[Philmont] Food Selection

Hopefully Dr. Bob will reply, but he might be out getting ready for his
trek this year. Without trying to take anything from Dr. Bob's
methodology there are a couple of comments I would make. First and
foremost, the diaries are from 2002 and earlier. Philmont trail food
has gone through a number of changes (some good, some not so good) since
then, including Tropical Gorp, Cracker Mania, Spreadables, etc. Second,
Dr. Bob's crews have a great deal of experience with Philmont food
either from prior treks or from using it in their training regimen.
They are familiar with what the crew will eat and what it will just
carry until it can be dropped in a Swap Box - if you ain't gonna eat it,
why carry it. And they have Dr. Bob as a guide.
 
Unless this describes your crew, I wouldn't bother 'field striping' the
meals, especially the first issue. You just don't know what will be a
hit and what will be a miss. You might also find that some in your crew
really like dried apricots (or any other food items) while others find
them disgusting. Last summer we had an odd number of crew members and
one member who was allegic to cheese and so had non-cheese meals on
three occasions. So we had at least one 'extra meal' everytime and two
when cheese was on the menu. I don't believe we ever had 'leftovers'
except for a few really lousy meals and field striping wouldn't have
helped (we didn't know that they were lousy). Someone was always trying
to yogi the extra food. It should also be noted that some crews
remarked that they thought these same meals were okay.
 
One final note; at Philmont food is the fuel your body needs to get you
from point 'A' to point 'B'. If you have picky eaters, they need to get
over it. If they don't eat they will adversely impact the entire crew,
especially toward the end of a long day when its cold and raining and
you still have two miles to go before you reach your next camp. And it
doesn't matter if it says Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner and it doesn't
matter that you eat the meals in order. Its just fuel/food.
 
As to recommendations on 'bring along extras' I would suggest things
like jerky, sausage sticks etc., morale boosters like candy (our crew
liked Sweet Tarts) and maybe some dehydrated soup mix for that 'long
day'. Hope this helps somewhat.
 
Happy Trails,
 
Roy Fisher
 

In reading Dr. Bob's (really excellent) Philmont diary, I came to
realize that there is a bit of strategy involved in food sorting and
selection. My prior understanding was that you just took everything
that Philmont gave you and carried it around with you and chose meals to
eat from time to time. Apparently there is more to it than that. Could
some of you comment on the food selection and management process?

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Received on Sat Jun 16 12:13:16 2007