Cold Cooked Minute Rice and Beans--My New Favorite Lunch

[powderhound]

I had a bit of a food mishap a couple years ago on the trail and ended up eating some of my dinner food for lunch. I previously had been eating cliff bars and trail mix for lunch as I hiked, but discovered that I can rehydrate minute rice and instant refried beans (Santa Fe Bean Co) together in a zip lock bag without heating any water. I just move the bag of rice/beans into an outer pocket on my pack in the morning before I leave, add water when I start getting hungry for a more substantial meal than energy bars, and let it soak for about 20 minutes while I hike. That's it! Just let it soak for 20 minutes in cold water, preferably in a pocket close to my body or on the outside of my pack in the sun, and I can eat a sizable lunch with almost no time spent preparing it.

I have no idea if this is a common practice or not, but it's something I discovered due to an accident and it turned out to be one of my best practices. Rice and beans sure do taste good after hiking for 5 hours!

[gary c.]

Sounds like it would be good and should even save some wt over the Cliff Bar.

[longri]

Anything tastes better than a Clif bar.

[Wandering Daisy]

Depends if you are carrying much more water. Hydration while hiking is not something I do because I really try to reduce the amount of water I carry. I am a compulsive "gram counter". But I agree that cliff bars are not the best. I prefer to make my own "gorp" type mix.

I do see this method as valuable if you plan on hiking until dark and then can have instant dinner. A fellow on another forum did the CDT for an entire month, "no-cook" - did not even take a stove. He said it was not bad at all. But then those thru-hikers walk from dawn to dusk and actually get into towns quite often to fill up on regular food. I would think the no-cook method would be great for 2-3 day trips, where the weight of the stove is hard to justify. But I tried it once and the cold coffee convinced me that no-cook is not for me. I really like my hot food, too.

It would be interesting to experiment with other dry food and see what happens.

[fishmonger]

I would think the no-cook method would be great for 2-3 day trips, where the weight of the stove is hard to justify.

Not hard to justify for me. I'll start worrying about stove weight when I can't pass people on the switchbacks any longer. Any overnight trip, I want my hot coffee in the morning. I'd leave a few pounds of camera lenses behind before I question my hot coffee ritual