[00:00:00] Joe: So, Tayson has changed his mind about backpacking food and we're gonna get into that. But first, this is the Live Ultralight podcast powered by Outdoor Vitals in. This podcast is all about lightening your gear and building your confidence. So you can start living your life full of Outdoor Adventures and memories. I am Joe. Jason. And Jason. Tell us. What do most ultralight Backpackers do for food? Like what have you seen on
[00:00:33] Joe: the trail from from others?
[00:00:34] Tayson: Yeah I feel like there's two ways that people go around it one is you've got like the hiker mentality of
[00:00:41] Tayson: costs really matter. So they're eating like, They're eating literal garbage like you know Ramen and just all this stuff that I've never enjoyed eating on the trail. I've also just spelled it in my performance on the trail so it's kind of that I'll be on us. I never really have taken part of that. Yes I've done the packets of Potatoes and I've done Ramen and stuff, and then like an hour later,
[00:01:03] Tayson: I'm hungry and I could tell. It's just not, it's just not working for me but I'm a bigger guy, right? I'm Historically, a sat around 220 pounds. I'm almost 63. I'm right now. Like closer to 200, but I'm just consume a lot of food. So, So yeah, that's never worked for me. The other mentality though is just everyone talking about calorie per ounce, just Boost the calories per ounce of of weight.
[00:01:26] Tayson: So the more, the more calorie per ounce of weight, that means that you can take less weight of food but have more calories, and that's an extremely important component too. That's where people really get into, you know, eating macadamia nuts. Multiple, you know, every single day or almond butter and all that kind of stuff, that's, you know, 180 calories per ounce or something like that, on this High Extreme ends. Whereas most
[00:01:50] Tayson: food is not typically going to be in that range. So I think with,
[00:01:54] Joe: with backpacking food, what I've seen as like a novice at all, this stuff I have seen the ramen for sure. I have brought the ramen myself for sure. On the
[00:02:05] Tayson: trails gotta try the
[00:02:06] Joe: mashed potato packets that you get I don't know what the brand is but you see him everywhere and I hope potatoes
[00:02:11] Joe: that's it. Idaho potatoes. Yeah, exactly. Which I think are great. You may not like I think those are good. I
[00:02:19] Tayson: was hungry like two hours later and I was like I was stuffed full, you know? Like And then, just two hours later. I was like, empty. It was weird. I was like, man, I really noticed that. But
[00:02:29] Joe: how many calories like extra calories? Do most people burn through a day of hiking? Yeah, because like as a bigger guy like you got a certain base.
[00:02:38] Tayson: So Cal for me my Base in my resting calorie burn is somewhere around. Say, 2200 calories a day. So when I'm out there on the trail depending on what kind of Trail and how many miles I can burn anywhere from, we'll say 4,000 on the low end but a lot of times if I'm doing big days and stuff like that, I'm getting into the basically 7,000 8,000. Cal range of burn. So
[00:03:06] Tayson: our fast packing or running you're talking like 8,000 calories burned that day according to my Garmin watch. Right? That's tracking it all day. So you can burn a lot, but I would say like if you're new and slower Pace stuff you're not, you know, doing 25 miles a day that kind of stuff, you're still probably burning, you know, 4500 plus calories would be, you know, for me, let's say I can ten
[00:03:32] Tayson: miles a day and pretty low impact but she's kind of moving all day long and active. And I mean, and two, when I go to the gym and I bust my butt for now, I run for an hour or something like that. By the end of the day, I have added about another thousand calories of and that's just in an hour but that's like intensive. so yeah it's kind of different for
[00:03:52] Tayson: everyone but I'd say your plan on at least burning 4500 but the big, the big thing to know here, the only thing that matters is you cannot out eat The amount of calories you're going to burn on a trail. You're
[00:04:01] Joe: always gonna run no matter what. Yeah, I think so.
[00:04:03] Tayson: I think so, and I think that's where some of the story turned for me this year.
[00:04:10] Joe: so when it comes to like that normal quote unquote, like junk backpacking, food, What do you think? Well, let me let me back it up a little bit here. You're talking about calories per ounce. Like what of that kind of typical backpacking? Food? Do you see is these Ultra lighters? Is it peanut butter? Is that too heavy for an ultra lighter? Is it? Peanut butter is high calorie pronounce? Okay.
[00:04:38] Tayson: You know kind of middle the road stuff would be like Clif bars. I want to say or like 110, 120 calories per ounce. But what I used to shoot for us, try to have like an average calories in my whole pack like my whole food for the day would be somewhere close to like 140 calories per pounds on average if you can hit that, that's pretty high for an average across all
[00:04:57] Tayson: of your food items. You know, peanut butter, and and trail mix and stuff like that. Pulls those averages up while, you know, jerky would pull it down jerk. He's like, 80 calories, which is always surprising. Mm-hmm. And,
[00:05:11] Joe: and what do you say, nowadays?
[00:05:13] Joe: For those listening? I
[00:05:14] Joe: guess. What? Is ultralight in terms of like total poundage on your pack? What does that look like?
[00:05:22] Tayson: For the Packer, the food, like everything, including food,
[00:05:24] Tayson: food packed, everything I was going on. Let's say a 4-day trip. You're about 20 pounds plus some water, you know, depending on how much water you got to carry. So excluding water but like Fuel and food. I would say you're like 20 pounds and the reason I say that is to me getting in at 12 pounds or less is, is typically what I'm shooting for. I'm usually closer to 10 than 12
[00:05:50] Tayson: but I like to not limit myself if I feel like bringing an extra something in terms of Base weight. Yeah. The base weight, so
[00:05:58] Tayson: before and then food wise, I've typically two pounds are under most of the time I'm between I'm closer to, like, a pound, and a quarter or three quarters. So, 1.75 pounds ish per day worth of food. I'm going light, I'll go a little bit lower, but if I'm Chill trip. I might bring more. So in order to actually hit that two pounds.
[00:06:21] Joe: Of food and you have four-day trip. And you need As many calories as you can get or at least that was like the idea right? You know, you really are, you would have to focus on that calorie per ounce. More than anything. Totally.
[00:06:38] Joe: Yeah, because some people will also take that same thing again. I'm a bigger guy. So I pack probably more food than everyone needs. I've
[00:06:45] Tayson: always had to look at it because a lot of guys are gonna pack a pound and a half of food maximum, right? But me, you know, I always packed maybe a little bit more just because of my size and whatnot. But yeah, I mean, the big thing is everyone's just trying to cut that down because it's heavy, right? That's
[00:07:00] Tayson: eight pounds of food if you're packing two. Pounds per day for four days and it just gets bigger and bigger. That's why it's always nice to get off the trail on the last thing. You're like, so great.
[00:07:10] Joe: So then tell us what did you, what did you
[00:07:14] Joe: used to pack for people?
[00:07:17] Joe: It would be interesting. Like maybe some people listening aren't ultralight. Packers maybe they're just like normal Backpackers. So as an Ultra Lite Backpacker, what did you Use that obviously you did for a while, right? You did. Yeah.
[00:07:31] Tayson: Number one thing was just focus on Kelly Brown. So I would like to think that I see the most people do right away is
[00:07:39] Tayson: Go to the store, buy a big bag of Trail Mix and then take like big Ziploc bags each day of just trail mix, right? I did that. And I could never finish the trail mix because it's heavy like it's kind of heavy in the stomach and just, I don't know. For me, I hit him an absolute wall between like when I get close to like a cup of trauma, it's like if
[00:08:02] Tayson: you're measuring it a cup of drumming, okay, and I hit him like a wall like where I'm like, I don't even want to eat from. It's gonna look at it anymore. It was, it was weird. But that was like something that happened and so then I was like, all right, what do I do with that? Or, you know, you hear a lot about like, almond butter. So everyone's getting pockets of kind
[00:08:18] Tayson: of expensive, almond butter. And for some people, they love it. For me, and never sat that. Well for me, the only time I eat almond butter was on trail and then it was like, is it the trail or the almond butter? That I don't know,
[00:08:30] Joe: or don't like here, right? But it's high
[00:08:32] Tayson: calories. So you do it, you know,
[00:08:35] Tayson: macadamia nuts, or there's just there's there are a handful of things or you can go. The other route. One of the highest calories per ounce foods you can get are Fritos. Really, yes.
[00:08:48] Tayson: Garbage oil in them. They're just saturated with so much trans oil, trans fat oils or whatever they're baking those things in that they're Valerie Browns. I mean yeah good that's why
[00:09:00] Joe: that's that's why when you see like pencil like Taco Bell or anything but like they have like the Frito
[00:09:06] Tayson: burrito like and I'm just like Looks like the biggest gut bomb, like, you know, like what is it like percentage of
[00:09:13] Joe: meat in that thing. And then I can imagine someone trying to save like space in their pack and like smashing Fritos into the black bag. That's what I can see now.
[00:09:23] Tayson: Yeah, now, they're gonna now, they've suggested
[00:09:25] Joe: volume and wait and yeah,
[00:09:28] Joe: everything safe. There you go. Frito
[00:09:30] Tayson: at least repack. I do repackage a lot. So that's another part of it is, is I will repackage quite a bit of stuff to save side bulk because
[00:09:37] Tayson: it's not just the weight. Sometimes the food is also the bulk. But yeah, so those Are the beginning things. I see a lot of people want to do is they just go out and they have you on trail mix. And some of the things that are just obvious Even maybe it's peanut butter or something, but
[00:09:50] Joe: that's I've seen I've seen on some videos. You'll have to tell me if you actually think that's on the trail. A jar of peanut butter and they take a stick of butter, and they put it in the jar of peanut butter and mix that up. I've seen that on some like Appalachian Trail, you know, self filmed documentaries on you, I So obviously you can question their sanity I won't
[00:10:19] Tayson: I won't go that far. Here's what I here's what I would
[00:10:22] Joe: guess that's gonna take a guess that's like 5000 calories. If you eat the whole, I don't know. If you would ever eat a whole jar of peanut butter in one go,
[00:10:30] Tayson: You'd have an iron gut but here's my guess is that they were on trail. They didn't plan to do that, they're on trail and had a massive craving. I think that happens. You'll get on trail and you'll just think about something and your body just seems to Crave it. So, my guess is that they were craving like the fattiness of butter or the oils of the peanut butter. And then they're like,
[00:10:54] Tayson: I'm just gonna do this because He feels like it wants it right? And but I I highly doubt I
[00:11:00] Joe: don't know if people just do that like they mix it up at the house. Imagine being let's say you're out hiking on the Appalachian Trail, you've been out on the trail for like two or three months and you're just like emaciated, you might, you might just bring out the stick of butter in the peanut butter. And
[00:11:15] Tayson: that's actually if you've been eating Ramen every day, yeah, calories.
[00:11:20] Joe: It's pretty high calories for what for what it is, right? It's kind of like Fritos. Yeah. Yeah. All right so you used to pack like that? It was just yeah,
[00:11:30] Joe: Tyler Brown. And when did this? Kind of winded this change.
[00:11:35] Joe: Yeah, for you. So
[00:11:37] Joe: a few of the things I
[00:11:38] Tayson: caught on too quick, like the trail mix was just like I just can't like I would try to do one cup of trumpets because on the package, you in fact that I was like, 640 calories for one cup of trail mix. um and then after I just kept bringing it home and bringing it home, I'm like okay I can't do a full cup of trail, mix get over it, you know, and
[00:11:55] Tayson: and so I did so there was a few things like that but no, the biggest thing was When we went and did the skyline Trail on day one, we ran 26 and a half miles. 6,000 feet of elevation. It was a big day. So Marathon we ran. A marathon was 6,000 feet of elevation else, right? And mud mud is with mud was the worst. That's actually where started to feel. Sick was
[00:12:17] Tayson: her hiking up this hill done. Most of you know or probably I'm like between 5500 and 6,000 feet of elevation. At that point had been climbed and were hiking in the mud up the hill and just sticking to your feet. Like you just So hard so heavy. Anyways, I got sick that day. So day one. Got sick. And Stuck with me the rest of the time. Long story short, I'll do a
[00:12:40] Tayson: podcast on altitude sickness. That's what I believe it was all. I didn't believe it at the time. I didn't not think it was out the dude sickness. I thought I got a stomach bug. I thought I got other things and it was a whole dilemma and so that night we got into camp, we recorded a podcast.
[00:12:56] Joe: Of I don't know what it's called, might be Beaver or something. Yeah. So if you want
[00:13:03] Tayson: to listen to that but I literally recorded that podcast. I feel great. I was fine. I had cramped a little bit, you know, coming into camp. Like I was kind of where I was starting to feel a little bit but then I ate dinner. Did the podcast was fine laid in bed? 30 minutes later I was ready to throw up and then that just stuck with me. So the right the next
[00:13:20] Tayson: day I get up and I'm just thinking Still sick. What the heck? I don't know what's going on. I just gotta see if I can get some calories down. So because I know I'm running at this massive deficit, right? Because that day I did burn 8,000 calories. So I'm trying to get food down and nothing is good and as the day went on, you know, I'm just flipping through my pack. You
[00:13:40] Tayson: know, there's a couple things I figured out I could that I could literally Force down. My throat jerky. There were some jerky that team member Darren had and I basically just stole it by traded it for him. That was about the only thing I ate the entire time other than some fruit snacks and fruit snacks, even then I I was like, couldn't eat him. I couldn't eat a whole package and Brandon
[00:14:05] Tayson: turns me says, do just eat like one or two at a time. And so I did, I would open up package of fruit snacks, eat one or two, and hike for 10, 20 minutes have one or two more like, that's as much as I could get down my stomach. Anyways, but again, it came back to that jerky. I was like, I could eat the jerky and then the whole time we were
[00:14:21] Tayson: on the trail, All I could think about was a Subway sandwich with a ton of mayo on it, right? That sounded good to me. So the only thing in my head that sounded good and sure enough we go for the two and a half days, finish the trail, get off the trail and I'm pretty bad shape. I feel like just just so hungry, but like, not, not hungry sick. And as we
[00:14:45] Tayson: go to Subway, and I put down a full foot long sandwich after not being able to eat anything. Right? So
[00:14:50] Joe: I came away from it and I packed
[00:14:52] Tayson: all this weight worth of food. I can't even give it away because all these guys are all trying to be like because we're running. So not only my second, all the extra weight of food and Yes, get done with and I stop what was the point of me bringing all this stupid food? If I could need it, right? And then I just got me on the big train of thought of variety,
[00:15:12] Tayson: right? Because that's what would typically happen is. I would package stuff together and I'd have like one type of bar, but I have two of them or three of them and I have like, one of this one of this. And one of Like I didn't have very much Variety in the pack, and so then when it came time on a sick, just wasn't much to choose from, it was like the same
[00:15:33] Tayson: thing over and over and each day's worth of food. So I left that trip saying, all right, the number one thing, I'm gonna take away from this is, I want to want to eat my food at all times, like, everything in my pack, I want to eat it because I burned, 8000 calories a day, there's no possible way. Any of us could have eaten, 8000 calories that day. I think the person
[00:15:53] Tayson: who ate the absolute most was Tyler and he ate somewhere close to 4,000 or 4,500 calories and he was super focused on calories in. And and I mean he was trying to eat as much as he could not so much as he could eat. So no matter what you were running at a deficit, right? Yeah.
[00:16:06] Joe: I just want to pause real quick. I have started running okay because of a certain thing that we're doing in the middle of the year that I have to physically ready for like cardiovascular ready for And I can't imagine eating that many calories in have to run the next day. Yeah, like I overate a couple days ago and then had to run the next day for my like trading. And yeah, I
[00:16:29] Joe: didn't even have to run that far. Yeah. But
[00:16:31] Joe: like the heaviness of like starting to run on that stuff like I did like it will mess with your stomach.
[00:16:36] Tayson: Yeah it absolutely messes or something. That's why if you watch a lot of the races Trail Races stuff like that. People throwing up all the time. Insane. And that's just like some days. They just call out a bad day, whatever it is. But, but yeah, I mean, you stop for lunch, let's say, but then you turn around and you basically want to start running in, you're supposed to start running again, right?
[00:16:55] Tayson: And so that's why a lot of the calories are consumed while you're moving. Days like that, you're keeping a lot of snacks in the front of your backpack, where you can grab them on the go because otherwise, you just can't eat that much without it just sitting in your gut, right?
[00:17:12] Tayson: So yeah, I mean you just can't eat 8,000 calories or 6,000 calories or 5000 calories for that matter. You can get into the 4000 calorie range, I feel like but it's a lot it's a lot and so really For me, when I figured at the end of it was, what does it really matter if I'm burning 6,000 calories in a day? Let's say, Which is what I burn. Most of the days
[00:17:32] Tayson: on Highline was around 6,000 or more calories a day. If I'm burning 6,000 calories and I can't eat them any calories. Anyways, what's the point, right? And and that's and then especially if I'm not finishing my food, right? If I can't finish my food because I don't want
[00:17:48] Tayson: to eat it. Then I'm just carrying extra food and a son, doing me any good? And so I switched my mindset from. All right, I need 130 calories per ounce on average for my whole pack to yes. I'm still conscious about calories but I want to eat everything in my pack and I want to massive variety. I want no duplicates. I don't want the same gummy bear if that matter. I mean
[00:18:08] Tayson: I want like as many varieties if I've got if I need to have four granola bars or Clif bars, whatever in my pack, every single one of those is a different type of bar, like I'm just going to change everything I possibly can to make everything new everything. Interesting. And that way, if I don't, if there's one thing I don't want, like, I don't miss out on a bunch of calories. I
[00:18:28] Tayson: miss out on the 100s, that was coming from that one source. And then by doing that, I figured instead of being able to pack, let's see, 4,000 calories in a day. Now, I'm packing on the low end, I'll say 3500 calories in a day and it's like, did that 500 calories matter, or does it matter that I wanted to eat the food? I ate all 3500 calories that food and I probably
[00:18:48] Tayson: just ate it throughout the date, which is another like that's, that's kind of separate. But I do try to eat it consistently throughout the day because calories deficit is less than I think the way you're eating those calories, but
[00:19:01] Joe: So everything. Now, variety varieties, the key, and by the way, I guess, if you want a good variety, this episode is brought to you by your backpacking. Food fund through the Live Ultralight membership, ten dollars a month gets you ten bucks a month in store credit that never expires. Year-round is to discounts free upgraded shipping, rebates Early Access and limited edition gear those discounts, including retail items, like, backpacking food. You cannot
[00:19:32] Joe: you literally cannot get a better price on anywhere else. So if you want to know more links to the membership and to all of our amazing gear can be found in the description of this episode. So, I want to taste it Kind of go through now now that you're all about variety and it's not just about like drinking almond butter all day. I mean that's something is
[00:19:58] Tayson: Another thing to note is, I decided, I just can't eat almond butter. It doesn't sit with me, so I go with peanut butter. Something, I know, it's a few less calories per ounce, but I know it and I like it.
[00:20:08] Joe: Almond butter to me, looks like a stomach ache in the making. I've never had almonds doing this. I thought.
[00:20:15] Tayson: Everyone's doing it. I was wrong. Yeah. And worked for me.
[00:20:18] Joe: What I want to kind of like let's say a hypothetical breakfast, lunch dinner. Snacks. And then we can talk about nutrition and What does does breakfast look like on your next hiking trip. So I have two options, not two options
[00:20:36] Tayson: but kind of two methods. One is I will eat a peak refuel breakfast. They're, they're not necessarily cheap, but they're good. They're super good. They go on easy, they digest fast, and I just, I've really liked them, right? So that's option one, that's preferential option one. But I on a bigger trip, I don't do that every single day and the days I don't, for the most part, I just load up more
[00:21:03] Tayson: snacks like those Nature Valley like breakfast biscuits, like some peanut butter, or maybe there's almond butter and
[00:21:14] Joe: I do like oh
[00:21:15] Tayson: but so like those are some pretty good ones and I'll basically just figure out if you extra things like that. That'll work in for my breakfast. I don't typically just wake up and eat. I will if I'm doing big cow like if I'm doing big days and need the calories in as quick as I can, but I typically wake up and focus on getting hydrated and making sure I'm hydrated and then
[00:21:36] Tayson: eating, he's like getting going, okay,
[00:21:38] Tayson: lunch. Lunch for me, is a black hole and that's where the variety really comes in, right? So something I changed was I started packing like jerk. And these guys all made fun of me. But I started packing Mayo packets because I
[00:21:58] Joe: craved that so much on that one hike. I wouldn't make funny that I get that. It's such a like I don't know what it is.
[00:22:04] Tayson: But that that like fattiness of it, I don't think it's the texture. Even it anyway. So like, I mix
[00:22:11] Tayson: up weird, things like that like, jerky and Mayo in a tortilla or there's something bacon bits. That's putting bacon bits in there. Kind of mixing some different meat. What
[00:22:21] Joe: about big and Stripes?
[00:22:23] Tayson: I've never brought full strips know. I figure. It'll turn into bits. Anyways, I mean by that.
[00:22:29] Joe: A bacon. Strips are a dog's. Oh, I see.
[00:22:34] Tayson: that sounds like a middle of the at craving type of So yeah, that's and then I'm always having bars. So I've got, I've usually got three to four bars, in my pack, for snacks and lunch and other times like
[00:22:49] Joe: Clif bars specifically like sports related bars or would you put like a Snickers in there?
[00:22:55] Tayson: Snickers aren't the worst thing. I mean, I'd stir away from like a Butterfinger or kit kat or something, unless that's like a treat, but I wouldn't look at that as like a food supplement replacement. I do like my treats though. So I'll typically have like a treat bag per se like a might like a smaller something in there that might be like, dried mangoes. I count as that as a treat, but
[00:23:15] Tayson: if it's like dried apples, then it's not a treat. So it's just, it's just apples, right?
[00:23:19] Joe: Mangoes are a tree but dried apples or not.
[00:23:21] Tayson: Yeah, dry mangoes are Another world,
[00:23:24] Joe: they're plenty of sugar, right? Oh yeah,
[00:23:26] Tayson: probably but, but like, I'll bring chocolate if the weather is not too hot. I'll bring. What are some other tree? I mean, obviously like gummy bears or anything, you know. So I really love to get that one on our on our site here in the next year so people could get that stuff. There's a lot of good product there but so I kind of have like I have this stuff like categorized
[00:23:53] Tayson: into just like The dirty stuff, I just want to eat. Usually, it's pretty good, calories per ounce, but it's not like nutritious as much as just like pure sugars, sugars all consumed either
[00:24:04] Joe: As a treat or like, right before
[00:24:06] Tayson: I know something's coming. So let's say, I know a big high like a big passes coming and I gotta go through that. I'll try to load up on some of those calories. Get a little bit of energy in floods,
[00:24:15] Tayson: not while I'm hiking up the hill or not at the base. I'm talking if I can like a little bit farther out or even on the back side. A lot of times that I found too is you get up through the past and Yield right the whole day. You eat. coming down the backside and that like brings your levels back up and then you're kind of stable going into the next Adventure,
[00:24:35] Tayson: or you can kind of hold that better. But yeah, I mean for lunch usually it's bars and and lately, you know, tortillas jerky. That's like the big variety like big variety comes in, all my snacks and all my lunch stuff. We've got a video on this where I probably show more than I'm talking about right now, but oh, the peak refuel Cookie Dough Bites and brownie bites. Those I have, I have.
[00:25:02] Tayson: So what I do is I take one of those for every two days so I'll eat half. Every day, but you can pop like a few of those at any time. And I really like those. So I'll kind of open it in the morning and then after lunch I'll have a few because I'm feeling down or whatever, you know, and then after
[00:25:17] Joe: I always try to have a few for after dinner too.
[00:25:19] Joe: So the video I think you're talking about is it's gonna be the same title as this podcast. I've changed my mind about backpacking food. You guys want to check out the Outdoor Vitals YouTube channel. Yeah, you do kind of you literally pull out what you had and like your last Trip and pull out the packages and show everybody exactly what you pack
[00:25:41] Tayson: banana chips. That's another good snacking. One that I use. I'm just throwing them all. Yeah.
[00:25:48] Tayson: I'm all over real me. So,
[00:25:49] Joe: all right, for dinner for dinner. It's another Peak refuel. I'm guessing
[00:25:52] Tayson: Peak refuel, I can't do Mountain House. Some people are fine doing Mountain houses. They're going to be a little bit cheaper, less calories, but I have found Peak refuels. Sit with me way better. I think there's a few reasons for this is, I've talked to the peak refill founder and other people within the company. There, the biggest thing is they just don't use fillers and and so like you can rehydrate more
[00:26:16] Tayson: calories With less water of peak and you can with same mountain house because of the fillers and stuff that they're putting in there. So princess almost every Mountain House takes at least two cups of water. Almost every Peak refuel meal takes one cup of water. And Peak refuels typically have quite a few more calories. You know, if an average Mountain House is 700 calories. Most people are literally closer to 900. So
[00:26:41] Joe: this is what I actually put a poll on our YouTube Community page, and
[00:26:45] Joe: I asked people like what their favorite brand of Of like the the meals, are the backpacking meals. Now Mount Ops are mountainous was the was the winner of that. I was wondering if that's because they're just like spread out more like you see him in Walmart and stuff, they owned more than I've
[00:27:05] Tayson: never so long. I mean there was like well very few competitors for such a long time. They're in every retailer known to man.
[00:27:13] Tayson: And most people grew up on it, you know what I mean? Like, they grew up eating Mountain houses and so and we
[00:27:19] Joe: do so those, right?
[00:27:19] Tayson: We just saw him. Yeah, we sell them. They just don't work for me.
[00:27:22] Joe: Okay. Good. Spaghetti from him. I think know.
[00:27:25] Joe: There's a lot of people that it works. Okay? For
[00:27:30] Tayson: For me, I don't know. They just don't digest as well
[00:27:33] Tayson: and for the peak.
[00:27:34] Tayson: Yeah, I'm just snobby. I guess
[00:27:37] Joe: that other people say they brought MREs, On betrayal. Yeah that's
[00:27:42] Joe: all in the comments. There was some like Swiss Brands I'd never heard of to I think I mean
[00:27:47] Tayson: my whole goal is to get people on the trail work, comfortably, more comfortably, I'm more comfortable eating piece, you
[00:27:55] Joe: Is your own personal experience, you know, no try this at home. But if you're going on
[00:28:00] Tayson: massively long trips and funds are tight, Then You're Gonna Save money with the mountain house or just cheaper the more accessible. And
[00:28:06] Tayson: now you can stomach I'm like well and digest them well and they're not affecting you, then it's hard to not eat them because they're literally everywhere and they're cheaper or if you got a freeze dryer I think that was my third one is like
[00:28:18] Joe: hydrate, you know, that's coming. Yeah,
[00:28:21] Tayson: I can get these guys around here to quit shipping out product and build the
[00:28:24] Joe: freeze dryer. We've got a freezer. We have it's just not assemble. It's
[00:28:27] Tayson: on a pallet ready to be assembled. And I started using it so
[00:28:30] Joe: I because I have to go to low carb because they too many carbohydrates seems to be a migraine trigger for me. And the last thing on earth I would want to have is a migraine while on trail. so,
[00:28:42] Joe: I have been bringing like summer sausage and then like keto ish trail mix. That has been my backpacking food for the last couple months. And so if we get that free dry, if we get that freeze dryer hooked up, I might be able to like, get some like beef and stuff going that I can rehydrate and see if you found on, have
[00:29:06] Tayson: you. Yeah, there's talk about variety that's gonna be open up a whole world of. I mean literally as we're talking to Like the wrap from Harvest, Right? Is the company you know that we're eating some snacks and stuff they had. And it's like, freeze-dried Skittles freeze tried this and I was like, I don't know why we need freeze dry,
[00:29:26] Joe: but it's delicious, right? Or when I went to Alaska last year, my brother bought like
[00:29:32] Tayson: a five pound thing of grapes and gave it to a buddy out of freeze or any freeze-dried, the whole thing grapes. All I ever freaking heard the whole trip was every time I hear the opening of a Ziploc bag and him start to eat some grapes
[00:29:47] Joe: Grapes are so amazing and then weigh nothing. It was so amazing and I think it was just dating. You are seriously,
[00:29:53] Tayson: seriously. So I'm very excited for the variety that that Harvest Right will bring and it'll be a lot of fun, and we're gonna, we're gonna have some fun of what we can or can't freeze dries. Hopefully, it doesn't lead to a lot of, like, biggest failures on the trail. But, yeah,
[00:30:09] Joe: we'll learn some new. I'm gonna send out some bold Productions. My mind again, I'm hoping that
[00:30:13] Tayson: Tyler doesn't listen to this, but I'm guessing he's gonna try something
[00:30:16] Tayson: really extreme may or may not work. I don't know.
[00:30:19] Joe: That's just that kid's personality, she's gonna like throw a cow and like, he's definitely gonna try like a hamburger or pizza or
[00:30:26] Tayson: something. It's gonna be like an interesting. I think
[00:30:29] Joe: there are like certain foods that can't be freeze-dried, but I have to look him up. Yeah
[00:30:34] Joe: yeah. Um so I know one of the things that kind of surprised me about recording the video of you talking about the subject was the supplements and nutrition, you got to want to go through like what you did that change at all? Or is that kind of the same
[00:30:50] Tayson: know? That's, that's started to change. you know I'm old now I'm 31, you know, so I don't, you know, I've got to be more conscious of this stuff, but Yeah. No I I just come to the realization this last year, but a lot more training and some of the stuff we're doing that. Just how important I think fueling is so there's two parts of feeling that I think are super important. One
[00:31:17] Tayson: is like the way you're taking the calories and so that to me is a lot of times taking them in throughout the day throughout the course of the day. So, not just eating a big breakfast hiking for four hours. Big lunch hiking for five hours, big dinner, go to bed, it's more like sprinting, those calories out giving your digestive system, the opportunity to take them in but also that keeps you from
[00:31:39] Tayson: eating calories. So if you go that long and you're burning that many calories, you're gonna hit a cal wall where You're just out of calories in your body and it's gonna have to switch to burning fat. And when you do that, you're going to fill it. You're Gonna Fill in a massive energy. Drop. So calories in is important but then nutrition in I think is the next piece. So I would take
[00:31:59] Tayson: a let's just even say 3,000 calorie per day limit. With like nutrition specific stuff before, I take like a random 4000 calorie ramen, noodle Fritos bomb any day a week and I know I'll feel way better on the trail. I'll be able to perform better, I'll be able to hike farther able to go after day because I think the calories do matter what you're consuming is really really important. I think that's
[00:32:25] Tayson: maybe and I might be speaking out of my turn here because I think anyone who likes something like through hike they're gonna get super skinny and have Really good like low percentage of body fat, but some of them look on healthy.
[00:32:39] Joe: You know, it may see it.
[00:32:41] Tayson: Yeah. And I think a lot of stuff to do, like if you eat ramen every day and Hike, 20 miles like Something's Gotta Give, You know, like it's gonna start eating your muscles away and stuff. So like protein can be important but The biggest thing that I think I changed this year because people has a lot of protein. Proteins are pretty, you know, fats and proteins, like peanut butter and stuff trail.
[00:33:00] Tayson: Mix is kind of easy to get in, but more. So I started to do things, like, focus a lot on electrolytes, so You know as fast packing and I do I do not feel like I'm an expert on this. I really want to dial this in because there's some big runs I want to do this year and I want to feel like I know exactly like the ratio for me of water
[00:33:20] Tayson: and electrolytes. But what I would do is I have these two soft flasks When I was the fast pack. Like half liter each of them. I do one full of water and one full of water with electrolytes and mixed in like one packet of what we, what they are is like an electrolyte packet from Mountain Ops we sell and you can pop them straight in your mouth or you can mix them
[00:33:42] Tayson: in a drink. And so if I did like a one-to-one ratio like that, that was decent ratio, but then I kind of always mix in a drink mix and so I'm still trying to dial it in but consuming electrolytes and consuming them throughout the day is super, super important. A lot of times on trail, it's not like you're having veggies and lettuce and all that kind of stuff and so I started
[00:34:02] Tayson: to use like a super Green Mix also from Mountain Ops but I have that on trail and that keeps your digestive system healthy it just keeps you, you know, consuming in a fiber it keeps you
[00:34:13] Joe: know so it is a fiber thing I was about that.
[00:34:15] Tayson: It's a part of it. Yeah.
[00:34:16] Tayson: Yeah for sure. But to me, it's like the reason I take it on a daily basis, not just on trail is because it's like, I don't know. There's days when I get what I eat that was green today, you know, like that's not good. You know. So like if I have that, then every day
[00:34:31] Tayson: I'm like, I've got something. This is a super Super condensed form of greens, but it works and so I'll take stuff like that. Multivitamin, you know what I mean? Like, you're not out there eating like a super rounded courses of meals all the time. And so, sometimes, maybe if you're like, not gonna spend a lot of money on getting more premium food or variety of food, even like bringing a multivitamin just
[00:34:55] Tayson: could help you get some of everything. You know what I mean, to keep you off of getting up on a Ledge, whether that feels like a cal wall or an energy wall or something. So all that stuff starts to matter and I and then as I get better at this I'll build more nutrition into just the foods them. So like, I will, I mean, little things, right? Like, I'm gonna take something
[00:35:16] Tayson: like a Clif Bar over a chewy granola bar, you know, or whatever those are. That are, like, things are like, there's Obviously more nutrition. That's gone into a Clif Bar. And so I think those things add up over the course of time and over the course of days as well. All right.
[00:35:35] Joe: Is there anything else about backpacking food you want to share with the audience like anybody's lost or they start? Yeah. Do they start with our
[00:35:43] Joe: membership and go? We have.
[00:35:44] Tayson: Yeah. I mean the peak refills are gonna switch on a good path or But don't don't let all of my talk deter you from going. I think. If you're a beginner obviously you're not going to be doing 25 miles a day. And so it might not matter that you have like, super real well-rounded food and things like that. But the more you go pay attention and you'll start to see patterns. I
[00:36:15] Tayson: think that's something that that maybe I'm just lucky or pay attention to. I kind of analyzed a lot of this stuff. And so I think I'd pick up on a lot of stuff. I know, they're so much more for me to learn, which is exciting for me because I just love learning. But yeah, I mean, I think beginners go with food, you know? Take a variety of it, don't get so hung
[00:36:34] Tayson: up on the calorie per ounce because you're not gonna eat as many calories. As you're actually, you know, burning you might get a little hungry like that can happen, but it's better to be a little hungry than to have food. You don't want to eat or or, you know, like you want you don't want to pack food, right? Like, you don't want to pack food off the mountain per se or off the trail.
[00:36:56] Joe: Yeah. You want to have just enough food for that trip.
[00:36:59] Tayson: That are you just want to? You want to want to eat the food?
[00:37:01] Joe: You keep saying as a weird thing to say, but like you, if you don't want to eat the food, you bring a cup of trail mix
[00:37:06] Tayson: and you can't eat it. Like then you just then the Cal things went out the window for you anyways, right? Matter that it was high-calorie pronounce food. So, keep the basic, keep the stuff you like. Start to pay attention to Cal per month, but don't stress about it in the beginning. And so, it's
[00:37:22] Joe: important because we're obviously an ultralight backpacking company. We don't want people to put 50 pound packs. On their back. That's
[00:37:31] Joe: pure misery, right? Yeah.
[00:37:34] Joe: I've definitely done 50 pound packs. Couple times. Yeah.
[00:37:37] Joe: Um, So it's important to pay attention to it, but it's not everything.
[00:37:41] Tayson: Yeah, I just think of it like an offsetting if I want to bring jerky, That he calories per ounce, I'm gonna bring jerky, I bought. I'm going to bring it in a limited amount like I'm not going to bring just a massive turkey bag. I'm going to bring in a limited amount usually repackage it. And I'm going to try to think of that as offsetting, like my trail mix, that's 160 calories
[00:38:01] Tayson: per ounce, right? So I just kind of just paying attention. If you think like that you still get a pretty good average. You know I can I'm sure that my average is still 120 calories per ounce But that's not that much different than 130 140. But now, I want to eat all my food. I know it digests well and I'm just happier all around. All right, well
[00:38:19] Joe: guys, just a real quick. Reminder that you can get pretty good, pretty darn. Good discounts on are the best discounts on backpacking through our live Ultra Lite membership, and the link for that, as well as links to our amazing gear will be found in the description below by the way, feel free to send us comments. Questions about backpacking. Cool. Outdoor stories or ideas for future episode topics. If we think it'll bring
[00:38:45] Joe: value to our audience, we will read it out on the show, possibly discuss it and you can send them by commenting on our brand. New little light podcast, YouTube channel. Or you can send us an email and it can be as long as you want on the email Live Ultralight podcast at gmail.com that is Live Ultralight podcast at gmail.com. Just got a real quick comment from Greg Roberts here on our video.
[00:39:11] Joe: Last week, love this podcast. Thanks so much for all you do being a bright light in a dim world. Thank you. Greg, thanks Greg.
[00:39:21] Joe: Um, so, yeah, guys, you can also send a positive iTunes reviews that will be read on the show and you can, of course, subscribe to this show on iTunes Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. And once again, we do have a video titled, I've changed my mind about backpacking food on the outdoor, vitals YouTube channel that you guys should probably go check out.
[00:39:46] Tayson: There's definitely gonna be things that I didn't say that are shown in that video. Yeah. I'm thinking in my head I'm like I think there's a few
[00:39:54] Joe: well if you want the whole story you listen to the podcast and you watch YouTube video
[00:39:58] Joe: on many times and like Joe doesn't get paid by the news, share them with friends, share this podcast With Friends, of course,
[00:40:11] Joe: Anyway, that I think that's it for today. Unless you have,
[00:40:13] Tayson: no, I think that is, I think maybe there's a lot to learn. That's what's exciting about backpacking, and it's just keep learning, keep doing it. And that's part of the journey, right? And have fun out there, but I like, we, like doing these. I think this was fun format to have you talk and kind of interview me, Joe. But I really want to hear more from the crowd that's listening. I'm like,
[00:40:36] Tayson: what are your favorite podcasts? We've done quite a variety now. So there's different formats, we've done from on the trail type, stuff to interview, type stuff to this stuff to Round Table. I mean, whatever it is like we're looking for some feedback and would love to hear that. So
[00:40:53] Joe: make sure to hit us up Give us comments live, ultralight podcast at gmail.com guys. See you on the trail. See ya.
