BWCA Vegan dilemma Boundary Waters BWCA Food and Recipes
Chat Rooms (0 Chatting)  |  Search  |   Login/Join
* For the benefit of the community, commercial posting is not allowed.
Boundary Waters Quetico Forum
   BWCA Food and Recipes
      Vegan dilemma     

Author

Text

05/15/2016 07:56PM   (Thread Older Than 3 Years)
Packing for a trip with 9 people. 2 are vegan, 1 is vegetarian and the rest are meat eaters.

What are some vegan options for breakfast, lunch and dinner that will give these 2 people enough energy, protein... what they need to make it through a challenging 6 day trip?
 
      Print Top Bottom Previous Next
05/15/2016 08:48PM  
Mocha-

What kind of stuff they normally eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner?

I'm not a vegan or vegetarian, but many of the meals I eat from Outdoor Herbivore are appropriate, as are some items from others such as Hawk Vittles and Good-To-Go. I'm not sure about Camp Chow, but they may have a couple. If you look at their sites you'll get some ideas. Probably some of the other makers of freeze-dried foods have at least a few options.

Most of the cereals I eat from Outdoor Herbivore (OH) come with soy milk or a nut milk. I particularly like the muesli and maple blueberry ones. Oatmeal or pancakes made with a milk substitute would work.

Nuts and nut butters, dried fruits are good lunch stuff. They also have some plantain/banana snack items that are delicious and high-calorie. There are possibly some vegan/vegetarian bars out there.

Many of the dinners I eat with a bean or lentil base don't have any animal products, and many pasta dishes would be possible if made without animal products. Quinoa is a high-protein grain-like seed that works as a breakfast cereal or base for a meal, same as rice or couscous. I usually order Hawk Vittles cashew curry with a quinoa substitution. It may be vegetarian/vegan, but I'm not sure offhand without checking the ingredient list.


When you go to the OH website, if you click on breakfast or dinner, it will sort by hot, cold, vegan. Or you can just click on vegan further down and get all those. I don't eat them because they are vegetarian or vegan; I eat them because they are good and come in a hungry single size that's usually around 600+ calories. As a bonus, most of these are dehydrated, low in sodium, and largely made without chemical preservatives if that's important to them.

I believe Pack-It-Gourmet also has some options.

Many ethnic foods such as Indian dishes are vegetarian or vegan. And they come in shelf-stable pouches at the grocery store.

That should at least give you some ideas to get started.



 
OldFingers57
distinguished member(4990)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberpower member
  
05/15/2016 08:57PM  
Well for breakfast they can do peanut butter on something or oatmeal. For lunch they can again do PB or they could do humus on crackers or pitas, etc. There are vegetarian meatballs out there plus there is TVP (textured vegetable protein. It looks and tastes like ground beef. you can add that into there meals instead of ground beef. They can eat a lot of nuts. Check with them to see what they would like to eat. There are also some vegan and vegetarian freeze dried meals out there they could eat. Check out Trailtopia, Alpineaire, Camp Chow, Mountain House, Backpackers Pantry, Packit Gourmet. Also check out some of these websites for recipes: Dirty Gourmet
TrailCooking.com

Backpacking Chef

Also do a Google search for Vegan backpacking recipes.
 
OBX2Kayak
distinguished member(4401)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberpower member
  
05/15/2016 08:59PM  
Laurie Ann March's " A Fork in the Trail has a number of vegan recipes.

She has a number of recipes on her web site but, the book is worth purchasing, especially if you do a lot of hiking or BWCA trips and you enjoy dehydrating your own food.
 
billconner
distinguished member(8608)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberpower member
  
05/16/2016 07:20AM  
Camp Chow has a lot of vegetarian, a handful of vegan, and some great reviews in another recent thread.
 
billconner
distinguished member(8608)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberpower member
  
05/16/2016 07:20AM  
Camp Chow has a lot of vegetarian, a handful of vegan, and some great reviews in another recent thread.
 
newguy
distinguished member (321)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished member
  
05/16/2016 08:36AM  
For any cooked meals, plan on bringing separate pots and pans, serving utensils, etc. For the vegetarians in my circle, meals cannot be cooked on the same grill, served with the same utensils, same oven, etc. It should be as if you cooked in two separate kitchens.

You should enlist their help in meal planning, as they will already have ideas on foods, brands, etc that they like.
 
05/16/2016 10:13AM  
quote newguy: "For any cooked meals, plan on bringing separate pots and pans, serving utensils, etc. For the vegetarians in my circle, meals cannot be cooked on the same grill, served with the same utensils, same oven, etc. It should be as if you cooked in two separate kitchens.


You should enlist their help in meal planning, as they will already have ideas on foods, brands, etc that they like."


thanks for this info. the group is a youth group, hard saying if they are really vegan, sometimes they just want to "try" it. i did ask for a list of what they EAT on a daily basis (not what they can't eat).

what about tofu? hummus is a good option, there are several flavors of that available.

 
newguy
distinguished member (321)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished member
  
05/16/2016 01:15PM  
When I serve non-vegetarians, they're grateful for whatever I serve. When I serve vegetarians/vegans, it seems they are incredibly picky about what I have cooked and its quality, even if I have followed all the rules. "I don't prefer this brand, I prefer that brand, these are too dry." "I don't really like squash." I'd get them involved in the list.
 
05/16/2016 01:46PM  
quote newguy: "... I'd get them involved in the list. "


I'd get them involved with the cooking as well!
 
andym
distinguished member(5340)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberpower member
  
05/16/2016 04:28PM  
Carrying tofu can be done two ways. You can get shelf stable tofu in cardboard that is good but heavy because it is wet. There is also freeze dried tofu that is good and very light. Unfortunately, my one source to get it in small quantities went away years ago and I haven't been able to find good quality since then.

There is traditional dried tofu that is dried cold but it has a very different taste that didn't work for our group.

We have little problem eating vegan, although we are veggie and so use some cheese. Beans and lentils go a long way. Dried hummus for lunches is good if you add extra spices.
 
andym
distinguished member(5340)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberpower member
  
05/16/2016 07:06PM  
Just found a source for freeze dried tofu From North Bay Trading Company. I can't say if it is good or not as I haven't tried it yet. But I am happy to see a possible source.

Prices seem high but, if I remember correctly, it is very light per volume.
 
myceliaman
distinguished member(931)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished member
  
05/17/2016 06:29PM  
Tasty Bite is a line of Indian food that's vegan there food is awesome. I've purchased it at Whole Foods but have seen it at other stores. Product comes in foil pouches pop in water and good to go.
 
myceliaman
distinguished member(931)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished member
  
05/17/2016 06:34PM  
I just checked they have a informative web page. Enjoy
 
05/17/2016 07:27PM  
quote myceliaman: "Tasty Bite is a line of Indian food that's vegan there food is awesome. I've purchased it at Whole Foods but have seen it at other stores. Product comes in foil pouches pop in water and good to go. "


This is the kind of stuff I was thinking of in my post. there are quite a few different brands available here in the grocery stores like Kroger's and Giant Eagle, but that is probably because of the large ethnic populations due to the University here. I'm sure they are more difficult to find in smaller cities, but can probably be ordered online.
 
05/23/2016 10:44AM  
Two of my kids are vegetarians, so I face this a lot. On top of that, I have celiac and can't have gluten!

We do a lot of meals that I can add meat to later. Everything we bring is gluten free, except lunch breads. I cook a vegetarian meal in the big pot, and add meat to a portion of that in a smaller pot. Red bean and rice camping meals, add freeze dried beef or home dehydrated chorizo. Curried chickpeas, add freeze dried chicken. There are a ton of good vegan camping meals. Vegan bean chili, add rehydrated ground beef, etc. I prefer making one meal for everyone and adding the meat, but for a big group I might go ahead and make two meals. Make the vegetarian kid eat the vegan meals, but give them cheese and a grater, or normal powdered milk where appropriate.

My personal fave is powdered coconut milk, though you have to search for the vegan version. A great base for curried rice noodle meals. Asian groceries have dried, fried, tofu that rehydrates well and my kids like.

Nutty granola with coconut milk is awesome for breakfast. Lot's of vegan energy bars in the world. All the usual snacks and treats should work, mixed nuts, dried fruit, etc. Vegan chocolate candies are pretty tasty, no one will notice if you use them for all the gorp.

Dehydrated hummos is really good, bring a small bottle of olive oil. We all like it, even the meat eaters.
 
05/23/2016 12:09PM  
thanks for all the ideas. i'll know thursday how it all worked out.
turns out some of the vegans are "sort of" vegan. none of those stating being vegetarian or vegan would die if they ate any of the regular food.

there were some special diets in each of the 3 parties creating an odd number of regular food and/or odd number of special diets. basically each party ended up with more food since the dry food is packaged in even numbers.

as i said, we'll find out thursday how it all worked out
 
billconner
distinguished member(8608)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberpower member
  
06/02/2016 01:38PM  
A little late and just vegetarian, not vegan, but saw these at Piragis: Good To-Go
 
      Print Top Bottom Previous Next