Bushwalk Australia

I am just looking at options of not having to boil water to make coffee and porridge some days of my Overland Track hike, to save fuel / time getting on the trail in the morning, and I'd love some input from experienced hikers on this....

All Natural Bakery Bars Slice Oat Almond & Apricot 100g

Ingredients:
Organic Oats, Organic Wholemeal Wheat Flow, Organically Produced Honey, Organic Coconut, Salt Free Butter (Cream And Water), Almonds (5%), Apricots (5%) (Contains Sulphites) Baking Soda.

https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/prod ... nd-apricot?

I've attached nutritional info - 1796 kj per serve / per 100 grams. (Bar is 100 grams.)

Is it looking ok to your eyes? Maybe 1.5 bars / 150 gram weight? And I was thinking to do cold coffee with Starbucks Via coffee sachets and some milk powder.

Have tried these. They are very, very dry. Too dry for me especially first thing in the morning.

I eat weetbix for breakfast. No need to boil, no worries if they get a bit broken up. Easy.

Ah that's interesting feedback. Are you having coffee / drink at the same time / while you're having your bar @ILUVSWTAS?

Do you only find it's too dry for breakfast, or also too dry for snacks?

Carmans do a good Oat Bar, too. But there's less faffing around with cold muesli and water. Why cook when you don't need to?

Why not just soak your oats overnight in reconstituted powdered milk, then add dried fruit and nuts in the morning? No cooking required.

Personally, I could not function without a hot strongly caffeinated beverage in the morning so my fuel calculations always take that into account.

Yes I am the same with coffee. always have 2 in the morning. Cant function without them.

And yes i've had those bars as snacks as well. They are quite tasty, just too dry for me.

I save plastic jars and put muesli and a few spoons of milk powder in them. For breakfast just add water and shake. Could add warm water and use any cereal. Aldi muesli and the clusters are quiet nice, berrys in the latter are a nice touch and make the milk pink

No washing up, just a rinse. Can then use the jar for making milk, coconut milk or for rubbish.

I also like the 'baked oaty slices' in choc or choc orange, or just a cuppa and a few biscuits.

Here is a pic of the oaty chocolate orange I mentioned above. Less than half of everything, but including less fat & sodium. Also one bar is a bit less than half of the OP bar, so quite similar.

Usual supermarket schenannigans, they used to be two for $4 and now are occasionally on special for $3 per box (6 bars).

So many ingredients though!

Nut bar for breakfast... That just sounds depressing.

Why not just put the stove on and keep packing up gear? Stop and eat when it's boiling then continue packing? To just bring water to boil you aren't using that much fuel.

We find that when we multi-day walk we aren't that hungry, so we favour one of the following for breakfast: nut bar or some sort of muesli bar or nature valley almond butter bar. Along with a nice strong cup of tea or coffee. We supplement this with high energy dried fruit such as dates or dried tropical fruits from Tropical Harvest (Qld fruit from Tully).

if you soak the porridge overnight it cooks very fast in the morning since its already expanded, , or cook it the night before but the consistency in the morning is an aquired taste.
or cook extra food for dinner and leave some for breakfast.
theres "one square meal" bars, that are balanced nutrition with most of the essential nutrients in there in the optimum combination. although they are pretty fatty and i find too much of the slows my digestion down.

Carmans fruit and nut muesli bars. 2 in the morning washed down with a coffee or two and Im good to go.

https://www.carmanskitchen.com.au/our-p ... esli-bars/

Pro tip. When you wake up put two bars in your sleeping bag (along with your gas canistar). While your doing your morning trip to the toilet/change clothes etc etc, the remaining heat in the bag will warm the bars so they will not be hard (as happens in the cold). and the warmth will help the gas canistar operate more efficently also so your less likely to have left over (unuseable) gas at the end of the trip.

north-north-west wrote:Carmans do a good Oat Bar, too. But there's less faffing around with cold muesli and water. Why cook when you don't need to?

Another +1 on the Carmans bars. Easy for mornings as well as en-route (as well as on bike rides). Been buying them in boxes from Costco for a while now.

One of my guilty pleasures when I hike in winter is watching the hungry looks from all the other hikers round camp in the morning, as they choke down their little UHT milk cartons and GrainBricks and bowls of InstantGruel, while I fry up a steak and bacon sandwich and a hot coco.

Not saying steak is the best option and everyone should always eat a steak sandwich for breakfast on every hike. Just dont assume food in bar-form is the only appropriate choice. Most of them are reeeal heavy on processed grain and sugar, which tends to burn off pretty quick and leaves you eating more for lunch, so a bit of a false economy in terms of weight. As far as calorie density goes, fat still reigns supreme, and if there's any ever an excuse to pound down the calories, it's walking 12 hours a day.

But then it's only a short hike so you can probably get away with anything, really. Personally I'd also ditch the coffee for a bundle of reasons but it doesn't really matter than much and if it makes you happy then why not?

jdeks wrote:Personally I'd also ditch the coffee for a bundle of reasons but it doesn't really matter than much and if it makes you happy then why not?

I could never ditch the coffee. Essential for my sanity and the health and safety of my walking companions.

jdeks wrote:
Not saying steak is the best option and everyone should always eat a steak sandwich for breakfast on every hike. Just dont assume food in bar-form is the only appropriate choice...

A breakfast fry up is great and Id have it all the time if I could. For me muesli bars work because they are quick and no mess. I often need to depart camp before 8am and I dont like getting up when its cold and still dark so eliminating breakfast prep and post breakfast clean up = more time in the sleeping bag.

You only need a week off coffee and you are back to being a normal, less volatile and more wealthy human. You also need less water in the day and you may need to consume a few less calories as you aren't bumping up your HR for no real reason.

I quite like the Carman's bars but I was amazed at how little Aus grown produce is in them especially considering the price compared to some other bars, two other brands come from NZ and Spain so I guess Carman's are still better for the local economy. I made my own nut, seed chocolate bars for the OLT, they were very dense and energy rich, taste nice too.

My hiking chum liked a coffee and porridge and I found it really annoying because I like to get packed up and moving quickly and it was my stove and pot, hahaha!
I like toasted muesli as it keeps me full longer than any other cereal I have tried, this is my favourite, nicer than all the fancy ones(for me anyway)- https://shop.coles.com.au/a//product/co ... d-original

Hiking Noob wrote:My hiking chum liked a coffee and porridge and I found it really annoying because I like to get packed up and moving quickly

I find cleaning up after porridge is rather messy and that further delays things. But if you want something warm?
The 'instant' Aldi porridge I have takes 1 minute in boiling water .. say 4 minutes all up, pretty quick for a hot breky.

Hiking Noob wrote:I like toasted muesli as it keeps me full longer than any other cereal I have tried, this is my favourite, nicer than all the fancy ones(for me anyway)- https://shop.coles.com.au/a//product/co ... d-original

Agree with muesli as a faster alternative to porridge. You can even eat it dry.
The link to Coles toasted muesli did not work for me ..
this might be better?
https://shop.coles.com.au/a/a-national/ ... d-original
humm 1,850 kj per 100 g
My previous kj per 100g selection was
https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/prod ... al-delight
at 1,670 kj per 100 g
and it is fairly tasty, but the Coles one wins the energy density battle. So I'll have to try it.
Hey .. it even has less salt .. a lot less salt - 4 times less. Coles looks like a winner.

For a 'normal' type breakfast I put some powered milk in with the muesli .. shake it around .. then put in water and shake that around. By distributing the milk powder it combines with the water better rather than forming clumps. It is slower than the muesli bars but more like a 'real' breakfast. And way less salt.

Hmmm, I'd never looked at the energy before, I have been eating 100g of that and three or four Weet Bix every day at home. The Weet Bix do nothing to keep me full so I might cut them out as they add 10% to my daily energy intake, a bit more with delicious 5% fat milk
Might just add some more nuts to the Coles Muesli to up the protein a bit, it does have a bit of sugar but the cinnamon makes it taste sweeter that you'd expect it to. Just had a look at Just Right for curiosity's sake, it is almost 29% sugar and has less energy per gram, there is quite a bit to reading the food labels

Thanks Warin, I didn't realise I had a local Coles site.

Warin wrote:I find cleaning up after porridge is rather messy and that further delays things.

I make my own mix out of quick oats and ingredients of my liking and mix it up in a ziplock bag (bpa free one) then pour hot water in the bag. Wait 1min. Eat then zip up bag. No clean up. And you only need one boil and you've got water for cuppa and porridge.

No no no the coles toasted muesli is awful stuff. Don’t buy it!

It occasionally goes out of stock so I cant have anyone else contributing to demand! Its all mine!

wildwanderer wrote:No no no the coles toasted muesli is awful stuff. Don’t buy it!

It occasionally goes out of stock so I cant have anyone else contributing to demand! Its all mine!

Too late now. I can see it vanishing off the shelf like baby formula!
Got a sample 1 kg. Fair amount left at my local.

Breakfast is such a weird meal. Around the world you will find that people will always eat the same thing every day, yet would turn their noses up eating their favourite breakfast food at other times of the day. But if they move to another part of the world where it is hard to find their favourite breakfast food, they suffer.

My formula for breakfast is hydration and carb loading.

We lose a lot of water while we sleep, so when we wake up in the morning it is good to hydrate. This is where the tea and coffee can come in. But I like powder fruit drink (Woolworths sells an powdered orange drink), but you can also have some sort of instant smoothie. If you don't like eating at breakfast time you can try Sustagen, especially hospital formula. This is a meal replacement powdered beverage you can have instead of eating.

Then comes the carb loading. So instant out porridge is great for cold hiking mornings. While you can buy the packets, I prefer to mix my own with lots of dried fruit and fortified with things like almond meal. But cereal or muesli for breakfast is great too. But you know I am lazy, so a bar breakfast is good too. You don't have to have one big bar, you can combine smaller oat bars, muesli bars, protein bars and fruit bars. There are also breakfast bars, breakfast biscuits and more. So you have have a bit of variety for breakfast with this approach. Unfortunately they all are loaded with sugar. You can carb load with other things, such as high land oat biscuits or wheat crackers.

For something out of left field, you can try the approach used in many parts of Asia, which is noodles for breakfast. A nice noodle soup will both give you carbs and hydrate you at the same time. I know a lot of people will find this idea bad, but having lived in Asia I don't mind noodles for breakfast. Add a bit of shelf stable salami to it for protein and dried spinach for your green fix, it is beginning to look like a well rounded breakfast.

However fresh mountain air makes me want to eat bacon, eggs and mushrooms for breakfast. Though I guess I have to settle for powdered eggs, shelf stable salami sticks and rehydrated dried mushrooms. But at least I have the fresh air.

My standard breakfast is very simple, a little less than a cup of toasted muesli, I usually just use Arnolds from the supermarket, (100 grams) plus 1/3 cup of full cream milk power in a snack size ziplock. Add 250ml water in my bowl/pot, tip in the mix and stir. The ziplocks get reused as they have not been filled with water - I "hate freezer bag" eating. When finished rinse the pot with water and drink. 2,500 kJ and 140 grams. Porridge can be good on colder trips but I prefer the simplicity of non-cook. WHether I have coffee after depends on what I have planned for the day, lazy or needing to make kms.

Beans, beans the musical fruit... Regardless of the pulse/fruit mix up, beans are an awesome way to start the day. Dehyde boston style rehydrated before bed allow a quick heat. Ful Medames will keep you full and powered until lunch. Eaten during Ramadan wherever bodies need sustainable energy. S&P and olive oil, add raw onion, Ive never had an onion go bad in a pack. Just have a go, don't let convention stop you.

I premix muesli and powdered milk before the trip, and divide it into mug-sized servings.

At breakfast time, I tip a serving into my mug, add hot or cold water, and stir and eat. I use my spoon to get the mug reasonably clean. Then I drink black coffee from the same mug, so I end up drinking any remaining milk/muesli. After black coffee, washing up is minimal as just a quick rinse is sufficient.

matagi wrote:Why not just soak your oats overnight in reconstituted powdered milk, then add dried fruit and nuts in the morning? No cooking required.

Personally, I could not function without a hot strongly caffeinated beverage in the morning so my fuel calculations always take that into account.

not for everyone, raw soaked oats make me feel queazy

The list of ingredients of that Mother Earth Oaty Slice makes me slightly sick. Just make your own with 80% less ingredients.
Seed crackers from lin/flax seeds, sunflower seeds, pepitas, chia seeds and sesame seeds with some almond meal, garlic and paprika.
Or, a slice from rolled oats, flour, cranberries, pistachios, coconut, maybe some raw cacao etc. In a lot of recipes you can replace sugar with dates and butter with avocado (my mate is vegan, makes the best cakes and slices).

ILUVSWTAS wrote:Have tried these. They are very, very dry. Too dry for me especially first thing in the morning.

+1 too dry for me also
Eggs and bacon is my go to breakfast

My hot tip with cereal is to choose something with a bit of “structure”. The ones that go all mushy once you add the powdered milk/water are too hard to get through.

And for a really special treat, warm milk!

Isn’t it funny how your impression of what makes a great experience changes once you’re out in the bush.

Butternut Snaps/Anzac biscuits with my coffee work for me, or oat and macadamia shortbreads