Best Tips for Cooking on the Road

[hikerjer]

Just to follow up. Not really a cooking tip but for cleanup afterwards, I find this simple gadget one of the greatest camp kitchen items around. When I got one in my Christmas stocking, my initial reaction was, "oh, just another gimmick". Boy was I wrong. Makes cleanup a whole lot eaier.

https://www.rei.com/product/750412/gsi-outdoors-compact-scraper

[YourWarning]

It all depends on how big my bike tour is. Still, when I go somewhere far away, I can usually go to any restaurant and order some delicious dishes that can be wrapped in a paper bag or foil. However, these are mostly low-fat dishes served with bread, for example, some delicious sandwiches with a lot of meat and vegetables, because during a long bike ride, the body needs to get nutrients to continue the tour. I can also go to Japanese restaurants and get some soups, but this rarely happens. So, I hope it will help ya.

[Westinghouse]

Nobody will fall dead from excluding fruits and vegetables from his diet for 6 weeks or 2 months. There is still a problem with it, anyhow. Such a short period of time is not the test of whether or not the diet is harmful. You could say the same thing for exposure to solar radiation. You certainly will not fall dead or contract cancer immediately from being exposed to direct solar radiation for months. Those maladies develop over time. What might seem negligible now may develop into something much more serious when the body and the health begin to decline from natural causes. It's in the future when the bad part kicks in. There are many things people can do or not do in the short run which might not have any immediate adverse consequences. It's in the long term that these matters must be considered. There have been anthropological studies on the diets of various populations around the world. Two main takeaways are these. In societies with high quantities of consumption of meat, there is a high degree of heart disease and diabetes, among other maladies. In populations that consumed almost only 100% fresh fruits and vegetables and only a little meat, there were no signs of heart disease or diabetes anywhere. That study came from Dr Nathan pritikin. There are videos on YouTube about four or five young women who bicycled the Trans American route. They commented I don't know how many times on how they went through all these dinky little towns. Sometimes a cafe would be closed or out of business and all there were were convenience stores. They had videos of themselves sitting on the sidewalk in front of the store. They held up one item of junk food after another after another insisting it was all they could find. After some time they complained about having problems with their stomachs. They felt queasy and unsteady and dizzy and sick. There was another video by a woman who bicycles gravel trails. She experienced something similar to that. When she got to these little settlements small stores were her only choice for food. In fact they did not have anything that was really food. It was highly processed junk that could be chewed and swallowed, yes, but it was not really food. She complained about the same kind of sickness and illness in the gut. I cross the United States by bicycle and I got caught in the convenience store trap for about 4 days. I felt like hell. I had lost almost all my energy. I was going downhill fast and I did not like what was at the bottom. I finally got to where I could eat real food with nutrition and vitamins and minerals. It made a big difference.

[BikeliciousBabe]

Nobody will fall dead from excluding fruits and vegetables from his diet for 6 weeks or 2 months.

As someone who takes an anticoagulant, the therapeutic dosage of which is affected by certain types of vegetables, I could get into serious trouble (e.g., internal bleeding) with a  diet change that excluded vegetables unless I underwent frequent clotting level monitoring, which would be a royal PITA on the road.  I took a big enough chance when I spent 4 months on the road with no monitoring, but by daily dosage had been very stable for a long time.  Still, I had to pay attention to what I was eating and regulate it as best as possible under the circumstances.

[Alessa3322]

I've recently started following a diet in the hope of losing weight and leading a healthy lifestyle. Is anyone else like me here? What do you cook when on the road?

[froze]

I just goof around with food I find at a grocery store intended for microwaving, but stick the package into boiling water and it cooks just fine, but instead of 3 minutes it takes about 8.

A friend of mine takes some sort of bars when he goes backpacking, and that's all he'll eat besides trail mix, I tried them, and yuk!  Plus they were very expensive, nope, not for me.

I do a couple of packs of instant oatmeal in the morn boil to cook, mix up powdered milk for the cereal, make pancakes, I get chicken, minute rice packs with different flavors, and tuna (for lunch) in individual packets, tortillas, mix the rice (cooked), cheese, and the chicken and put on a tortilla, or mix the chicken with instant stuffing, powdered eggs and bacon bits for lunch, beef jerky, Slim Jim, trail mix with no peanuts, pumpkin seeds, various dried fruits, for snack.  Top Ramen, instant mashed potatoes.  Hormel Compleats aren't bad, you can get a pack of 6 for $14 on Amazon.

There is a lot of food where you would find the Hormel and the packs of chicken, tuna , rice etc that you can buy and use, and cost you very little to eat.  They usually will have only microwave instructions, but if you google how to cook a Hormel Compleats, or whatever it is you're wondering about, without a microwave, and boom there are the instructions, most of them so far have been in boiling water for 8 minutes, but you to check to make sure.  The Hormel Compleats come with a cardboard wrapper, I remove that before I go and write with a magic marker what each container is.

I stay away from hot and spicy stuff, because sometimes my stomach doesn't handle it well, and sometimes I get acid reflux.

I have taken avocados, they don't go bad like other fruit can nor will they squish.

If you find fresh eggs at a roadside market, those eggs can keep up to a week without refrigeration as long as the skin membrane thing is not cleaned off, and you don't subject the eggs to direct sunlight and 98-degree weather, just bury the eggs deep inside a pannier and they should be ok for at least 48 hours, but you'll need a small plastic container that holds 4 eggs, they sell those at grocery stores.  Heck, I took 4 eggs once from a grocery store, and used them the next day after riding for 6 hours in the heat on one day, and cooked them the morning of the next, they were fine.

I also do coffee, pre-grind before I go, and put it into a plastic baggie, I don't like an instant, tried various kinds and none of them was good.  I use the GSI Ultralight Java Drip pour-over, and makes coffee just fine, not as good as at home but a lot better than instant.  I did take on my first trip my AeroPress, but never again, it was too bulky, so the GSI thing works just fine.

I also take powdered Gatorade.

I put all my food into ziplock bags so as not to have the food leak all over the place, and I mean all the food, it doesn't matter what container it comes in, it's going into a ziplock bag.  I use one ziplock bag for each dinner, so my dinners are all pre-sorted, then use another bag for lunch, and another for breakfast. And depending on if something is liquid or powder, I will usually double ziplock bag those. 

Always carry extra ziplock bags in case one breaks or gets a hole.

You can google cheap backpacking food, and a bunch of sites will pop up, go to YouTube and do the same thing.

[John Nettles]

I've recently started following a diet in the hope of losing weight and leading a healthy lifestyle. Is anyone else like me here? What do you cook when on the road?

Since you are trying to eat healthy as opposed to just consuming calories, look into the various "1 pot meal" cookbooks for backpackers.  They usually avoid highly processed foods when possible. 

The big hassle is cooking for 1.  You may end up spending a lot on small portion sizes, wasting a lot of food, or eat the same thing repetitively to avoid said waste.  However, using canned/pouched meat and pasta/rice and veggies is always good.  If they have a deli, I get a small portion of sliced salami (not healthy but yummy), cheese, etc. and get some fresh fruit and can of nuts (I always have assorted nuts in my pack).  My fall back though is peanut butter and flour tortillas as it is compact, high calorie, and the tortillas can be stuffed in the pannier for about 10 days with no harm.  Again, not healthy but it does work.
For me, when I solo tour, lately I just eat out because it easier, less weight, and way less time (cooking, cleaning, packing, shopping, etc.).  In a group, we cook.
Tailwinds, John

[BikeliciousBabe]

However, using canned/pouched meat and pasta/rice and veggies is always good.

If I only had a dollar for every meal of pasta and pouched tuna or chicken with veggies I have made. 

[John Nettles]

However, using canned/pouched meat and pasta/rice and veggies is always good.

If I only had a dollar for every meal of pasta and pouched tuna or chicken with veggies I have made. 

I know what you mean.  I did say the meal would be repetitive.  Another reason I eat out when solo touring.

[davidbonn]

What works for me on the road.  Note that everybody's different both in what they like to eat and how much they are willing to spend:

Dinner:

Usually I try to buy a deli salad at the last grocery store before camp, and eat about half of it with dinner and save the other half for breakfast.

I tend to like dehydrated refried beans (available at Wal-Mart through the magic of in store delivery) in a tortilla with some cheese, hot sauce, and maybe bits of a tomato or avocado if I have them.  This is one meal I always come back to.  My "emergency" dinner food is usually about two tortillas worth of dehydrated refried beans in a ziploc.

Dried potato flakes or mac and cheese are both good choices and on the average universally available.  Half-and-half works well instead of milk or butter that you might not have, and about 8 to 10 of those little half-and-half packets you'll often see in small markets that sell coffee will work well with mac and cheese.  Also mooch little packets of ketchup and/or add some retort pouch meat (which is kind of expensive and often challenging to find) will top off either of these nicely.

A lot of groceries that have premade deli food, especially things like tabouli or a bean salad are also good choices.

Sometimes a can of chili or soup can really hit the spot or at least be easy to cook.

Retort pouch dishes (e.g. Tasty Bite) are good and actually some of them are surprisingly healthy.

Tabouli mix is available in some stores.  It is inexpensive and tasty and doesn't require any cooking if you are patient.  Some cheese or tomatoes can enhance the whole experience.  I recommend having a bowl with a tight-fitting and waterproof lid so you can mix the tabouli at the store, ride on, and eat it in camp a few hours later.

Lunch:

I posted a thread about what I carry for lunch in the Food Talk area of this board (the link is https://forums.adventurecycling.org/index.php?topic=18018.0 ).  The important thing is lunch is a series of modest snacks that are consumed on the ride and not usually a big meal you sit down for.

Apples and avocados are good choices.

I will either have little packets of nut butter or a retort pouch with flavored (preferably spicy) tuna in a tortilla.

Sometimes I might also put hummus in that tortilla.

I usually bring some "energy bars" or purchase them on the way.  Snickers bars also are fine as long as the weather is not too hot.  The advantage of these is that you can rip the package partially open, stick 'em in a pocket, and take a bite while you are riding.

I'll look for big resealable bags of nuts (cashews and macadamia nuts are favorites in terms of calories per ounce) and bring one along.

Also, some kind of dried meat, either decent beef jerky or something like landjager sausage are a good choice in moderation.  Again in a resealable bag is a very good idea.

Some deli markets will sell hard-boiled eggs and pickles which can also really hit the spot.

Cookies are good.

Some hard candy is sometimes nice.

Electrolytes:  I usually carry a bunch of Hammer Endurolyte Fizz or Nuun tabs.  I like these because they replace electrolytes, don't really foul water bottles that much, and at least the Nuun tabs are pretty universally available in the far west.

Breakfast:

Breakfast is usually the other half of that salad I had for dinner, instant oatmeal or a decent granola if I can find it, and instant coffee.  I consider the breakfast coffee just to be enough of a pick-me-up to get to a real cup of coffee down the road.

I try to pick up a very small bottle of milk if I can.  Otherwise the oatmeal and coffee are generally edible without the milk.

Sometimes if you have a bagel and can mooch little packets of creme cheese from a store that can make a decent breakfast.  You can carefully toast the bagel on your camp stove.

If I plan a hotel stay I like to find a place with a decent hotel breakfast to charge up.  Also I will usually mooch things like apples, granola bars, and sometimes a fruit juice for the road.

[donald.stewart.92]

I’ve been finding in convenience/ gas station stores hard boiled eggs, packets of nuts, vegetable packs and other better things now. Hot soups, pizza and salads. Credit card cooking I call it. Things have gotten better at convenience stores lately.


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[froze]

I’ve been finding in convenience/ gas station stores hard boiled eggs, packets of nuts, vegetable packs and other better things now. Hot soups, pizza and salads. Credit card cooking I call it. Things have gotten better at convenience stores lately.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I agree food has gotten better at convenience stores, sometimes I do the same thing when I'm near one.

[davidbonn]

There are some really good convenience stores out there, close to being miniature supermarkets.  On the other side, there are still a lot of poor ones out there that have nothing but junk food and sugary goo.  Smaller markets in camping-oriented areas tend to have better options.

I don't really have experience cycling in the food deserts of the Southeast so I don't really know how to break the code there.  On the other hand some of the smaller towns along the AT in the South had decent resupply options even from smaller markets.  I have noticed on travel through that area that a Really Bad Sign is if the only "groceries" are from a dollar store.

Probably one of the most impressive small markets I've seen in recent years is the Kalispel Market on Highway 20 just North of Cusick, WA.  On the Northern Tier or close to it depending on how you choose to ride.

I tend to like smaller markets because it is typically easier to keep track of your bike and your stuff and a car-centric place like a mini-mart gas station is less likely to be a place where serious bike thieves will be hanging about.  I also have a pet peeve about how a lot of "bike friendly" businesses put the bike racks in an out-of-the-way place so the bike thieves can do their evil work without the risk of being observed.

[Westinghouse]

"I also have a pet peeve about how a lot of "bike friendly" businesses put the bike racks in an out-of-the-way place so the bike thieves can do their evil work without the risk of being observed."


The business people are probably not cyclists.  They are unaware.  Tell them.  It may be unlikely that a thief will steal your bike or steal from the rack and panniers.  The facts remain that thieves are everywhere and the very real possibility of theft is extant.  If the owners own belongings were left in an area vulnerable to undetected thievery, they would move the rack. Nobody is going to care about and look after your gear, bike, money, house, belongings the way you will.  It is an observation.  No matter what anybody tells you, nobody cares about you as much as yourself.  It is always perfectly fine to position those bike racks the way you describe---so long as other people's bikes are located there.

[BikeliciousBabe]

So much fear.  Sad.