Easy meals in the field

Hiking or hunting, I like to have food and water with me. I always have snacks and a couple of bottles of water packed in my backpack. Chocolate bars leftover from Halloween make great little bursts of energy, especially when hunting whitetail deer in the cold of November. On longer outings, I’ll try to pack a small lunch.

I kind of got bored with sandwiches. I grew up on them, took them to work. I’ve eaten enough sandwiches. Out hunting one afternoon with my Dad, I got particularly hungry, and hadn’t packed a lunch. All my snacks exhausted for the day, I remembered that I had packed a can of Chef Boyardee for emergency rations, in case I was stuck in the woods overnight. It was a good failsafe to keep in my work backpack when I did field support for an IT company, and had to work through lunch.

Unfortunately this day, I learned that a full sized can is just too much food for being stuffed into layers of clothing. Not wanting to dump out what I didn’t need to eat, and not having means to store the leftovers without making a mess of my pack, I finished the can… And pretty much instantly regretted it. After that trip, I started picking up the little single serving cans you’d put in a kid’s lunchbox. 

Usually, I feel these little cans are too small for my appetite, but have found they’re the perfect size and weight for hunting and hiking and I don’t have to find a bush to duck behind, if you know what I mean. My childhood spaghettio fork is just the right size for the pack as well. I can eat the canned food cold, not yet having a little burner for the pack Empty can and utensil goes into a used plastic grocery bag. Carry in, carry out!

I’m curious, what other quick portable meals do you all carry?

I’m in no way sponsored by the guys who make Chef Boyardee. This blog is solely paid for by me and is my own opinion.