Food for a multi-day hike: 3, 5 or 7 days, by the gram

A walking day: 2,500–4,500 kcal, 0.7–1.1 kg of food

REI’s planning guide puts a reasonable goal at 0.7 to 1.1 kg of food (1½ to 2½ lb) per person per day, or 2,500 to 4,500 kcal: a long, steep day needs a lot more than a few miles of flat trail.¹¹ The Appalachian Trail Conservancy says 0.7–0.9 kg (1.5 to 2 lb) a day “to start”, if the food is high in calories, and more for days above 24 km (15 miles), for rough ground with a lot of climbing, and in winter.¹² The mountaineering federations and the US Army count it in kilocalories:

A summer day in the hills for a 65–70 kg walker with a 5–8 kg pack (French federation)²

4,000kcal

Extra per hour of brisk walking, against sitting still (Spain’s FEDME)³

270kcal

A man’s day of light to heavy work; for women 2,100–2,700 (US Army)⁴

3,000–3,700kcal

The French figure holds for summer, middle mountains and fair weather; the same person at a desk needs 2,000 kcal.² The UIAA, the international mountaineering federation, works it out instead: resting metabolism times an activity factor, about 1.5 if you sit all day and 2.0 if you’re active.¹ FEDME, Spain’s mountaineering federation, prices a brisk walk by the hour, so eight hours add about 2,160 kcal to a resting day.³

What moves you up or down the range is your own weight, the weight on your back, the ascent and the ground, the hours, and the heat. The US Army reckons a heavier load or rough ground (scree, sand, snow) each add about a quarter.⁴ The one study that tracked hill walkers for ten days found about 5,000 kcal a day, but those were fit men doing 21 km and 1,160 m of ascent daily.⁵

For planning, 3,000 kcal for an easy day and 4,000 for a long one with real climbing sits inside every source above. Don’t expect to match it: the French federation notes that a trip of several days ends in a food deficit as a rule, because everything has to be carried.² The menu is a floor.

Grams per day: energy density decides

The weight follows from the energy. Divide the day’s kcal by what 100 g of your food carries. At the energy of rolled oats, about 400 kcal per 100 g, 3,000 kcal weighs 750 g. At white bread’s 240 it weighs about 1.25 kg; at nuts’ 590, about 510 g.⁶ Packaging comes on top. Thirty trail foods, per 100 g and per ounce, are in backpacking food by calorie density.

Oil, nuts and chocolate carry more than twice bread’s energy per gram, mostly because a third of bread is water.⁶ A small bottle of olive oil earns its place: 11 g of it, a generous spoonful over dinner, is 100 kcal. A dried meal is dense because the water is out: Chicken & Rice carries 417 kcal per 100 g as sold. If you’re weighing pouches against each other by price, what a freeze-dried meal costs in Spain does that sum.

One day, breakfast to dinner

A walking day: breakfast, two Large mains and a pudding

Pouch	Net weight	Water	Energy
Porridge & Fruit	90 g	250 ml	341 kcal
Chicken & RiceLarge	200 g	370 ml	834 kcal
Lentils & ChorizoLarge	200 g	420 ml	802 kcal
Rice Pudding with Cinnamon	80 g	180 ml	344 kcal

A walking day: breakfast, two Large mains and a pudding

• Porridge & Fruit

  Net weight

  90 g

  Water

  250 ml

  Energy

  341 kcal

• Chicken & RiceLarge

  Net weight

  200 g

  Water

  370 ml

  Energy

  834 kcal

• Lentils & ChorizoLarge

  Net weight

  200 g

  Water

  420 ml

  Energy

  802 kcal

• Rice Pudding with Cinnamon

  Net weight

  80 g

  Water

  180 ml

  Energy

  344 kcal

Breakfast is Porridge & Fruit, oats with milk and fruit already in, so it wants water and nothing else. Lunch is the chicken and rice, dinner the Lentils & Chorizo, and the rice pudding is for the tent. These four are the One-Day Ration.

The box covers the base; the snack bag does the rest. On the figures in the table, 160 g of almonds, 100 g of dark chocolate and 100 g of cured cheese come to about 1,930 kcal for 360 g.⁶ Eat from it through the day rather than saving it for the top. Freeze-dried fruit is the lightest thing you can add for something sweet that isn’t chocolate; how to use freeze-dried fruit covers it.

Three, five and seven days

Fresh food is for the first day only. Fruit adds sugar and water, the French federation says, but it’s heavy and awkward to carry.²

The worked example: five days with a resupply after day three. You leave with three days of food, three times the box’s dry weight plus 1.08 kg of snacks, and pick up the other two days where you stop. On a long trip, vary the four: Perico Scrambled Eggs for breakfast, Lentil & Vegetable Stew for one dinner, a bag of Strawberries for the snack bag.

Water decides the weight

FEDME’s figure is 1.5 litres a person a day as a minimum, and much more in the heat, starting early.³ The UIAA puts total water from food and drink at about 2.5 litres a day for a 70 kg man and 2.2 litres for a 55 kg woman at sea level in a mild climate, and warns that sweat can reach 1.2 litres an hour with effort and heat.¹ None of these figures counts the water a dried meal needs. That comes on top, and so does its weight.

Plan water stop by stop from the route’s own sheet, not from the map, and treat what you take from a stream or a trough: the methods and their times are in how to make water safe to drink.

Where you walk: water and fire

The food sum travels; the water figure and the fire rule belong to the mountains you’re in.

The three Alpine clubs aren’t measuring the same thing: the German and Austrian figures are what to carry, the Swiss one what to drink in a day. None of the three Alpine fire texts mentions a gas stove by name, and the bans tighten with the fire danger, by canton, state, park and forest, so check before the trip with the park, the forest office or the municipality. In the United States, the Forest Service’s camping page says to check whether fire restrictions are in place before starting a campfire, and never to use a flame or any other heating device inside a tent;¹⁸ the USDA’s food-safety service adds that many camping areas prohibit campfires.¹⁵

The Scottish code asks for the stove on a level, non-flammable surface away from dry grass, and your tent.¹⁴ Andalusia goes further: from 1 June to 15 October no fire may be lit to prepare food on forest land or within 400 m of it, even at picnic and camping areas built for it, and gas stoves appear in that order only as an exception for authorised tourist accommodation.⁷ The dates move: in 2025 the period ran to 31 October,⁸ and the Junta has suspended fire in spring by order too.¹⁰ Every Spanish region sets its own period; when the forecast fire risk is very high or extreme, the national law tells them to ban fire in all open spaces.⁹

So a summer trek in southern Spain is a cold-water trek, or a flask filled with hot water before you set off. With cold water, most of our mains and breakfasts take 20–30 minutes depending on the meal: the porridge about 20 minutes, the chicken and rice about 20 minutes, the lentils about 30 minutes. Cold water leaves meat and potato a little firmer, sometimes with a spoonful of liquid at the bottom; the method is in freeze-dried meals with cold water, and what else soaks well without a stove is in cold soaking. Leave the Porcini Mushroom Risotto at home in summer: it’s hot water only.

From our range

One-Day Ration

One walking day in one box: 4 pouches, 2,321 kcal.

€42.90Hear from us before the shop opensSee the box