Hiking Food - What Should You Take On Your Trip?

Before setting off on your hiking adventure, it is important that you prepare yourself for the journey ahead. That means wearing the right clothes and taking the right food. Your choice of hiking food can greatly affect your stamina and overall enjoyment of the hiking trip, so the key is to plan (and purchase) your food well in advance.

So what sort of hiking food should you take? The main thing to bear in mind is that hiking consumes calories, so you need food that will replenish your body with the calories you need to then burn them off during the trip. A common mistake is for people to think that 'junk foods' constitute as high calorie foods that are perfect for a hiking trip. Wrong! What you actually need are foods that will give you energy, not make you feel lethargic after eating them.

The best tip we can give you is to make sure you eat a healthy breakfast before setting off on your hiking trip. Porridge and rich oaty foods are ideal, and steer clear of the ever-so-tempting full English breakfast that will just laden your body up with unnecessary fats and disrupt your body's healthy start to the day. Choose foods that will release energy gradually throughout the day.

A lot of people choose fruit to take on their hiking trip. It is actually advisable to eat fruit as one of the first things in the morning, as it takes much longer to digest than other foods and should effectively be the first thing you eat so it has time to digest properly. Of course, taking bananas with you on a hiking trip is always a good idea as they give the body energy.

For longer trips, you need a different type of hiking food. This is where carbohydrates play an important part in your diet and you will need to be packing a bag full of things like pasta and meats, as the protein is also an essential.

Getting the right clothing and footwear is one thing, but your choice of hiking food is crucial if you are planning a hiking trip.