Gluten Free

[oldhikerQ]

Does anyone out there rely on a gluten free menu in the backcountry? I am now on that path, due to some poor lifestyle choices made during the years I spent ignoring the mountains. I tried making my own meals last summer based on food available from Packit Gourmet, but they were all very bland, even after adding what I had hoped were enough spices. Plus, cooking times are in the 10 to 15 minute range.

[Troutdog 59]

Not certain Q, but I believe Backpackers Pantry has some gluten free selections. Not sure how many Ive tried, but I think their Red Beans and Rice was listed as gluten free and it wasnt that bad. Still freeze dried backpacking food, but doable.

[87TT]

Take your gluten free food that you eat at home and dehydrate it in a dehydrator. My wife is gluten free for medical reasons and it works for us. Examples are Zataran's dirty rice and spanish rice. We take gluten free pasta and cook it and dehydrate it, that way it is ready with minimal cooking on the trail. You can prepare all your gluten free pasta meals and dehydrate them. Gluten free Bisquik is a little bit of a challenge because you need shortening. I have made them on the trail with Ova easy eggs,powdered milk and shortening. Steam bake them the normal way or cook them on some water, freeze dried chicken, freeze dried or dehydated veggies and some chicken bullion and you have chicken and dumplings.

[oldhikerQ]

Thanks for the idea, 87TT.

[AndyMac321]

For lunch and snacks I just discovered these "go picnic" ready- to- eat meals, many of which advertise gluten free. Haven't tried one yet, but they look good.

+1 on dehydrating your own meals.

[John Harper]

Unless you suffer from Celiac's Disease, gluten free is a bunch of hooey. Only people who have Celieac's disease are unable to digest gluten. Saw Jillian Michaels on CNN with some other food/nutrition experts last week and she laughed at the gluten free hysteria.

John

[DriveFly44]

Unless you suffer from Celiac's Disease, gluten free is a bunch of hooey. Only people who have Celieac's disease are unable to digest gluten. Saw Jillian Michaels on CNN with some other food/nutrition experts last week and she laughed at the gluten free hysteria.

John

I believe the same and have said it for a long time with the gluten craze. There is truth as you indicate for those with CD but a whole lot of marketing and millions of dollars made. IMO, similar to the "green" scam....some of it legit but so much of it is businessess cashing in on the drones that will buy anything and everything with a green label or logo. I don't fall for it but demonstrate my environmental consciousness in other ways


Ladd

[oldhikerQ]

While CD may be the only reason that a gluten free diet is medically required, there are other reasons to embrace it. In my case, too many years of extended travel to backwater towns for my career as a field test engineer led to health problems, including high BP, cholesterol and triglycerides. Prescription drugs led to worsening health, which led to more drugs. To break the cycle, I adopted a gluten-free diet after consulting with a nutritionist in spring 2012. In the following 6 months, I dropped 50 pounds and got off of all of the meds. I've picked up 5 of those pounds due to winter sloth, but expect to shed them soon. BP, cholesterol and triglycerides remain at the low levels recorded after the initial 6 months. While I miss some of the food that I used to rely on (especially pasta), I feel so much better that I can't picture myself returning to my previous diet.

[snowpatch]

I'd say more than half my backpacking meals are gluten free, since rice, beans and quinoa pack so much smaller than pasta. Cook your grains at home and then dehydrate. They will rehydrate in 10 -15 minutes in a pot cozy. I make a lot of quinoa salads for lunch, and brown rice meals for dinner. Also shepherds pie with mashed potatoes is a great comfort meal for when you've had a long day. Now that I think about it, I hardly ever eat pasta or wheat based meals on the trail.

[ManOfTooManySports]

I'm not gluten-free, but I'm wheat-free and there are a lot of other things that cause me--let's just say "distress"--when I eat them. It really is a night-and-day kind of thing for me. I eat them, I feel like dog poo and my weight gains if I continue eating them. I don't eat them, I'm OK.

I've gravitated to a pretty bland diet of fish, meat, and a lot of greens. Obviously, that's a problem in the high country. Fortunately, I can handle a few days of oats, white rice, polenta and potatoes in my diet.

So, into freezer bags we put instant rice, instant polenta or instant mashed potatoes, add some salt, pepper, garlic powder and herbs, add some dried veggies (including dried broccoli and greens). In smaller freezer bags we have freeze-dried meat for me and beans for my partner (beans and I have problems getting along). We add boiling water and there's your dinner. It means you have a lot of trash to pack out, but clean up is easy.

Breakfast is usually instant oatmeal and coffee.

Snacks and lunches are almond butter and gorp. In the past I would eat a chunk of salami, but I think that's causing me problems, too. (Sigh.) So, I've made my own pemmican and will be experimenting with that this year.