How Much Food Do You Need For Backpacking?
Who doesn’t love food? When you’ve been hiking all day, you will really appreciate the food you brought along with you. You’ll be burning off quite a bit during those days on the trail, after all. While it’s tempting to bring your whole panty in your pack, it’s important not to get carried away. You need to do some planning to figure out just how much food you need for backpacking.
A couple things you’ll need to keep in mind are how many calories you’ll need each day and how much weight your food will add to your backpack. Below, we’ll dive deeper into each of these.
So let’s get to it…
This page contains affiliate links. If you purchase a product through one of them we will receive a commission (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for your support!
Calories Per Day For Backpacking
The basis of figuring out how much food you need for backpacking is figuring out how many calories you’ll need each day. Calories are key when you’re doing such a high level of activity for several days in a row.
Exactly how many calories you will need is going to depend on a lot of factors. Your body size, sex, metabolism, and body composition play a large role here. As will the hike itself. Mileage, speed, elevation, terrain, weight of your pack, and more will also impact your daily calorie expenditure.
That being said, the average backpacker will need to eat around 2,500 to 4,500 calories per day. Yes, that is a large range, but as we mentioned a lot goes into it. If you want to get a more accurate estimate of your calorie needs use an estimation tool such as this one.
Now it’s a good idea to bring along a little more food than you think you’ll need. Especially if you are new to backpacking. Should anything go wrong and you are out in the woods longer than planned, having a couple of extra snacks could come in handy. Just make sure you aren’t overdoing it, you still need to carry that weight.
Here are some of our favorite trail snacks… if you need inspiration.
Food Weight For Backpacking
A lighter backpack is always preferable to a heavy backpack, that’s why backpackers are always searching for ways to reduce backpack weight. The drive to minimize weight is still present when it comes to planning how much food you need for backpacking.
A standard guideline is to have around 1.5 to 2 pounds of food per person per day. If your food supply starts to get heavier than 2 pounds per day, you may want to reconsider your food choices. Even though food technically doesn’t count toward base weight, it does count toward your total weight and you still have to lug it around. Keep an eye on how much your food weighs.
If your grub is getting heavy there are a few things you can do to trim down without sacrificing calories.
One thing you can do is swap out some of your foods for lighter, more nutritionally dense foods. This is what we call optimizing your calorie to ounce ratio. For example, rather than bringing along a baggie of pretzels as a snack, pack some nuts. The nuts will have more calories and nutritional value per ounce.
A common strategy among ultralight backpackers is bringing oils along to mix into their food. A small squeeze bottle or a few travel packets of olive oil can help you load more calories into your meals without adding much weight to your pack.
You can also shed some weight by removing or modifying the packaging your food comes in. For instance, when we use premade backpacking meals, we trim off much of the extra packaging. There can be an inch or two of useless plastic on the top and bottom of those bags. It might not seem like much, but trimming weight is trimming weight.
Day of Backpacking Food Example
For reference, below is how someone could plan a day of backpacking food with a goal of 3,000 calories for a day. This is not the most weight-efficient meal plan, but it gives you a better look at just how much food goes into 3,000 calories:
- Breakfast (700 calories) – 2/3 cup of Kind granola mixed with raisins, a packet of honey, and peanuts in rehydrated powdered milk.
- Snack (200 calories) – RX Bar
- Lunch (550 calories) – Pita bread tuna sandwich made with one packet of tuna, aged cheddar, and packets of mayo.
- Snack (230 calories) – Beef jerky and aged cheddar
- Snack (280 calories) – Peanut butter and dried apple slices
- Dinner (500 – 700 calories) – Mountain House 2 serving meal
- Snack (490 calories) – 1/2 cup almonds and 1 oz dark chocolate
*Calories are a rough estimate and may vary
As you can see, you can pack quite a bit of food into a day in order to meet a goal of 3,000 calories. Trying to fit this much food into your pack for each day while still maintaining a low pack weight can be quite the challenge. You’ll need to get creative or skimp back a bit on calories if your goal is a lightweight pack.
Feeling Hungry While Backpacking
It can be a real challenge to fully refuel your body on the trail. You’ll likely find yourself at a calorie deficit at the end of the day. This could mean you’ll still feel hungry come bedtime.
Fortunately, your body has reserves to keep you going through the short trip you’re on. So if you’re looking to shed some body fat, you’re in luck! Your pants just might feel looser when you get home.
However, being hungry can be unpleasant. Hanger is real. So is feeling low energy.
To avoid this, make sure you are eating regularly throughout the day to maintain a level of satisfaction. Make sure your foods contain plenty of fats and proteins to keep you feeling satiated. Staying hydrated will also help. Be sure to follow proper trail nutrition to make sure the foods you do eat will help you feel your best.
Whatever you do, avoid binging through your snacks in a moment of weakness. You need to ration out your food for the days ahead or you’ll be struggling to cover those remaining miles.
Things to Consider
When planning out how much food you need for a backpacking trip, there are some important things to consider. Below are some questions you should ask yourself when preparing your food supply:
- How intense is your daily activity going to be?
- What is your metabolism typically like?
- What are your distance goals?
- How difficult is the trail and terrain?
- How do you typically eat?
- What is your body type?
- How long is your trip?
- How does hunger affect you?
As you gain more experience with backpacking, you’ll be able to fine tune your food supply to better fit your needs. Make note of what worked for you and what didn’t work for you after each trip so you can build off your experience over time. Keep in mind that these observations won’t hold true for all your future trips, but they can be used as a good starting point.
In the market for some backpacking food? Check out our affiliate REI’s selection of backpacking snacks and meals!
Photo by Sandra Harris on Unsplash
