Hi gang,

Sorry this took so long to compile.  I've been up to my ears with end of
semester duties.

This is a compilation of suggestions for Paleo backpacking foods.  I would
like to thank everybody who responded.  Your collective support was quite
overwhelming and very helpful!  You may see where your individual writing
has been edited.  This was to make the list of suggestions read a bit
better. I did eliminate most of the redundancies as well.  Also, some of
the recommendations focused on when and where I would be hiking (August,
Applacian Trail, MD to PA).

Reading recommendations (foraging):

- find a good regional native plants and berries book....I know that there
is a book regarding hikes along the Appalachian

- Foxfire books

- Wilderness Survival by Bernard Shanks looks very thorough and offers a
good bibiliography for further pursuits.

- Peterson Field Guide, Edible Wild Plants (Lee Allen Peterson). This book
would be helpful as it
relies upon leaf shape and structure to identify the plants. There are 400
b/w drawings, 78 color photos. Also describes what parts of the plant to
eat, and how to prepare.

[Note from James:  I was born without a sense of smell.  Because of this, I
do not feel comfortable with foraging.]

Eating recommendations:

-Travel light, and expect to forage.

- There is certainly lot of wild foods to harvest.

- Get a good plant guidebook and pick your own wild greens as you go. There
are very few greens that are poisonous, but you should know what you're doing.

- Pemmican

- Obvious foods: pemmican, jerky, nuts, and dried fruit. Eggs, hard boiled
or raw, might be ok for the first day or two.

- Try experimenting with dehydrating meat and vegetables and then
boiling them? Perhaps, for example, dehydrated meat, onions, carrots,
celery, etc., could be reheated with water to make a sort of camp stew.

-------------------------------------------

- I did a 3 month trip from Canada border to grandcanon in ski ,snowshoes
and hiking during the end of fall beginning of winter. I was already eating
raw foods so to be able to be self sufficient for at least 10 days ( my
longest time between reloading with foods, was 15 days) I brought only dry
goods. I had dry fruits ,dry nuts , grains and seeds, dry meats, honey and
salt.

- All ingredients of the highest quality that I can find meaning (for me)
        - organically grown( for highest nutrients and minerals levels)
        - truely raw not heat dried, for access to undenatured sugars, fats,and
proteins (more
easely digested and assimilated )
        - seeds and grains were eaten sprouted in a glass jar
        - for the first few days I was taking some fresh, fruits and vegetables
and coconuts
        - The honey was unpasteurised , the salt was of celtic kind ( with
essentials oligo elements)

- I functioned quite well with that except that at time I was fatigued and
lacking fresh stuff. Now I will do it with more meats ( I used very little
at that time ) and more long lasting fresh vegetables or fruits ( like
tubers and roots or apples ,oranges for vitamins) I will dry more berries
with fatty seeds strawberries blackberries,raspberries blueberries
etc...for more longer lasting blood sugar level) I will still used sprouted
grains and pulses for the praticality of it ( low volume low weight and
full of potential nutrients and vitamins once sprouted)

------------------------------------------------

- I've started relying on heavily are dried fruit and nut mixes. They can
actually go quite
a long ways, both in adding calories to the diet as well as filling you up

- If you're open to it, peanut butter is a good high density food choice.
If you can find an alternative to crackers, and if don't find peanuts too
unpaleo, then this might be an idea. Or you could do the same with another
nut butter, but that might get a little spendy.

- You could take along as much jerky as you want. Since you can dehydrate
it yourself you won't
pay an arm and a leg for it.

- I haven't looked lately, but I'm sure there must be some good, organic
soup mixes available. If you do choose to take along a fieldbook and do
some gathering, you might find some good fillers to add to the soup.
Warning: Some wild greens are very bitter, but that can be "fixed" somewhat
by soaking them first. If you decide not to forage, you might want to
dehydrate some veggies to go into the soup.

- Landjaeger sausages. (basically hard salami)

- If I were to go out tomorrow, I'd probably take a couple of bags of
fruit/nut mixes, a bunch of jerky,
possibly some carrot and/or celery sticks, some green tea, and perhaps a
couple of soup mixes. I would probably fish and forage more than I used to.

- My food choices have evolved to Jerky, Whey powder drink ( filtered to
remove the lactose ), and nuts. Not very paleo but VERY effective for long
term energy. Pemican gets soft in the summer heat even up here in Maine.

- Coconut "butter" and raw honey--mixed or separately. 1-800-661-3529 for
almost raw coconut oil. One 25oz tub has over 6000 calorie.

- Make tons of jerky. Bottom Round cut into 4 inch strips, and dried 36
hours at 95 degrees will hold up a lot better in you pack than pemmican.
You can marinate it first overnight in a blend of your choosing (I do soy
sauce, garlic, onion powder - but since I remember you have celiac?, you
might not like soy sauce...)

- Tons of almonds and pecans: soak overnight separately in cold water to
cover with 1 TB salt in each bowl. Then drain but do not rinse off (or you
lose nice salty flavor). Place on dehydrator racks and dry for 12 hours.
This process of soaking allows the phytates of raw nuts to be neutralized,
and will hopefully, allow you to eat as much nuts as you need to without
wigging out your gall bladder.

- Trail Mix: Take same soaked nuts, to which you can add dried shredded
coconut, raisins,
dried apricots,dried papaya, toasted pumpkin seeds, even little bits of cut
up jerky... The sky is the limit here.

- Make dehydrated apple slices.

- Cut up small pieces of all paleo approved veggies - carrots, onions,
turnips, peppers. Dry according to time directions of your machine. Place
in sealed bags, and voila- instant soup. Bring along some beef or chicken
bouillon cubes which you can drop in the pot along with your veggie
mixture. You can add cut up jerky to this combo as well, so that you will
have some
meat in your soup for energy.

- If its not too messy, I'd bring along a jar of almond butter, just to
fill in the gaps when your stomach has that growling kind of feeling. Very
high in fat and very satisfying. Great on apples, if you can bring a few
fresh ones along.

- Purchase some " clean " vanilla egg white protein powder. (I like Jay
Robbs) Mix this in with your almond butter. It will slow down the rate of
digestion, and give you a more balanced snack.

- Finally, I would stash lots of sardines, and small tuna cans and red or
pink
salmon cans. You can now find those in small, cat food size!!

- For salty flavor, I always travel with lots of dried dulse. You can tear
it up and add to your trail mix, or soups as well. Very high in iodine and
minerals.

- Dehydrated salmon and clams (salt these) Lots of seaweed. The dried
sheets of nori. They are so light weight and nutritious, a great snack,
filled with minerals, really hit the spot. Hint: The Korean stuff is better
than the Japanese, but a little saltier

- With the seaweed, you can make paleosandwitches on the run with some meat
or avacados or whatever you find at the grocery store along the way. You
can make egg omlettes rolled in seaweed with cucumber or carrot or whatever
you like

- There is also a Japanese seaweed named Hijiki. Boil this, add a little
honey and salt. Some julienned carrots, a little julienned brocolli stem.

- Honey in plastic and almonds are a dense filler.

- There are also dehydrated seaweed salads that you can buy at asian
markets. Will weigh close to nothing; add water and they get 10X as big.
Make a sauce of honey and salt and lemon if you like; add cucumber and
meat, beef works well.

- I made a mixture of dehydrated vegetables and spices which I steeped into
a kind of soup. This doesn't have much energy, but it was some variety at
the end of the day. You could add some ground jerky to make a heartier soup.

- I also made some nut-flour cookies, which were great for energy, but not
very travel-friendly
I made some date-raisin-nut bars, which also were greate for energy, but
not very travel-friendly (esp. in hot climate)

- Turkey jerky, salmon jerky, ostrich jerky, beef jerky.... and???

- Fresh apples and oranges for the front end of the trip.

- Egg white protein, to be mixed with water and stevia???

- Nuts are a great way to carry fat without it spoiling. Dried fruits are
good.

- You could take a sprouting jar and make yourself fresh greens (you'll
really crave them after a
few days of dried food). Just rinse 2-3 times a day with clean water.

- Tea bags, especially sport tea, for those evening campfires.

- You can get a lot of different dried veggies that you could use for quick
soups with some of the jerky (test this at home first; you might want to
dry some ground meat to use in the soup).

- Get some dried salmon and shrimp from Jean-Claude.

- If you get fresh eggs along the road, they should stay fresh enough to
eat (unless it is 90 degrees) for a few days without refrigeration.

Folks, I thank you again for the suggestions.

James at Penn State