water in a blistering 2 minutes or less and sips fuel like an old lady at tea time.
While backpacking it's even more of a star since every single piece of it fits snugly into the cooking container (including the gas canister!), and weighs in at a measly 14 ounces. That's right, a powerhouse that boils water for food and drink in less than 2 minutes that weighs so little. I love it.
One of the last tips I'll give you about camp food (or food for hiking and backpacking) is to prepare your oatmeal at home before you go.
Enjoying a good meal while outside doesn't have to be a chore and it doesn't have to taste like cardboard. Planning ahead will ensure that your next outing is a great one. Have fun and be safe.
